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Show by Hick Urouh 'Breakfast Club 'Sure Thing' are best bets throws in brief character sketches that are as much fun as the two leads. (At a roadside tavern, a grossly fat redneck asks with fuzzy concern, "Do I lack self-discipline?") With vehicles like .this. Reiner's film future is becoming more of a sure thing. Tom Boy This miserable film wins the Hypocritical Gall of the Year Award. The story allegedly has feminist sympathies it's about a female mechanic who shows up the men but at the same time it constantly dreams up excuses for the women to walk bare-chested around the screen. Star Betsy Russell seems to have been cast for her chest, certainly not for her mechanical ability or acting tafents. The other unlikable char-actors char-actors here include a hunk race driver who constantly competes with . the heroine in motorcycle riding, the stock-car track, even boxing!; a chauvinistic rich kid; and the tomboy's dumb blonde friend who specializes in erotic doughnut commercials. A Classic Recommended Good double feature material Time-killer For masochists only The Breakfast Club Writer-director John Hughes shows us a high school version of Purgatory called Saturday detention errant kids are cooped up all day in a vacant school library. They are told, not to study or read, but to ponder their sins. In "Breakfast Club," detention becomes an opportunity for five kids each from a different social caste to open up to each other. Molly Ringwald plays the blase, pampered Princess (and maybe she wouldn't be as likable without the vulnerability Ringwald brings to the role.) Anthony Michael Hall gives a low-key funny performance as the smart but square kid he got a fake I.D. in order to vote. Emilio Estevez has been in pictures before, but makes his first mark with a fine unflashy performance as the self-doubting self-doubting kid with the wrestling letter who tries to act the Big Man on Campus. Ally Sheedy is the silent eccentric with sheepdog hair. And Judd Nelson is the rebel with a smart mouth and an almost suicidal desire to hassle authority. In a funny scary sequence, the bush league fascist teacher (Paul Gleason) lays more detentions on him, which only leads him to escalate the taunts (leading to more detentions) until you think he'll surely be sentenced into the year 2013. Hughes' characters and their traumas may be familiar, but all the actors have charm and Hughes' dialogue captures the way these kids jab at each other in funny and cruel ways. He also knows the kind of teacher who tries to be clever and tough (Gleason tells the rebel, "Don't give me that bull or you'll get the horns.") The movie's biggest problem is the rebel character. Nelson looks 10 years older than everybody else. (Maybe you can charitably assume he's been held back for a long time. ) The story, intended as an ensemble piece, almost becomes unbalanced because he grabs much of the attention. (Even if it makes sense in the story, he's more likely than the others to begin stirring things up.) And the movie doesn't believably establish the attraction-repulsion relationship he's supposed to have with the Princess. Everyone who watches "Breakfast Club" can pick a favorite character. Mine is the mute played by Ally Sheedy, who reacts to the others with jaw agape, or a little squeal (when she just can't help it. ) She also exhibits a touch of blithely gross behavior. (After drawing a landscape, land-scape, she "snows" on it by scratching her dandruff hair. ) The Sure Thing Walter Gibson and Alison Bradbury Brad-bury are fellow students at an Eastern college who relate as well as cat and dog. Circumstances deem that they become hitchhiking companions com-panions across the country to California. She's going to see her boyfriend and he's traveling to California to meet The Sure Thing an eager, willing suntanned lover for several (but not too many) nights. As you might expect, the waiting lovers turn out to be dullards. But even if they were more interesting, they'd be hard-pressed to match the . chemistry between the two young stars. As "Gibb," John Cusack is a ferret-faced charmer with an unforced un-forced skill whether wisecracking or playing a guy in the romantic pits. Daphne Zuniga, (Alison) is a fascinating find a chameleon who can look like anything onscreen-plain onscreen-plain or beautiful, "shrewish or beatific and can pass from one mood to another with ease. Aided by a good script, director Rob Reiner is developing his own style. He can capture the essentials of a scene with his camera and Now Showing At the'Holiday Village Cinemas : 1 2 Passage to India Vision Quest The Sure Thing |