William Hundert is a passionate teacher who teaches about history and the people who had strong influence, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
The movie starts with Mr. Hundert in a classroom, asking for his students’ names, after that, he asks Martin Blythe to read the plaque behind the classroom. It is about Shutruk-Nahunte and how he’s done a lot of major accomplishments and yet it is not record in any history book, for great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance, as the day ends, all the students go to sleep. The next day, the school head discusses about their tradition called Mr. Julius Caesar, it is a contest held each year with two phases, the first phase is a series of questions that narrows the field of competitors to three. The second phase is a public tournament where the top three takes the stage in St.
Benedict’s Hall and answer questions about Roman history, the last person standing will be the winner and then crowned Mr. Julius Caesar. Martin’s father was also a winner of Mr. Julius Caesar. As Mr. Hundert teaches about history, a new student, a son of a U.S senator, Sedgewick Bell who is a troublemaker and never follows the school rules arrives.
Days pass by, and Sedgewick continues on making mischief and got his friends to join him. They got a boat and attempted to get to the other side of the lake, to an all girls school. They were caught by nuns, and were punished, confined in their room until 7.Sedgewick again makes mischief this time involving the whole class and plans to close their books loudly at exactly 9:45 while Mr. Hundert writes on the board. Because of this, he asked Sedgewick to stand in front and continue what was written on the board. Since he couldn’t Mr.
Hundert asked him to enumerate the 41 emperors, but he doesn’t know, so Mr. Hundert asked the whole class to enumerate all for him chronologically, showing him his stupidity. After class, Sedgewick is called by Mr. Hundert, regarding his behavior this past few days, telling him that he will be asking his father for an appointment to inform him of his child’s behavior.Mr. Hundert finally meets his father, the senator.
He discusses Sedgewick’s behavior and tells him that he needs to apply himself properly in the school. But the Senator disagreed, because a teacher’s job is to teach, not to change the student’s attitude, and that he will be the one to mold his son.Sedgewick later gets a call from his father scolding him. Mr. Hundert later notices that Sedgewick was feeling down, so he went to his room and lent him his book about the quiz and for being Mr. Julius Caesar.
The quiz finally starts and he passed.The two become gradually close to each other as Mr. hundert tries to help Sedgewick change.
The class did a lot of quizzes and he passed them all, until he reached top four, Deepak Mehta is top one, Louis Masoudi is top two, and Martin Blythe is top three. Mr. Hundert was deciding Whether to make him top three and bring down Martin Blythe, and he did. He notices Martin was feeling down and he felt torn.It was the 73rd annual competition of Julius Caesar, and Mr.
Hundert began asking questions for phase two. Louis loses, and Mr. Hundert notices Sedgwick cheating, but the headmaster said to let it go. He then asks him a question that wasn’t part of their lesson and he gets it wrong, but since Deepak reads about him he knows and was crowned as Mr. Julius Caesar. It was never made public that he cheated.Since the incident, Sedgewick didn’t study as much as he used to, went back to making mischief, and got D’s and C’s. This went on until he graduated and Mr.
Hundert never wanted to hand him his diploma because of this feeling of betrayal. It’s been 25 years since Sedgewick graduated and Mr. Hundert is still teaching. He was about to become the new headmaster, but another teacher took his place because of his fundraising ability. This caused Mr. Hundert to resign.
Because of this teacher’s fundraising campaign, Sedgewick will be donating the single biggest fund in exchange for another Mr. Julius Caesar. He asked for Mr. Hundert and only him, so he was forced to go. The Mr.
Julius Caesar is held once again and he starts asking questions. Louis Masoudi loses first, and once again Mr. Hundert notices that Sedgewick is cheating by using an earpiece and a person would read a book and tell him the answer. He asked Sedgewick who Shutruk-Nahunte was because he knows that it is not recorded in any history text book. The whole class knows who he is but not him, he was stumped.
Thus losing and Deepak being the winner, crowned as Mr. Julius Caesar.Sedgewick then announced that he is going to run for a seat in the U.
S. Senate.
