7/10
Spring ‘96 box-office sleeper turned a decent profit on a modest budget, thanks mostly to director Robert Mandel (“F/X”) for fashioning a solid action yarn out of a formulaic story.
Tom Berenger plays a mercenary, newly jettisoned from duty along with his squad mates, who decides to get involved after his girlfriend (Diane Venora) – a teacher at a Miami inner-city high school – is assaulted while on the job. Pretending to be the latest school substitute, Berenger uncovers a gang funneling narcotics through the school, whose leader (music superstar Marc Anthony) has an agenda that extends all the way to the top – and school principal Ernie Hudson.
Eventually, Berenger re-recruits his secret ops entourage including William Forsythe as the Roy Frumkes-Rocco Simonelli-Alan Ormsby script delivers an action climax any viewer has been expecting since its opening minutes – but what’s more surprising about “The Substitute” is how well-crafted it is. The solid performances lend an enormous amount of conviction to the story and the picture – a Live Entertainment production that was theatrically distributed by Orion in its final days – is a solid entertainment as a result.
A special 4K UHD release from Lionsgate’s “Vestron Video Collector’s Series” currently available exclusively at Lionsgate Limited, “The Substitute” offers up a satisfying Dolby Vision HDR (1.85) transfer with Dolby Atmos remixed audio. The movie was shot in appropriately grimy, rundown Miami locales by Bruce Surtees so it’s not exactly eye candy, but the transfer is nicely textured and encoded regardless. New extras include an interview with Mandel, a featurette on color grading, the trailer, the Blu-Ray, and Digital HD code.