The Outsiders (1983)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

2/4Before I critique the movie (which will be painful to do) I would like to observe the pools of talent involved in the making of this movie. We have director Francis Ford Coppola (known for The Godfather and Apocalypse Now) working with C. Thomas Howell, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, and Patrick Swayze. The classic S. E. Hinton novel adaption is, for lack of better words, not very good.This film seems very textbook, and that's the main reason I wasn't a fan. Coppola refuses to stray from the confines of the book. In other words, it's not original. He teamed up with Hinton to try and provide the audience the most accurate presentation of the book, and that's something I very much respect. However, staying with source material doesn't mean you should the very camera angles predictable.One thing the movie succeeds at addressing is its title-you feel like an outsider. Coppola has skill at developing characters at a steady pace, and then developing the characters relationships. This is a real shame, because it feels Coppola is giving his actors more depth then they can handle. The performances from Howell and Macchio (the two main characters) are unfortunately the most inept on the set. They can't convey their roles with the proper gusto.One thing I really enjoyed about The Outsiders is the atmosphere. He was able to portray the times well. Coppola put effort into creating the feel of a 50's Oklahoma town. It's a very subtle touch, but I throughly enjoyed it.When it comes down to it, The Outsiders is not a bad movie, but it's definitely no good either. It does a great job of re-telling the book in the exact same way, which for me was a pointless excersise.

Francis Ford Coppola stated he was inspired to make this movie after by being lobbied to do so by middle-school students. S.E.Hinton's 1967 juvenile novel, "The Outsiders," was a required reading staple for American middle-school students throughout the 70's and 80's. So, Coppola and his financial backers probably thought they had a built-in money-maker due to virtually every American teenager being exposed to the book.Set in mid-1960's Oklahoma, "The Outsiders" is about a group of working-class teens and their lives in a very socially stratified small city. The "Greasers," the poor kids from the other side of the tracks, are locked in constant conflict with the "Socs"- the well-to-do kids from the nice parts of town. The story is told from the viewpoint of "Ponyboy Curtis" (C. Thomas Howell) a young Greaser who is being raised by his older brothers, "Darry" (Patrick Swayze) and "Sodapop" (Rob Lowe), after their parents' deaths.Ponyboy and his best friend, "Johnny" (Ralph Macchio), get into a confrontation with some drunken Socs who take offense to Ponyboy and Johnny being too friendly with Soc girl, "Cherry" (Diane Lane). Violence ensues and a Soc ends-up dead. Ponyboy and Johnny flee with the assistance of Greaser bad-boy "Dally" (Matt Dillon). Will they ever find peace where people are just people rather than members of "tribes?"Hinton's novel is really juvenile with its ridiculous character names and teen fantasy world in which everyone seems to be devoid of parents. However, that's not surprising considering Hinton was just a teen herself when she wrote it. Still, its unique narrative structure and its plea for understanding between social groups quickly made it a teaching tool for middle-schools. It's possible a good movie could have been made from it.This isn't it. Instead, Coppola created a ninety minute ad for Tiger Beat magazine aimed at pleasing adolescent/teenage girls. One knows one is in trouble from the opening credits with its bombastic "Gone With The Wind" style title and treacly Stevie Wonder song. It only gets worse as the movie introduces supposedly "tough" characters played by actors who are almost as pretty as Diane Lane. The cast is a who's who of early 1980's "non-threatening boy" actors. It's the pin-up boys from the puppy-crush, fangirl mags: Howell, Macchio, Lowe, and even Leif Garrett makes an appearance. They're all filmed to look "adorable" and make little girls' ***** tingle. Their acting on the other hand? Ugh. Stiff, silly, and overwrought. The only actor who comes off fairly well is Tom Cruise prior to having his teeth fixed. He has a very small role, but he does make an attempt to approximate a working-class Oklahoma accent.The entire film is a melodramatic mess. Virtually every scene is over-acted with an absurdly maudlin and overripe musical score courtesy of Coppola's composer father, Carmine. (Even Coppola has recognized how that terrible score undermined this film because he replaced it in one of the DVD releases. Of course, this was done after his father had passed.)It's still shocking that this teeny girl, pin-up sapfest is a Coppola film. After the incredible struggle to complete "Apocalypse Now," it appears Coppola just wanted to coast on his rep and his heart was no longer into film-making. That may explain why "The Outsiders" and Coppola's other adaption of a Hinton book, 1983's "Rumble Fish," are so terrible.

After watching 20 minutes of this, i wanted to pull all of my hair out. Many important scenes were missing, and the "acting" was horrible. The movie is not a worthy adaptation of the book, as it follows no proper sequence of events. Do i recommend it? That's funny.

I read this book in high school and watched the movie many years ago. I watched it again this past weekend for the fun of it. Overall a pretty good movie and it's really cool to see all of those young, soon to be Hollywood heavyweights in one of their very first, if not first movie role.The very worst part of this movie - the soundtrack. The music is absolutely horrendous. Francis Ford Coppola hired his father Carmine to compose the score and it is just awful. During dramatic moments in the movie, the music sounds like something you would hear in a kindergarten class - lighthearted, more like a carnival ride than a death scene.Other than the terrible music, still a very watchable movie.