Tough Love

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

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 Clark story. The estimable Morgan Freeman plays the man who became the last-hope principal of crime- ridden, drug-soaked, graffiti-infested Eastside High in Paterson, N.J.

Clark gained national attention -- including a TIME cover -- by bullying students and faculty into a state of moral grace and academic excellence. His well-publicized symbols of rule were a bullhorn and a baseball bat. His lessons included expelling 300 of the worst troublemakers en masse, chaining the school's doors to bar drug dealers and -- whooping audience delight here -- inveighing colorfully against laziness, incompetence and any politician or community leader who questioned his ways. But underneath all that, as the movie points out, were sweetness and caring: Clark redeeming a crack addict (Jermaine Hopkins), mending a mother-daughter conflict, nursing a comic obsession with getting the kids to sing the school song with gusto.

The movie finds nothing ambiguous in this tale. No student rebels, reform is achieved at miracle speed, all opposition is seen as opportunistic. In short, complexity is sacrificed to fast-food inspirationalism. After the cheers die and the tears dry comes the realization that Lean on Me is serving up empty emotional calories. They don't leave you sick, just hungry for an honest meal.