Won't Back Down

Won’t Back Down is yet another well-intentioned but hackneyed “issue movie” that, despite being based on a true story, rings almost completely false. Writer/director Daniel Barnz and his wonderful cast can’t make this glib and cloying feature rise above the made-for-TV-clichés to which it succumbs.  Like Davis Guggenheim's 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, the film takes on the immensely complicated issue of public school reform and turns it into an oversimplified melodrama, implying that there might actually be easy answers to the problems of the American education system. Barnz uses stock villains that are too easy to hate and artificially balances the debate with supporting characters who are well-meaning but clearly on the wrong side. Any movie about teaching that dumbs itself down this much deserves a failing grade. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Holly Hunter get an A for effort, though.