Reviews

This tale of two Korean War Vets and their return home to Indianapolis is apparently supposed to be a harsh critique of mainstream American life in the 1950s. As the two young men try to find a deeper meaning to life and to do what makes them truly happy, they are constantly confronted by the heavy hand of conformity. They want to be unique individuals, but everywhere they turn, they are pressured to be "normal", to not date Jewish girls, to join a Protestant church, to take a desk job with a respectable business.

The problem with this movie it that it greatly overplays its hand. The church figures, anti-Communist activists, and stereotypical Midwestern parents that it so harshly criticizes are unbelievable caricatures. The result is that instead of successfully nailing its intended targets, the film plays out almost like a right-wing parody of a left-wing attack on Middle America. It therefore fails mechanically. However, strictly as a piece of entertainment, it certainly has its moments. And the anti-conformity message, which I agree with, isn't completely ruined by the overdone writing and acting. Bottom line: the movie doesn't work, but you may still find watching it an okay way to spend an hour and a half.

This thing takes the horny teenager genre, very poorly respected to begin with, and completely flushes it down the toilet. The only people I would even consider recommending it to are teenage girls, for a "revealing" scene in a boys' locker room. And in the end I wouldn't make such a recommendation. To do so would be to contribute to the delinquency of a juvenile. An absolute piece of garbage with utterly no redeeming qualities.

"The Outsiders" is my all-time favorite movie. The cinematography is beautiful, the score gorgeous, the acting excellent, and the writing -- the most important part of any movie that isn't a musical or a travelogue -- first rate. Put that all together -- with emphasis on the writing -- and it adds up to an extremely entertaining film. And that is what I want from a movie: entertainment, the opposite of boredom.

The great thing about "The Outsiders" is that it not only entertains, but it does so in every area. I'll start with the cinematography. That isn't something that I normally think about when I see a movie. Here, however, I couldn't not think about it. Nowhere else have I seen such rich and vibrant landscapes, such exquisite multi-colored sunsets, and even such effective use of shadow and darkness to portray the grittiness of the city. The individual scenes themselves, combined with the interesting contrast between the city and country shots, keep one's eyes glued to the screen.

The score isn't quite so gripping, but it is powerful, nonetheless. The main song, "Stay Gold," sung by Stevie Wonder, is beautifully and painfully sentimental. And the true score itself is lovely and helps to keep one's emotions at high tension during this emotion-rich film.

Regarding the acting, this all-star cast picked from the young Hollywood of the early 1980s is so formidable that even the great, though admittedly not well-known, Tom Cruise is relegated to a minor part. As for the leads, C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio are especially good. While Howell unfortunately ended up as the king of straight-to-video flops, he is excellent here as the sweet and sensitive Ponyboy Curtis, a smart but poor 14-year-old who is caught between the worlds of the haves and the have-nots. Macchio also turns in a fine performance as Ponyboy's friend Johnny Cade. His southwestern accent is so good you'd think he was actually from Oklahoma.

Of course it really all comes down to the writing, and "The Outsiders" most definitely scores here as well. The story pulls you in from the beginning and never lets you go. And the dialogue, even the unimportant small talk, is incredibly natural. This is especially true in a scene involving a haircut. The one flaw I find -- and this is really an editing mistake -- is the absence of a scene necessary to conclude a key element of the main storyline. The scene was filmed, and used to be included when the movie was shown on broadcast television. I can't understand why it was left out of the theatrical version.

The omission of the scene shows that "The Outsiders" isn't perfect; but a movie doesn't have to be perfect in order to get a ten. It merely needs to be excellent. For all the reasons I've given, this movie is precisely that.