Stand By Me
Very, very few films have captured with such accuracy the experience of what itâs like to be a 12 year old boy on the cusp of his teenage years, partly because boys at that age probably have the most intense, fevered sexual fantasies imaginable with the onset of puberty, and also perhaps from the fact that boys that age are known to swear and cuss more than a sailor out on shore leave, and certainly more than the average adult. This timid approach to that kind of subject matter can be seen in all kinds of Disney and other G rated family films (with the most unrealistic kid characters imaginable), and even Steven Spielberg in his early films seemed reluctant to cross the line even if a number of his kids were allowed to say âshitâ on occasion. But this 1986 release from director Rob Reiner, billed as being a sloppily sentimental boyhood ode (which in some ways it certainly is, and has caused a number of people to avoid watching it as a result), was something that dared to cross the line in casting 4 young, talented actors all within that age range in the lead roles and also gave them the right to use excessive onscreen profanity as well. The main suspect behind this, of course, is Stephen King, whose short story âThe Bodyâ was the inspiration behind this and actually featured even more obscene language from its young characters on display (although the script actually does use a fair amount of dialogue that is lifted directly from Kingâs work). The story begins with Richard Dreyfuss (in a total âhey, where did he come from?â moment) sitting in a truck and reflecting on the recent death of a childhood friend. Dreyfuss, of course, is actually said to be playing King himself (here renamed âGordie LaChanceâ), a very successful writer who has been spurred by the death of his old running buddy to write a story about his childhood and in particular something that he and his old boyhood friends did together when they were 12. Naturally, this means that Dreyfuss now takes on the role of Narrator for the remainder of the film, and he does a nice, wry, laconic job of doing so before reappearing for the final scene at the end. We first meet his childhood counterpart (Wil Wheaton, who for a long time afterwards was the face on the dartboards of many Star Trek fans for his incredibly irritating character of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation) limply sloping along in his small hometown of Castle Rock (the site of so many of Kingâs legit horror stories) before arriving at the treehouse where we meet the other members of his little crew, Chris (River Phoenix, one of the most tragic young losses in Hollywood history, despite being a bit overrated in the talent department), Teddy (Corey Feldman, who all these years later can best be classified as being a Hollywood survivor), and Vern (Jerry OâConnell, who shocked the world when he reemerged years later as a swelte leading man after so convincingly playing a goofy fat kid here). If anyone of this group manages to break away from the pack acting wise, itâs Feldman, giving easily the single best performance of his love him or hate him storied career as Teddy Duchamp, a crazed, horribly abused child of a badly shell shocked WWII vet, sporting grotesque burn makeup on his ear, a large mole by his nose, and gawky black rimmed glasses, Feldman plays the role with a fearless, edgy, mocking attitude and an energy level that dwarfs his co-stars, especially Phoenix who was obviously put in place here in what was to be a âstar makingâ role (and it was, although all his potential went downhill thanks to his drug use). However, OâConnell does display some nice comic timing as the fat kid who is often the butt of the otherâs jokes, and as for Wheaton, he comes across as being well directed by Reiner more than anything else with the narration by Dreyfuss usually coming in to bail him and his performance out when thereâs nothing particularly dynamic coming from him onscreen (some might call it the âPeter Billingsley Effectâ). The plot is set in motion when OâConnell comes to them with an intriguing offer: Would you like to go on a hike to somewhere he knows there is a dead body at? The idea at first stuns everybody into silence, but the daring nature of it is ultimately too hard to resist, as yes, itâs in these early scenes that we get into the rhythm of the dialogue and happily realize that the lines coming from these kidsâ mouths is leagues more mature than what weâre used to seeing from young actors at this age, albeit the trade off being that it is also absolutely spot on realistic for the foul language that actual 12 year old boys employ. As they pull themselves together to start the trek for the dead body, thereâs just one problem: OâConnell had gotten his intel by eavesdropping on his older brother and his friend, which in and of itself wouldnât be that big a deal if they didnât also belong to a local hoodlum gang led by Kiefer Sutherland as the legendary King character Ace Merrill, easily the all time greatest of the authorâs clichĂ©d âsmall town bad boyâ villains and enhanced so much by having Sutherland in this role that King made Ace a major character in his later novel of Needful Things (though the character did not make it into the movie adaptation of THAT book). Sutherland solidified his rising star even more with this turn, that of an incredibly cold hearted bully prone to beating and torturing Phoenix even as Phoenixâs older brother (and Sutherlandâs best friend!) just stands there watching and smirking. But it isnât long before we learn just how Ace can get away with such things, literally leading his little gang based entirely on their fear of him and what they think that heâs capable of, and Sutherland plays it to the hilt with his own charisma and screen presence, portraying Ace as a towering figure of callous evil despite the fact that he really is just a two bit punk hoodlum who commands the respect of his peers mostly because heâs willing to make the kind of THREATS that they wonât make without usually having to back up that kind of talk. Indeed, the scenes featuring Ace and his older gang are so mean spiritingly entertaining that they serve to create a much lighter mood in the film whenever the story cuts back to them (and also with a fictitious âpie eating contestâ that is easily the comedic highlight of the film), including the near legendary âMailbox Baseballâ scene, a hilariously cynical moment that not only reflects their callous nature towards commiting a federal crime (âBatter up!â) but which actually freaked network executives out so bad that when the movie played on network TV, they had to add in a special disclaimer reminding people not to tamper with other peopleâs mailboxes. As Sutherlandâs gang soon figures out the whereabouts of the body as well and we draw ever closer to a final confrontation between the two groups, so does our original pack of main characters have some emotional discoveries of their own, and in turn hampering the film with two very badly played, badly directed âcryingâ scenes featuring Phoenix and Wheaton, obviously intended to be an Oscar clip moment for the two young actors that each time winds up being completely overdone, with the touchy feely aspects of the two scenes pushing the film into borderline homoerotic undertones, as Reiner would have just been better served to have gotten his two young actors to instead simply become really emotional and not have turned it into an Old Wives therapy session. That being said, Feldman still succeeds at doing much of the heavy lifting, still being somehow rock solid proud of his dad having stormed the beach at Normandy despite the old man having near killed him at one time, plus the very interesting subtext of how the Wheaton and Phoenix characters are somehow âbetterâ (in terms of intelligence) than the Feldman and OâConnell characters which means that sooner or later they would have to âmove onâ from them and then of course the ultimate discovery of the body itself, which while being something that realistically would give a kid nightmares, succeeds in putting across the point that the four main characters seeing a dead person in front of them for the first time with their own eyes in some ways signals the death of their own innocence as well. In the end, a very well told, well presented story that remains a classic to this day about the themes of growing up and moving on from the friends who do not share the same future as you doâŠ
9/10