Deals With Similar Issues As The Wanderers example essay topic

For a movie to be entertaining there has to be catchy dialogue, developed characters, and thought-provoking issues. I should not only come out of the movie having been entertained, but thinking about the context of the story. Many of today's movies like American Pie take complex life changing situations and sugar coat them into nothing more than a slight passing discomfort. The Wanderers, directed by Philip Kaufman, deals with many thought-provoking, life changing issues. It deals with gang violence, abusive parents, alcoholism, and teen pregnancy among many others. It causes the audience to think and not just sit there like a zombie.

The Wanderers is set in Brooklyn in the early sixties when the nation as a whole went through major changes in the way we see the world. We were no longer an untouchable nation who could not be hurt. The movie is about a group of boys in a street gang who go through the trials and tribulations of transitioning from adolescents to adulthood in this turbulent time in history. They believe that there is nothing more to life than getting girls, bowling and being tough. We follow Richie (Ken Wahl), Joey (John Friedrich), and Perry (Tony Gan ios) as they face the harsh realities of life. Richie is the leader of The Wanderers.

He is good looking, has a pretty girlfriend and is popular. Joey is Richie's best friend whose big mouth always seems to get the gang in trouble. Joey is a skilled painter, but is always being put down by his abusive father. Perry always sticks up for the little guy and is good at it. He lives with his alcoholic mother who relies on Perry to raise himself. The boys get into fights, try to get with girls and deal with screwed-up parents.

Each boy has to make his own decision about what to do and for Richie that decision is the hardest. They each have to make their own way. Whether that is staying in Brooklyn or leaving for something bigger and better. A movies that deals with similar issues as The Wanderers is a movie like American Graffiti. American Graffiti deals with the issues of growing up and trying to do something with your life once high school is over.

In American Graffiti Steve (Ron Howard) and Kurt (Richard Dreyfuss) are going away to school, escaping their "turkey town". Throughout the events of the night, Steve realizes that he is not ready to leave and decides to stay with his girlfriend. He takes a very real assessment of where he is and realizes that he is not as mature as he originally thinks. Those kinds of decisions are the ones that make or break you. They help to define who you are and are a major part of growing up. Richie, on the other hand, decides to accept the consequences of his actions.

He sees the mess that he has gotten himself in to and decides to be a man just like Steve does in American Graffiti. He could have run from his responsibilities, but he reaches inside of himself and finds the strength to do what is right. Eventhough it may not be the path Richie wants to go at that time he realizes it is what he must do and in the long run it will make him a better person. The characters in Shawshank Redemption deal with many of the same life-changing issues that the characters in The Wanderers do. Even though Shawshank Redemption is not a coming of age story, it is about self-discovery and rising against authority. It is set in a prison, which is similar to the streets of Brooklyn.

People are beaten up because they say the wrong thing or because they will not conform to a certain group. Just as in The Wanderers The Baldies beat up members of other gangs just for making a smart comment or looking at them wrong. In Shawshank Redemption, some of the inmates make it out of prison and some don't. Some are institutionalized for life and will never leave the stonewalls of the prison. This is so in The Wanderers, some of the gang members leave the city to try their luck someplace else and some will live and die in Brooklyn.

Gang violence, abusive parents, alcoholism, and teen pregnancy: the issues are tough and the kids are naive. What more could I ask for in a coming of age story. Kids do not have the answers to life's problems and this movie hits that right on the nose. The parents are useless and barely seen, so many of the tough decisions are left in the hands of the kids who make them.

They have to learn from trial and error much the same way that teens do in real life. They must decide to take matters into their own hands or seek the advise of some older, but not always wiser, council. The movie teaches us this: growing up is hard and the decisions we make affect us for life.