Dec 14, 2011

The Breakfast Club

Running Time: 97 minutes.
Media: DVD.

There are certain films that change your life, some that you can't help but take a piece of it with you after seeing it. The Breakfast Club was one such film that changed the life of yours truly, the Movie Madman.

Would you believe I saw this film over three days when I was in primary school, back in the sixth grade, back in 1987, when VHS cassettes were all the rage, a CD was nigh unheard of, Rubik's cubes were the bane of every smart guys existence and Hall and Oates were considered one of the coolest bands back in the 80's.

Five students, complete strangers to one another, find themselves in detention together. They all have their unique personae, Emilio Estevez as the jock, Ally Sheedy as the socially displaced recluse, Anthony Michael Hall is the nerd, Molly Ringwald as the rich girl socialite, and Judd Nelson as the rebel, John Bender.

I think anyone from the 80's who has seen this film will immediately identify themselves with one of these characters. With me, it was mostly with Brian, the nerd/genius/geek. Being a nerd/geek (I'm not a genius by any means) I understood the pressures of trying to score good grades back in high school... And to be honest, I could understand where all five of the main characters were coming from in their own respective ways. 

I found this movie to be a great trip back down memory lane, and it made me sit back and smile. John Kapelos and Paul Gleason finish off the cast wonderfully, what with Kapelos starring as the philosophical school janitor Carl, and Gleason as Richard "Dick" Vernon, the antagonistic school principal. You eventually find yourself moving from hating Bender for being such an ass to everyone else, to cheering him on as the anti-hero of the movie. The one scene where Vernon threatens to beat Bender up is riveting and makes you seriously question who really is the threat to society. I laughed, I cried, I smiled; this movie was well written, well scripted and cast...

I am giving this movie 5 stars for reminding me what it was like to go back in time and experience a day in the life of a school student through their eyes...

1 comment:

  1. Love this movie! Watching it as a teen, I saw it as a random group of kids making the most of detention. I couldn't relate it to my own school experience but had watched enough American tv to get it.
    Watching it now, I see the complexity and internal struggle that we all deal with. The human need to be understood and connect with others... maybe I've read a bit too much in to it lol.
    Oh, and the title song gets me every single time I hear it.

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