Breaking Away (1979)

One of my all time favorites.

Good concept, poorly executed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Produced and directed by Peter Yates, this essential comedy (sports) drama features an Academy Award winning story by Steve Tesich, who won the Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen Oscar on his only nomination. Yates received his first two (of four unrewarded) nominations as well, for Best Picture and Best Director. Patrick Williams, who wrote the film's Score, also received his only nomination as did Barbara Barrie, who was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category.But the film also features many fine other performances including some of the first from actors who would become more well known over the years for their work. The cast includes: Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern (his screen debut), Jackie Earle Haley, Paul Dooley, Robyn Douglass (her feature film debut), and Hart Bochner (among others). #8 on AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Movies list.It's a coming of age story about Dave Stoller (Christopher), an awkward teen who yearns to be a world class cyclist like the Italians he idolizes. Unfortunately for Dave, when he gets the chance to meet and compete with these Italian cyclists (Team Cinzano), he is cheated by them and becomes disillusioned. Mike (Quaid), Cyril (Stern), and Moocher (Haley) are Dave's best friends, all just out of high school with no college or other life plans, sons of blue collar workers that live in Bloomington, Indiana. They're called 'cutters' by the students at the University after the laborers that helped build the town and its institutions by mining and cutting the stone used to construct its buildings. The label is used derogatorily even though it's thought of as a badge of honor by their fathers. Each of the others struggle with their identity too: Mike with his fleeting fame as the star quarterback on his high school football team, lanky brainy Cyril has relationship problems with his father (who's seemingly uninterested in his son), and Moocher with his short height. Dave's solution is pretending to be Italian as he escapes to a peaceful world on his bike; Mike tries to compete with college kids like Rod (Bochner) and though he's overmatched, he refuses to admit it ; Moocher fights with anyone who refers to his shortcomings, and also gets engaged to his sweetheart Nancy (Amy Wright); sadly, Cyril never seems to connect with anyone other than his fellow cutters - the film's ending is particularly poignant for him.Paul Dooley gives a terrific performance playing Dave's confused (by his son) father Raymond, driven crazy by his son's behavior; Barrie plays Dave's understanding mother Evelyn, who provides the glue that keeps the family together, the perfect balance and quiet understanding peacemaker between father and son. Robyn Douglass plays an attractive college girl that catches Dave's eye; he's so taken with her that he pretends to be a foreign exchange student at the university. This leads the cutters onto the campus, some of the college kids had made their way to the cutters swimming hole at the abandoned marble quarry, where a fight breaks out between the rivals. The Dean's solution is to invite the locals to enter into the mini-500 bicycle race around the college's cinder track, against the protestations of the fraternities and their leaders, notably Rod.The climactic race itself, while somewhat predictable in outcome, is thrilling and well staged. There's also a bonus for Dave's parents in the end.

"Breaking Away" from 1979 was directed by Peter Yates, and tells the story of four young men right out of high school, a turning point in their lives. Do they stay in their small town and get jobs? Go to college?The four guys -- Dave, Mike, Cyril and Moocher are played by Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley and Daniel Stern. Someone mentioned that of the four of them, the only one who had any "real" career is Dennis Quaid. He's had the biggest career, but the rest of these guys are still going strong.Having just seen Dennis Quaid in "Truth," seeing him in this was a shock -- a total baby. And I mistook Hart Bochner for Christian Bale. I used to love Hart Bochner, who in the '80s starred in a lot of big TV miniseries.The four guys are best friends. It's summer in Bloomington, Indiana, which is a college town. As locals, they are part of the town's working class, and their parents worked at the limestone quarry. As a result, the boys are known as "cutters." The quarry is now closed and has become a swimming hole.There's a rivalry -- a hatred, really, between the wealthier students and the local kids, which is strange as the locals worked the limestone used to build the university. Now it's too good for them.The guys are unmotivated, without much in the way of ambition or discipline. Dave is the exception. He bicycle race. He loves the Italian cycling team and rides around town practicing Italian and speaking it at home, which drives his grounded father (Paul Dooley) nuts. Then Dave meets an IU student, Katherine, who is dating a hot-shot, Rod (Bochner, who else). To impress her, he claims to be an Italian exchange student.When he learns the Italian cycling team will be racing in Indianapolis, Dave is in heaven, ready to enter and race. But an incident there causes him to rethink his goals.Such a wonderful story about floundering young men - for some reason, it seems to take guys longer to find their way, and these kids are no exception. Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie are hilarious as Dave's parents, really adding to the film.Basically this movie, with its beautiful scenery (all filmed in Indiana) and wonderful bike races is about breaking away from the pack in more ways than one - making a decision not just about a career, but how you will tackle life mentally and emotionally. It's a tough lesson but it's well learned.Highly recommended - certainly one of the best films of the '70s.

If there was one film I've been dying to watch for many years, it is the fifth Best Picture nominee of 1979, the 8th most inspiring American movie from AFI's Top 100, the 8th sports movie from AFI's Top 10, the gem that has been impossible to find in my usual DVD stores: "Breaking Away". The first of the many satisfactions the film provided me was the magical moment where I finally found it… and God, I wasn't disappointed."Breaking Away" opens in a small town of Indiana, with four friends and as many personalities to identify with. Mike (Dennis Quaid) is a former athlete venting the bitterness of unfulfilled athletic dreams on local college' upper-class students. Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley) is hung-up on his height, trying to repress his insecurity while enduring derogatory nicknames every day. Cyril (Daniel Stern) a tall and lanky former basket-ball player and guitar apprentice cares as much about his future as his own father cared about him. And surprisingly, Dave (Dennis Christopher), the central protagonist is the most upbeat of the bunch."Breaking Away" is one of these miracles that only the New Hollywood era could provide, something that cuts straight to your heart without you even noticing it. It carries the authentic realism of its Best Picture co-nominee "Norma Rae", with a more heart-warming effect: you smile, laugh and embrace the friendship between these boys who don't know what to do with their post-high-school future, and keep reinventing the world when they go swimming in the abandoned water-filled quarry. And there is something in Peter Yates' directing, that invites the viewer to seize the present with enthusiasm.And the enthusiasm is embodied by one of the most engaging and lovable characters I've seen in a long time. Dave is so obsessed with the Italian cycling team he translated it in his own life. He talks and sings in Italian and in English with Italian accent, infuriating his Dad (Peter Dooley) who must endure food ending with '-ini-' all the time instead of something American like French Fries. The portrayal of Dave's parents is far from the stereotypical detachment, the mother (Oscar-nominated Barbara Barries) cares too much while the father believes a 19-year old shaving his legs, listening to opera must have some serious issues … While watching Dooley, I kept wondering what happened to his Oscar nomination, he's hilarious to a Walter Matthau-level.The story goes on, Moocher gets a job but finally leaves it after one 'shorty' too many, Mike keeps clashing and competing with the rich college boys who call him 'cutter', a reference to the working-class that built the college and Cyril is the eternal victim of his helpful nature. Drama always works as a misleading safeguard. Many times, you expect an accident to happen, in the quarry, during a fight, but Dave's excitement to compete against the Italian team, in a local sporting event, makes us lower our guard. Amazingly, Dave isn't your typical bleak and disenchanted underdog hero, his cheerful attitude towers over his friends' struggles as we would all love to do with ours.And in one of the film's most exhilarating sequences, he follows a semi-truck in a freeway with the perfect music in the background, "Barber of Seville'"s Overture. Dave grabs our heart like Opera our feelings, it's so genuine that many stereotypical situations work like serenading Katherine, the girl he loves, or courting her with an Italian accent, we believe "Catherina" would fall for it, because we would too. And while I loved watching Dave's adventure, I kept wondering what exactly made "Breaking Away" in the AFI's Top 100, let alone Top 10 most inspiring films … was Dave going to win over the Italians? Big deal! There had to be something.And that something is the pivotal moment that made me realize there's much more intelligence in "Breaking Away" than your average Sports film, something I could relate to, and that made the ending so emotionally rewarding. Dave finally races with the Italians, he approaches them with an insolent ease, speak Italian with them, but they're obviously irked by that local clown, and finally, the very team he admired jams a tire pump under his wheel and make him crash… and at that moment, we witness with shock the collapse of Dave's dreams. The sparkle disappears with the Italian posters, he talks normally, again, asks his father for help and finds him, he embraces his friends' mood and feels like a loser… naturally, he tells the truth to his girlfriend.As painful as the fall was, I felt a deliverance to see him act normally, to become himself again. It provides the necessary taste of disillusion and the discovery of cheat in grown-ups world as the obligatory coming-of-age. When he competes in the "Little 500" race against the college boys, he's got determination, self-confidence and three other 'Cutters' to take a few leaps, 'Cutters' stop being an insult, it's their identity. The final victory doesn't surprise us because the real victory is over our demons, it's not just winning but winning by being true to yourself. That's the kind of stuff great stories are made on, and it earned "Breaking Away" a well-deserved award for Best Original Screenplay.As a screenwriter myself, I was fascinated by the film's narrative and the way it rode back and forth from comedy to poignant drama, as a screenwriter it reminded me how happy I was to work with an author, putting all my sweat and blood into a six-month promising project before he would dismiss me after receiving the first draft. I felt cheated exactly like Dave felt when he was kicked off his bike. But you know what they say about what doesn't kill you.

Peter Yates's film Breaking Away is a movie made for the average human, not for art houses or award shows. Just for the audience. Normally when a filmmaker sets out to make a film like this, the results are lacking. Breaking Away is an exception to that however. This film works as a commercially oriented story without misusing a bit of talent on display here. It is a relatable story for not only cyclists but also just people that have had problems in their life. A real gem of a film with great performances from Dennis Christopher and Dennis Quaid. No one says it is a masterpiece, but most everybody that sees this will take something worthwhile from it.