Insolent schoolkids and educators with the stamina and sensitivity to reach them is a sentimental formula so familiar, it could stand a pantsing in the hallway between classes.
Which makes it a good thing that “Steve,” starring Cillian Murphy as a dedicated, troubled head teacher at a struggling reform school for chaos-inclined teenage boys, brings a raucously corrective attitude to bear.
Teachers are sorely undervalued in this world, and a more thorny, realistic view of the profession’s challenges has made its way into the culture of late, between the Oscar-nominated German film “The Teachers’ Lounge,” Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster” and Netflix’s Emmys-gobbling hit “Adolescence.” And while “Steve,” which takes place over a day, is ultimately too messy itself to measure up to those more tightly coiled efforts, its energy makes a statement, as if the legacy of the late, system-smashing British director Alan Clarke were close at hand
