We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.

Rating: 10/10 (27 February 2008)

Ah the eighties  a simpler time. A time when James Cameron was the greatest Sci-fi director out there (he had not even begun his obsession with the Titanic). A time when bright, almost neon, colours and big hair were in. A time when Ferris Bueller had made cutting school into an art form and Judd Nelson was the coolest guy on the planet! The Breakfast Club is not just another teenage movie, it is the teenage movie! (Even though the average age of the actors in the movie would have been about 25). I think you have to see it when you're a teenager to really appreciate it. Anyone who sees it when they are in their thirties or later, like Richard Vernon, (the teacher in charge of the unruly group of teenagers) has already forgotten what it was like to have raging hormones and bad hair.
You could argue that it is a movie by numbers, giving you all the elements and characters that teenagers can relate to. You have in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Everyone one of us can relate to one of these characters (personally, I was the basket case). You have snappy dialogue, a very uncool and intolerant authority figure, in the guise of Paul Gleason, demonstrating the generation gap perfectly. Lots of pretty people to satisfy those raging hormones. You also have all the major topics that teenagers are most concerned about discussing, losing your virginity, parental oppression, and school status to name but a few.
The Breakfast Club is a film that I will make sure that my children watch when they are teenagers, and hopefully they will appreciate it as much as I did. (My kids are going to hate me!)