Bad Boys (1983 film)

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Bad Boys
Bad Boys theatrical poster
Directed by	Rick Rosenthal
Produced by	Robert H. Solo
Written by	Richard Di Lello
Starring	Sean Penn Esai Morales Clancy Brown Reni Santoni Jim Moody Eric Gurry Robert Lee Rush Ally Sheedy Alan Ruck John Zenda
Music by	Bill Conti
Cinematography	Bruce Surtees Donald E. Thorin
Editing by	Antony Gibbs
Distributed by	Universal Pictures Anchor Bay Entertainment
Release date(s)	March 25, 1983
Running time	104 Min (Rated) 123 Min (Uncut)
Country	United States
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Bad Boys is a 1983 juvenile delinquent melodrama set primarily in a tough reform school for boys. The general plot outline could have been taken from any number of generic late 1950s-era juvenile delinquent exploitation films - even the self-descriptive title, with its dual emphasis on dangerousness ("bad") and youth ("boys," not "men") is reminiscent of films such as Young and Wild (1958), The Rebel Breed (1960), and Untamed Youth.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Sean Penn, fresh out of his star-making supporting role as stoner Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, plays Mick O'Brien, a 16-year-old Irish hood from Chicago. While most of Mick's crimes involve snatching purses, vandalism, and getting into brawls, he aspires to bigger and better things, which leads him to attempt ripping off a rival hood, Paco Moreno (Esai Morales). Everything goes wrong: Mick's partner and best friend (played by a pre-Ferris Bueller's Day Off Alan Ruck) is killed, and Mick, while trying to escape the police, accidentally runs over and kills an eight-year-old boy who happens to be Paco's kid brother.

Because he's under 18, Mick is sent to the Rainford Juvenile Correctional Facility rather than a state prison for adults. However, as the film makes clear, this "juvenile correction facility" is not a place where troubled kids are reformed, but rather a place where they grow tougher, angrier, and more prepared for a life of adult crime. Most of the wardens and counselors seem to have resigned themselves to the role of zoo keepers, with the exception of Ramon Herrera (Reni Santoni), a former gang member who talks tough to the inmates, but holds out hope for some of them, especially Mick.

In his second time in the director's chair (his first was 1981's Halloween II), Rick Rosenthal relies quite heavily on Steadicam and crane shots. The scene in which Mick is first brought into the main hall of the reform school is a good example, as it allows us to take in the entire space—the multiple levels, the gray walls, the leering faces of the other inmates—in an attempt to put us right in Mick's shoes. Given his disposition at the beginning of the film, it is hard to imagine that Mick could be a particularly sympathetic character, but Penn's performance is generally regarded as so forceful in its naturalism that the audience sides with him. In some ways, writer Richard Di Lello (Colors) stacks the deck by making Mick's crime of manslaughter truly "accidental," but the filmmakers never shy away from the fact that Mick is a bad kid. This provides a deeper sense of character development in the film, as Mick makes hard decisions during his stint in jail, evolving from an angry and aimless boy to a young man who will take responsibility for his life.

Mick's cellmate, a small, wiry Jewish kid named Barry Horowitz, is played by Eric Gurry, who gives the character both a much-needed sense of humor (thus inducing a few laughs into the otherwise grim material) and an element of danger (he is at the reform school because he firebombed a bowling alley in an attempt to kill some kids who beat him up). In a story like this, there are always the toughest thugs in the group, in this case a couple of brawny sadists named Viking (Clancy Brown) and Tweety (Robert Lee Rush). As soon as their alpha male status is established, the plot demands that Mick's first step toward defining himself will be to stand up to them, but the way in which he does it is so brutal and sudden that it feels surprising.

Paco is eventually incarcerated at the same reform school, thus leading to an inevitable showdown between him and Mick.