In this bleak 1986 movie, Sean Penn and Mary Stuart Masterson were splendid as the young lovers, but the film is torturously slow and mostly unpleasant up until Madonna's song "Live to Tell,"and that does not come until the closing credits. Christoper Walken plays yet another psychotic killer: this time out he was a filicide in a really bad reddish wig.

Penn plays Brad Whitewood, Jr. , an uncomplicated, not particularly brash, but brave youth, who does not seem so stupid that he doesn't know that his father is very bad news. Out of boredom with the tv-addicted mother and grandmother who raised him, he becomes an apprentice thief for a while in his father's gang. However, he wants no part of killing, even of stool pigeons. He knows that he needs to get away from his father's reach and the milieu of semi-rural Pennsylvania, but drama requires a final confrontation, so one is served up. One of the multitude of implausible aspects of the script is that his father, who has ruthlessly eliminated his son's gang let's the boy get a drop on him. He takes seriously the dimwitted member of the young gang, but not its leader? I don't think so.

Early on, the 16-year-old Terry (Masterson) is grounded by a strict mother--one who is never seen and takes no discernible action when her daughter runs away and takes up residence with the petty hoodlum son of a notorious local criminal. In both instances, the parents' inaction (unprecaution?) is completely unbelievable--or not of this world, but the movie is supposedly based on a true story, and is not supposed to be science fiction.

That Brad's mother, played by Mille Perkins (who was Anne Frank in the 1959 movie) wants her sons to stay away from their father, but accepts ill-gotten gains from time to time is believable. It is too bad there is not much exploration of the mother-son relationships (the other son is Sean Penn's real-life brother Christopher).

Director James Foley has gone on to a undistinguished career. I remember "Glengarry Glen Ross "(1992) as also being ugly (visually, not to mention the charming characters) and also having some standout performances from an ensemble of fine actors.

There are some passionate fans of this dull and ugly movie. Maybe there's something I don't get, but other than the truly outstanding tough/vulnerable performances of Penn and Masterson, I don't see anything to like or to admire in the movie. In the anguished teen movie genre, I'd rather watch "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?", "The Outsiders," "Rumblefish," "Badlands," or "Bad Boys" again instead (or "Dead Man Walking," the role of an older character for which Sean Penn shoulda won an Oscar).

© Stephen O. Murray, 2002.. All rights other than initial online posting reserved by the author.



Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older