School Ties (1992) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Robert Mandel

Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Cole Hauser, Randall Batinkoff, Amy Locane, Zeljko Ivanek, Chris O'Donnell, Anthony Rapp

School Ties tells a simplistic tale of a Catholic New England prep school (circa 1950's) which recruits Jewish quarterback David Greene (Fraser) to lead its football team to new heights while asking David to keep his religion a secret.  Being Jewish wouldn't go over well in these parts, you see, so David plays games on Rosh Hashanah while sneaking away at night to read from the Talmud.  His teammates and classmates make openly anti-Semitic jokes and remarks which David has to shrug off in order to play along.  

If there wasn't antisemitism amongst the staff and students, School Ties wouldn't have a conflict to resolve.  It's well-acted with a sturdy, yet conflicted Fraser as its center, and the movie takes its time to reach the pivotal scene in which David's background is inadvertently revealed to villain Charlie Dillon (Damon) and then David's world becomes a torrent of insults, threats, and violence against him.  Charlie is relegated to backup quarterback once David arrives, and he loses his girl Sally (Locane) to David also.  Then, David's Jewish heritage is made known, and Sally kicks him to the curb.

Aside from David's reasonable roommate Chris (O'Donnell), nearly everyone turns on David with gleeful ferocity.  Chris is hurt because David didn't trust him enough to confide in him, but the others see David like the Nazis did a decade or two earlier.   The prep school itself doesn't exactly distinguish itself from the schools depicted in movies like Dead Poets Society or Scent of a Woman.   The faculty is snooty, the kids are insufferable (except for a few nice ones), and the headmasters speak of tradition, honor, and duty while eschewing all of those when it suits them.  The only reason such places exist is because they are a springboard to Ivy League schools which is where David and everyone else wants to go.

I'm ambivalent about School Ties mostly because it is a one-dimensional story without much nuance.  Its central conflict is not only David vs. his WASP classmates, but within himself.  The school headmaster asks him if it's worth sacrificing traditions for a game.   David asks "yours or mine?"  Almost any college or school would sacrifice just about anything for wins and championships, until they are caught cheating or breaking the law and then we hear of honor, duty, and tradition.  The final thirty minutes of School Ties focuses on Charlie cheating on an exam and David witnessing it but not reporting it.  Because David is the hero, the movie contorts its way to an unconvincing ending in which he is exonerated although he technically didn't uphold the school's honor code.  School Ties has its moments, but overall not enough to transcend into greatness.