Brats (Hulu): A Documentary Review - The Brat Pack, Revisited

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. A nostalgic, often narcissistic despite lacking self-awareness, journey back to the 80s that never adequately answers the question at its center.

Brats, a new documentary by “Brat Pack” actor Andrew McCarthy (now streaming on Hulu), examines the origins of the label “Brat Pack” and how it impacted that group of young actors from the 1980s.

I’m a Gen Xer through and through, so the Brat Pack era coincided with my early teen years, but in case you missed it, the Brat Pack were a collection of actors in the 1980’s who starred in films that were geared toward teens and young adults – movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful.

The Brat Pack included, but was not limited to, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy and Andrew McCarthy. Other actors who are sort of Brat Pack adjacent are Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Cryer, Lea Thompson, John Cusack, Joan Cusack, James Spader and even such luminaries as Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr.  

The term Brat Pack was the brainchild of David Blum, who in 1985 wrote a profile of Emilio Estevez for New York Magazine where he lambasted the group of young actors taking over Hollywood for being vapid, entitled and spoiled. At best, the term “Brat Pack” is reductive and unkind, at worst it is vicious, mean-spirited, and derogatory…although despite that truth it must be remembered that the reality is that it’s just a label, and not a prison sentence.

Not surprisingly, the members of the Brat Pack didn’t like being called the “Brat Pack”. The label being like a scarlet letter to them and they pushed back against it, and worked hard to overcome it. None more so than Andrew McCarthy.

McCarthy’s career cratered in the wake of the Brat Pack designation, and he was never able to recover. Brats is his attempt to make sense of it all. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he’s able to.

McCarthy was always a bit of a wet noodle of an actor, and in real-life, at least according to how he presents himself in Brats as he drudges up the past by interviewing fellow Brat Packers, he’s not much different. A morose and melancholy fellow, McCarthy is so fragile and sensitive he’s like a hemophiliac, and any bruise, no matter how small, could be fatal. Someone this thin-skinned and soft trying to navigate the rough and tumble, cutthroat world of Hollywood, particularly in the 80’s, is like having a newborn infant try to run with the bulls at Pamplona.  

Brats is, in the broadest sense, heartbreaking, for no other reason than Andrew McCarthy let some two-bit, douchebag writer, and make no mistake, writer David Blum is a douchebag, essentially ruin his career by letting him get into his head with some shitty article forty years ago. That McCarthy is still so under the spell of Blum’s contrived moniker, is, frankly…pathetic. That McCarthy, even when presented with the opportunity to confront Blum in Brats, is unable to muster even the most minimal amount of testicular fortitude, is humiliating for McCarthy and frustrating for viewers.

McCarthy is not alone in having been destroyed by the Brat Pack label. Emilio Estevez, who was maybe the leader of the Brat Pack, seems to have lost the most. At the time, Estevez was the “it” guy in Hollywood. He was starring in movies and directing them too. But he came across as frivolous, delusional and arrogant in Blum’s piece and then spent the next decade trying to escape the Brat Pack curse, but to no avail.

The truth is that Estevez, and many of the Brat Packers, WERE arrogant. Estevez in 1985 thinking he’s the second coming of Francis Ford Coppola is, if nothing else, hysterical for his inflated ego and its delusional nature.

But…thus is Hollywood….home of arrogance and delusion and all sorts of other malignant maladies that are so rampant as to be as commonplace as herpes and depression.

The Brat Pack were no more or less obnoxious and arrogant and delusional than any other bunch of actors having massive success at a young age. The Brat Pack also weren’t unique in having been targeted by a bitter and jealous press out to knock them down a notch or two.

The problem with the Brat Pack is that they responded to negative press, like being called the “Brat Pack”, in the worst way possible. They let it get to them.

For example, Estevez and McCarthy admit in Brats that they didn’t make a movie together back in the 80s explicitly because they wanted to avoid the Brat Pack label.

My thinking regarding the “Brat Pack” moniker is why not lean into it? Grasp it with both hands and say “fuck it and fuck you!” And then only make movies with fellow Brat Packers…or Brat Pack adjacent. If they’re going to force you into a group…then pull some marketing jiu-jitsu and make it the “in” group.

McCarthy and Estevez are certainly the actors who were most crippled by the Brat Pack designation, at least among those featured in Brats (not all Brat Packers are in Brats – Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson the most conspicuous absences). Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy seem to be the most self-aware. Moore, in particular, is quite a charming and captivating a figure in Brats, and speaks with a grounded wisdom that feels hard-earned and genuine.

Rob Lowe on the other hand, feels as inauthentic as ever, as he’s like a bad politician doing a late-night infomercial in his interview with McCarthy.

When Estevez sits down – actually they both awkwardly stand during the interview – with McCarthy it is as uncomfortable as can be and they seem like two people who just met while waiting in line at the DMV. Estevez seems like a hollowed-out human with the accompanying thousand-yard-stare. Estevez and McCarthy standing across from one another, well into middle-age, both wearing the same shirt, look like Vietnam war veterans, shell-shocked and diminished by what went wrong over there.

As for the documentary filmmaking on display in Brats…the uncomfortable truth is that Andrew McCarthy was never a good actor…and he’s not much of a filmmaker either.

McCarthy does all he can to make himself seem like a serious documentarian, but he is exposed by his inability to stick to the subject and hold himself and his subjects to account.

Brats just isn’t as well-made as it could and should be. For example, there’s a meandering and meaningless section in the middle where the lack of diversity in the Brat Pack and in 80s film in general takes center stage. This section is so devoid of any insight or intelligence it gave me a migraine. That this topic is beside the point is never considered by McCarthy because the only reason it’s in the film is for McCarthy to virtue signal and to pander to the usual suspects.

Another example of McCarthy missing the point is when he sits down with the villain of the movie, David Blum. McCarthy is so neutered he can’t even rip into this guy whom McCarthy thinks ruined his life. If McCarthy, through his inability to stand up for himself seems to be so disinterested in confronting his demon, why should we as viewers care about any of this weak-kneed nonsense?

If someone had socially “slandered” me and “ruined” my career, I would let that person know, in no uncertain terms, that there’s a price to pay for that and that price is having me eviscerate him in person and in my documentary. McCarthy obviously thinks differently. Maybe he’s a better person than I am…but he’s certainly not a better man.

It would be nice to think that McCarthy is some sort of evolved being and going to battle with Blum is beneath him…but the entire premise of Brats says otherwise. As does the fact that McCarthy not only made this documentary but also wrote a book about his life in the Brat Pack. The ugly truth is that McCarthy, despite his posing, isn’t evolved and he isn’t self-aware…no…Andrew McCarthy is weak…and a coward…and this is how he got into this whole mess.

On the bright side, McCarthy wisely uses music from the 80’s peppered throughout Brats in order to generate nostalgia, and for the most part is works. But besides the soundtrack the documentary feels incomplete and often times unsatisfying and un-enlightening.

Ultimately, my takeaway from Brats is that if you were a member of the Brat Pack, why give a shit about some hump from NY Magazine and the label “Brat Pack”? You’re young, successful and making movies…of course you’re going to have to endure the slings and arrows of a mendacious and malicious media…but so what? Why let that cripple you?

Unless, of course, like Andrew McCarthy, you subconsciously want a way out…and this is the excuse you give yourself for not wanting to endure and compete and potentially fail due to a lack of skill and talent. So, you blame some moronic label put on you and then go off and pout about it for the next forty years…not even man enough to take responsibility for your failure or lack of toughness. In Andrew McCarthy’s world it’s always somebody else’s fault.

But when it comes to Brats, McCarthy has no one to blame for the film’s failure but himself.

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