I’ve never understood the term “brat pack”. I was just a few years younger than the actors that were supposedly in the “pack”. I saw most of their movies. I also lived in Los Angeles, so I heard a couple stories about what they did when they weren’t filming. I even saw some of the actors in person. When I read the article (which is still available to read online here – at least for now) my first thought was, “So?” A group of actors go out to Los Angeles restaurants, bars, or nightclubs to drink, party, pick up women, and mostly have a good time. Why is everyone making a big deal about it. Almost 40 years later comes a documentary which I thought could answer some questions for me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
The first question it doesn’t answer is who is in the “brat pack”. According to the article, the group was Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Timothy Hutton (although it says that he “…has made a near-fatal mistake; he has made movies that have failed at box office”), Matt Dillon, Nicholas Cage, and Sean Penn. The article mentions some “not quite” actors such as Mathew Modine and Matthew Broderick – they may not be official members because they lived in New York City while the rest of them lived in Los Angeles. There is also a note in the article that the members could change based on who is in the current hit movie. Toward the end of the article, some of the guys go out with actor Clayton Rohner who starred in a new movie (at the time) called “Just One of the Guys”.
The documentary mentions this quite a few times. According to the documentary, the “brat pack” also includes actresses. Most of the people in the documentary say that the “brat pack” is mainly composed of actors and actresses who were in “St Elmo’s Fire”, “The Breakfast Club”, and “Pretty in Pink”. That would include Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, and Andrew McCarthy (who wrote and directed this documentary and does all the interviews). Other actors and actresses such as Lea Thompson, Matthew Broderick, Michael J Fox, and Jon Cryer MIGHT be “adjacent” to the pack but not in the pack. I guess that means the “brat pack” members have changed over time.
The starting point for this documentary is that writer/director Andrew McCarthy wants to interview all the members (or possible members). He gets interviews with quite a few of them and he also interviews some directors, casting agents, and other people that worked with the actors and actresses around that time. Unfortunately, they couldn’t interview Joel Schumacher (co-writer and director of “St Elmo’s Fire”) or John Hughes (writer of “Pretty in Pink” and writer/director of “The Breakfast Club”) because both have passed away. They spend a little bit of time talking about both of those directors because they somewhat influenced the “pack”. Supposedly, Schumacher hand-picked Demi Moore for “St Elmo’s Fire”). One of the last interviews in the documentary is with David Blum, the person who wrote the article and created the nickname “brat pack”.
The second question I had that this documentary doesn’t answer is why the “brat pack” nickname and the article created so much commotion. I can understand why Andrew McCarthy didn’t like it. The only time he’s mentioned in the article is when it says “…one of the New York–based actors in “St. Elmo’s Fire”, a co-star says, “He plays all his roles with too much of the same intensity. I don’t think he’ll make it.” However, I don’t see much in the article that would explain why the other people didn’t like it. The documentary shows a lot of old television interviews around the time the nickname became popular and most of the comments from the actors and actresses are that the article and nickname aren’t accurate.
In a lot of the new interviews, people talk about how things changed after the article and the nickname. The actors and actresses talk about how their careers changed. For example, Emilio Estevez said he turned down a couple roles because he would be working with someone else in the “pack” – including one movie where he would have been working with Andrew McCarthy. Several of the actors and actresses say they refused to talk about the nickname or the movies they were in when the nickname was first created. There are even a couple people that not interviewed in the documentary. I’m guessing they still don’t want to talk about it.
This leads to the third question I had about the nickname. Why are they still discussing it almost 40 years later. As I mentioned before, I saw almost all those movies. They were OK. I liked some of them and didn’t like some of them. With a couple possible exceptions such as “Ordinary People” (which won a best picture Academy Award and Timothy Hutton won an Academy Award), I don’t think many of those movies would interest modern day teenagers. One person interviewed mentioned that “The Breakfast Club” is like the book “Catcher in the Rye” as something that every teenager should see. I would disagree with that. If the movie was made today all the students would be on their phones (unless their phones are taken away) and there would be a lot of discussions about social media. I’ve also read there’s talk about doing a sequel to “St Elmo’s Fire” now that people are talking about the movie due to the documentary. I don’t think a sequel is needed. I didn’t like the original movie that much and doubt the sequel would be that interesting.
Overall, there are a few parts in this documentary I thought were interesting. For example, what happened or is happening to some of the actors and actresses I haven’t seen in a while. However, if you’re wondering about the “brat pack”, I recommended just reading the original article. It tells you almost as much as this documentary does.
Overall: 5 OUT OF 10 STARS
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 