Retro Review: Rad

From the opening stunt montage, Rad lives up to its name.  This is one of those movies that I’ve actually had a couple of requests to review from our readers.  When I posted on Facebook about acquiring the film through a stealthy manner, I was accosted with more comments than usual, mostly from people that I haven’t spoken to since high school.  There is quite an impressive fervor for a film that has never been released on DVD and really hasn’t been relevant in 24 years.  But more on that shortly.

BMX racing (Bicycle Motocross for the non-initiated) is really one of those things you don’t hear about at all anymore, what with Lance Armstrong and his wussy, street based competitions stealing all the headlines.  But back in 1986, man, it was the shit!  Even though I was only four at the time, I and every kid I knew had one of these contraptions.  I remember finding the sweetest jumps, flying down the steepest hills, and busting my ass a time or two.  The film does a rather good job at taking a snap shot of these experiences during the mid-80s and perfectly demonstrates how “cool” it was.  I’m sure there’s still a lot of BMX related stuff going on today.  But I don’t think anyone would argue that it was much more prevalent back then.  It’s certainly evident that this movie stood as a movement to prolong the popularity of the sport for the youth.  I’m not trying to boil it down to being a 90 minute advertisement, but I’d be shocked to learn there wasn’t some influence from the BMX industry to get this movie made.

Rad tells the rags to riches story of Cru Jones (Bill Allen), a BMX racer (Bicycle Motocross for the non-initiated) trying to overcome the clutches of the small town he’s grown up in while trying to win the approval of his mother.  He’s the kind of kid that brings his bike to do tricks outside the local dance and doesn’t have time to take off his bike gloves when eating some cereal in his secret hideout.  The plot is rather complicated for what amounts to a feature length lifestyle advertisement- Duke Best (Jack Weston), president of Mongoose bicycles, brings Helltrack to town in order to promote the sport (so meta!).  He’s got his clutches on his team, whom develop into the main adversaries for Cru. Duke is basically running the whole contest so that the Mongoose team can win and help to promote their brand.  Meanwhile, Cru struggles to obey his mother’s (Talia Shire) wishes of retaking his SAT since the test happens to be scheduled on the same day as the contest.  Awkward!

Look, it’s not Shakespeare but somehow it works.  The BMX sequences are rather breathtaking in that they move quickly.  The shots are composed in a way that puts you right in the thick of Helltrack, with racers flying by you and damn near hitting the camera in the process.  It’s obvious they used real racers as opposed to just stuntmen who took a week long course on how to ride.  That being said, the qualifying race did bother me because it was a bit long and played the same song at least twice.  But for a film to be this old and still rather engaging with its action sequences was quite a surprise.

Watching it now does bring out how cheesy it is though.  That’s no more apparent than with the epic soundtrack.  I’ll confess, Real Life’s Send Me an Angel is my all time favorite new wave song from the 80s.  So as soon as it started up during what I can only describe as a playful competition at the school dance, I was floored.  The opening and closing tune (Thunder in Your Heart, I think…) really sets the mood as well.  However, the theme music throughout the movie does leave a lot to be desired. I know every musician was all about synthe recording and such back then but when they try to splash it up with some saxophone, it just comes off as lame.  Lame isn’t the right phrase really but it just doesn’t gel with the visuals of Rad.

So as I mentioned in my opening paragraph, the movie is wildly out of print.  It apparently had a successful release on VHS and Laserdisc back in the late 80s but has never seen the light of day otherwise.  I’ll be upfront here, the copy I watched was a bootleg that a friend of mine burned for me.  However, the film apparently has an HD print floating around as the copy I viewed was ripped from an HD broadcast complete with a Dolby Digital soundtrack.  We don’t normally brag about watching illegal copies of movies on The Breach, but it’s literally the only way I could see this movie.  Which is a shame given the amount of fans this movie seems to have.  For Christ’’s sake, I have Frankenhooker on an official DVD release but Rad can’t be thrown a friggin’ bone?  It’s a damned shame!

I’m sure some could fault the movie for the acting, script, or dialog but it would take a rather big cynic to not enjoy the film’s charm.  I couldn’t care less about BMX racing but it held my attention.  I guess I didn’t like the little sister since that character/plot device is so played out but it still didn’t keep me from digging this one.  And if you’re at all nostalgic about the 80s, this movie does a great job of representing the decade.  Even though it’s rather cheesy, I recommend you check this one out.  It’s just that you might have to break the law in order to do so.  See it whichever way you can.

Retro Review is a weekly column written by Dustin and occasionally other authors from the Breach.  Here we take a look at films from yesteryear.  1989 and older to be exact.  At times we’ll try and analyze how the film has influenced modern cinema, discuss the quality of the current release, or just do a traditional review and throw it up here.  As always, requests for these reviews are welcomed.

Recent posts by Dustin

• One Last Job: Production Notes - September 2nd, 2010
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• Teaser: The Loved Ones - August 24th, 2010
• Trailer: Fair Game (No Cindy Crawford Edition) - August 19th, 2010
• Trailer: Monsters (Updated with International Trailer) - August 17th, 2010

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