The Breakfast Club

I detested John Hughes's first film “Sixteen Candles” (even though I know a lot of people liked it); I thought it was a cheap, unfunny exploitation of current teen vernacular with no distinct comic point of view. In this latest movie, I think he redeems himself a lot. He tries for something unusual--essentially a one-set movie, with five kids taking a day-long detention together. Kind of a Five Angry Kids, if you get my drift. The experiment succeeds to a large extent, mainly because of the skill of the ensemble cast (including Molly Ringwald and one other from Sixteen Candles). The kids are largely types, but are well played and well written, and they do manage to get some emotional content into the parts, and even a few laughs. Though Hughes is forced to resort to some unlikely twists and melodramatic grandstanding to keep the action going at times, the picture is engrossing and, despite some parts that made me squirm, captivating. The camera is handled well enough to avoid the static boredom that is the big risk in a film like this. Not an unqualified success, but at least it'll get me to see Hughes's next film. And at least the guy had the good sense to cast Ally Sheedy here; he can't be all bad.