Breaking Away

* My favorite IMDB user reviews about Breaking Away:

The best film of 1979 - 4 April 2010
Few low budget ensemble films (or any films, for that matter) have ever clinched the love that fans hold for Breaking Away. No one should really care about the stinky humid summer Bloomington, Indiana drama peopled with down and out townies who despise, and alternatively long for, the harbored, segregated collegiate life of the Indiana University student populace sneering at them from their own backyards. We witness a most unlikely story of comeuppance, an even more unlikely college administrative act of altruism and fraternal good-sportsmanship: the townies are invited to compete in the Little 500 (a cycle race which has today earned it's own enormous velodrome). Venture to guess that the little guys face foes insurmountable, grievances, the derailment of woman's lure, bad luck, discrimination, infighting and reconciliation. Loosely aw-whateverly, they band together in a duel against an enemy insurmountable. Even in the final act, they fight, poke, punch, and holler at each other, never changing and never ceasing. If you don't love this underdog film, and shed cheering tears for its gift, you don't love life nor film. Period.

A film to treasure!!! - 5 January 2000
Breaking Away is a picture that is better than the sum of its parts. Oh, its parts are wonderful. The writing is sharp, observant, and funny (It won an Oscar!), the acting is superb (how Paul Dooley was nixed a nomination never mind the award I'll never know), and it is a well shot film. But its charms go even deeper. It is the story of four young men in their late teens, who are staring adulthood in the face after a year of leisure in the "small town" of Bloomington, Indiana, and how they deal with watching successful college kids pass them by. It is also about a young man in search of an identity (including that of a Italian bicycle racer), and of a family that is loving and supportive, almost in spite of itself. All these add up to a richly enjoyable, deeply moving family picture that gives us many moments to treasure (a large number include Paul Dooley as the frustrated and confused, but eventually loving father). Like other sports movies (the lead character races bicycles), it has a contest at the end, and like many much poorer ones, it ends with triumph. But we cheer not only for these immensely likeable "cutters," but for ourselves, for being treated to this bittersweet, touching, and wonderful movie.

Sweet but not saccharine - 26 May 2002
This film was a pleasant surprise. No sex, no violence, no special effects. Just an incredibly literate and humorous script (which won an Oscar for Steve Tesich) and fantastic performances by the four leads. This is a film for those who still believe that good cinema requires meaningful dialogue and acting that is achingly real in its sincerity. Don't get me wrong: sex and violence have a very real and justifiable place in film; but this movie would have suffered from such a gratuitous inclusion. Peter Yates, the director, has done a fantastic job of pacing the film, and the score, consisting mostly of Rossini overtures, and excerpts from Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony (#4 in A Major, Op. 90), is an inspired touch, adding precisely the right atmosphere. This is the kind of low-budget triumph that the film community constantly extols for P.R. purposes, yet never supports with actual awards.

Charming Sleeper - 15 July 2000
I went to see this movie when it first came out. We had decided to go to a double feature of two movies that we had never heard of, knowing that in that day and age, a double feature meant that at least one, if not both movies, had to be pretty awful. The first film was Starting Over with Burt Reynolds, and it was fairly good. So my friends were sure that the other would have to be terrible, but we had nothing better to do, so I convinced them to stay. Before three lines of dialogue I was absolutely hooked. I have seen it at least twenty times and the witty dialogue and rapport of the characters gets me every time. The music accents the film beautifully. The cinematography is gorgeous. But the story is what really matters. Four guys finding there way in a place where they feel little hope for the future, one a dreamer whose dreams are crushed, but he finds the spirit to pick up and start dreaming again. Delightful all the way around.

Great coming of age story. - 3 August 2002
Breaking Away tells the story of four teenagers on the threshold of manhood and the troubles they have in adapting to the pressures that are increasingly coming to bear upon them. Dave, Michael, Cyril and Moocher spends their days in the water filled limestone pits ruminating on where their life is taking them. To the local college students they are nothing more than "cutters", townies hanging onto to the past glory of their high school years. However, they see themselves in the prime of their lives, enjoying each day as though summer will never end and only sometimes fearing what the future may hold for them.

Things are brought to a head through Michael (Dennis Christopher), a cycling phenomenon obsessed with all things Italian (much to the chagrin of his father). His misadventures with his cycling bring him into contact with his hopes, fears and the future. His experiences bring him closer to his friends and his father and show him a world beyond the small town in which he lives. To paraphrase his father (an actual stone 'cutter') during one touching scene in the film "I don't want to see my son grow up in the holes we cut.."

Breaking Away is a wonderful film that is beautifully shot and treats the trials of a teenager on the verge of adulthood with respect and dignity (something that cannot be said for most teenage films nowadays). The dialogue, particularly between Micheal and his father, was wonderful and shows that families can be dysfunctional without being abrasive. While Dennis Christopher was the standout actor as Michael, he is well supported by an ensemble cast including a very young (and very fit looking) Dennis Quaid. If you're looking for an uplifting film that isn't overly sentimental, Breaking Away is the film for you.

Highest praise! - 1 July 2003
Timeless movie that hits the timeless social themes. Rich/poor, educated/uneducated, close knit family/broken home, protestant/catholic, dreaming of/settling for, pragmatism/altruism, all these were expressed.

The movie uses the term "cutters" as a derogatory term used by the college kids towards the townies. It is developed later in the movie that "cutters" refers to the many quarries and stone cutting that used to employ much of the town, and which supplied the stone to build the college. The most powerful scene in the movie is when the used car salesman father explains to his son why his son has opportunity he never had. The father also has the funniest scene in the movie which left him incapacitated muttering "refund, refund!".

Forget the cycling. They could have been riding lawnmowers and this movie would have been worth watching. If you enjoy character driven movies, this is one not to miss!