Overall Rating
  Awesome: 73.77%
Worth A Look: 14.21%
Average: 4.37%
Pretty Bad: 6.01%
Total Crap: 1.64%
6 reviews, 147 user ratings
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Breakfast Club, The |
by PyThomas
"John Hughes' masterpiece, and one of THE best films of the 80's."

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"Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday afternoon in detention for whatever it was we done wrong. What we did was wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care...when you see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed."So begins The Breakfast Club, John Hughes' engaging take on high school social-class warfare. The premise sounds a lot like "Gilligan's Island"... five different types of people are stranded together without any outside contact, but instead of spending years on a deserted island, it's only nine hours of Saturday detention, which only seems like years.
In this environment, the five students are left to themselves most of the time, with detention czar Mr. Vernon (Paul Gleason) checking in on them every so often. We meet Claire (Molly Ringwald), the Popular Girl; Andrew (Emilio Estevez), the Jock; Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), the Dweeb; Alison (Ally Sheedy), the Freak; and Bender (Judd Nelson), the Troublemaker, not to mention the spark that sets off the firestorm of personality clashes.
Any lesser writer would turn this into a forgettable screwball comedy. But John Hughes, writer of the screenplay and director of the film, makes all the characters in this film vividly three-dimensional, even the crusty and cynical overseer of the five. We learn why each of the detentionees landed here, as well as what makes each of them tick. And all the actors and actresses involved make the most of their characters. Even Ally Sheedy's weirdo-type character goes beyond what could have been just comic relief.
The Breakfast Club is less of a "teen flick" than a modern-day morality play, where we learn that we could all get along a lot better if we're brave enough to get rid of all our prejudices and break free of our segregated cliques. This film would work wonderfully as live theater: there's only one setting, only a handful of characters and extras, no explosions or car chases, and lots of intelligent and introspective dialogue, "neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie" notwithstanding.
And everything about this story, save for the new wave music they jam to, still seems fresh today. I was a bit disappointed to see that The Breakfast Club didn't make the American Film Institute's Top 100 movies of all time, but there were only four movies from the 80's in that list, so I'll let them slide. John Hughes' detention vignette remains a masterpiece, and the high-water mark for teenage melodrama."Don't mess with the bull, young man, you'll get the horns."
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1061&reviewer=9 originally posted: 07/21/99 11:18:20
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USA 02-Feb-1985 (R) DVD: 01-Nov-2005
UK N/A
Australia N/A
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