Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Running Time: 103 minutes.
Media: DVD.

I first saw this film back in 1987, on VHS, when VHS was still cool... I was in the sixth grade and the librarian of my school would show video screenings of "recent" movies that had come out... Back to the Future was one of those movies... and Ferris Bueller's Day Off was one of the many others I saw...

Matthew Broderick plays the title character, a smart, savvy 16-year old who decides to cut school for a day and take the city of Chicago by storm... Alongside of him are his girlfriend, Sloane Peterson, played by the then breath-taking Mia Sara, and best friend and hypochondriac, Cameron Frye, played by Alan Ruck.

Ferris's arch-nemesis is his school principal, Ed Rooney... a power-hungry man who wants nothing more than to see Ferris repeat school, year after year, after year... Rooney is to Ferris as Richard "Dick" Vernon was to John Bender... For those not sure what I'm referring to check out my entry for The Breakfast Club. One of his other enemies, or shall I call it "frienemies", in this case, is his sister, Jeanie, who would love to see Ferris take the fall for once for his antics. His parents, have absolutely no clue of his true behavior... whatsoever... Whether this is because Ferris is so convincing or because his parents are that dense, is yet to be determined...

This is a standard cat and mouse sort of theme, peppered with certain interwoven scenes where Ferris could get busted by Rooney, his parents or his sister; but easily manages to get away with it every single time... There is a parade scene, the well-known parade scene which pretty much defines the movie as a whole, which if it happened in this day and age, he'd have been busted within 5 minutes of the pictures and video being posted on Facebook and YouTube ;)

To a degree, I found this consistent "clean getaway" ability of Ferris's... almost too good to believe... I know, I know, it's only a movie... Ferris breaking the fourth wall every so often to chat to the audience kinda reminds me every time it happens, and you do end up cheering for Ferris...

But not this time, I decided to look at the movie from a particularly different angle this time around, from the view of Cameron... of whom, now after watching it this time, to me is the real star of the show... He's the one who isn't breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience, even though he speaks to us a hell of a lot more clearly than Ferris seems to do. Cameron is the son of a divorced couple, currently living with his father, more of a realist than Ferris is, and grows up a heck of a lot faster than Ferris does in this movie... I personally think there was more character evolution in Cameron than there was in Ferris, and to me, as a result it's Cameron that shines more than the smirk-faced Ferris does... This appears to be of the same agreement for the writers of the TV version of the series, so much that the new face of Ferris Bueller, Charlie Schlatter, destroyed a lifesize cardboard cut-out of Matthew Broderick in the pilot episode, referring to the film and expressing his displeasure at Matthew Broderick portraying "him"... How about that?

As much as I love the film, I personally feel that the alarmingly strong innocence of Ferris's demeanor is almost too saccharine sweet for my liking... He is what everyone kinda aspires to be, but I personally felt more of a kinship to Cameron's character... Mostly due to his personal development in the film, and how he becomes more than Ferris could ever have become during the film's duration.

Oh and, I almost forgot, a small Easter egg of sorts... This was one of Charlie Sheen's first films, where he played a drug addict, who appears towards the end of the film... who as far as I can tell was off his face, and yet somewhat lucid... Kinda reminds of how Charlie was himself last year... off his face, and lucid... Could this have been a case of life imitating art? ;) Time can only tell... I'm giving Ferris Bueller's Day Off 4½ stars.