The film is about David Green, a Jewish man who received a football scholarship to a prestigious junior high school in the 1950s. David seems to feel the pressure to hide the fact that he is a Jew for a long time. In the end, when he becomes a big man and reveals his background, things seem to be developing.
School Ties has a leafy, genteel look that is somehow less than convincing, perhaps because the hairdos are too tidy and the resemblances to other prep-school stories too clear.
EmanuelLevy.Com
October 01, 2006
Though well-intentioned as a message picture, the film is too schematic and predictable, and ultimately may be more significant in featuring a new cohort of actors, including Brandon Frazer, Chris O'Donnell, Matt Damon, and others.
More notable perhaps for a roster of future stars and Oscar winners than for its unexceptional plot, this well executed film nevertheless has its charms.
Fraser, O'Donnell, Damon and Affleck would all go on to have much hyped careers, and occasionally make better films than this overbearingly worthy classroom drama.
Well-intentioned (and only occasionally mawkish) tale of college-boy anti-semitism.
TV Guide
October 15, 2007
In the real world, it's more likely that Greene's working-class background would work harder against his acceptance at a snooty prep school than his religious beliefs, but School Ties largely ignores this angle.
This is a bewildering mixture of fairly accomplished storytelling, awkward contrivances in the script, and lies in the overall conception so egregious they undercut any pretensions the film might have to social seriousness.
