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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 2812
Released: January 29, 2002 |
| Our Price: $4.28 |
| Used Price: $5.19 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This charming, Academy Award winner (1979, Screenplay) cycles high on comedy as four friends come to terms with life after high school. When top-notch cyclist Dave (Dennis Christopher) learns that the world's bicycling champions are always Italian, he attempts to turn himself into an Italian, driving his parents (Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley) crazy. But everything changes after he meets the Italian racing team-an encounter that ultimately leads him and his friends (Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley) to challenge the local college boys in the town's annual bike race.
Description of Breaking Away (Widescreen Edition):
Peter Yates's flag-waving film stands with To Kill a Mockingbird and American Graffiti as one of the best films about small-town Americana. Steve Tesich won an Oscar for his semi-biographical screenplay about four 19-year-olds who don't know what to do after high school. Dave Stohler (Dennis Christopher) and his three friends--ex-football star Mike (Dennis Quaid), wily comedian Cyril (Daniel Stern), and tough kid Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley)--are doomed to live in the college town of Bloomington, Indiana, where the local kids (nicknamed "Cutters"--a derogatory reference to quarry workers and their blue-collar families) are looked down on by the uppity students of nearby Indiana University.
Stohler escapes into a world of Italian bicycling, picking up the lingo, the accent, and a good share of the talent of his heroes. He is also the scourge of his father's life. The used-car salesman (Paul Dooley) doesn't understand his son's affection for bicycling or, for that matter, his pride in being a "Cutter."
Breaking Away rehabilitates the word heartwarming as Tesich's uncommonly intelligent script gives us well-rounded characters and a potent sense of place. The grandstanding finale--the real life "Little 500" bike race--gives the film a perfect, crowd-pleasing end. However, the film never sacrifices the development of characters for the action. Dooley is especially effective in one of those once-in-a-lifetime roles. The lifelong character actor's place in film history is established with this indispensable performance. --Doug Thomas
Breaking Away (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
BREAKING AWAY FROM ROCKY 
2009-08-18 - The movie portrays a group of local Indiana childhood friends who seem content on staying together forever in their youth; no ambition, no goals until they are pitted against the priveleged "rich" college students attending IU. This is perhaps one of the best feel good sports movies ever made. It ranks up there with Hoosiers. It does have a borrowed interest from Rocky to an extent but it works. And you will probably guess how the movie ends but it still works because the real ending is not the race. Oh did I mention it is about cycling? This movie predates Lance Armstrong by a few decades. Who knows, perhaps it inspired him?
This is a movie that I watched with the entire family because we could. The entire family loved it. I give it 5 stars for this genre.
Local Kids Challange Local Fraternities in Cycling 
2009-06-29 - I saw this at the movie theater when it was issued as well as its and pieces of it on television over the years. My wife and I both loved it and we bought this DVD in order to be able to share it with our daughter and her family since our local Blockbuster does not carry it. Enjoy this classy family movie.
More then a bike movie
2009-05-28 - Bought this for the bike footage, but it is much more and really about coming of age and making those first big choices in life. A fun movie with a positive message
You see I'm what you call a cutter
2009-05-12 - Barbara Barrie asks, "Aren't you glad to be alive?", Paul Dooley answers, "NO I'm glad I'm not dead, there's a difference." I can't expect everyone to understand the complexity of this movie so let's say its a good movie to see once, its just like the movie 'Rudy' but slower. But for the minority of cutters like myself that have read lots of Mark Twain, Steinbeck, and Vonnegut - this is an American existential classic. Superficially, a coming of age movie with bicycles but on a literary level the movie is about how American society can convince middle-class youth of a false mythos and of how directed talent, a little ambition and a shot of self-confidence can transform; its about the joy of being young; and foremost it is about the existential becoming of the real person able to boldly move into the future by fully understanding oneself, (if any of my former Arizona St. U. classmates happens to read this review, don't laugh too hard!).
Breaking away in a couple of ways
2009-05-04 -
Excellent movie: action/suspense, humor, and moral dilemma. Perfect demonstration of a kid trying to "break from the tribe" and of people learning to see past the imposed cultural stereotypes and portals, whether looking at themselves or others.
