One of the most overrated teen pics ever

Rating: 5/10 (10 May 2001)

While a passable film. It just never rang true. Hughes tries to define all 80's teens in 5 cookie cutter characters speaking as if they were in their 30's. Although it is sometimes billed as a comedy, it's simply not funny. As a drama it comes across as preachy and overdone with the whole film trying to take itself way too seriously. It might have made a decent stage play, but didn't make such a great movie. I was in high school in the 80's and if we would have seen kids that acted like the characters in The Breakfast Club we probably would have exiled them (after beating them up). Don't get me wrong, I don't hate this film, I just think that it's a far cry from the way it really was and much less than Hughes' other teen films of the era. Actually Fast Times at Ridgemont High had much more believable characters (of course they were based on real people). Even the teens in American Pie ring truer.