Movie: Fighting Back

 

Fighting Back is an Australian movie from 1982 following the life of Tom, a thirteen-year-old boy. He is in conflict both at home and at school.

According to a review on the Ozmovies website, “At school Tom is at war with a school culture which celebrates the power of corporal punishment - Truscott is one teacher who boasts of giving thirty students three lashes each, claiming they were all the better for the experience.

“When new remedial teacher John Embling turns up, he meets sympathetic but struggling fellow specialist teacher Mary but the real tone is set by Truscott who, in front of other teachers in the staff room, offers Embling his much-used leather belt.

“Tom’s English teacher is helpless in the face of Tom’s defiance, while older teacher Moreland has given up on difficult cases, and settled for the quiet life within the school system.

“Embling declines to join the school’s corporal punishment culture, but when Tom fails a test and embarks on a rampage and runs away from school, it’s left to another strap-wielding teacher, Mr. Payne to bring him to heel by giving him the feel of leather on the palm of the hand.

“That sets Tom off on another bout of defiance, as he wrecks a locker room.”

Fighting Back (not to be confused with the US vigilante movies of the same name and issued in the same year) is available on DVD but is hard to find. It is also on the Internet Archives.

Picture and video credit: Umbrella Entertainment.

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