This film essentially begins in Los Angeles with a high school English teacher by the name of "Quincy Davis" (Calvin Lockhart) being asked to transfer from a relatively affluent high school to an inner-city school on the other side of town. After inquiring about their reasons, he is told that about 200 white students are being involuntarily bussed into this all-black school and--because he is black and a popular former professional basketball player--they feel that he would be best able to calm any racial tensions on the part of the black students there. However, when he gets there, he discovers that only a few dozen white students have actually transferred and the racial animosity on the part of the black student body is much higher than anybody realized. Now, rather than reveal any more I will just say that I was initially very impressed with this film. At least for the first 30 minutes or so. Unfortunately, the story then became extremely one-sided after that as it soon appeared that Quincy was more concerned about influencing one particular student named "J. T. Watson" (James A. Watson Jr.) than he was about protecting white students from serious physical violence. At least, that's how it seemed to me. Be that as it may, while this isn't necessarily a bad picture, there several other movies like "Lean on Me" or "Blackboard Jungle" which cover the plight of inner-city schools much better and I have rated this particular film accordingly. Slightly below average.
Review of Halls of Anger
