MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:26 Long
A Preview by:
– The Dude on the Right
| Cheats Movie Stats & Links |
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| Starring: | Trevor Fehrman, Elden Henson, Matthew Lawrence, Martin Starr, Mary Tyler Moore |
| MPAA Rated: | PG-13 |
| Released By: | New Line Cinema |
| Release Date: | 2002 |
| Directed By: | Andrew Gurland |
In my younger days I heard stories about students in high school and in college who cheated. These were the days before the internet, before pagers, before cell phones, and before technology. These were stories of one dude who would pencil in equations on his calculator for a class where he knew the teacher wouldn’t walk during the test, so, basically, the dude had all of the equations he was supposed to memorize written on his calculator. The dude even had a plan to easily swipe away the pencil marks with his finger between the keys smudging the evidence if need be. Then there was the story of the “Flying V”. I was told it was a simple plan, only really able to be done in an auditorium setting, and only done without assigned seating, where the smartest dude of the group would sit in the middle, towards the front, while all his buddies would sit at an angle to him, going towards the back, simply giving the group an easy line of copying answers off of their smartest friend and passing those answers to the friend behind them. Then there was the class where the friends knew the professor didn’t care if you shared your eraser with your neighbor, so, well, answers easily went from friend to friend. And lastly there was the graduate class where the Dean would leave during the exam and the group of Asian friends would start talking to each other in their native language so they could get the right answers while the American dudes in the class couldn’t benefit from their cheating ability. My only advice is to always go to the last day of class because the tricky professor will base 90% of the final exam questions on what he said the last day of class where he knew 60% of the class didn’t show up.
That was the old days.
“Cheats” deals with the new days.
Now you can get answers via pager, now kids try to hack into teacher’s computers to get the tests, now kids become more devious in the masterminding to get the grade, and this seems to be the movie “Cheats.”
Basically, for this movie, things have turned a little more high-tech (although the drop-ceiling still isn’t a great hiding place) in the student’s recon missions to get the answers, or at least the test questions, and thus get the grade. It isn’t so much about learning things to pass the test; it’s about finding the easiest way not to learn, about finding the answers, even if an all-nighter could have probably helped more than the spy tactics used to get the answers. But, in any case, this looks to be a movie where many a student will go to see looking for a way to get that edge while many a teacher will see to spot the warning signs.
In a way this movie will should relate to just about any person who tried to sneak a peek at their neighbor’s paper, and hit a higher note for those with well-planned missions to pass a test. This could be a good one.
That’s it for this preview! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!