Jul 5, 20243 min read

The Brats... Are Back!

Dempsey Gibson,

Have you seen "Brats" yet? If your too old for Barbies and too young for beer age group was between 1982 and 1986 you owe it to yourself to give this newest Netflix movie a peek a boo!

I have to admit, I was excited to watch the documentary down old memory lane. Not that I was a huge Brat Packer in the day mind you but to be quite honest the preview sold me. The classic music track, "Don't You Forget About Me" with its still "totally awesome dude" drum fill that to this day makes air drummers rejoice, playing in the background as Andrew McCarthy travels through hell and high water in search of his tribe of well paid, uber privileged, movie star money makers to ease their pain. He and he alone has been tasked to find out why that cursed moniker from an unknown writer 38 years ago made the rest of his and his compatriots lives a living hell! I exaggerate just a touch but please, read on!

Like I mentioned the nostalgia of the moment and the magic of the music reeled me in but the reality level of whine made me cut bait. What started out as an interesting question, "how did being labeled brat pack effect you" became this seemingly never ending search for absolution. It was intriguing but after about 45 minutes of the same answer I started to become less interested with the main reason being Andrew McCarthy started to sound like a very long winded repetitive cadence of sameness that really, really....really started to bore.

Seeing Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy and Rob Lowe ( btw, who invited Timothy Hutton?!) once again was fun but they were never interviewed together. It was always a one on one situation with Andrew and that turned into kind of a let down. I wish they could have all reunited in one room ala the "Friends" reunion. If they had maybe the run time would have held audience attention instead of make us look at the "haps on the gram" every 15 minutes to get us through to the end. I mean after that first hour one is just too invested to give up, right?!

The stop /start of individual interviews eliminated the desire to see more because at this point we all knew the aforementioned cadence by heart. Andrew finds Pack present. Andrew listens. Andrew commiserates. Andrew comes to terms with his past privilege. Repeat.

Like I said in my intro, "Brats" is fun for those of us that "16 Candles", "St. Elmo's Fire" and "The Breakfast Club" are still our "go to" on a rainy Saturday afternoon couch movie moment and overall, I liked this documentary, I really did...I just didn't love it and I really wanted to love it.

Maybe if at least one of the "pack" had just said "you know, yeah we took a little heat but in that period, we were popular, we were successful, we were fortunate, it really was one of the best times of my life"... I think that message would have resonated more with the audience who still feels that time of life was the best time in life.

On the part two Andrew please remember, these things tend to be like high school reunions. Everyone wants to see familiar faces from childhood but nobody wants to hang for long with the now adult who puts down every fun memory of pimples past.

I was happy to give a hug hello to an old friend but after a night of reminding me that the cafeteria food sucked, gym class was horrible, band geeks (like myself) never got " the girl" and the best part of any school day was going home... I found myself happier still when the last "Brat" left the party.