Original reviews of the film - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Here is a humdinger of an original review.  Let's take a look and then I'll make some comments.  The original publication date on this one is October 1, 1993, written by Joe Pollack of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

RARELY HAS a film been better titled, or provided a better description of its maker, than "Dazed and Confused," Richard Linklater's dumb look at the last day of school in a Texas town in the dark ages of 1976. High schoolers are stepping up to college, or thinking about their senior years to come; those leaving junior high are ready to be exposed to a brave new world of the opposite sex and the high-jinks they dream about.

There is some teen-age humor here and there, some effective acting by a group of generally unknown actors, and a good musical background of the music of the period, but Linklater, who lionized dropouts and pretentious bores in his last film, "Slacker," now cheers too many examples of underage drinkers, bullies and sadists.

Every now and then, he finds someone who demonstrates some sort of personal integrity, like the quarterback who refuses to sign a pledge of good conduct that only a football coach would think realistic. Randy (Pink) Floyd, played by Jason London, knows his football career may be in jeopardy, but he also knows that he's a teen-ager, with all the rebelliousness and desires of his peers and years. He's unwilling to act out the lies of his teammates, who sign the pledge and then forget about it.

Another part of the plot involves Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins is a delightfully awkward adolescent), coming out of junior high. He's a good athlete and has an attractive sister (a stolid performance by Michelle Burke), already in high school. This makes him a natural as a target for hazing, expressed as a series of paddlings by seniors-to-be, and his antics to avoid and escape are often fun.

Less fun is the sadistic treatment of the younger girls, badly embarrassed by the older ones. I guess we older people can look back with some satisfaction at someone else going through a hazing process, but I don't consider someone else's misery - even in a movie - to be the height of entertainment.

Linklater's other characters fit all the molds. There are several confirmed druggies, a one-time athlete who hangs out with the younger kids in hope of retaining his own rapidly fading youth and of finding sexual contacts among those who have not yet been exposed to the same old line. Of course, he finds a studious co-ed who has spent too much time in the library.

Much of the film is spent in aimless driving in search of a party to crash, a drive-in to visit or a younger student to insult. The beer bust is big and sprawling, and one of the youngsters, helped by some beer, finally finds the courage to fight one of the bullies. But it's really to no avail, because the bully won't change. Some of the kids have parents, all have cars, but "Dazed and Confused" will never be confused with "American Graffiti."

Not very entertaining, especially if you're glad your high school years have been happily left behind.

Where to start?  I guess saying it's "Linklater's dumb look at the last day of school" kind of gives it all away.  For the Slacker comment, it's clear that this critic was not an early fan of Mr. Linklater.  I certainly don't think the film "cheers" underage drinkers, bullies and sadists.  It certainly employs them as one would typically encounter them in life, especially in high school.  

I find it interesting that he mentions Randy and Mitch back to back but draws no correlation between the two, or mentions that Randy is clearly reminded of his freshman self when he looks at Mitch.  Instead the reviewer moves on to the hazing aspects, and does draw a correlation there, but still gets it all wrong.  The boys get "paddlings" with no adjectives injected at all, whereas the girls' hazing is "sadistic" and "badly embarrassing".  There's no acknowledgement that the hazing by both groups is sick and disgusting, but in completely different ways.  Letting us know that someone else's misery in a movie isn't the "height of entertainment" is...odd.  Entertainment is not always about being made to feel good, and those aspects can still be entertaining (but apparently not the height for Mr. Pollack.

"Much of the film is spent in aimless driving in search of a party to crash, a drive-in to visit, or a younger student to insult."  This is why the reviewer thinks the movie is "dumb", because there's no realization that this is an accurate depiction of what kids do with their free time, and the dialogue of teenager social interactions surrounding these mundane events is what makes the film great.

Not very entertaining, he thinks...except Mitch avoiding and escaping vicious beatings, that's "fun" and therefore entertainment, I guess.

To be fair, when they reposted this in their archives in 2018, the headline was "Oops!  25 years ago this movie had our critic 'Dazed and Confused'", so there's definitely admission of guilt for this one.  Here's the link to the archived review:  St. Louis Post-Dispatch Review