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Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Blistering performances.

Big fan of British horror so really interested in having a look at this one. Its dry and predictable, scenes stretched out to fill in the time, constant flashbacks, 3 minute scene of a girl smoking a fag and lots more the same .ok its not terrible,but it is drawn out .basically 2 teenage lads get there whats for after being a nuisance and basically horrible and one of there tutors set out for revenge .theres a lot of life scenes drawn out in black and white clips with depressing music dripping on in the back.to sum it up I really wouldn't bother because if you're not depressed you bloody will be after watchin this.

I was really looking forward to this tale of revenge and learning as the premise sounded entertaining. A teacher, Mr Gale (Hands), who is ridiculed daily by his students, decides to take matters into his own hands and to elevate their learning curves by some extreme teaching methods.You do get what you expect; there are some nasty scenes of violence and abuse. The scene where Mr Gale nails the hand of his student, Fin (Bendall), to the desk looks realistic. It's the realism which could have made this movie something special.I've known families like Fin's and his brother's, Jake (Cox), where the brothers don't get on... to the point of arguing, fighting, and forsaking. I've also known the senseless bullies of Fin and Joel's (Coltart) order. Though I do hope that the scene in the schoolroom isn't that realistic - if it is, I pity the teachers and can understand the twenty-six-grand to study to teach the government are offering.The trouble starts when you get to the tortuous indoctrination. Through all of the bleakness, we are then subjected to a gayfull and lunatic lesson. This departs from reality and enters the demented. Which, in itself wouldn't be a bad thing had Mr Gale been suffering from a mental break. However, this doesn't appear to be the case. Then when you throw in Fin's delusion it was enough to wrench me away from the film, thinking, what the hell(?). From here the story and character of Mr Gale become preposterous and unbelievable. I felt that both the writer and the director, Ruth Platt, were trying too hard to get their point across, making the story appear pompous and pretentious.It's from here on in that the film falls apart.The really ludicrous thing is the scene where Jake's Girlfriend, Tanja (Gavanski), is accosted and forced to join in the lesson. She's worried that Fin's not come home, though his brother doesn't give a damn, so she sets out to find him. She wanders the town aimlessly and just by coincidence comes across Mr Gale. This is absurd because the abduction takes place outside. How did Mr Gale know she was there, let alone that she had an interest in one of his captives.Then there's the timeline which is totally cockeyed by the end of the film. So what started out as an okay film drops into a quagmire of below average revenge torture fodder.If you like your revenge stories and can empathise with teachers then this may be worth a watch, though it could have been much better and even could have made a statement. Though I would say you'd be better off with the Hostel or Saw franchises.

Man! Talk about a bore fest! I haven't been this bored since timeout in Kindergarten. You all know the story - a psycho teacher decides to teach two of his misbehaving students a lesson even though only one of the students was a miscreant. The other was just having a bad go at life living with his overbearing, obnoxious older brother.Truth be told, he should've been teacher the other misbehaving students in his class "The Lesson." Better still, if after 20 years of hating teaching, why didn't he just move on to something else, like sweeping streets or filing papers in an office somewhere? By the way, the two students in his torture chamber we're being taught "The Lesson," we in the audience are! What did we learn from "The Lesson" boys and girls? We learned to stay clear away from artsy- fartsy preaching, moralizing films because they will bore you to death.

If Ken Loach had ever produced a horror film, it would have looked very much like 'The Lesson'. This is a hugely thought provoking film whose portrayal of horror goes so much further and deeper than the scenes of violence. The film is firmly grounded in the real world, our world, with real people dealing with real issues. For the hard core chain saw massacre viewer, the film may take a while to get to the 'horror' scenes - but for me, the horror started from the moment the film began as we witness the appalling way people treat each other and how horrifically society fails them. Ultimately it is hard to say who is the monster and who the victim- in fact the most stomach churning scenes for me involved the domestic violence. Having said that Robert Hands is outstanding as the teacher. His mercurial performance is totally empathetic and mesmeric - at one moment terrifying , the next pathetic. Sign of a great film for me is that it makes you think as you watch it, it makes you think as you discuss it afterwards and it is still making you think days later. This film does that with knobs on.