When two poor Greasers, Johnny and Ponyboy, are assaulted by a vicious gang, the Socs, and Johnny kills one of the attackers, tension begins to mount between the two rival gangs, setting off a turbulent chain of events.
[Coppola's] revisions to the film, which include a new, improved soundtrack, invest it with grandeur worthy of both its characters and his own ambitions.
– Manohla Dargis,
New York Times,
9 Sep 2005
rotten:
A deeply strange film that gives '60s hoodlums the personalities of Care Bears and places them under constant attack from preppies in pastel sweaters.
– Kyle Smith,
New York Post,
9 Sep 2005
rotten:
The film is unremitting in its morbid sentimentality, running its teenage characters through a masochistic gamut of beatings, killings, burnings, and suicides.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Reader,
11 Dec 2007
rotten:
Well acted and crafted but highly conventional.
– Variety Staff,
Variety,
11 Dec 2007
rotten:
Because it falls in with the undulating rhythm of the life of its heroes, for whom a fatal fight and a quiet night have almost equal importance, the picture never manages to reach the peaks of satisfying Hollywood melodrama.