Ah, the teen comedy. I'm always reminded of JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye with this genre. Characters that have so much to say and to contribute to the story, and yet...nothing at all to merit any sympathy. Oh well, adolescence is a funny time in life.
In many ways, The Breakfast Club is a good movie from a bad genre, which puts it somewhere in the middle of the film spectrum. It has a goal and a message, but its delivery leaves something to be desired. Generally stiff acting and the feature of every 80's cliché in the book drag it down. It's not unlikable, but it makes you wonder why director John Hughes would set out to do a movie like this and then completely half-ass it.
Two of the stars redeem the poor acting of their counterparts. Ally Sheedy, as the basket case Allison Reynolds, is so annoyingly quirky that by the end of the movie, you actually kind of like her. And then there's Judd Nelson's charismatic asshole John Bender, cocky and confident in ways everyone wishes they could be deep down.
But to be honest, the best part of the movie is the theme song, Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)." When a sentence like that gets uttered, you know there are some kinks to work out.
1.5 stars out of 4
4 out of 10
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