Cinema: Tough Love

LEAN ON ME

Directed by John G. Avildsen

Screenplay by Michael Schiffer

The belief that tough guys are really decent guys at heart may be, as Norman Mailer once remarked, "one of the sweetest thoughts in all the world." And a necessary one. For, as the novelist also observed, "there's nothing more depressing than finding a guy as tough as nails and as mean as dirt."

Since John Avildsen, who directed Rocky and The Karate Kid, is obviously not attracted to depressing subjects, you know up front that Lean on Me will lean heavily on Mailer's theorem in telling the Joe...

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