Number 376 on the top 1000 films of all time is John Hughes' coming-of-age comedy-drama 'The Breakfast Club.'
The Breakfast Club tells the story of five high school students from different cliques spending one Saturday in detention. Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) is the popular, spoiled princess, Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) is an over-worked nerd, Andrew (Emilio Estevez) is an athlete and wrestler, Alison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) is a quiet outsider and John Bender (Judd Nelson) is the rebellious delinquent. Over the Saturday, the five teenagers realise they have more in common then they first realised.
It's safe to say that the Breakfast Club has become a cult classic. A favourite of eighties' kids, I was expecting a lot, but I was left cold. It's labelled as a comedy, but it didn't make me laugh very much. In fact, it was fifteen minutes before I even cracked a smile. Perhaps that's because the beginning was slow. We're introduced to our main characters as they take their places for detention. Hardly riveting stuff. And the lack of background music made things even duller.
The cast themselves were boring. I understand that each character was supposed to resemble a different high school stereotype - the cheerleader, the nerd, the jock, the goth and the bad boy, and then as the story progresses, we see that they're more than the labels that society has imposed onto them. But it didn't help they were all so insipid to begin with. The only interesting character was the delinquent John Bender whose behaviour is attributed to his abusive home life, which helped to give his character a bit of depth. And Judd Nelson did inject some much-needed life and energy into proceedings.
He is an agent of chaos throughout the film, harassing Claire, fighting with Andrew and convincing an unwilling Brian to smuggle in his weed. All of this culminates in an overly-sentimental conclusion where the characters reflect on how they've become such good friends in the space of a day. And as the movie ends, Allison and Andrew get together as do Claire and John, which seemed like a weird, contrived way to pair everybody off.
Is the Breakfast Club a bad film? No. But is it the 376th best of all time? I'm not so sure about that.
They seemed like a typical bunch of spoiled kids. I did laugh a bit during the first half though. But later they change and buddy up, which seemed so implausible to me. The interchange between the teacher and the janitor also didn't ring true.
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