Stand By Me

Stand By Me is the sort of coming-of-age drama that makes you wish you were twelve again.

Reiner's moving story follows the memories of Gordie (Wil Wheaton) in the summer after his brother's death as he and his three friends, Pheonix, O'Connell and Feldman learn that a kid their age is missing and presumed dead. As a strange kind of adventure they decide to go looking for the body.

The journey that follows is accompanied by a glorious soundtrack that features Ben E. King's immortal song that the film takes its title from.

The boys sing along to the likes of Lollipop as they dodge death from oncoming trains as they walk along the line and gang leader Ace (Sutherland).

The performances are superb, including O'Connell (how could he have grown up to be Neve Campbell's boyfriend in Scream 2?), but Phoenix stands out for his performance as Chris Chambers, the kid with a kind heart but caught on the wrong side of the tracks.

This is the sort of film that encourages young boys to misbehave, but in a good way. There seems to be a moral to the story but it gets lost along the way amongst the "two for flinching" gags and emotional trauma of finding a leech on your private bits. It doesn't matter though because Stand By Me is a thoroughly feel-good movie.