Cross Riders - Teufelskerle auf heißen Maschinen

I saw this film on video when it first came out and ended up watching it several times. I've been tring to get hold of a copy ever since to no avail. It's basically a motocross drama and centers around a team of riders trying to perfect their off-road skills to win a particular event. Interestingly enough it's a female rider teaching the guys which at the time seemed like a nice touch.

It's a litttle predictable in parts but there are some nicely shot motocross action and stunts. It actually got me into motocross at the time and I'm still doing it now.

I'm a huge fan of gleaming the cube. Thrashing. Rad. So obviously a dirtbike movie. This was the early 80s before all the X game stuff came out very nostalgic. We used to grow up riding dirt bikes, and quads and ATC. Before people started writing ATVs or TVs or whatever the heck they're called nowadays this film definitely is the dirtbike version of rad. Maybe not quite as good as rad, but I still get the same nostalgia from watching it. Anyways , I like this film it's fun to watch. I'm glad it's still The new generation picks up on it. Because the 80s films are classic genre of cinema..........

In 1998 and 1999 I earned a national number for 125 motocross and super cross. I still ride now but winners take all takes me back to the very beginning of my motocross journey. It was the first racing movie I ever saw, and as a ten year old kid it was the greatest movie in the world. I would beg my mom every week to go back to the video store and rent the movie again. Finally she got sick of renting it and bought me a copy. As a 30+ rider now I see a lot of corny things in the movie but It is not to bad compared to the junk we have today like super cross the movie and motocross ed etc... So for 1987 it was ahead of its time especially since motorcycle racing was nowhere near as popular and mainstream as it is today. I always wondered what kind of bikes were under those funky team hurricane plastics and if any of the bikes survived in anyones collection or if all that stuff was just scrapped after the movie was made.

MGM has been sitting on a number of movies that have been screaming for a DVD release, so I am confused why they would pass on those movies and choose this obscurity for a DVD release. Maybe there is a bigger audience for motocross racing than I thought. But since I am not a fan of this sport, you can probably guess what my feelings are about this movie. In fairness, the movie is fairly slickly made, with decent production values including good photography and some breathtaking shots of motorcycles zipping around and flying in the air. However, the story sinks the movie. Despite the movie running over 100 minutes, it is clear that the movie originally ran longer but was cut down in the editing room, with some plot points being vague and/or cut short. But even if the movie ran at its first cut length, we'd still have a story that is painfully predictable and with stock characters. In the end, I think the only people the movie would appeal to would be those really into the sport of motocross racing, though even they will probably find the movie extremely familiar for the most part.

Debi Richter does her usual excellent work exploring the repression of women in today's society, as her character tries to find her true place in the world, no matter where the journey takes her (and us)--especially considering what little screen time she was given. But twenty minutes of Debi equals forty minutes of a lesser actress, if you know what I mean. If only she'd won that Oscar. The envy of the Hollywood in-crowd is pathetic. There are only three times that I rose and saluted today: when my dad raised the flag this morning, when mom fried both hamburgers AND brats for lunch, and when Deborah Richter first came on-screen in Winners Take All. She is what America is all about!

Debi earns a full ten stars for her totally insightful & engaging performance but I've got to admit that the rest of the flick was fairly mediocre (which explains my five-star rating). "Don't be to judge mental" indeed. Was that Charles Haid in one of the stadium crowd scenes?