The Substitute 4K 1996 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

“Soldier of Fortune” Shale, who has been fired from the CIA, takes a temporary job filling in for his girlfriend Jane, a teacher at a Miami high school. There, he learns of the existence of the "K.R." gang ("Kings of Ruin"), which thrives on the drug trade. To take on the mafia, Shale turns to his mercenary friends for help...

Review 4K Movie

Teenagers and Delinquency. If you believe Hollywood movies, these two words are practically synonyms, and every other teenager going through puberty should be locked up. It sounds funny, but for some reason, I don’t feel like laughing. I don’t want to laugh because many young people truly believe they’re above the law, so it costs them nothing to come to school with a knife and stab another student—or even a teacher. And really, what are you going to do to them after that? Send them to a juvenile detention center? That won’t work. Because the parent-teacher association will put up a fight, the school principal won’t want to stir up a scandal and ruin the school’s reputation with such an “incident,” and crafty lawyers will be right there to portray the young person as a victim who was bullied by everyone. Yes, I agree that such cases are rare and most young people are good kids who just need a little guidance, but sometimes you come across “bad apples” who can only be reached with a baseball bat. And today’s film is precisely about troubled teenagers, as well as the man who crossed their path. So, this is *The Replacement*.

The story follows Jonathan Sheale, a soldier in a covert unit that brought “democracy” to countries like Vietnam and Cuba, but after yet another mission that ended in complete failure, our hero and his four comrades were written off as useless. Well, you can still spread democracy without being in the service of the U.S. government, and the next battlefield becomes a public high school. Sounds like complete madness, right? But hold off on jumping to conclusions, because this school is run by a gang with the flashy name “Kings of Destruction,” ready to kill anyone who gets in their way. The school’s principal, meanwhile, is eager to enter politics, and to fund his campaign, he deals drugs without a care in the world that his own students will be using them. How could a man who fought for the future of his homeland remain indifferent in the face of such chaos? And so, Shale, having enlisted the support of old friends, stashed a firearm and grenades in his briefcase, and donned a bulletproof vest for extra protection, sets out to teach the kids a lesson.

It sounds quite intriguing, and as I sat down to watch this movie, I thought I was in for some sort of take on *Class of 1984* or *The Principal*. But reality turned out to be far more prosaic. The thing is, the screenwriters came up with a lot of interesting ideas that, in a different context, could have made the viewer reflect on both the education system and the fact that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. For example, there was an interesting scene in the film where a hardened veteran tells the children about his service in Vietnam, and then asks his students if they really believe that robbing and beating up their neighbors is the best way out of a situation. Is prison really a worthy alternative to work? And even in the eyes of the gang leader, a spark of understanding flickers, and you start to think that right now, Sheil will put his gun aside and try to reach the teenagers through words. Right now, the film’s hero will try to help the young people solve their problems, and even the leader of the “Kings of Destruction” will start to respect him. But no, not at all! And a couple of minutes later, Jonathan Shale is piling the enemies up again, reminding the viewer that the film’s genre is, after all, an action movie, not a drama.

Or take another situation—the main character’s girlfriend, whom Jonathan Shale essentially replaces. Jane Hitzko is the kind of person who wants to change the world for the better, and to do so, she possesses both an iron will and a sharp tongue. But as it turns out later, all of this is nothing more than a mask, and in reality, Jane is a fragile girl in need of support and a shoulder to cry on. And again, as soon as the audience is shown the characters’ deep emotions, Sheil is once more tearing through the streets, shooting with both hands and piling up criminals. And this really throws you off balance. You’ve just gotten into a good drama, and then suddenly someone’s getting shot, someone’s getting stabbed, and someone’s begging in a whiny voice not to be killed.

As for the action, for the most part it’s pretty well done. Obviously, this isn’t an action flick with Schwarzenegger or Van Damme, but it doesn’t exactly leave you bored either. The only exception is the moment when Sheil faces off against “professional” mercenaries—a confrontation that boils down to: whose ammo will run out first?

Overall, viewers are presented with a decent B-grade action flick that you can easily spend an evening watching without a second thought. Just don’t expect too much from the movie, and then you won’t be disappointed by what you see.