That Was Then... This Is Now

1985 "Life as a teenager isn't always easy."
6.1| 1h42m| R| en
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A delinquent teenager's only link to society is the attachment he feels towards an older brother-figure. When the older boy starts spending time with a new girlfriend, the teenager begins to feel even more alienated, and gets involved with drugs and the police.

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Reviews

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.
ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.
Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
SnoopyStyle Mark Jennings (Emilio Estevez) and Bryon Douglas (Craig Sheffer) are best friends and juvenile delinquents. Bryon falls for the new girl in school who turns out to be an old acquaintance, Cathy Carlson (Kim Delaney). His ex Angela Shepard is jealous. He starts to be more responsible which concerns Mark. Mark and Bryon hustle at pool, and get their bar owner friend Charlie Woods (Morgan Freeman) killed. Mark cuts off drunken Angela's hair. Her thuggish brothers come looking for revenge on Bryon's face. Cathy's little brother M&M is hospitalized on drugs from Mark. The friendship cracks under the pressure.I used to read S.E. Hinton religiously once upon a time. It has a melodramatic teen coming-of-age mentality. They work on the page. They have the 50's 'Rebel Without a Cause' sensibility. The modern world can clash with that sensibility. It can seem overwrought and out of place. This one fails that test from time to time. It probably should have stayed in the earlier time period rather than trying to bring it into the modern world. Estevez is a solid delinquent. This is a valiant but flawed effort.
TopperHarley29 When I saw the movie I actually liked it. I was satisfied with how they used the important stuff from the book, but when I saw the ending it diminished my opinion on this movie. If you read the book then you would know how dark and depressing it was. That is why I liked the book so much because it doesn't cheapen the story by having a happy ending. The movie had the typical Hollywood happy ending. It would be easier for me to forgive the movie if it didn't have that cheesy, happy 80's music playing at the end. If you loved the book then do yourself a favor and don't see this movie. I would only recommend seeing this if you're a big Morgan Freeman fan because his performance is pretty good and is worth seeing for his performance alone if you're a fan. I really can't blame Emilio Estevez since the studio made him change the ending and I know he wouldn't have intended to write a happy ending.
babygeniusesvseightcrazynights It's a very Hinton-esquire story. Emilio's character has a crappy family life, and spends most of his time with Sheffer and his single mom, who treats Emilio like her own son. They steal cars and get in fights, but Sheffer is clearly the more well-behaved of the two. Morgan Freeman plays the owner of a local bar that the boys frequent, and does a fine job. SPOILER: he gets killed. END SPOILER. The story revolves around the two main characters friendship and the tough S.E. Hinton trademarked teenage obstacles they encounter.This is a very entertaining movie and I have to recommend it. Nothing fantastic as far as sophisticated filminess goes, but if you're a child of the 80s you will definitely enjoy it; there's lots of 80s high school/adolescent nostalgia to be found throughout this film. There are 80s punks with spiked hair who are so hardcore that they hang out at the prom but don't go inside. Kim Delaney is in it too, and she is (was?), of course, Hott.Of note: Delaney's younger brother, who is kinda screwed up in the head, is named "M&M". Could this (the novel or the film) be where Eminem got the idea for his name?
pbarron-1 In English class, we read S.E. Hinton's saga of teenage angst. The students were enthralled with the story. While the setting was from years past, the ethical questions raised and the teenage situations were quite apropos. The story generated a great deal of quality discussion in class...education at it's finest.The movie, however, was a bit of a disappointment for us. Taken by itself, it was a fine example of 80's brat-packish fluff. It was formulamatic, but entertaining. One could hardly say that the movie was based on the book, though. Bryon's personal growth journey and coming of age, so well illustrated in the novel, was sacrificed to car chases and Hollywood's penchant for tidy endings, in the movie.While I would recommend both, I would caution that they are two separate stories, sharing the same character names. Perhaps there is the lesson: You cannot watch the movie to get out of reading the book! .