Movie Review: Cheaters (2000)

When I was in high school, people found all sorts of creative ways to cheat. As for me, I did the old “formula on the side of the wrist” in math a couple of times before I felt guilty enough to stop. However, when I was a senior, my little angel and devil on the shoulder really had a battle royal when one of my classmates was caught cheating (he had a blue book with the answers inside his other blue book) and our teacher put the book with his answers where everyone could use them – presumably without consequence. At that time, I bypassed the extra “help,” but only because I didn’t have a high opinion of the classmate’s ability to get the right answers in question. Just kidding – by then, I knew the adage “if you cheat, you’re only cheating yourself,” is true. However, in the 2000 HBO-movie “Cheaters,” a high school teacher (played by Jeff Daniels) turns the expected wisdom on its head. “Well, this may not be approved curriculum, but cheaters do prosper.” While his academic decathlon students may end the movie divided on this opinion, the viewer will probably concede that the energy put into their scheme to unseat the perennial winners might have been better utilized actually – you know – studying.

Based on the real 1994-1995 cheating scandal by the academic decathlon team at Steinmetz High School in Chicago, the movie begins with Jeff Daniels posing the question of whether his English students would rather be king of a homeless shelter or a chauffeur in a mansion. As you may remember from your schooldays, there is reliably a student who can cut through the BS and get at the really crucial question, and there is indeed one here.

Astute student: “If I’m the chauffeur, what kind of car do I drive?”

Actually, Jeff, who is wildly overqualified for his position but still inexplicably lives with his elderly mom, is trying to get his class onto the topic of whether pride goeth before a fall, but only Jena Malone picks up on this. The day continues to go downhill when Jeff is asked by principal Paul Sorvino to coach (again) the academic decathlon team. Predictably, his efforts to recruit students don’t go well at first, but then Jena gives him some tips (Hint: Shell out for burritos.) and thus they get about half a dozen. Though they prepare well, they are ultimately outclassed at the actual meet, and the same charter school that always wins, does so handily again.

But an opportunity arises for the students to get the questions to one portion of the next round ahead of time, and after some debate, they decide to cheat, employing a variety of ways from the low-tech (answers on shoes and gum) to the high-tech (programming their beepers and calculators). Alas, the team miscalculates and their scores rise so high that the losing school begins crunching the numbers before they even hang their medals in their bedrooms. And after hiring a lawyer and sitting through interviews and interrogations, the team is betrayed by one of their members (who is sore he didn’t get to compete). That part is invented, but most of the film is fairly true to life.

As it turns out, everyone in the movie gets to have an opinion on whether cheating is worth it. If there’s a moral compass, it’s Jeff’s mother.

Jeff Daniels: “Those kids didn’t need any help in how to cheat, Mother.”

Jeff’s mom: “Yes they did, help to know that it was wrong!”

Anyway, the movie raises more questions than it answers. Which is always a good thing. Perhaps the last word on cheating goes to Jena’s character who earnestly instructs: “If you’re going to cheat, cheat smart.”