There are only a handful of actors in the movie. But all of the teenagers are very good. Those are played wonderfully by Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall. There is also the school's principal played by Paul Gleason which looks suspiciously like Ben Mendelsohn. And there's the janitor with the most wholesome serial-killer smile ever, played by John Kapelos. All these actors know what they are doing very well. And the acting in the movie is pretty much, I think, what holds it together. Because there isn't much else to see, to be honest.

It is claimed by the movie itself that Steven Spielberg actually wrote the movie himself. And while it's true to a certain extend, there were writers who were tasked with making the screenplay before Spielberg actually took it upon himself to write. There was a draft of the movie written by Paul Schrader ( the writer of Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver ) who introduced a lot of the elements seen in the final film. Spielberg's final version completely reworked the main character, though, from a military person who's job is to debunk UFO's that turns into a believer, to an every-man. An ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. A technique that Steven Spielberg would use a lot more in his subsequent career.