Why the F
When teacher Robert Anderson (David Schofield) is struck by an angry student in the classroom it is his life which ends up ruined as the school board rather than support him allow the student to return in fear of being sued by his parents for all the low grades that Mr. Anderson has given him. It leads to Robert hitting the bottle whilst having a difficult relationship with his attractive daughter Kate (Eliza Bennett) who is one of his students. But Robert, Kate and a handful of other teachers and students find themselves under siege in school from a group of violent hoodies who attack after dark.
I have never met Johannes Roberts but after watching his "F", which also goes by the name of "The Expelled", I am picturing a Daily Mail reader. Yes I said Daily Mail reader and that feeling starts with the representation of the school system in the UK where a head teacher and the governors would rather let a violent student go unpunished in fear of public reprisals and legal costs when the violent student's parents take the school and a teacher to court. In truth it is kind of an amusing opening because it is so typically Daily Mail in its view. And that Daily Mail feel continues through out the rest of the movie from a troubled father hitting his daughter, trouble makers wearing hoodies and much more which unintentionally gives the movie a humorous side.
The trouble is that "F" takes what for me is an entertaining seed of an idea but does a botch job of delivering it. There are various failings going on be it the violent hoodies being a faceless bunch to having the parkour abilities of supreme athletes. Toss in other elements such as a creepy security guard and the basics are there except they just don't come together to make "F" as good as it should be and it is sadly just a few minor tweaks which would have made it a good movie.
What this all boils down to is that "F" isn't the finished product it needs to be for it to work and as such it is a little disappointing. But at the same time the basic ideas are themselves good and that adds to the frustration as they end up being wasted.
