Lesson Plan Movie Review: Super stunts in a story that lacks a punch

At one point in the Polish film, Lesson Plan, Agata (Antonina Jarnuszkiewicz) asks the protagonist Damian (Piotr Witkowski), “Do you have any other talent except beating people up?” While it might be a reductive summary of Damian and his exploits, you understand what Agata means.

Cast: Piotr Witkowski, Antonina Jarnuszkiewicz, Nikolas Przygoda

Director: Daniel Markowicz

The film begins with a fight in a cramped space, as an unarmed Damian takes on a group of machine gun-wielding henchmen. A neatly orchestrated hand-to-hand combat sequence later, an entire drug ring is brought down, but not before Damian loses his wife in the process. In template films like Lesson Plan, the protagonist usually loses his loved one early. Even before he can mourn the loss properly—or we can begin to understand his mood swings—we are thrown into the world of a Polish high school reeling from a drug menace. The lazy writing means that there’s no smooth segue into these new angles.

And then, it rains cliches, with even some potentially intriguing factors getting brushed away like they were simply afterthoughts. When we meet Damian after the death of his wife, he is a raging alcoholic. But barely a few days later, he is prim and proper, and is shown having transformed into a history teacher. However, I liked that he tries to make notes and be a good teacher as opposed to winging it like Jack Black from School of Rock.

A couple of laughable twists about the antagonists are straight out of a Scooby Doo episode, and it’s easy to hazard a reasonable guess about their identity halfway into this 100-odd-minute film. There is also a fun detour where Damian pulls a Miyagi on a group of students who want to resist the drug peddlers in their school. While all this is reasonable fun, the narrative impact is sorely lacking. The lack of investment in character arcs, despite dark themes like sexual harassment and drug overdose, doesn’t help this film. Take, for instance, the scene where a girl is admitted due to an overdose. Her friends rush to look after her, swear revenge… but honestly, Damian breaking a porcelain cup delivers more emotional heft than this scene.

Lesson Plan’s agenda is clear. Write a feeble story about a charming protagonist who’s good at action set-pieces. However, what the makers have forgotten is that the novelty in this genre is slowly wearing off, and as much as we love a well-performed stunt, the basics of narrative and emotional impact must not be ignored.