Lacks subtly, real laughs or real emotion but is still an OK genre film

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2005)

A Saturday morning is the last time anyone wants to be stuck in school, but that is the fate of a group of five high school students who have each been given detention for various reasons. With nothing in common but their location, tensions are immediately evident within the group with drop out Bender trying to out-macho jock Andy by competing for the attention of the prissy Claire. Meanwhile the geeky Brian and the reclusive Allison just seem out of place. While principle Vernon tries to keep control, the group fall out and then start to share themselves with one another, bringing about an uneasy bonding between them.
Although I think this is an OK film I must admit to being a bit bewildered by the high regard that many viewers seem to hold it in. The plot is a fairly standard piece that relies more on the characters than any great narrative devices and, while this may work for some I found that the characters were not well enough written to really carry it. While elements of each character is recognisable none of them really stand out as being original or that insightful; in essence they are the characters you find in any high school movie and it never develops them to the point of being critical. Instead their issues and hang-ups are just accepted and it quickly turns into lots of teenage hand-wringing and complaining. If that sounds a bit strong then I suppose it is because the film still does enough to make things work and it does have enough within each character to be interesting but the problem is that, with so much of it being obvious, the clever bits tend to sound a bit corny rather than insightful.
The cast are perhaps a little to blame because they do such a good job of playing rather annoying, up-themselves teenagers that that is exactly what they come off as. They are all OK and do manage to reveal layers within their characters but the surfaces of their performances are pretty obvious and it takes a lot to get away from that. Judd is the weakest because he takes so long to reveal anything in his character that by the time he did I had lost interest in him. Estevez is OK, Ringwald is suited to her character but Sheedy has little to do and Hall really just brings up the rear as the geeky comic relief. They are OK like I said but the film tends to go from "loud school tomfoolery" to "quiet introspective revelations" at the flick of a switch and this lack of subtly damages proceedings somewhat.
Overall this is an OK film that probably doesn't deserve the reputation it has garnered over the years. It has good aspects but it lacks subtly or gradual development and the actors can't help this even if they do reasonably well. It provides some laughs and some nice moments but generally it doesn't do either that well. OK genre piece but nothing special.