The Outsiders 1983

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: The film is unremitting in its morbid sentimentality, running its teenage characters through a masochistic gamut of beatings, killings, burnings, and suicides. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: It's as if someone had handed Verdi a copy of ''The Hardy Boys Attend a Rumble'' and, holding a gun to the poor man's head, forced him to use it as a libretto. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: [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. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There's not much life in this movie, or spontaneity. It's a stylistic exercise. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: 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. Read more

Time Out: Lightly likeable. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Well acted and crafted but highly conventional. Read more