Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Bueller Bueller Edition (1986)
Paramount Home Entertainment

Our rating:

Your rating:

(Click a rabbit to cast your vote.)

E-mail this review to a friend »

On the best day of hooky ever conceived, high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) plays sick to stay home from school. Once the parents leave for work, he convinces best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to "borrow" his dad's prize red 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, and head to downtown Chicago.

With Ferris' girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) they crash a fancy restaurant, take in a Cubs game and even commandeer a downtown parade. All the while, the officious principal (Jeffrey Jones) and jealous sister (Jennifer Grey) try to catch him in the act. He may break the rules, but America's most lovable, philosophical truant teaches us the ultimate lesson: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you'll miss it."

The oddest thing about John Hughes's 1984-1986 teen trifecta -- Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off -- is that none of the genre-defining movies have ever been released on special edition DVD. The cult flicks just beg for extras. At last Ferris gets his due with some first-rate extras on the "Bueller Bueller" edition. The entire cast, with the curious exception of Mia Sara, returns to tell stories about the production. Sara and writer-director Hughes (who sports one of the most assertive mullets in Hollywood history) are shown only in archive footage. The "Making of" featurette divulges secrets like the fact that Hughes wrote the movie in just six days to beat an impending writers strike, and the ill-fated Ferrari is actually a Mustang beneath a fiberglass shell. Ben Stein, whose distinctive roll-call monotone provides the title of this DVD edition, is the most impressive of the talking heads. Without a shred of irony, the Nixon speechwriter-turned-actor compares the character of Ferris Bueller to Thomas Jefferson and Jesus. Now, that's an endorsement of one righteous dude.

by Rob. Walton