Cooley High (1975) review

Two buddies from (the now defunct) Edwin G. Gilbert Cooley Vocational High School, wannabe poet Preach (Glynn Turman) and basketball star Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), get into all sorts of hijinks with their classmates (and would-be girlfriends): they skip class, steal snacks, throw dice, sneak into a party, drive a stolen car, smoke weed and drink booze, wind up in jail ... and then, by the end, one of them doesn't make it.  I recognize that Schultz - working off the script by Eric Monte - wants to keep this slice-of-life fast-moving and light, but it seems like the jokes are just masking a deeper, seemingly unsolvable problem: today, Chicago is among the most dangerous cities in America.  This has plenty of strong support from both the African-American community and the Library of Congress, but it makes me uneasy: mess around with criminal antics too long and you might not live your dream and play for Grambling State.