MOVIE REVIEW! - 'Brats'

'Brats' (2024)

In the 1980s, a group of young actors were branded “The Brat Pack” in a “New York” article titled ‘Hollywood’s Brat Pack’ by David Blum. The article was about a group of young actors who often starred in similar teenage films (oftentimes together) and they were beloved by young audience members all over the world. There was only one group that hated the branding: the Brat Pack themselves.

In particular, Andrew McCarthy seems to have had the hardest time coming to terms with this time in his life. Now, McCarthy is on a quest to talk to some of the other Brats in order to figure out what they thought of that time and how they learned to cope with it. This includes McCarthy revisiting people he hadn’t seen in 30 years such as Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, and Ally Sheedy.

But before watching the documentary, I decided to read the infamous article that coined the Brat Pack term… and I have some thoughts.

THE ARTICLE

Published in 1985 before the premiere of “St. Elmo’s Fire”, Blum’s article was originally supposed to focus on Estevez only. However, after experiencing a night where Estevez and his friends were partying, he pivoted his article to talk about this young group of teenage actors instead.

The article is, in my opinion, a trashy and jealous article. It feels as though Blum was upset that he wasn’t a part of the gang and that he envied their youth and success. For some unknown reason, he mentions that none of them went to acting school (which is false because McCarthy did study acting) and that none of them went to college. There’s no reason for Blum to mention any of this, but he does so anyway as though it was a bad thing that they went straight to Hollywood from high school.

The worst thing he tries to say about the Brat Pack is that they are overprivileged (omg, Estevez got a free ticket to a movie! The audacity!) and that they party and drink at night. Again, a group of young adults in their early 20s are drinking Coronas and attending night clubs? So, you’re trying to say what? That they’re like most every other person in their 20s?

This article should have been flat out denied by “New York”, but they ran with it and it did end up hurting or at least briefly stalling a lot of young careers. Speaking of which…

It was during the release of 'St. Elmo's Fire' that the infamous 'New York' article was released.

THE DOCUMENTARY

In the movie, McCarthy explains that after the article’s release, the term Brat Pack was being embraced by the outside world as a positive thing. However, in the industry, the actors associated with the term were now looked upon as unprofessional and not worthy of more serious roles.

While interviewing Estevez, McCarthy learned that the “Young Guns” actor actively avoided certain movie roles if any other “members” of the Brat Pack had been cast in other parts. In fact, almost every member of the unofficial group avoided each other. The irony is that the article actually broke up the group entirely.

There are, admittedly, times where I don’t think the documentary knows where it wants to go. This could be because McCarthy doesn’t quite know where he wants it to go as well other than to just clear the air about what happened all those years ago.

The good news is that the interviews with the other members are intriguing because we’re finally getting to see how each member dealt with this thing in their lives. They all start out by saying that they hated it at first, but most of them then reveal how they’ve learned not only to cope with the Brat Pack days but also how to embrace them.

The only two people that he doesn’t really talk to are Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson. They were both approached but McCarthy has revealed that they simply didn’t want to talk about the past and just want to move forward. In a way, this documentary reveals that this is what McCarthy is trying to do.

Throughout the years, I knew that the people associated with the Brat Pack hated that it ever happened, but I always felt that it was McCarthy that had taken it the hardest. He had wanted a more serious acting career and it was completely stalled by this thing that he couldn’t quite control.

The good news is that this doc does seem to be a bit of a catharsis for McCarthy. He even gets to confront Blum about the article and even gets a better understanding as to why Blum wrote the article. In short, though, I can say that this is a compelling if somewhat confused documentary that I definitely recommend and, at the end of the day, I hope this allows McCarthy to close the book on this particular chapter in his life.