Making The Grade

I watched Making the Grade, from 1984, directed by Dorian Walker. It stars Judd Nelson, Dana Olsen, Jonna Lee, and Andrew Dice Clay. It concerns a rich kid, played by Olsen, who has to go to one last prep school to get his diploma but has no interest in doing so even though he will get cut off from the family fortune. On the flip side, Judd Nelson’s character is a small time con artist that owes “Dice”, played by Andrew Dice Clay in his first role as the Dice man, money. Judd Nelson is chased down by Dice’s thugs and ends up at the country club where Dana Olsen’s character is playing golf and they make an arrangement to have Judd Nelson stand in for him, while he jaunts around. It’s a relatively straight forward film with a lot of it focusing on how Judd Nelson’s character fudges up the system at the prep school, much to the chagrin of the main preppie dick, played by Scott McGinnis. It is typical 80’s fare in that it’s the rich kids versus the wrong side of the tracks guy who shows them what is really important. Dana Olsen plays the perfect prick and pretty much does nothing in any scene he is in, so he basically plays the perfect prick. This was a year before Judd Nelson would star as John Bender in the Breakfast Club thus getting more roles and you can really see that in his performance in this film. He steals the show as well the heart of the rich girl played by Jonna Lee.  You can really see how Judd Nelson would come to be the star that he is.
The film itself is really good, has a great moral, which isn’t overdone, some great turns by Nelson and Andrew Dice Clay. It was supposed to have a sequel but didn’t fare to well at the box office, which is both a shame and kind of good. Frankly I could give a monkey about what happened to Dana Olsen’s character. It was another suggestion by my classmate and I made a double feature out of this and Moving Violations. Again, this is one of those 80’s movies that kind of flies under the radar but has a great presence and is certainly worth a watch.