Word: macchios
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...title refers not to Castro's island but to an illiterate Hispanic drug dealer (De Niro) and his much cuddled, much cuffed adolescent son Teddy (Ralph Macchio, star of the movie The Karate Kid). Also on the scene are the father's oafish partner in crime (Burt Young, an Oscar nominee for Rocky) and assorted street-corner toughs, including a junkie playwright who has befriended and apparently seduced the boy, a would-be writer. For De Niro fans, the role of Cuba evokes what he does best in film: veering unnervingly between caressing affection and blind rage. Small wonder that...
...Williams attempts to get the scoop on the inner workings of JFK for the suit, she also tries to get at the inner workings of Nolte. He, on the other hand is too busy with Eddie, his problem student. Ralph Macchio reprises his role from Karate Kid as The Shrimp Who Kicks Ass aka The Tough Kid From a Broken Home Who Is All Right Underneath--Really. Don't wince; the roles, dialogue and intentions of the script are so telegraphed, outlined, highlighted, and underlined that only a Columbia film-student could miss the point...
This film's art consists entirely of hiding the cynicism of its calculations under an agreeably modest and disarming manner. In this it is greatly aided by Ralph Macchio as the Kid and Noriyuki ("Pat") Morita as the apartment handyman who teaches martial arts and pacifistic wisdom to the 97-lb. weakling tired of being beaten up by the bullies at school. Robert Mark Kamen's script is developed with maddening predictability, and John G. Avildsen's direction is literal and ambling. Films like this are what the PG r ating is supposed to be all about...
...youth Broken homes, severe wounds. Murder and tragedy come as brutal but regular doses of hard living rather than critical plot developments. With emotional and physical hardships so commonplace, any period of healing is only a restless interlude before the next spat of marauding violence. When Johnny (Ralph Macchio) sleepily confides. "I think I like it better when the old man's hittin' me at least he knows I'm there," the line is both gut-wrenching and believable. With desolation a staple, a bit of fisticuffs and a dangerous chase add spice...
...rival groups taunt and threaten each other; once in a while they rumble; sometimes a flare of gang anger can lead to sudden death. One such incident sends two greasers, Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) and Johnny (Ralph Macchio), on a trek away from Tulsa to live on the lam and find new ways of being brave and getting hurt. Another greaser, Dallas (Matt Dillon), provides a role model for sexy self-destruction. The bleak moral of Francis Coppola's movie, based on an S.E. Hinton novel that has sold 4 million copies in the U.S., is that...