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The Outsiders (1983)

7 Feb

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Smith’s Verdict: **1/2

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“The Outsiders” is a film based on a best-selling young adult novel written by S.E. Hinton, who specializes in teenagers as complex characters (also read “Tex”). Francis Ford Coppola made this beloved book (beloved particularly by junior high and high school students) into a film at the request of a junior high English class who all signed a letter, asking Coppola to adapt this book. The result is a mixed bag.

The narrator is a fourteen-year-old “greaser” named Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell) whose friends are all greasers. Greasers are the social outcasts on the north side of Tulsa, Oklahoma—most of which are hoods and they all have greasy hair. “Socs” (pronounced “soeshes”) are the rich kids from the south side of town—most of which have fun jumping greasers. There’s a conflict among them and occasionally, they throw rumbles to fight each other.

Ponyboy is basically a nice, smart kid—he reads books, keeps his mouth shut, and tries to stay out of trouble. His best friend is Johnny Cade (Ralph Macchio), a scared sixteen-year-old greaser who was beat up terribly by a soc long ago. Both wind up in a nasty situation after Ponyboy and Johnny pick up a couple of soc girls and their boyfriends catch them. This results in the murder of one of the boyfriends (committed by Johnny, who wouldn’t hurt a fly before) and the scared kids are forced to run away.

There are many characters among the greasers. There’s Two Bit (Emilio Estevez), a likable scalawag who has his fair share of screen time. There are Ponyboy’s older brothers Darrel (Patrick Swayze) and Sodapop (Rob Lowe). And last but certainly not least, there’s Dallas Winston (Matt Dillon), the rebel without a cause. Dallas helps Ponyboy and Johnny hide out after the murder.

All of the actors are great in their roles—the central trio of Howell, Dillon, and Macchio are convincing. But the problem comes with the story and development. The story is not particularly convincing and most of the characters aren’t developed properly. I didn’t really buy the conflict between the greasers and the socs. And some of the greasers who are in the film’s advertising don’t even have time to breathe—they just appear briefly. I bought the friendship between Ponyboy and Johnny, but not so much of the relationships with Ponyboy and his brothers. Here’s another thing wrong with the movie—Ponyboy talks about his brothers a lot more than he talks with them to the point where he just seems like annoying exposition. Sodapop just seems invisible throughout the movie. And then, there’s the plot thread in which Ponyboy is possibly going to be taken away from Darrel and Sodapop and must go to juvenile court for running away. That element is dropped and never spoken of again. It didn’t matter much because I didn’t care much about the brothers anyway.

I also didn’t like the music composed by Carmine Coppola. It’s all over the map here and, along with Francis Ford Coppola’s direction, seems like “The Outsiders” is trying this generation’s “Gone with the Wind.” I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t distracting.

So I can’t recommend “The Outsiders” mainly because of its execution. I like Ponyboy, Johnny, Dallas, and Two Bit. I like Coppola’s direction. I love the book—the original making of this film was to cover the whole novel, which tells the story better. Apparently, Warner Bros. thought it’d be too long for the young audience’s interest and asked for the film to be cut from nearly two hours to an hour and a half, which isn’t enough time to tell this story. I’ll just quote Roger Ebert and argue that a good film isn’t long enough. And I’ll also say that “The Outsiders” needed more material to be a better movie.

Cujo (1983)

4 Feb

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Smith’s Verdict: **

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

Reportedly, Stephen King was drinking rather heavily when he wrote his novel “Cujo,” about a rabid killer dog, and apparently has no recollection of writing it. I don’t know what mood he was in when he wrote the novel, but he must’ve had it pretty bad, for him to drink so much. What other excuse would there be for Stephen King to create such an uncomfortable story? I realize the point of horror stories is to unnerve and scare, but “Cujo” goes too far by basically taking a friendly, gentle dog and turning it into a vicious killing machine. Being a dog lover myself, I speak only from a personal standpoint. And that’s pretty much how this review of the film adaptation of the same name is going to be. If you think you’re going to be annoyed by my objections, I suggest you stop reading.

I can’t necessarily knock the novel, as I haven’t read it. But I can knock the movie instead. The idea for this story is one of the cruelest for a horror story, possibly worse than a story about a psychotic killer child. It begins in a cruel way, as the lovable 200-pound St. Bernard named Cujo (what kind of name is that, anyway?) playfully chases a rabbit across a field behind his owner’s house, at the end of a dead-end road. Next thing he knows, he gets his head stuck in a small cave full of bats and actually getting himself bitten by one of them.

Cujo isn’t feeling very well and hasn’t gotten his rabies shots. As days go by, he seems to get worse and worse. And here’s one of the problems with logic in the movie—neither Cujo’s young owner nor his parents seem to notice the nasty bat bite on the poor dog’s nose. If they did, Cujo wouldn’t get rabies and we wouldn’t have a story. And surely enough, Cujo becomes rabid and vicious. He kills the man of the house, mechanic Joe Camber (Ed Lauter), and a friend (Mills Watson). This leads us to the second half of “Cujo,” in which Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace, giving the best performance in the movie) and her five-year-old son Tad (Danny Pintauro) drive out to the house, in the middle of nowhere, in a faulty Ford Pinto. Surely enough, they are trapped in the car by the newly-formed beast, because the car’s alternator dies.

This is actually the part of the movie that is admittedly suspenseful. I consider myself a sucker for movies that feature characters limited to one spot—the claustrophobia and vulnerability aspects make for effective terror. Donna and Tad are trapped for days, knowing that Cujo will somehow make his way into the car to get them. The owner is dead, the others have left, the mailman isn’t coming around anytime soon (because mail is supposed to be on hold for a while), and no one knows where they are…except Cujo. This is a convincing setup and has some tense, frightening moments. It’s just too bad we had to see this formerly cute dog transformed into a monster in order for it to come about.

What does “Cujo” really amount to? Is it telling us to make sure that our dogs have all of their shots? Well, that’s effective enough, but you’d think that that would have happened already. Basically, “Cujo” requires its characters to be idiots for all of this to happen in the first place, and even the protagonists aren’t all that bright, as Donna just continues to stand around while trying to escape, even after given enough time to see if the coast is clear.

As hard as it is to admit, the dog isn’t consistently convincing. Sometimes it’s vicious enough, but other times it just looks like a dog playing around with snarling-dog sound effects. It doesn’t matter how bad they make the dog look after it transforms into the killer dog, drenching him with blood and foam (speaking of which, I felt sorry for the dog having to go through all of that). Whatever Stephen King was thinking when he wrote “Cujo” and inspired this movie, I can only say that this deserves to be put down.

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