Bad Boys

When this was released in 1982, I remember the movie title "Blackboard Jungle" being tossed around, but this movie was the 80's updated version. The innocence of the 50's no longer applies to these kids.

Esai Morales and Sean Penn were terrific in this movie! I saw it in the theaters as a youngster, and since I'm from Chicago and most of the exterior shots were from reform schools in and around the city I was scared straight quite early. One is really drawn into the characters here; it's easy to empathize with Mick O'Brien (Penn), but it's also easy to empathize with Moreno (Morales) who wants revenge. Keep in mind that these guys are both hoodlums of the highest order and we shouldn't feel anything for either of them. For me, this adds to the story.

I've long held this movie high in script, casting (look for an uncredited cameo from Jamie Lee Curtis walking with an afro in the street in the opening sequence), and its timelessness, whereas movies like "Colors" or "8 Mile" simply tap into the urban vein yet again for substance.

Bad Boys was party where it began...urban north Chicago, 1982! See this film - you'll not be sorry!

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This is probably one of the grittiest teen flicks to ever come out. This film puts all the films in the Dead End kids to shame. Sean Penn is perfect as Mick and Esai Morales is great as Paco. Also, this film as well as the similarly themed Born Innocent pulls no punches as it shows how the juvenile justice system which is supposed to rehabilitate young offenders does just the opposite and makes them even more hardened. This truly is one of the best films of the 1980's.

Sean Penn, Esai Morals, Ally Sheedy, and the other principles in this film deliver great, realistic, gritty performances. Certainly one of the great performances of Penn's career.

My only complaint is that the DVD release by ARTISAN ENTERTAINMENT & REPUBLIC PICTURES - Deletes 2 scenes from the original. (That may explain the bargain pricing). The deleted scenes I noticed are: 1. The scene in which Ally Sheedy's character picks Esai's character out of a line-up. 2. A scene inside the Juvenile facility where the inmates are watching the Richard Widmark film "KISS OF DEATH", where he pushes the old, wheelchair-bound lady down the stairs, much to the delight of the inmates!

Prior to starring in the hard-edged 1983 drama Bad Boys, Sean Penn had proved his early promise in the TV movie The Killing of Randy Webster, played a memorable supporting role in Taps (with fellow newcomer Tom Cruise), and created the definitive California surfer dude as the perpetually stoned Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But it was Bad Boys that cemented Penn's reputation as a rare talent--an actor whose skill transcended his youth, revealing a depth and maturity that the majority of his acting peers could only aspire to. That gravity and emotional dimension is evident throughout Penn's performance here as Mick O'Brien, a chronic offender whose path to a Chicago juvenile corrections facility seems utterly preordained. The institution is hardly conducive to reformation--it's a jail for problem kids, and a cauldron for all the societal ills that sent kids there in the first place. Mick's there because he was involved in a shootout during a botched robbery of drugs from rival street gangster Paco Moreno (Esai Morales), whose little brother was killed when Mick accidentally ran him over with his getaway car. Overcrowding results in Mick and Paco's being sent to the same facility (one of the film's few stretches of credibility), and this leads to a rather predictable showdown that will take the jive prison's violence to its inevitable extreme. It's a shame this conclusion ultimately doesn't live up to the film's superior first hour, but Bad Boys remains a remarkably authentic, even touching portrait of troubled youth whose torment is conveyed through thoughtful and richly emotional development of characters. Director Rick Rosenthal (who had previously helmet Halloween II) maintains a vivid sense of setting within the correctional facility's cold walls, and through the performances of Penn and a superb supporting cast (including Ally Sheedy in her film debut as Mick's girlfriend), Bad Boys emerges as one of the best films of its kind, forcing the viewer to ask difficult questions about at-risk youth and the proper way to improve or at least preserve their endangered lives.

This is a fantastic crime drama/thriller about a troubled teen(Penn) who accidentally kills a young boy during a bungled drug heist. He is sent to a maximum security juvenile correctional facility and is thrown in with some of the meanest, most violent young criminals. Meanwhile, the older brother of the young boy that he accidentally killed is out for revenge and tries to get back at him through his girlfriend(Ally Sheedy) outside of prison.

Many of the horrific images in this film will stay with you for a long time. There is a constant sense of fear and danger that lingers throughout the film and is highlighted by a terrific score by Bill Conti(Rocky, The Karate Kid). Penn gives one of his best performances here. A must see film.