Review of The Breakfast Club (1985) by Chris O — 19 Feb 2018

A strong, formulaic film that's a great example for feel-good movies.

Trapped in a day-long Saturday detention in a prison-like school library are Claire, the princess (Molly Ringwald); Andrew, the jock (Emilio Estevez); John, the criminal (Judd Nelson); Brian, the brain (Anthony Michael Hall); and Allison, the basket case (Ally Sheedy). These five strangers begin the day with nothing in common, each bound to his/her place in the high school caste system. Yet the students bond together when faced with the villainous principal (Paul Gleason), and they realize that they have more in common than they may think, including a contempt for adult society.

"The Breakfast Club" is one of the most iconic films ever? Why haven't you watched it yet, Chris? Why not? My friends always ask me this. I'll answer with the fact that you don't need to see every "renowned classic" in order to be smart about films. In fact, since this film, it has been done a thousand times over. It's nothing special, but if you look back to what this film originally was, it's still executed great, and is surely one of the better films of its decade.

You got nothing different here. You have the jock, the queen, the nerd, the emo, and the outcast. You have every essential stereotype packed into one room and that's not different. The different is the small things in this film and the writing. The characters themselves are pretty self-explanatory and while they're not special, they're still written well. The characters have great dialogue and they certainly give solid performances.

The best thing about this film is the screenplay. It's a very well written screenplay with so much small jokes and great lines of dialogue. It's well crafted and I think it's really the core of this film. It'd be nothing without the small and minute details that makes it what it is. The film is simple but deep down, it's more complex. I think the screenplay was in the hands of the right person and it certainly was well structured.

In the end, "The Breakfast Club" still holds up well today. As someone who wasn't born in the 80s, I can't speak for this film and its impact back then. All I can do is compare to media today and it holds up pretty decently.