Film Review: The Outsiders

**Spoilers**
If you have not yet seen this film, please go and do so before proceeding.

          There are two versions of this movie - the theatrical release and the special "Complete Novel" edition. I advise that you check out both of them because while the theatrical release doesn't have all the scenes, it does have the original score. The "Complete Novel' edition has had certain parts of the score replaced with Elvis Presley songs. Which, y'know, isn't a terrible thing. But there are scenes that lose something without the original score.

      The Outsiders is a prime example of how a book-to-film adaptation CAN be done almost word-for-word and scene-by-scene without being either boring, tedious, or terrible. I am a huge fan of the book (and one of my friends played Ponyboy in the play) so whenever I heard there was a movie made (a Francis Ford Coppola film, no less) I jumped at the first chance to see it. And I was not disappointed.


    The film stars C. Thomas Howell, Mat Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and Emilio Estevez as The Outsiders, a makeshift family/gang of boys and young men from the north side (east side in the book) of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a coming-of-age story told by a star-studded cast, set in a time when there is basically an ongoing war between the Socs (the rich, privileged kids) and the Greasers (the poor, wrong-side-of-the-tracks kids) and one of the greasers accidentally kills a Soc. From there on all Hell breaks loose, climaxing in the rumble between the two factions.

      It's a very raw and depressing story, full of hopelessness and anger and gritty questions about prejudice and growing up. And the movie captures it very well, being - as I said - an almost word-for-word adaptation of the source material.





     Sometimes things can be a little bit off (Johnny and Pony spend an almost ridiculous amount of time crying and hugging, for instance) but that doesn't really detract from the experience. The cinematography is gorgeous too...particularly in the scenes containing the sunset themes...and the colors and lighting really go a long way to sweep you up in the emotion of the story. All of the actors bring the unique personalities of the characters from the book to life and their performances carry through even in potentially-clunky scenes. This is also, to date, one of the few movies that can actually make me cry. I highly recommend this film (both version) to anyone. The Outsiders is a 5/5.

 

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?