Movie Review: The Student (2017) seen on Netflix and Tubi

Not recommended for young children; violence and coarse language

This movie follows a young law student who begins to harass his law professor after he loses a mock trial to another student on what he believes is a technicality and is thus awarded a grade lower than what he believes he deserves as a result.

Abigail Grandacre is a college professor at a university. While most of her students excel in their knowledge of the courtroom, one student named Vance believes himself to be superior to those around him. As he had recently been transferred from another college with exceptional grades, he believes the mock trial will he has been assigned to complete as his final exam will be easy.

As is shown in the movie’s opening scene, he does not take kindly to receiving poor grades or even grades lower than an A. This is shown when he replaced his previous teacher’s medication with sleeping pills causing him to have a heart attack, (which is not shown on screen, however the heart attack is.)

During the mock trial, despite believing he had won, he ends up losing to his opposition on some sort of technicality, (which I don’t understand, however, it’s later explained that he somehow mislead the court.) Despite his pleas and threats and even physically grabbing his teacher out of anger, she makes it clear that her decision stands until the dean of the college coerces her into finding a way to boost his grades citing that he came highly recommended and that a bad grade given from them will prevent further recommendations from other college transferring other students. Through some persuasion, she allows him to submit a make up test with her saying that his final grade will absolutely depend on his mark.

When he is called into her office outside of school hours to discuss this, he explains to her that his recent change in behaviour as well as his poor presentation is due to him dealing with his mother’s recent cancer diagnosis. As he leaves, she calls his house where he stepfather, (who he is shown to have an abusive relationship with,) admits that it’s a lie and that his wife isn’t sick. With this admission, the deal for a make up test is cancelled. At the same time, his stepfather calls him to confront him on the lie.

He finds himself having to take drastic measures to get her to change the grade. He first breaks into her house and donates all of the money in her bank account to charity, (which her husband notices when he attempts to make an online purchase only to have the card decline,) and then once again switches her anxiety medication to sleeping pills which cause her to pass out in the middle of class.

After he calls her house in an attempt to get her change the grade, she finally gives in when he admits to being right in front of her husband, (though he is out of ear shot,) with a gun pointing at him. As she does not want him involved, she finally agrees to change his grade to the preferred one on the condition that he leave her alone afterwards which he accepts.

As her husband goes to bed for the night, she sneaks out of the house to go to the school. After he wakes up and realizes she’s gone, he catches a ride with the police officer who has obtained a warrant for his arrest. Going against the officer’s order to stay in the vehicle upon arriving, he gets out anyway as other police officers pursue the two of them.

After the school security officer catches Vance in the locker room shower, he orders that he drops his gun. The scene then cuts away as a gun shot can be heard by Abigail and it’s revealed that Vance shot the officer and killed him.

Eventually, Abigail makes her way into the gymnasium of the school with Vance pursuing her. She manages to hit him over the head with a baseball bat which knocks him to the floor. He briefly recovers and attempts to grab her ankle as she tries to reach her gun. She is able to obtain the gun and shoot him after turning around, killing him in the process as the police officers and her husband arrive to comfort her.

I’ve seen a lot of these movies, ones in which spoiled over privileged teenagers think they can get good grades either because their parents are rich or in some cases, they have good looks. However, this usually pertains to female antagonists and this was a male one. I will say this though. The ending to this film is very predictable as most of the movies I’ve seen which follow this premise end with either the antagonist getting killed in some manner or arrested.

There wasn’t one actor in this movie who is well known to me but since this is a lifetime movie, I’ve come to know that they usually reserve these movies for the less known Hollywood actors. However, I do remember the actor who played Vance in this film as he was featured in a family channel tv show called “Dog with a Blog” as one of the three kids. I will say that his character in this movie is a complete 180 compared to the character he played in that show. In this movie, he is shown as sadistic and violent where in the show “Dog with a Blog,” he is seen as a gentle character, at least from what I know. I don’t know too much about him other than the fact that he was in those two shows therefore I do not have an opinion on him other than in this movie, he was a total asshole to his teacher.

Another thing that really bothers me about these movies is the fact that the characters who play the antagonists are usually seen with perfect grades up to that point until something happens in the movie to warrant them receiving a lower grade than they are used to receiving, (but still a good one,) which usually sets the stage for this type of movie where the student, (despite not failing and only receiving a B where they are used to receiving an A,) will go on a rampage and destroy the teacher’s life just because they don’t agree with it and they feel like they should always receive an A. In my mind, this makes them spoiled. I know these are just movies but this is a perfect example of someone being spoiled when they can’t even handle getting one B among a bunch of A’s. There should be a lesson to be learned here. No matter how good someone is, they can’t be perfect at everything and no matter how hard they try, there will always be some area where they need improvement. No one person in the world knows everything otherwise there would be no need for school. This is just one of many movies I’ve seen that follow this premise…..with the spoiled overprivileged child having to adjust to getting a grade that’s not perfect for once. Not only that but almost all of those movies have ended exactly the way I described earlier in the review, with the ending being the antagonist getting killed in some way or arrested. When I think about it, it’s almost not worth watching as the ending is so predictable.

I suppose this movie should be recommended to those who are sitting on their couches at home looking for something to watch. Despite it being predictable, I really enjoyed this movie.

Movie rating: 7 out of 10