I remember watching this movie many years ago when it was released back in the early 1990's. It was seen as being hilarious and a kind of fun film about excess and the transition from teen to adult known as "coming of age films."
I do also remember thinking that it was plagued with odd scenarios and honestly, some people who simply can't act.
Has there ever been a film that more openly advocated for drug and alcohol use among teens? I have a hard time thinking of one. In this film it seems as though kids have no difficulty obtaining either and they also don't seem to have very much, or really any, parental oversight. I wasn't alive in 1976 but I seriously doubt that students were simply allowed to stalk and beat other kids with impunity, which is somewhat of a theme in this film as the Seniors would relentlessly chase down kids that were about to enter high school the following year and abuse them.
Years after this film, multiple schools would end up getting sued because of allowing exactly what is happening in this film. Look closely at the pic above... Ben Affleck is second from the left. Ben is also one of the few people in this film that actually know how to act and let me tell you, go back and watch this film for the sake of spotting bad acting - you won't have to wait very long to see what I am talking about.
This is best personified in what I think it the lead actor of the entire film, Wiley Wiggins.
He plays the role of incoming freshman, Mitch Kramer, and this kid can't act at all. In multiple scenes I was reminded of people that I was in drama class with in high school who were so late on their cues and were incapable of doing anything other than reciting lines. He is just awful and the fact that he is in the lead role makes me wonder who it is that he was connected with in order to end up in movies at all. As it turns out his uncle was in Janis Joplin's band, so there's the answer there.
There isn't a single person in this scene that knows how to act
It should be easy to understand that Wiley did not go on to do great things and for the most part had extremely minor roles before disappearing into near complete obscurity. I don't mean to be overly harsh on the guy but seriously, of all the large-production films I have seen with a bad actor in the lead, he might be the worst I've ever seen.
I suppose the highlight of this film would be Matthew McConaughey and his "all right all right all right" as this is the film where this line first appears. It was also only Matthew's second film. The first one he was in the credits merely as "Guy number 2" if that gives you any idea of how small a role he had. McConaughey would of course go on to become one of the biggest stars in the world and he was above and beyond the acting chops of everyone else in this movie.
Is it just me? I remember people talking about how much they loved this film when I was younger but I feel as though it was just "cool" to celebrate anything that had drinking and drugs in it at the time. I can find very little in the way of redeeming qualities in this movie, but if I had to choose something, it would be the soundtrack and Matthew McConaughey. The rest of it, is just kind of stupid.
Dazed and Confused was added to Netflix near the end of 2019 and will soon disappear from the global library. If you want to see an collection of nearly impossible teenage scenarios and terrible acting, better get on it now!
