This film is a classic 80's comedy

Rating: 9/10 (5 May 2013)

The Breakfast Club is a 1985 comedy directed by John Hughes. It has several well known actors/actresses such as Emilio Estevez (Andrew), Judd Nelson (Bender), Ally Sheedy (Allison), Anthony Michael Hall (Brian) and Mollie Ringwald (Claire). The basics of the story is that five kids from different social circles are stuck together for Saturday detention. Through out the day they have their spats and differences, but in the end they discover they are a lot alike in many ways despite different backgrounds. They are a bunch of kids who are in that transitional point in life where they want to be treated like adults, but they still don't quite act the part.
Throughout the film you see the idea of opposites attracting slowly start to take shape. By the end, the stereotypical straight- laced jock, Andrew, finds himself taken by the oddball and emotional basket case Allison. At the same time, the popular girl Claire falls for the bad boy Bender. In the mix Brian emerges with four new friends who don't fit into his normal social circle of highly intelligent "nerds".
Along with everything else that is going on, you have the assistant principal, Dick Vernon, who is played by Paul Gleason. He plays the roll of the typical assistant principal in that he comes off as a wannabe tough guy who isn't going to "take any crap" from punk school kids. Hating the idea that he has to spend his Saturday at school watching after them, he is going to go out of his way to make them as miserable as he is.
A very obvious aspect of the film was costumes. You knew before the story really got started what kind of personalities the characters were going to have just by the clothes they were wearing. Ally Sheedy with her frumpish look, Emilio Estevez in his letter-man jacket and Mollie Ringwald with her designer outfit. They didn't even have to speak and you knew what kind of people they were going to be. It all added to the different people from different social circles aspect of the film.
The film also captured a very good cross section of 80's popular culture in many ways. Some of those included, again, the clothing worn, hairstyles, vocabulary and the music. To this day, if someone who was born in the 90's or later wants to know what the 80's were like, I tell them to watch either the Breakfast club or a another movie that was similar in a lot of ways, Fast Times At Ridgemont High.