The Breakfast Club

A&M/Universal. Director John Hughes; Producer Ned Tanen, John Hughes; Screenplay John Hughes; Camera Thomas Del Ruth; Editor Dede Allen; Music Keith Forsey; Art Director John W. Corso

Emilio Estevez
Judd Nelson
Molly Ringwald
Anthony Michael Hall
Ally Sheedy
Paul Gleason

In typical Shermer High in Chicago, a cross-section of five students - the jock, Miss Popularity, the ruffian, the nerd and Miss Weirdo - are thrown together under adverse circumstances and cast aside all discord and unite under the sudden insight that none would be such a despicable little twit if mom or dad or both weren't so rotten. The querulous quintet are actually being forced to spend the entire day at school on Saturday for some previous infraction of the rules.

Coming together as strangers, none of the group initially likes thuggish loudmouth Judd Nelson, who taunts pretty Molly Ringwald, torments dorkish Anthony Michael Hall and challenges champ athlete Emilio Estevez while the odd lady, Ally Sheedy, looks on from a different space.

When the causes of the Decline of Western Civilization are finally writ, Hollywood will surely have to answer why it turned one of man's most significant art forms over to the self-gratification of high-schoolers. Or does director John Hughes really believe, as he writes here, that 'when you grow up, your heart dies.' It may. But not unless the brain has already started to rot with films like this.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1985. Running time: 97 MIN.

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