IMDb plot summary: A failed businessman is hired by the army to teach a group of underachieving recruits in order to help them pass basic training.
Directed by Penny Marshall. Starring Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, and James Remar.
Renaissance Man stars Danny DeVito as an ad executive who loses his job and ends up getting an unusual gig teaching at a military academy. He's given a particular group of undereducated recruits and asked to teach them basic comprehension of the English language to raise their competency as soldiers. As they make their way through Shakespeare's Hamlet together, he gets to know them better and tries to figure out how he can support them in their career. So, let's be honest, I'm never NOT going to have a fondness for a movie about how theater can change students' lives. No matter how sappy the movie gets at times (and it does), I love watching people fall in love with plays, whether on screen or in the real-life work I do in my own theater teaching. It does, of course, hit all the tropes of the classic teacher movie and doesn't really expand on or bring much new to the genre, but it handles those tropes competently and I was happy to go along on the journey. There's more character drama than there is comedy, so if you're expecting to laugh out loud you'll be disappointed, but I found it an adequately sweet watch.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Renaissance Man > Gas Food Lodging
Renaissance Man < Till Death
Renaissance Man < Timecop
Renaissance Man > Blood Diamond
Renaissance Man > The Fly (1986)
Renaissance Man > 12 Years a Slave
Renaissance Man < A Doll's House (1973)
Renaissance Man < VeggieTales: Where's God When I'm S-Scared?
Renaissance Man < Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Renaissance Man > Suddenly, Last Summer
Renaissance Man > The Big Chill
Renaissance Man < The Return of Captain Invincible
Final spot: #1370 out of 3522, or 61%.
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