Trevor Garfield is a high school science teacher in
Brooklyn. Dennis Broadway, a
gangster student to whom he had given a failing grade, threatens to murder him, writing the number 187 (the
police code for homicide) on every page in a textbook. Trevor reports his concerns to the administration, who ignores his warning. Soon afterwards, Dennis ambushes Trevor in the school hallway, stabbing him in the back and side multiple times with a
shiv. Trevor survives and resumes his teaching career fifteen months later. He relocates to the
San Fernando Valley area of
Los Angeles and works as a
substitute teacher, but is assigned to another class of unruly students, including a
Chicano tag crew by the name of "Kappin' Off Suckers" (K.O.S.). Their leader, Benny Chacón, a felon attending high school as a condition of
probation, makes it clear to Trevor that there will be no mutual respect. Tension mounts when another teacher, Ellen Henry, confides that Benny has threatened her life, an action against which the school administration refuses to take action out of fear of legal action. After Benny murders a rival
tagger and disappears, his tag partner, César Sanchez, takes over as leader of the gang. César defies Trevor's attempts to establish order, stealing his watch. Trevor reports this to the principal, who declines to act. Trevor learns the combination to César's locker and retrieves his watch. He confronts César and suggests that they start over, but César refuses. César escalates the conflict with Trevor by killing Ellen's dog. After spraying graffiti depicting the dead dog, César is shot with a syringe filled with
morphine attached to the end of an arrow. He wakes up to find his right trigger finger removed. The hospital receives a letter with the finger, which has "R U DUN" ("are you done?") tattooed upon it. Later, Rita Martínez, a student Trevor is tutoring, drops out of school to escape her abuse by the K.O.S. Trevor himself is fired after administrators find out he had invited Rita to his house for a tutoring session, citing the unsavory implications. When Benny's body is discovered in the
Los Angeles River, César and the K.O.S. suspect Trevor in the killing. The gang corner Trevor at his home and make him confess to killing Benny and cutting off César's finger. Taking their cue from the film
The Deer Hunter, they force Trevor into a contest of
Russian roulette with César. After each round, Trevor talks about the lost-cause lifestyle César has led. On the penultimate round, Trevor takes his turn and survives. Instead of handing the weapon to César, Trevor takes the next turn and kills himself. Driven by his sense of honor and enraged over his failed revenge, César insists on taking his rightful turn against the protests of his horrified friends, killing himself also with the remaining bullet. On graduation day, Rita is shown to have completed her studies along with the now former K.O.S. member Stevie, who is filled with remorse over his prior involvement in gang life. Rita offers a tribute to Trevor by reading an essay about him. The essay incorporates the theme of the
pyrrhic victory. Paco, the only other surviving member of the K.O.S, drops out of school yet stays behind long enough to watch the graduation before disappearing into the city. A heartbroken Ellen resigns. The closing narration cites a 1994
MetLife-
Louis Harris Survey stating one in nine teachers has been attacked in school and 95 percent of those attacks were committed by students, as well as the movie being written by a teacher. ==Cast==