rad [1986]

a couple of weeks ago b. texted me to ask if i wanted to go see rad, the 1986 BMX movie.  absolutely, i texted in return.  this flick is now a cult movie but i have to confess i've never seen it.  i was a BMX loving kid.  one of my most prized possessions when i was in my early teens was a bike made by the factory, Mongoose; the BMX manufacturer has indeed a prominent role in this movie.  i loved that bike.  it had blue Tuff Wheels.  my bike wasn't state of the art but the damn thing was fucking cool!  i even followed, for a while, pro BMX racers.  but by the time i hit my mid-teens i discovered punk rock & skateboards.  i forgot about BMX bikes & its culture.

this is an exploitation movie to capitalize on BMX culture.  but it was made a little late.  by 1986 BMX was in descent.  & it was changing.  free-style was the dominant mode of competition, a kind of balletic performance on BMX bikes, & racing was in descent.  nevertheless, stuntman turned filmmaker hal needham gave BMX culture, both freestyle & racing, the old college try.  the result is a mess.

needham made two of my favorite drive-in movies, both starring burt reynolds, smokey & the bandit [1977] & the cannonball run [1981].  both of these films are manic delights of screwball comedy & hi-octane car racing.   needham is at home with car & car racing culture.  but BMX bikes?  not so good.  needham can't frame a shot even if he was given a diagram.  rather than going wide & filming in real-time with the freestyle techniques in ample display the director goes into slo-mo & close-ups so that we can't see what the hell kind of tricks the BMX riders are doing.  

even more so, needham has forgotten how to tell a love story.  the principal, cru jones, played by bill allen, falls for the number one female freestyler/racer christian, played by lori laughlin [yes, aunt becky from full house who recently was convicted & served time in federal prison for fraud & bibery in a college admissions scandal].  cru is a local boy in a small town that has heart, ganas & raw talent.  christian recognizes all those qualities & her heart becomes his.  christian also becomes cru's mentor by challenging cru to learn the techniques she knows of a real professional competitive BMX rider.  

only problem is that the dude who own Mongoose Bicycles, who also invested in Helltrack, the race track constructed in crue's small town just for the purpose of a high profile race, wants his own man, champion bart taylor, played by olympic gymnast bart conner, to win.  oh the shit will fly.  ray walston plays businessman burton timmer who is a partner of the owner of Mongoose, duke best, played by jack weston.  but when burton learns of the double-dealing done by best, he goes against his own financial interests & supports the local underdog, cru.

talia shire plays cru's mother who would rather her son take the SATs that are scheduled on the same day as the race.  but when she sees her son has HEART well the script then writes itself don't it.  even the race was edited by a goof.  the tension is at the lowest register.  we know, because we've seen this story before, who will win the race.  oh yeah!  this was a frustrating watch.  the editing was slapdash.  the direction was negligent.  the 1980s synth score, including a popular tune at the time 'send me an angel' by real life, & another song by the massively talented mael bros., sparks, is wasted.  even so, watching this movie in a theater with ol' skool skaters & riders - the theater was nearly at full capacity - was a delight.  many in the audience knew this film so well they were reciting the dialogue as it played onscreen.  

& as always, even in this, our wild age, of streaming movies & shows going to the theater is really fucking fun.  b. is a blast to hang with.  we've been going to the drive-ins for over 30 years.  this is the second retro screening i've been to with my oldest & dearest friend.  & i loved it.  afterwards we explored the dead mall attached to the theater.  also, attached to this mall is a discount grocery store, Winco.  we walked thru that store too.  Winco is huge.  the building for the store used to be a major department store.  a couple of them really.  the nearly empty mall, & Winco [open till midnight, a rarity post-pandemic], provided shelter for many unhoused persons.  signs of late-stage capitalism?  i'll leave that debate for another time.