A Gangue da Pesada

I was delightfully surprised with this film. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but I watched it after it was mentioned by "The Warriors" director Walter Hill because he had some worries that his film and The Wanderers would be coming into theaters around the same time, and he described them as two street-gang movies competing for box office sales. As much as the seniors in this movie had a "gang," the two movies were far different from each other, I feel.

The Wanderers is a strange movie. At moments, intensely serious fighting and interpersonal problems exist amongst these teens in the community, and then in other scenes, the moments couldn't have been lighter (ie. Playing strip poker with a couple of the girls at a party). It reminded me more of "Porky's" and the relationships between characters in that film. The cast was an excellent ensemble, and even though most of them went on to other acting work, I'm surprised I haven't seen them in more roles.

Watching the movie now is a little difficult due to political correctness and the way the movie tried to cut the racial tension with a knife. The movie has real guts by laying it out there for the audience to get uncomfortable by. The truly surreal moments involve a whole different gang that shows up a few different times during the movie; they don't seem to resemble a different neighborhood and its residents but more like zombies, and it was very difficult to take them seriously without understanding their true intentions and characters. In contrast, I really enjoyed The Baldies, the neighborhood skinhead gang that didn't seem to take life too seriously, which differentiates itself between the skinhead stereotype of white supremacists which most skinheads get labeled as.

Overall, I really want to buy this movie after watching it. It reminds me of a movie that tried to get remade in the same style, "Dueces Wild." The characters were playful yet had real problems. The music is classic 60's tunes from the era, with a handful of originally scored pieces for the surreal fighting scenes. I feel that its good enough for a few more watches, but there are some odd choices for included scenes that I didn't feel fit the movie too well. Definitely check it out if you like gang movies like The Outsiders or The Warriors.

Just finished watching The Wanderers again after so many years. It still stays an all time classic to me. When it just came out I couldn't get enough of that movie. I think it aged well and it's still good after all those years. Maybe the acting and the dialogs are not the greatest but to me it just brings me back to my youth. Okay I preferred The Warriors that came out that same year, but that movie is not comparable even if it is also about gangs. In the Wanderers it's nice to see how the gangs were in that time in New York. It's absolutely not comparable with the gangs from now. The gangs in that time were just friends hanging out together but now they are just gangsters selling drugs and weapons. Anyways, after all those years I still enjoyed this movie, especially the soundtrack.

This film made a BIG impression on me when I was growing up. More than any other film, it captured the timelessness of the transition from being a boy to becomming a man and how you leave childish things behind. Funny, raucous and, at times, both disturbing and moving,this film has it all. If you've never seen "The Wanderers", please do yourself a favour- you won't regret it.

This film has so much more to it than other 'gang' films of the era. I remember when it came out at the cinema and was unfairly compared to 'The Warriors' which is a very different film (although both have the gangs in New York setting). I love this film as it is witty, funny, sad, and has a dark and stylistic tone. PHILIP KAUFMAN is a great director and really proves it here. The acting is great, and it is interesting that only KAREN ALLEN 'made it' to Hollywood fame and went onto make films like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', 'Starman', 'Scrooged' and 'Perfect Storm'. What happened to the other actors? This is a 'cult' epic if ever there was one and it seems to have grown in popularity over the years. Deservedly so in my opinion. Timeless and charming - THE WANDERERS are forever!

Interestingly enough, most of the gangs portrayed in the film were neither symbolic nor imaginary, but were based on various real gangs who existed at different periods throughout the fifties and early sixties.

Many of these gangs were not real gangs in the common theatrical sense, but were specific ethnic groups of teens from different Bronx and Manhattan neighborhoods. Of course, each group developed its own mythical idea of what the other groups were like, and in his novel, Richard Price used much of this teenage myth and lore.

Of all the well-embellished epics common to the teens in the Wanderers' neighborhood , those dealing with the Duckies were the most detailed and commonly accepted. The Duckies, whether or not they were truly an organized group with such a name, were "the guys across the tracks", insofar as The Wanderers were concerned (the tracks being the NY Central's Harlem Line). They lived in the predominantly Irish neighborhood directly across Bronx Park. I believe their frightening, near demonic quality in the movie was based on a single actual event when two of the Wanderers were actually attacked in the park. Since The Wanderers had never really engaged in any real "gang wars" (or any significant fighting for that matter), that particular episode was the source of most of their perceptions of the Duckie Boys' penchant for unbridled violence.