It mixes attempts at realism and grit with transparently Hollywoodized good guys-vs.-bad guys social melodrama. That requires a deft directorial hand, but director Daniel Barnz doesn't seem to have it.
Won't Back Down
If you can't beat the system... change it
2012 · 2h 1m · PG
Drama
Directed by
Daniel Barnz
Overview
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Social-issue movies can have real societal impact. That's why Won't Back Down, which presses a lot of hot buttons, deserves to be taken seriously, and criticized seriously, on its own terms.
Won't Back Down doesn't wholly make the grade.
Americans desperately need to have some difficult conversations about the state of public education, but Won't Back Down goes about the task too awkwardly to be helpful or interesting.
"Won't Back Down" details a bureaucratic process, and yet it plays more like an intense, emotional movie about parents and children.
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