St. Elmo's Fire

Certainly one of the most memorable of the 'brat pack' movies of the 80's and the one that starred them all together in one movie (AND the one that got the 'brat pack' name started), St. Elmo's Fire was directed by "Lost Boys" director Joel Schumacher.

This was Schumacher's third movie and was universally panned by the critics at the time for, amongst other things, showing what was felt to be such bad behaviour from young adults. Shrouded in a storm of controversy, the movie was responsible for the term 'Brat Pack' after a high profile reporter who was doing a piece on Emilio Estevez was invited out with the cast and decided to write a very negative piece about them all, labelling them as 'The Brat Pack' forever.

Like "The Breakfast Club" which also starred Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy, St. Elmo's Fire was essentially a character piece, but in this case the characters were older and the piece was about how this bunch of teens were relating to life in 'the big wide world' having left school.

The movie was co-written by Schumacher with his then studio intern Carl Kurlander, who had himself just left university. The pair drew extensively from their own real-life experiences in creating the characters and situations seen in the movie.

Schumacher's lively pacing keeps things moving while the multiple character sub-plots keep us from getting bored with any one character or situation. In the end of course, all of the sub plots converge in the final act and our characters can move bravely onward into the metaphorical sunset with new wisdom and stability... -Well, kinda...