3/5 Dead Poet meets Will Hunting
  by Zachary Cabon (High Point, NC USA)
The Emperor's Club, 2002, is a story about a history teacher's romanticism of men of Ancient Greece and of the Roman Empire (only men, no mention of Cleopatra, etc.) and a student whose mild rebellion overwhelms the teacher.

Kevin Kline and Emile Hirsch are convincing, but only in a world far removed from common American societies. (Who knows then if the writer depicted an atypical society accurately?)

There is a token woman in the movie to belay anyone's concern (writer, actor or gaff boy) the teacher is homosexual, as this unmarried fella drools over "great men" of the past in an all-boys school, and becomes infatuated with a student "rebel."

The teacher's knowledge and love of the subject matter is impressive, but the scholars in this dainty world are so impressed by Latin phrases they confuse them with truth, e.g., "The end depends on the beginning" (not so true) - compare to the lyric by David Ford, "I've had more second chances than I care to recall" (so true).

I enjoyed the actors and the setting. I did not enjoy the writer's use of token references to convey "his" story. Is the writer Robin William's biggest fan - Dead Poets Society, 1989; Good Will Hunting, 1997?

4/5 3 stars out of 4
  by One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:

A movie about a teacher that (miracle of miracles!) doesn't cleave to formula, end with the students standing on desks, etc., The Emperor's Club is an interesting film that takes a look at teachers' relationships with students, competitions, cheating, and more; it took me a while to fully appreciate it, but The Emperor's Club is a worthy film.

4/5 Sentimental but good
  by Peter P. Parisi (Georgia, USA)
For some reason, Classics and Ancient History teachers are the ones who are always set up for moral epiphanies in these movies (eg. "The Browning Version"). This fact has more to do with our sentimentalized view of the Classics and Ancient History, and our culture's supposition that teachers of these arcane subjects can't help but be moral naifs.

Nevertheless, Kline's strong performance carries the movie and his character's epiphany is earned. Superior to the treacly "Dead Poet's Society." I enjoyed this movie very much.

4/5 Never should a teacher cheat with the grades
  by Jacques COULARDEAU (OLLIERGUES France)
There cannot be any remake of the "Dead Poets Society". There cannot be any remake of "The Changing of the Guard" from the Twilight Zone. So why try? And this film is a remake of the two I have just quoted and maybe a few more. The only new element is to introduce in that elite Ivy League prep school a cheater as the main central student character. Nothing new really either, I mean cheating in those institutions is part of the job, part of the fun, part of the game and to be taken is not only a risk it is a pleasure. So, what can make this film worth making first and worth seeing second? Not much but one thing though. The fact that the teacher, the real main character, actually cheats to help a cheater access the competition he does not deserve accessing and the teacher discovers only after the competition that the chap was a cheater, which he did not know before. He confronts him in their mutual disappointment, mutual and reciprocal. But not disappointed entirely for the same reasons. The teacher because he cheated in the grading, hence he cheated another student who probably deserved the reward better than the recipient of the cheated grade. The cheater because he could not go through and lost anyway. But there is worse than that after all. The teacher realizes the student is cheating before the end of the competition and he tells the school's principal discretely and that one tells him to forget about it, to ignore it, which he does not do entirely, though he does it for everyone who is watching and is unaware of the cheating. He just changes the questions and looks for one that is not purely factual but that requires some wider knowledge and he fails the cheater like that. But the film is vicious somewhere because twenty-five years later or so, the same student, now grown up, married and the father of two sons, requires a repeat of the competition with a full class reunion in order to provide the school with a great grant to build a new library dedicated to his own dead father. But he wants the teacher to be there and preside on the ceremony. And it is a full repeat and we know from the very start it is going to be using modern technology of course. So, the interest is about the attitude of the teacher when he realizes he is being cheated, and how is he going to react in order to fail the cheater, and how is he going to confront him with the truth? That you will have to find out by yourselves. The punishment will be harsh on the teacher who will have to come to terms with his conscience about cheating on the grading, cheating one student in favor of another one, come to terms and make amends. The punishment will be even harsher for the cheater who will be confronted to no public scandal, he who wants to be a senator, but to a private and lasting knowledge that will run in his family for generations and will always classify him as a cheater, and no matter what he may say and think, that stain is hard to remove and to forget. But the subsequent real ending is sentimental and has little interest. In fact it is a double ending which makes it even more sentimental. The question that floats on top of all that is why? Why did the teacher not give the proper grade to that student who was going to reveal himself as being a cheater? Is it because that student was rowdy and difficult, because he had insinuated that he, the teacher, liked little boys, or because his father had told the teacher that he had to do his job, i.e. teaching, and not meddle with molding the child? Probably a little of the three: to prove he could bring the child on the right track, to prove to himself he was not hurt by the sexual insinuation and to prove to himself he could mold the child even without the agreement of his senator of a father. And he failed them all: the child was a cheater and not a success, he did not prove anything to anyone about his sexuality that remained unsatisfactory and totally clandestine, no matter what it may have been, and he did not mold the student since that student would do it again twenty five years later in front of his own wife and children. A complete failure. Maybe not quite a complete failure thanks to the two sentimental endings, but that is pure compensation, no real success. For the details get the film and watch it. You cannot foresee the second and last ending at all.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines


3/5 A heart warming movie about a teacher
  by R. Bagula (Lakeside, Ca United States)
A prep school teacher who teaches ancient Greek and Roman history
is told about and his failure with a son of a rich and powerful man.
A long term lesion is taught...