Review of teen film- The breakfast club

The breakfast club is know to be as one of the pioneers of teens films as it kick started the teen film genre with other iconic films such as 'grease' , 'back to the future' etc. The breakfast club follows a group of five  teenagers who come from a vary of different cliques each one of them representing one  such as the jock, the princess , the nerd ,the basket case and the criminal. All five of these characters are forced to sacrifice their Saturday and spend  eight hours in after school detention. The films main target audience is projected at teenagers of all ages and groups, the reason why this film did so good in the film industry as it was able to include all the stereotypes within teenagers which meant most teenagers where able to relate to  at least one characters in the film.

The Criminal.

The Nerd.

The Basket case.

The Jock.

 The Princess.

During the film the school principle requires the students not to talk , move from their seat or sleep through the detention. After the  teenagers slowly get bored the criminal decides to  break the silence by annoying each member of the group, which slowly causes tension  between each member of their clique which the director is able to show how each clique differs from each other.  As time passes by group begin to become more friendly and develop conversation from time to time, the criminal then proposes that the group should smoke cannabis in which they all finally agree to. When smoking  they all become friendly with  each other and they start to reveal their dark secrets to each other , it is then at this point the director John huges is able to breakdown each clique and show how really alike all of them are to each other but due to things such as  stigmas each clique are hostile to each other and ignore each other rather than showing compassion and friendliness.

Overall I enjoyed the film very much as i was able  to relate to some of these characters and enjoyed how the film use the codes and conventions of a standard teen film.It was very interesting as this film was made during the 80's (quite a bit before my time) and i was still able to see that this film was  the kick starter for the teen film industry and it is also interesting being able to compare and contrast with later teen films such as 'mean girls' '10 things i hate about you' etc. and how they borrow similar features from the early generation of teen films.