Entre les murs (2008) More at IMDbPro »

I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. this film is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Francois Begaudeau who wrote the book and the screenplay and stars in the title role of a French teacher in a Parisian school filled with inner city at risk youth comprised of French and immigrant children to France. The teachers at the school keep tabs on the unruliest of the students and dismiss them as troublemakers and unable to learn in a classroom environment. Begaudeau takes a good guy-tough guy approach and tries to be one of the kids as their mentor-friend but his plans don't always work the way he envisions and sometimes backfire. This is shot in a documentary-style with rapid fire dialog from the students and teacher and tight close shots of the actors. It's a small film done on a low budget from director Laurent Cantet and is too long of a film as your interest wanes after about 30 minutes. despite being too long it fails to fully explore and develop some potentially interesting characters and basically comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. It was a packed theater with every seat filled at my screening and I looked forward to seeing this but came away disappointed. I would rate this a 5.5 out of 10 and could not recommend it.