Young John Goodman, according to The Houston Post, was an aimless youth, involved primarily in sport while in school.

One of those aimless youths you stumble over on their way from the pinball machine to the nearest shop that sells electrical equipment.

The film's biggest success is in moving beyond the potential myopia of such material to create a broader portrait of troubled, aimless youth.

"An incredibly depressing, dead-on portrait of inept parents and aimless youth," concluded Joanne Wilkinson in Booklist.

Mr. Godber, best known in the United States for "Bouncers," a manic portrait of aimless British youth in a provincial discotheque, takes a far less cerebral approach.

And with an emphasis even more striking than it is in so much mainstream adult fiction, the suburbs are depicted as bland and depressing, populated with bored, aimless youths.

It was there, in 1991, that he met Mr. Clark, when the director was looking for amateur actors to cast in "Kids," his brutal 1995 depiction of aimless youth.

By turns antic, tumultuous and maudlin, this story of aimless urban youth and a saintly boxing coach (Bob Hoskins) is as uneven as it is inventive.

Neighbors and friends of the three have said that at least from the outside, it appeared that their transformations from aimless Western youths to highly observant Muslims were bewilderingly thorough.

Burnett told Salinger that his stories were skillful and accomplished, and accepted "The Young Folks", a vignette about several aimless youths, for publication in Story.