'School of Rock' blows out the speakers

Thursday, October 02, 2003

By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor

Music -- specifically, heavy-metal rock 'n' roll -- is the food of life for Dewey Finn, the lead character in the laugh-out-loud comedy "The School of Rock." His zeal for performing tends to overcome his common sense, his middling talent, his general lack of ambition.

	'THE SCHOOL OF ROCK' RATING: PG-13 for some rude humor and drug references. STARRING: Jack Black, Joan Cusack. DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater.

Dewey plays guitar, but he also yowls with the music, slides across the stage and indulges in most of the standard rock 'n' roll cliches. At one point, he jumps into the audience -- and no one catches him.

Jack Black, who portrays Dewey, fares better both in life and in Richard Linklater's very funny movie. Black has won fans both as an actor of humorous bent ("High Fidelity," "Shallow Hal") and as a rock musician (he fronts the band Tenacious D).

He combines those talents in "The School of Rock" and energizes the movie with his passion, his comic flair and his willingness to kick out the jams, mothers and fathers (or something like that).

"The School of Rock" takes shape after Dewey Finn gets kicked out of his band. Desperate for a job, he takes a phone call meant for the friend he's been sponging from and lies his way into a gig as a substitute teacher at a fancy private school.

Dewey intends to lollygag long enough to collect a few paychecks. But one day he overhears the students in his fifth-grade class in their music class. He knows talent when he hears it, and he decides to mold the kids into a rock band and have them make their debut -- with him as lead singer -- at an impending Battle of the Bands contest.

Linklater and screenwriter Mike White (who also appears as Dewey's pal Ned) got the two most crucial decisions right: casting Black in the movie and having him play off kids who are his exact opposite. Sheltered to a degree from popular culture and subjected to high academic expectations by their parents, they've never experienced anyone quite like Dewey, a slacker who kisses off education until he finds something he deeply cares about to teach them.

If the students had been typical smart-mouthed movie brats -- in other words, smaller versions of Dewey Finn -- "The School of Rock" would have degenerated into just another insult comedy filled with low humor. Instead, the movie can mine laughs from the contrast between these quiet, serious youngsters and high-octane Dewey.

The role allows Black to mug for the camera, do physical comedy, connive against uptight school principal Miss Mullins (Joan Cusack) and throw himself full bore into the persona of rock 'n' roll animal. Somehow, he stops short of being overbearing and makes Dewey genuinely funny, in part because the guy can laugh at himself, pick himself off the floor and come back for more.

The movie is also smart enough to give Miss Mullins more depth than the standard authority foil. There are reasons for her strictness, and casting Cusack in the role guarantees a kind of off-centered quality.

And let's give credit to the youngsters, too, chief among them Joey Gaydos as guitarist Zack, Robert Tsai as keyboardist Lawrence, Rebecca Brown as bassist Katie, Maryam Hassan as shy singer Tomika, Kevin Clark as drummer Kevin and Miranda Cosgrove as busybody Summer.

As Dewey would no doubt say, the kids are alright.

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