BEFORE: As long as I'm thinking about coming of age in the 1980's - I couldn't fit this one in after "Sixteen Candles", so I'll drop it in here. It sorts of messes up my linking, but fortunately I can link from Ryan Reynolds through the film "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" to David Krumholtz, who was in the film "Bobby" with Emilio Estevez. (Alternately, Ryan Reynolds was in "Dick" with Will Ferrell, who was in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" with Judd Nelson.)
THE PLOT: Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pour their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.
AFTER: There's something very Pirandello-like about this film, I'm particularly thinking about his play "Six Characters in Search of an Author" - which inspired the Twilight Zone episode "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" that featured a ballerina, a clown, a soldier, a hobo and a bagpiper, who awaken in a strange, metal cylinder (twist ending - they're all dolls in a toy chest!)
For those not up on 19th century Italian drama, there's something very Gilligan-like about this plot: people from different backgrounds stuck together and forced to interact, getting on each other's nerves as they try to pass the time. We've got the brain/professor, the jock/Skipper, the redhead/redhead, the ummm...other girl, and the deliquent/beatnik screw-up. Yes, I realize I just linked Bob Denver and Judd Nelson...
Ultimately the kids are supposed to remain silent and write essays - but how cinematic is that? So the screenwriter had to think of ways to change the rules and get the teacher out of the room - so the movie essentially abandons its own premise a few scenes in. In that way, the film resembles "Hogan's Heroes" - because watching a show about soldiers in a German P.O.W. camp would be depressing, so they gave them the ability to sneak out and romance Nazi-resistance frauleins in Berlin.
It's a well-known fact that the most accepted way to maintain order in a high-school in the 80's was to force kids from different social groups to spend hours together - sadly, the Saturday Detention Program lost most of its funding due to education cuts in the early 90's.
NITPICK POINT: Shouldn't this film be called "Lunch Club"? I never saw anybody in the film eating breakfast.
NITPICK POINT 2: Why was the principal going through the school's staff files? What was he up to? The film never explained, and just sort of dropped this. Was holding detention on a Saturday the only way he could access these files without interruption?
Mostly, I found the film very boring, I don't think it's held up well. I fell asleep after the first hour, tried a second time, and fell asleep again - so I had to finish it the next day at the office after work.
However, I could justify a remake of this film someday, provided they update the social archetypes. They need to add a goth type, a PETA-championing hippie chick, a hip-hop playa, and change the "brain" to a geek (Yes, there's a difference.) Then you just need one of the original actors to play the principal, as a grown-up version of their earlier character. Judd Nelson's character would be the most ironic, but any one of the five would work.
Also starring Molly Ringwald (last seen in "Sixteen Candles"), Anthony Michael Hall (ditto), and Ally Sheedy (last seen in "Only the Lonely")
RATING: 3 out of 10 pixie stix
No comments:
Post a Comment