The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option (2001)

No, it definitely isn't. There might be a lot of options available to Treat Williams, but failure isn't one of them. And for me, I guess the question is: why would you pick up the fourth Substitute movie? I don't know... (what do you know? I don't know...)

The Substitute 4 takes place in a military academy. Treat (not reprising one of his earlier Substitute roles), does a favor for a general whose nephew attends and is becoming a neo-Nazi. Inside, Treat finds not only the bad kids and their bad commander, but a groundskeeper who is also working undercover, and an old buddy, and the classically trained Angie Everhart as the school nurse. After some investigating and some deaths, Treat vanquishes the bad commander, convincing his kids to do the killing for him.

This film had a plot device in it that I can't stand in bad action movies: the cowardly hero that's saved by a braver person. In this one, Everhart sacrifices her life so Treat can live. How heroic is that? I'm supposed to dig Treat as a hero even more because he let a woman take a bullet for him? Who comes up with this shit?

Treat Williams is in that Jeff Fahey category of guy who does actions films, when he's probably better suited to the Lifetime movie. That's not a knock on him: he brings a strong sense of masculinity to those Lifetime movies; he's just not beefy enough to lead in a bad action movie. Can't you see him as the husband who at first thinks his wife is paranoid about the stalker, but eventually comes around and helps her kill him; or the police detective that's giving the woman the run around, but eventually comes over to her side, falls in love with her, and helps her kill the bad guy? I can.

Angie Everhart is great in this. She delivers her lines in this way where you can imagine her rehearsing them ten minutes before the shoot. I think her problem is the roles she'd normally have opposite Nicholas Cage or Bruce Willis are taken now by actresses that have more cred like Jessica Biel. She's definitely physically attractive enough to do bad action on the big screen. Who knows, maybe today's quality actresses will tire of Bruckheimer films, and Angie will get her shot opposite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 13.

This movie is so blah it's hardly worth discussing in the recommendation section. Definitely don't spend any money on it. If it's on USA and you've got nothing else going on... maybe. But that's a big maybe.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240944/

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