Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.

Another super descriptive summary from IMDb but whatcha gonna do?

This movie I also watched for my Soc class but I liked this one soooo much better.  Granted it wasn't a movie I'm dying to see again but compared to Boyz this was actually watchable.

The rebel is James Dean and he moves to a new town because he keeps getting into trouble and his parents think if they take him away from all that then he will improve as a person.  But he doesn't because he's James Dean :)

He meets the local cool kids and tries to fit into their gang.  A knife fight ensues and is stopped by a local police officer.  Because their dispute couldn't be settled the group decides to do a "chickee run" later that night.  For those who missed out on the 50s a chickee run is when two guys steal two cars and race them off the cliff.  The last one to jump out of their car and not die wins!  I can't wait to get a group of people and do this next weekend!!! WHOOOOOO!!! (I'm totally kidding by the way...this is the stupidest way to prove a man has balls)

So there's a complication and the guy that challenged James Dean drives off the cliff and dies, so of course his girlfriend (well now ex-girlfriend) starts to fall in love with Jimmy D and they run off together to an abandoned mansion.  There they bump into the local wannabe kid.  You know the kid that no one really hangs out with but he's always there just in case they change their mind?

Well he apparently frequents this same mansion and the three of them decide to play house.  James and his new arm candy are the parents while Plato (the wannabe kid) is their son.

Later on, the police find the group and Plato gets scared and starts shooting them when he pulls out his gun (for protection of course!).  They chase him to the planetarium, this movie has some WEIRD settings, and Jimmy gets him to come out unarmed.  The police don't know he's unarmed so when he does come out they shoot him and he dies.  Sorry guys, but the lonely underdog doesn't make it :(

Jimmy and his girl go home all sad and the movie ends.

Did I mention that this whole movie takes place in ONE day???  How cool is that?!  Just because of some of the choices everyone made people died and there was a huge shootout and all this conflict came out of Jimmy's first day of school?

That just baffles my mind!  But anyway this is a good movie but not super attention-keeping.  I tended to daydream during the lame lovey-dovey parts and there wasn't enough action to keep me totally entertained.

But I guess I still give it 3 stars, it was better than Boyz and I was slightly more interested in the characters than I thought I would be.  Yay James Dean!!