AP Entertainment Writer
On their first day sixth grade, the students of Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary School in the Mexican border city of Matamoros find their new teacher rolling on the floor surrounded by overturned desks.
They’re not desks, he exclaims. They’re lifeboats.
So begins Christopher Zalla’s “Radical,” an inspirational based-on-a-true-story drama about an unconventional teacher named Sergio Juarez Correa (Eugenio Derbez). His day-one lesson is ultimately about buoyancy. But the metaphor isn’t hard to grasp. In Lopez’s classroom, education is a life raft.
"Radical," which opens in theaters Friday, is a conventional but stirring entry in the crowded canon of uplifting educator tales like “Stand and Deliver,” “Lean on Me” and “The Class.”
“Radical,” though, isn’t set at an inner-city school in Los Angeles, New Jersey or Paris, like those films are. Matamoros, along the Rio Grande and across from Brownsville, Texas, is considered a lawless place, known for extreme violence and migrant encampments. “Radical” is also set in 2011, among the bloodiest years of Mexico’s drug war.
Sergio’s self-empowering method is to allow kids to follow their curiosity and find answers for themselves. They’re skeptical at first but soon are engaged and excited by their freedom to lead their own learning. More than once, Sergio says the students don’t even really need him.
There are plenty of familiar beats as the school year moves along. Sergio’s ways draw the ire of other teachers. Parents are distrustful, wondering if he’s giving kids facing a harsh future false hope. But while “Radical,” an audience winner at the Sundance Film Festival, is formulaic in its approach, it gets enough out of it likable cast to earn at least a passing grade
Derbez, the Mexican actor and comedian, already made an impression in the classroom as the encouraging music teacher of best picture-winning "CODA." Here, he takes center stage, playing Sergio with a winning sincerity and full-bodied resistance to the rules.
Three of the students are brought into focus: Paloma (Jennifer Trejo), a math whiz with astronaut dreams who lives beside the landfill her father works at; Lupe (Mia Fernanda Solis), a budding philosopher whose pregnant mother expects her to help with childcare; and Nico (Danilo Guardiola), a plucky kid who’s being trained by a local dealer as a drug courier.
Their stories are never quite at the center of “Radical,” which sticks closest to its star teacher. But each young actor is natural, particularly Trejo. Her real-life character, Paloma Noyola Bueno, was the central figure in a Wired article that “Radical” is partially derived from.
But the best relationship captured in “Radical” is the one between Sergio and the school’s cautious, less energetic principal Chucho (a wonderful Daniel Haddad). He at first seems like an impediment to Sergio, warning him not to “kick the hornet’s nest.” But before long, he’s a co-conspirator, willing to — in a further experiment on buoyancy — cannonball into a cold tub. Together, Derbez and Haddad help make “Radical” float, too.
“Radical,” though, isn’t set at an inner-city school in Los Angeles, New Jersey or Paris, like those films are. Matamoros, along the Rio Grande and across from Brownsville, Texas, is considered a lawless place, known for extreme violence and migrant encampments. “Radical” is also set in 2011, among the bloodiest years of Mexico’s drug war.
Sergio’s self-empowering method is to allow kids to follow their curiosity and find answers for themselves. They’re skeptical at first but soon are engaged and excited by their freedom to lead their own learning. More than once, Sergio says the students don’t even really need him.
There are plenty of familiar beats as the school year moves along. Sergio’s ways draw the ire of other teachers. Parents are distrustful, wondering if he’s giving kids facing a harsh future false hope. But while “Radical,” an audience winner at the Sundance Film Festival, is formulaic in its approach, it gets enough out of it likable cast to earn at least a passing grade
Derbez, the Mexican actor and comedian, already made an impression in the classroom as the encouraging music teacher of best picture-winning "CODA." Here, he takes center stage, playing Sergio with a winning sincerity and full-bodied resistance to the rules.
Three of the students are brought into focus: Paloma (Jennifer Trejo), a math whiz with astronaut dreams who lives beside the landfill her father works at; Lupe (Mia Fernanda Solis), a budding philosopher whose pregnant mother expects her to help with childcare; and Nico (Danilo Guardiola), a plucky kid who’s being trained by a local dealer as a drug courier.
Their stories are never quite at the center of “Radical,” which sticks closest to its star teacher. But each young actor is natural, particularly Trejo. Her real-life character, Paloma Noyola Bueno, was the central figure in a Wired article that “Radical” is partially derived from.
But the best relationship captured in “Radical” is the one between Sergio and the school’s cautious, less energetic principal Chucho (a wonderful Daniel Haddad). He at first seems like an impediment to Sergio, warning him not to “kick the hornet’s nest.” But before long, he’s a co-conspirator, willing to — in a further experiment on buoyancy — cannonball into a cold tub. Together, Derbez and Haddad help make “Radical” float, too.
“Radical,” a TelevisaUnivision release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for some strong violent content, thematic material and strong language. In Spanish with subtitles. Running time: 127 minutes. Three stars out of four.
16 comments:
parate y empinate the newest version.
Bro
Old movie
And why add the cartel factor to the movie
Dumbass imitating dumbass.
-Eldelasprietas
Just watched the first couple of minutes of this movie.
It's a bit scary.
Maybe I'll get the nerve to watch the rest.
Plus it makes me wonder if it's safe to go to Matamoros.
I long for the old days.
Now even Brownsville is getting brutal.
All the traffic.
Where's it coming from?
Maybe I'll move to Rio Hondo.
Brownsville not a small town anymore.
YEP! We can’t READ OR WRITE but we sure know how to act. The re-education of children is a myth and a lie fueled by Progressive Liberalism...also known as the dumbing of our public schools. Stupid people are easy to control said the Socialist.
How many people remember that Glen Campbell was a Beach Boy before his solo career??
Lopez State Jail in Edinburg, Texas they have a female jail guard that throws buckets of water and abuses the inmates with name calling and hits them with brooms and metal buckets and turns off the electricity I know they are inmates but they are not dogs they should be treated like humans this lady should not be there she is a state employee and a public servant.
Will submit a complain to the state board. JUST MAYBE will be made or she gets fired.
Los Angeles Rams NFL Icon Roman Gabriel Dies
A waste of 10 dollars to see this movie. It should be shown in Matamoros, that's where the action is? A city that is crying day and night over the lose of hope to live a good life. Currently that life is full of death and evil that the Mexican government is to blame for current crimes in Matamoros and entire nation of Mexico. Brownsville is not far behind Matamoros.
THE STATE SHOULD BE LOOKING INTO THIS ABUSIVE LADY JAILER THAT PHYSCIALLY ATTACKS THE INMATES AT THIS FACILITY ITS A STATE FACILITY AND MANGEMENT NEEDS TO KNOW SHE NEEDS TO BE FIRED THE STATE FACILITY IN EDINBURG TX. IS A TORTURE CHAMBERS FOR INMATES... FACT
FORWARD THIS TO THE STATE PRISON SYSYTEMS SO THEY KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON IN EDINBURG TX... THEY NEED TO KNOW BEFORE SOMEBODY IS SEVERLY HURT OR MAYBE KILLED!!!
BISD is closing schools in the poor neighborhoods of the City. Yet BISD gets millions of dollars every week. The schools are beautiful. Shame on BISD. So many smart, intelligent people work there and they can not figure out how to run a school within a budget.
Teachers have to ask for donations to decorate their classrooms, buy supplies etc
Students have to establish go fund me accounts to make BISD famous.
Go ahead close all the schools and still the administrators will get big salaries without schools and without students and without teachers and staff. That they will figure it out.
April 20, 2024 at 2:42 PM
Y?
April 20, 2024 at 2:42 PM
So the Rhinestone Cowboy was a Beach Boy. Wow! In 1975 I was 6 years old living out in the farm. Thank you for the reminder. We didn't have a horse so I would ride the bull. The first time my mother saw me she almost fainted. Afterward she chewed out my father who would always let me have fun. Me tiraba esquina.
April 21, 2024 at 12:46 PM
las mamonas teachers want more money and teach les and less as it is now they only teach less then 180 days in a year less all those other vacations. HUEVONAS/ES ALL OF THEM BISD IS A RAT'S NEST.
Many teachers expire too young.
Some get assaulted.
For some reason, just don’t like that Derbez actor. Too fake, desperately wants to be anglo. His sons are much better young latino actors. Will wait to see movie on Netflix eventually.
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