ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

sonya90028 This film takes place during the mid-60s in Brooklyn, at a fascist-like Catholic school for boys. The kids who attend this school, have to deal with ridiculously strict teachers, who are all church elders. The teachers walk around in long brown robes, and have haircuts like monks. Naturally, the boys find clever ways to rebel against their school's stifling regulations, and are constantly getting into mischief.Back in the mid-60s corporal punishment was still common in all schools, not just Catholic ones. The difference in this film, is that the teachers try to use Catholic religious values, to justify their harsh punitive treatment of the students. One teacher in particular, is very sadistic whenever he wants to punish his pupils. He locks them in a closet, viciously whips their hands with a wooden paddle, slaps them, pulls their hair, ETC.When a group of boys vandalize a statue, the sadistic teacher tries to paddle their behinds with a gigantic wooden paddle. This is the last straw for the boys, who are fed-up with being brutally disciplined by this teacher. And they decide to take matters into their own hands. This is a good film overall, about 60s teens. It was very realistic, in showing the life that urban teens led in that era. By showing how barbaric corporal punishment was back then, this movie can make the viewer glad that it's been abolished in schools nowadays.I can only imagine how many kids who were in school in the 60s, have been psychologically damaged by getting beaten by their teachers. Since they had to cope with this, it's no wonder that most young people growing-up during the 60s, vehemently rebelled against authority.

pmdwyer-1 I liked a lot of scenes in this film.The drawbridge opening and closing on Rooney's(Kevin Dillons character)dad's new car while trying to score with Janine after getting her drunk is my favorite.This movie does address serious subjects,violence towards schoolchildren,the church's responsibility to remove adults with inability to control abusive behaviour which I sure wish the church had done in the 60's,70's,etc to have prevented acts of pedophilia that came to attention later on and the effects of melancholia(not sure I spelled that right).But it is a comedy and though I only went to catholic school in Philadelphia for 8 years(66-74) it sure did make me laugh at many scenes.Donald Sutherland at the end saying "I always hated that statue" after cleaning bird droppings off the statue having been the standard punishment at St Basils is such a surprise near the end that it shows there were good people teaching at Catholic schools and it was not all abuse and punishment(he suspends them for knocking the head of the statue) and when the kids realize they're off school for two weeks they jump for joy.It is a favorite movie of mine.

KidRalph While I can't comment on the accuracy in which the "Catholic School for Boys" is depicted in this movie, having once been a teenage boy, I can attest to having known (or been) a kid who is represented by nearly every character in the movie. I identified most with Andrew McCarthy's character, but saw a little of myself in many of the other kids.The movie is at times funny, touching, and intense. I believe it has been largely forgotten and was ignored even in its initial run. It is vastly underrated, and if you happen across it in the TV Guide or in the older titles at the video store, it is worth two hours of your life. Recommended.

bobgeudel3 WARNING POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!!!! I would call this movie a "dramody." It has many comic elements, but it also is the very serious story of a kid whose parents die in a car accident and who has to start life over in a new city.I disagree with the previous reviewers who seem to think that the movie was sadistic and/or anti-Catholic. True, the physical punishment scenes in the movie might repel us today,especially those of us who have young nephews who will be attending Catholic schools in a few years.However, I dare say that the beatings depicted in the movie are relatively mild compared to what used to go on in both private and public US schools, to say nothing of boys' school in the UK prior to 1960. (Also, a word about swimming au naturel- it was quite common for schools with pools, public as well as private, to require boys to swim in the nude.The tradition of required nudity started in the YMCAs of the 1930s, a time when swimsuits made made of terrible fibrous fabrics and messy dyes. The rationale was one of keeping the pool clean. The tradition stuck until the early 1980s, when increased awareness about pedophilia and teenage homosexuality killed the practice.) The movie shows a positive side of Roman Catholicism, with the brothers' deep faith. Sutherland's character is wonderful- a stern but sincere man of God and the church.The boys are rebels, but have an inner goodness that comes out in the end.Wallace Shwan is great in his cameo as "Father Abruzzi" doing a rip-roaring condemnation of LUST! The Catholic Mass is always in the background of the movie, and for me, the sincerity of devotion overcame the cruelty of fallible, sinful men. The love story between Danni and Dunne was an afterthought and needed more development. The story morrors my own struggles at such a school-mean kids, meaner teachers, academic pressure, but the Mass and the Virgin in the background,reminding me that wounds heal in time and in eternity.