Plot: What’s it about?
This is the movie based on the S.E. Hinton novel with the same title. The movie is about a group of young men in Oklahoma in the 1950’s that are in a gang called the Greasers. Their rival gang is called the Socs. (pronounced Scoscias) They are the rich high school kids with the fancy cars while the Greasers are the middle class kids on the other side of the tracks.
There is a family of three boys Pony Boy, 15, (C. Thomas Howell) Soda Pop, 17, (Rob Lowe) and their older brother Darrel, about 20. (Patrick Swayze) Darrel also takes care of his younger brothers ever since their parents were killed in an auto accident. One night Pony, Johnny (Ralph Macchio) and Dallas (Matt Dillon) go to a drive in theater to watch a movie and just hang out. They meet up with their other friend Two-Bit. (Emilio Estevez) Later that night they all go home but Johnny’s parent’s are fighting so Johnny and Pony go to a lot to hang out and they end up both falling asleep. Johnny decides to stay there while Pony goes home full well knowing he is going to be in trouble. Darrel is waiting in the living room with Soda when Pony walks in and then they all get in a little argument and Darrel hits Pony. Pony runs out of the house to get Johnny at the lot where Johnny is sleeping. Johnny and Pony walk to the park to cool off a bit. While sitting at the park some Socs drive up and beat up the two and almost drowning Pony in a fountain. In self defense Johnny stabs and kills one of the Socs. The others take off running and now the two boys go to Dallas’ house so he can help them out. Dallas sends them to some old abandoned church where the two are to stay until Dallas hears the news about when it is safe to come back. The two head out there and on the fifth day Dallas shows up and takes them to lunch. The boys decide to turn themselves in and Dallas doesn’t want to hear it. After eating they head back to the deserted church only to see that it is on fire. The three boys go in there and save some children that were caught in the fire. The roof collapses on Johnny and all three are taken to a hospital in ambulances. It turns out that Johnny is paralysed while Pony and Dallas suffer burns and cuts. The time has come for the big fight between the Socs and the Greasers…
I won’t ruin the movie in case you haven’t seen it, but to me this is a classic. I was happy to finally see this movie in its original aspect ratio. Warner Bros. did a great job with remastering this movie. It sounds good and looks even better. I definately recommend a rental of this movie and even purchasing it will only set you back about $14.
Video: How does it look?
This picture looked really good. This movie was made in 1983 and it was nice to see that Warner Bros. paid attention to detail and made it 16×9 enhanced. The picture looks really good and I didn’t notice any grain or anything negative for that matter.
Audio: How does it sound?
This is a pretty good sounding 2.0 soundtrack. The bass is surprisingly good in the songs and the musical score. The front soundstage is pretty good, but the big minus is that the rear speakers are pretty much mute throughout the whole movie. They should have been used in the big fight scene and some other scenes to envelop the listener, but fail to do so. It is still a pretty good sounding soundtrack anyway.
Supplements: What are the extras?
All you get here is a letterboxed theatrical trailer in 2.0 sound that has been cleaned up fairly well.
