Rent Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Moderately amusing - Ferris Bueller's Day Off review by BN

I missed all the 80s popular teen movies, like this, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, St Elmo's Fire (should have been St Elmo's Dire!) etc. so thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. After StE'sF which I found very dull, this actually had some amusing moments, mostly of creativity, such as Ferris' excuses, his fake recordings, the figure mimicking him ill in bed, etc.

The parents seemed incredibly dimwitted especially the father, and the huge parade in Chicago made me question why it was held on a school day, given plenty of all ages in the crowd? The school headmaster played by Jeffrey Jones was a hoot who quite rightly doesn't believe he's ill and sets out to prove it, with rather painful and funny consequences. Ferris' friend Cameron was a guy named Alan Ruck, who seemed to me a pretty close double to Nicholas Lyndhurst (of Only Fools and Horses & Goodnight, Sweetheart fame) with a long lugubrious face. I've never seen him before or since yet he seems to have been in nearly 75 films,

at least on CP's list. Jennifer Grey just before Dirty Dancing fame plays his jealous and scheming younger sister, but in the end she seems to slightly admire how Ferris so blatantly gets away with everything and starts to cover for him.

For a feelgood movie without any mention of drugs, little alcohol nor appalling teen bad behaviour this one was reasonably amusing and clean. They may be portrayed as somewhat entitled, spoilt teens, but then most American movies do that unless they're portraying far more real grit types. Not really so bad, methinks, given its an American film.

Self-righteous Dude - Ferris Bueller's Day Off review by Steve

This is the John Hughes picture which broke out of the multiplexes to more widely enter the culture. It's another teenage comedy, but has become a very quotable cult film for political conservatives. Ferris is a sociopathic High School senior who bullies his depressed best pal into wrecking his dad's limited issue Ferrari, under the premise of living his 'best possible day'.

Matthew Broderick stars as the ultimate '80s bad guy- a rich kid easily as smug and solipsistic as Michael Douglas in Wall Street (1987). Cheer as Ferris owns the liberal losers, the joyless drones who run public services... and dupes his idiot parents, who are too warmhearted to be worthy of respect. So Ferris can mime to Twist and Shout and threaten working stiffs with the sack.

Others can clear up the mess. As usual with high school comedies, the actors are a decade too old- except 18 year old Mia Sara who can't make much of her underwritten girlfriend role. Neither can Alan Ruch as the best friend. So most of the interest settles on Broderick vs. Jeffrey Jones' cartoonish portrayal of the killjoy who wants put the charismatic maverick in detention.

Which surely anticipates the broader slapstick of Hughes' 1990 smash hit, Home Alone. We see plenty of the tourist sights of Chicago, which Ferris exploits as if his own personal playground. This is a divisive film but broadly entertaining with the usual soundtrack of cool indie records. In the sequel, Bueller goes to college and starts up the first US branch of the Bullingdon Club.

Mistake - Ferris Bueller's Day Off review by PR

I thought I’d better watch this as it’s supposedly an iconic film from the 80’s. I wish that’s where I’d left it!

Couldn’t get beyond  half an hour’s worth.