He has a steady job, a cool vintage car, finds a new job as soon as he gets fired and he takes care of his younger sister when she needs an abortion. No questions asked and without being a dick about it. He even ends the movie by stopping an armed robbery.
Yet the movies makes a loser of him by making him wank off while looking at his sister's best friend and by giving him an epilogue where he becomes a convenient store manager.
I agree completely. Plus, he got Arnold a job at All American Burger....and, he even confronted Spicoli and his bozo friends for breaking the no shirt no service rule. The way he handled his sister's situation with the abortion....was 100%, Grade A cool. The perfect big brother.
shareBrad was a good guy, generally, but I got the impression that his Mi-T-Mart epilogue wasn't permanent. Linda's epilogue, for instance, talks about what she's doing and it has to do with college, so I think Brad's epilogue is just referring to the next year or so, and he probably went a little further than that.
The other thing, of course, is that the movie isn't really commenting on who's "cool" and who's not, it's just showing us teenagers in high school. We get to make up our own minds as it just shows us the slice of life: one year in high school with these people. It doesn't tell us who's cool or who's a loser, and I don't think it was commenting on Brad so much as just showing him fantasizing about Linda briefly.
Movies used to do this really well. They used to really just present life and let things be complex and a bit messy. These days I find movies are often more deliberate and often are giving us "spin". That's lead to some tight scripts, very focused and with prominent themes, but I find that sometimes we lose that depth.
I'm not saying Fast Times is some noble venture into real life - it's a fun teen comedy mostly - but it does have that going for it: it just shows us what "is", not what it wants us to think. We get to make up our own minds.
People who are mature and responsible do better later in life. He was pretty square for high school.
shareHad he actually slept with Phoebe Cates, he would have been the undisputed hero of the movie.
share