The Outsiders (1983) – briolinschiki through the eyes of a teenage girl

Interesting fact: Rumble Fish and The Outsiders were filmed “back to back” – that is, somewhat roughly speaking, Francis Ford Coppola shot these two films simultaneously in 1982. Like the Fighting Fish, The Outsiders is an adaptation of the novel by S. E. Hinton. In general, The Outsiders and the Fighting Fish have a lot in common, and if you haven’t watched any of these films, then if I were you, I would first read an article about Rumble Fish and decide for myself whether it’s worth watching such a movie at all. And only then, after watching it, I would return to this article and think again about whether The Outsiders should be watched. So I will assume that all the readers watched the Fish and, having decided for themselves that it was quite possible to pass another evening for something like that, looked towards this article.

So, everything looks very good from The Outsiders: the film received a whole scattering of awards, including being nominated for gold at the 13th International Moscow Film Festival. Abroad, the film, in fact, has become a classic and remains popular to this day. The book on which this movie was shot, half of libraries and schools were banned for the detailed depiction of smoking, drinking and swearing teenagers, and in the second half students and schoolchildren voluntarily and forcibly read this work without fail. It was The Outsiders who opened the way to a big movie for a whole galaxy of young actors: Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze… Tom Waits, who was in the Fighting Fish, appears in Outsiders as well, and before the heap, some critics separately praised the film for its realistic portrayal of children from dysfunctional families.

That’s just all of the above – some kind of complete crap. I sincerely don’t understand why this film should be given any awards: I didn’t see any realistic depiction of anything, and I especially can’t understand how such a movie could not ruin the careers of aspiring actors, but also promote someone somewhere. The Outsiders are worse than a Fighting Fish in all respects, but at the same time include all the same disadvantages. The fighting Fish showed at least something: at the very least, that movie was shot very stylishly and skillfully, and it was interesting to watch the picture on the screen. The Outsiders are not… There is nothing at all about The Outsiders.

As in the twin movie, one of The Outsiders’ main problems is that clearly not the whole story got from the pages of the novel to the screens, and a lot was cut down. But here an important nuance comes into play: Miss Susan E. Hinton published the Fighting Fish in 1975, and The Outsiders were published in 67. Hinton was 18 years old at the time of the book’s publication, and she wrote it even earlier – most of the book was written when Susan was only 16. An important point: people usually look down on those who are trying to start serious creative activity at an early age, but I have nothing against it. Damn it, the only thing I don’t roll out any complaints about is the original novel. It is quite possible that the book is really worth all that they say about it – I haven’t read it and I don’t really know anything about it.

But I know that after turning into a movie script, from the story from the book, we were left with a concentrated teenage angst of a young American girl who is literally bursting with hormones – this is how everything that happens on the screen feels. And at some point the characters stop doing anything at all: they just cry, hug, cry again, hug again, cry again… Your mother, how long can you cry already, huh? It’s also good if there are at least a couple of lines of dialogue between these scenes – not even for the sake of the plot, but just so that the characters stop shedding tears and hugging for at least a couple of minutes.

And what makes all these scenes absolutely unbearable is that most of the actors play very mediocre. I don’t know, maybe it’s because of Coppola’s signature feature – frames brought to perfectionism with perfect lighting and other stylistics. After all, as you know, the more sleek the frame, the more difficult it is for the actors to play and move, because one extra movement can destroy the entire composition. One way or another – but there is no acting, there is no chemistry, and all these sobbing hugs do not cause any compassion, but only sincerely infuriate. And if the shots in the Fighting Fish were really beautiful and stylish, then here Comrade Francis Ford failed in all respects: for the whole film, at best, you can pull out a couple of beautiful plans, no more.

The Outsiders have few positive sides. First of all, it’s definitely Matt Dillon – yes, he’s sleek and excellent as usual, and it’s extremely strange to see him playing the bad guy, but at least he’s fucking playing this bad guy. Secondly, Ralph Macchio and his character Johnny Cade, since this is the only character in the entire film that develops and changes, which offers the viewer at least some kind of story. But, honestly, it’s better to watch Karate Kid released just a year later again.

And yes, I watched the updated version of the film, since in 2005 Coppola re-released the film and inserted some deleted scenes, adding 22 minutes of material, and also deleted several scenes in order to be closer to the book and slightly speed up the pace of what is happening on the screen. In addition, Francis redid the soundtrack, which many did not like. With this in mind, we can say the following: oh, Gods, what a nightmare the original version of the film must have been, even if the updated and corrected version only causes despondency.

Eh… What can I say as a conclusion? I usually blame my own high expectations in such cases: most of The Outsiders are loved and revered, and the film has a lot of extremely flattering reviews. So I tuned in to something great, and I got it… what I got. But still, this case is somewhat special. Don’t get me wrong: yes, I set the bar high. But The Outsiders didn’t even try to jump over it – they started digging a tunnel.