Ponyboy Curtis is not your average American teenager, he is a kid gangster in an overdramatic film. For these tough, fearless gangsters there is sure a whole lot of crying and affection between their family and they act very lugubrious through out most of this film.
Francis Ford Copolla’s film, ‘The Outsider’ was based on the hit novel , ‘ The Outsiders’, by the famous writer S.E Hinton. The book definitely reads better than the movie plays. In this novel , written by S.E Hinton was a message that she was trying to send to the reader. That message is , violence leads to more violence and does not get you what you yearn for. Even though Francis Ford Copolla is one of the most famous directors in Hollywood, this was not his best piece of work. This movie was very unorganized and not well thought out. In this movie Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell) lives with his two older brothers, Darell (Patrick Swayze) and Soda pop (Bob Lowe), without parents , they died in a car accident. These brothers are part of a gang called greasers who live on the west side of town. pony boys best friend, Johnny (Ralph Macchio) gets into a lot of trouble. He murdered a soc named Bob. And went to Dally Winston ( Matt Dillon) for help. The Socs , on the other hand are the rich preppy kids who drive nice cars and live on the east side of town. The murder of Bob changes the lives of Ponyboy and Johny.
This movie , rated PG and 94 minutes long was not well thought out. Kathleen Knutsen Rowell, the screen play writer, could have of done a better job. The plot was everywhere and the ingredients did not mix well together in this movie. For this short amount of time they sure did a good job of cramming all of thr information together. If it was longer it would have been easier to follow. So if I was not forced to watch this movie I would have of watched it anyway because of the book, but leave in the middle of the movie. The movie ’West Side Story’ also had around the same plot but was well organized and much easier to follow. One scene in this movie did not make sense at all. The scene where Dally was robbing the grocer store the Clerks man (Will Smith) shot a full round at him with his gun almost immediately after he turned around and did not lay a single shot in his body.
If you are into a lot of drama and men crying every other scene this is the movie for you, but if you don’t like that don’t bother seeing this movie, read the book.