They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.

Rating: 9/10 (23 August 2009)

5 kids, all with differing hang-ups, all from differing back grounds, are sentenced to Saturday morning detention at Shermer High School.......
Of all the teen based films that have been made in the modern age, few can match The Breakfast Club's vibrancy and simplicity of worth. Written by John Hughes in just a couple of weeks, the film has five young actors in one locale, that is driven by dialogue, and for better or worse, managed to tap into the zeitgeist of a whole generation of teenagers. It would be churlish, nay even foolish, to suggest that all within The Breakfast Club is a triumph. For every moment of genuine warmth and poignancy, there is unintentional humour, and in one character make over scene, Hughes is seemingly saying that you should scrub up love as beauty is not in the eye of the beholder!
Yet Hughes' film is standing the test of time as a perennial favourite of everyone who wasn't born with a silver spoon in their mouth. There is something totally engaging watching as the nerd, the weirdo, the princess, the jock and the rebel poke fun at each other to only then pick apart their respective defences. With the final result being something not akin to chest thumping brilliance. Those irritants that were prior in the piece now merely fading pock marks of the teenage zits we simply had to scratch. Not only boosted by one of the finest title songs as Simple Minds belt out Don't You Forget About Me, The Breakfast Club also contains a fine ensemble cast that infuses a sense of reality in the script. Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall are particularly memorable, whilst Emilio Estevez {one excruciating dance sequence aside} and Ally Sheedy work well enough with what they are asked to do.
Iconic for many, and resonating to even more, who would have thought such a simple picture could have such lasting, and unadulterated appeal? 9/10