Vier irre Typen - Wir schaffen alle, uns schafft keiner

This is my absolute favourite coming of age movie! It has an endearing teenage hero, an engaging story, a touching theme, an amazing musical score, and an abundance of humour. The story revolves around Dave Stoller and his three buddies, four misfits who have just graduated from high school.

Dave recently received a bicycle as a gift, has become a good racer locally, and his heroes are the Italian Cinzano racing team. To the consternation of some, his life begins to revolve around his dreams of becoming a racing champion, to the extent that he basically tries to turn himself into an Italian. He learns the language, absorbs the culture, listens to its operas, and gives his cat an Italian name Fellini! He even pretends to be an Italian exchange student in order to impress a pretty sorority girl named Katherine, whom he calls Caterina and feels would otherwise be beyond his reach.

Dave makes an appealing hero, wonderfully portrayed by Dennis Christopher, vulnerable but with an amazing joie de vivre. His hilarious attempts at becoming Italian, for example shaving his legs like their men but not their women, proved one of the highlights of the movie. The scene where he serenades his Caterina at her sorority house has to be one of the most charming in all filmdom. I was also bowled over by his endearing enthusiasm when he discovers "The Italians are coming!", that his racing heroes will soon be arriving in his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana where the entire tale is set, culminating in the Indiana Little 500 cycling race.

Dave is a kid who doesn't think he is good enough for college, lives in a fantasy world of Italian cycling, and wants to break away from his own aimless, mundane life. This is a typical coming of age movie in that he learns a lot about himself and the realities of life, especially from the behaviour of his heroes, the Cinzano racing team. His three sidekicks are a sympathetic bunch -- the rebellious, angry Mike, the short, feisty Moocher, and the goofy, appealing Cyril who seems to have no family. Through competing against the college crowd in the Little 500, they learn lessons in self esteem and team spirit, believing in yourself and striving toward reachable goals.

Breaking Away is a movie with obvious social class themes. Dave and his friends are "townies" called Cutters, named for the stonecutters from the town's quarries. The students at the nearby college campus look down their noses at these Cutters. However, Dave's father, who is a car salesman lacking a college education himself, teaches his son to take pride in the name, that it was stonecutters who built these impressive college buildings.

The film is refreshingly unusual in having a major sympathetic role played by Dave's parents. I absolutely loved the father, portrayed by Paul Dooley, the source of much of the film's humour, announcing for example that he doesn't want anything in his house that ends with 'ini'! Mr. Stoller despairs of his son's Italian phase, fearing verbally that Dave is going to wind up an Italian bum! Both the marital relationship between Dave's parents and the bond between father and son are captured with poignancy as well as humour.

When I first saw this movie after its original release, the thing that remained with me besides the charming joie de vivre of its hero was the wonderful Italian music, from Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and a Rossini opera. This musical score provides magnificent accompaniment to the bicycle racing sequences, especially one in which Dave is racing the Cinzano truck on a highway heading toward Bloomington!

This is a heartwarming movie that no one should miss. It may be almost thirty years old but its characters and story are as engaging as the day it was released. I won't give it away, but that last scene is priceless!

...and unsure of your future. Other reviewers have given good summaries of the film, so I won't go into it. It's interesting though that of the four principle actors, only Dennis Quaid had any kind of career after this, which is very surprising since they were all such strong performances. "Breaking Away" really captures that limbo period right after high school when you're not sure what the future holds. I identified strongly with Dennis Christopher's character - I though I was going to just pump gas or flip burgers for a year before my mom pushed me to go to college. In other words, this is a realistic, character-driven movie - you'll probably find a bit of yourself in one, or several, of the characters. There's also real chemistry here between all the actors. And the photography really captures the beauty of the Midwest (some of you, no doubt, are scratching your heads after reading that). This is a gem - don't pass it up at the video store or when it appears next on TV.

I recently saw this on the big screen here in Tokyo (July 2012).

I hadn't seen it for years, going back decades probably. I saw it originally when it came out, as I was only a couple of years junior to those portrayed on the screen. Like others have mentioned, the acting was superb and true to life. Not one second on screen do you feel anyone is acting. Dennis Christopher as lead character David Stoller is really a joy to behold. His enthusiasm is never forced or fake. He pulls it off beautifully.

And Dennis Quaid's Mike character is probably all too common in this world of high school stars peaking with graduation. His story is quietly repeated among so many who saw their best years in high school only to watch others get the longer lasting glory. The speeches he gives are poignant, deep and yet perfectly fitting of his character. He does a wonderful job of showing the frustration of change.

Daniel Stern's Cyril is perfect as the more comical of the bunch - simply perfect casting. Some of his lines are just priceless.

And Jack Earl Haley and 'Moocher' looks like so many of us looked like back then, me included (though I wasn't short). Long straggly hair, t shirt, jeans and string-bean skinny.

Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie were wonderful. As were the brief shots of others at the Little 500. I can only imagine they were locals hired as extras.

Hart Bochner (Lloyd's son) did a fine job as the snob jock. Gotta admit, they didn't come better looking than that back then. I sometimes wonder if Paul McTiernan didn't intentionally subject Hart to that somewhat comical but deadly ending in "Die Hard" out of payback for being such a jerk in "Breaking Away".

Katherina played by Robyn Douglass was wonderful. She had that perfect look of girls you would just die for back then. She even resembled a girl me and my pals were all in love with back in Chatham Township high school. I loved her scenes and her moment when she finds out the truth. Really jolts you out of your seat. Choked me up.

Watching this film really made me aware of how we've changed, not just in our clothing or hair styles, but in our entire lives. Everything is brand-name now, everyone is so conscious of who made the object they desire and how much it cost. The more expensive the better. Everything is new and shiny. Every single element in a movie is examined from eyeglasses to shoes to pens. Everything is measured for its affluence and brand quality.

Back then, we had Schwinns, Huffys, Raleighs, even Sears and whatever else we could afford. We wore clothes just like those kids in the movie wore, T shirts, old jeans cut-offs in summer, and ripped up sneakers. We had fishing holes or swimming holes and spent enormous amounts of time riding bikes, or just laying in the grass or on rocks in the sun, or up in some tree house, just thinking or talking or planning out the universe... and also about girls, which none of us had actually had any meaningful contact with yet. A magical time in a boy's life.

Reminds me of the time we discovered an old playboy in the woods under a fallen tree. It was a huge deal with us at the time. We'd hide it back under the tree trunk wrapped in some plastic and go back to it when we were back there. Nowadays, the most descriptive and graphic porn that even Ripley wouldn't believe is simply a click away 24/7. It's a different world, indeed.

(Ironically, as a side note, the Playboy issue, we found out years later was the one that highlighted the ill-fated Dorothy Stratton.)

Nowadays, can you imagine anyone, especially a 19 year old kid sitting still out in nature or anywhere else for that matter for even ten seconds without whipping out a smart-phone or some other gadget? Or being seen not having just the right clothes, just the right Nikes or Adidas sneakers? We had converse back then, and they were the cheap sneakers.

It's just sad that such a time in life is gone forever, not just in the styles which were, yes, sloppy, an unkempt, but in the way kids lived. It's an entirely different world today and I wouldn't trade my childhood in the 70s and early 80s with any kid today for all the money in the world.

I sat through the film twice, loving it so much and knowing I'd probably never get a chance to see it on the big screen again. Watching it with tears in my eyes, I really felt such an urge that if I could have, I would've climbed into that screen in a second to go back to that time once again that is never more. Just like Willoughby must've been to Rod Serling.

In a bicycle race, "breaking away" describes the often-desperate solo move a rider makes in a bid to win the race. Most riders are bunched together for shared protection against the wind, and to keep an eye on their rivals--a group is always more efficient than an individual. But in moments of confusion, a single rider might just get a jump on the group and, with superhuman effort, beat the odds against going it alone and emerge victorious.

In "Breaking Away" we follow the exploits of four misfits just out of high school who contentedly contemplate a future as dead-enders. They aren't particularly smart, athletic, or good-looking, and they lack any sense of direction in their lives. Moreover, as townies, or "cutters" in a college town, they wear a spell of invisibility in their dealings with the students--the differences are painfully obvious. When they hang out on campus or lamely try to chat up the co-eds, they might as well be ghosts haunting a town they used to inhabit. Something happened when they graduated from high school and didn't go on to college: they became cutters, no better than servants, in their own confused eyes.

When we meet Dave Stoller (Dennis Christopher) we think, here's a guy who might be able to break out of his own rut. He seems to be a kid with a little more on the ball than the others. But then we see that he's also the most confused--by far. Dave is wrapped up in a fantasy world where he's an Italian bike racer, a champion of a sport virtually unknown in America at the time. That Dave's charming misfits of friends take him and his delusions in stride shows us the bond of their friendship and shared misery, and just how far off the map they've all slid.

After a chance encounter with a beautiful sorority girl (Robyn Douglass) Dave pretends to be an Italian exchange student in an effort to woo a girl he believes would otherwise be way out of his reach. He draws on his obsessive knowledge of Italian culture and his own quirky charm to fool the girl into seeing him as someone fresh and new, an outsider, but not a misfit. The romance seems to be going somewhere, and Dave feels he's finally breaking away.

While Dave is conducting his fraudulent personal life he also has an opportunity to race with the Italian bike racers he had worshiped from afar. It's his chance to get recognition from the masters of the sport. He may not have much going as a cutter, but he's certain the Italians will see his racing ability and welcome him as one of their own. But when he shows that he can keep up with them in the race, naively hoping for their approval, they throw him into a ditch. Dave's fantasy world comes crashing down.

When Dave realizes that the Italians will fight to protect their turf just as much as the Americans he resents, his first reaction is to give up--"everybody cheats" he says resignedly. And he rejects the friends who had looked to him for something more--his three chums and their own struggles, and the sorority girl, who had seen in him something special.

Only Dave can save Dave, but it is his father's hard words that prompt him into action. To Dave and his friends, a "cutter" is someone who doesn't measure up to the college kids who are going somewhere in their lives. They affect being misfits because a misfit is one rung on the ladder above how they see themselves, which is as losers. But Dave's father points out that "cutters" were the original stonecutters who built the grand buildings on the campus. They may not be college-educated, Dave's father says, but to them "cutter" is a badge of honor for the hard-working men who built something real out of the flat earth. Dave will never be a "cutter", he says, meaning a man of accomplishment, unless he finds something equally real to do with his own life.

The Indiana Little 500 is a bike race the university holds that is taken very seriously by the groups that participate. At the time, it was the largest race in America, and fraternities counted some of the best American bike racers on their squads. But to Dave and his friends who are invited to race, it is a chance to prove to the students (and themselves) that their lives so far weren't just wasted time.

Yes, Dave is a gifted bike racer, but we already knew that. But the Little 500 (and life) requires that one rely upon not just inner strength, but the creative use of the strengths of others. It is a team race. What Dave learns when testing himself against these college students that he never felt would give him the time of day, is that the biggest obstacle to his own success was himself.

"Breaking Away" is a rich visual tapestry of life lived outside the spotlight. The characters are not fancy or sophisticated, and their life goals are simple and well within reach. It is themselves they struggle with, and their perceptions of themselves. "Breaking Away" is the story of kids who had let their own self-image degrade to the point that a fantasy world, and a life of bitter resentment, seemed like their best option.

Do you remember that time in your life when you were no longer a teenager but not yet an adult? That time in your life when, for the very first time, you had to begin to make decisions that could affect the outcome of your life. There is no movie that captures this time, the transition from teenager to adulthood, quite as well as Peter Yates' superb film Breaking Away.

The story takes place in Bloomington, Indiana, (home to Indiana University) one of the bigger college towns in America. It concerns the rivalry between the rich, snobbish college kids and the local townies (called cutters because there fathers cut limestone in the local quarries to build the college, among other things.) The cutters are played superbly by Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern and Jackie Earle Haley. There is not a false note in any of their performances with Quaid and Christopher special stand-outs. It is interesting to note that of the four, only Quaid and Stern went on to bigger and better things.

What really carries this movie though, are the universal themes that everyone can relate to. We can all relate to at least one of the stars, everyone has gone through what they are going through. Most people realize it as one of the more difficult times in their life (as it is for the characters portrayed in the movie.) What carries them through is their friendship with one another, and the support that that gives them. The movie also touches upon family and how hard it is sometimes to communicate with parents, who always (hopefully) love but sometimes just don't understand. Special mention must be made of Paul Dooley (who plays the father of Dennis Christopher), how he did not receive an oscar nomination much less win the coveted statue, for his performance, remains a mystery to this day. Barbara Barrie is also excellent as the mother.

The story follows the cutters as they try to prove to the college kids that they are real human beings, not outcasts to be looked down upon. As one of the cutters is a champion bike rider, the climax of the film and the contest to prove their worthiness, comes down to the Little 500 Bike Race. This is an annual bike race that is still held at IU and is one of the seminal sporting events of the college year (the screenwriter Steve Tesich, who won an oscar for his screenplay, actually won the Little 500). It is the perfect ending for this remarkable and uplifting film.

Praise must be given to everyone involved with the production, there is not a false note throughout the movie. Peter Yates did a superb job of taking relatively unknown actors coupled with tough subject matter and turning it into a minor classic.