The Outsiders - 4

Based on the novel by S.E. Hinton, this film is the story about a group of lower class high schoolers labeled, the "greasers," and the conflict that develops between them and the other cliques in the school. The story is suppose to be about the struggle between the poor kids and the rich kids in high school and how this effects social views of good and bad behavior. The idea seems a lot better than the way it is executed by Francis Coppola in this film. It becomes scattered, some scenes don't fit. The characters are mostly underdeveloped. And it all becomes unbelievable when the two main characters start a discussion of a Robert Frost poem (not that discussing Robert Frost is strange, but it is when the context is some high school freshmen running from the scene of a murder). I'm assuming that the book focuses on the characters own reflection on life and the situation they find themselves in, the film can't quite pull that off. The characters seem shallow, and the plot line doesn't draw the film together into a coherent whole. The main thing the film has going for it is its allstar cast of Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Ralph Macchio.