12th May 2010 - Stand by Me

I know people who have seen this as a child but it was one of the films I knew nothing about, I never saw it on TV or even knew it existed until a friend of mine told me about it. It sounded very interesting and a few days later by pure coincidence there was a clip of it in a Channel 4 program about the top 100 films and it was quite high up.

I decided to look it up on the internet and to my surprise I found it on Play.com, personally when purchasing films I always look at the special features because they interest me sometimes more than the film itself. At a glance it had quite a lot and because it was directed by Rob Riener who did another favourite of mine (Misery) I thought it was worth the risk. Anyway it arrived about a year ago (May 2004) and being 20 at the time I thought I would be sitting down to watch a kids movie like The Goonies, but I was wrong.

The film starts off in the present, which of course is 1986 and it then goes back to the 1950's. There is no flash forwards/backwards moments that chop up the film thus making the story very easy to follow. The cast is very competent and has some good performances even from people who only have one or two lines at best, nothing feels overlooked or out of place. The two people who stand out in this movie are Wil Wheaton and the late River Phoenix, personally I think River's performance is the best out of all the actors especially in the campfire scenes.

It is strangely nostalgic watching this, not that I have gone off in search of dead bodies when I was 12 or anything but the whole adventure; the way they joke around, play games and talk about stupid stuff that seemed important when you were 12 but just isn't now. The whole atmosphere of the film sucks you in which is partly down to the good direction of Rob Riener but mainly because of the way the story is told. You begin to feel sorry for the characters when they are upset and I found myself laughing at the childish jokes and pranks and yes I know I shouldn't.

For people who didn't know, this film is based on a novella (basically a short story) by Steven King called "The Body" I have now read this and added my comments at the bottom of this review.

The film also has some small performances from people who are now very famous, the most notable is Kiefer Sutherland (pictured above). He plays the local hoodlum and really makes the most of his part in this, notably near the end of the film but also when he is hanging out with the rest of his gang. There are some other people I spotted too, John Cusack, the mother out of Gremlins 1 and the Judge in Mrs. Doubtfire. Thought I would mention them if spotting C list actors is your thing.

The film is mainly set in the 50's so all the music is very good and appropriate and with the DVD feature of an isolated film score you can enjoy the songs without all the dialog. The music has to be one of the highlights of this film because it's mainly based in the 50's you get songs like Lolly Pop and the obvious Stand By Me, a song I actually don't like but in this film it works really well.

There is a lot of comedy here too, especially from Vern (above) who always gets picked on and mocked. Teddy played by Corey Feldman also has his moments especially when he's guarding the camp fire pretending to be a soldier. Like the Goonies you can't really imagine any other group of kids that would play these parts unlike Harry Potter where it could be any kid with glasses or any ginger kid. The ending of the film is very satisfying and poignant (you will see why). After I first watched it I thought the film could have been longer because there was so much more to explore with the characters. However it doesn't drag or get boring its another one of these classic films that I wish I had watched sooner.