Rad

This movie is a cult favorite among anyone who spent their summers riding their bikes or skateboards, and featured a killer soundtrack, not to mention a respectable cast considering the obviously low-budget. Very hard to find on VHS and not likely to warrant a DVD release this is a seldom seen piece of 80's movie history. Whatever anyone else might say I liked this film and anyone I have talked to that remembered it liked it too.

It's your basic "High-school dork beats bully & gets girl using his worthless social-outcast skill that everyone in this little universe is oddly obsessed with" (happens all the time in the 80's). Nothing particularly original or interesting about it, but for some reason it withstands repeated viewings and still seems like fun. It's one of those movies that unintentionally became a cult flick just by being so straightforward.

The plot, the acting, the characters, the one-liners . . . everything about the production is reasonably serviceable for the era, but certainly not GOOD either. The whole thing feels sorta like a cheesy 80's sitcom doing its big 2-hour episode for sweeps week, and the network gave it some money for a real location shoot & some extra cuss words.

The bicycle stuntwork in "Rad" is stellar. Yes, of course it's outdated now, and modern X-games riders like Dave Mirra can demonstrate a lot more technical skill on multi-directional spins & stuff, but ultimately that's beside the point. In real life the average 13-year-old spends weeks teaching himself to do a decent bunny hop. And for that 13-year-old, it's plenty of fun watching a character in "Rad" just trying to learn an (outdated) backflip move in the schoolyard using a hockey helmet & some old bed mattresses. (Think: "Jackass" but not so intentional. And it's too bad this movie was made before the era of "goof reels" during the end credits, because they probably got some real whoppers on film during this production.)

I can quote every line of this movie, but I still can't put my finger on what aspect of it makes it hold up so well. It's got that same sort of odd quality that a "Duck Tales" or a "Saved by the Bell" episode has: You can't explain why on earth you're still watching & enjoying it as an intelligent adult . . . but you are. (And so is everyone else you've shown it to.) Either way you'd better get your insider-status and enjoy this movie now. Next thing we know they might put it on T-shirts at Sam Goody & take all the fun out of it.

'Rad' is more 80's than Ronald Reagan sitting on Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoulders while playing Pac-Man and singing "Beat it". That is not meant as a criticism by the way.

True to the "Can do" zeitgeist of the decade, 'Rad' is an underdog story about a kid who overcomes the odds. Oops, spoiler alert. But come on, you know how these things turn out. It's all about how we get there and how satisfying it is to see our hero succeed.

Said hero is Cru Jones, a likeably bland character who is easy to root for. The villains are all card stock, which is more than okay in these kinds of movies. Again, you want shade, go sit under a tree.

Director Hal Needham ('Smokey and the Bandit') does a good job of capturing all of the BMX action, and the soundtrack--as many 80's soundtrack do--acts as an emotional desktop shortcut for the drama.

This isn't quite 'Karate Kid' on a bike, but if you like that sort of feel good 80's underdog tale, 'Rad' is aptly titled.

There's an old saying that "you can't go home again", but thanks to the movie Rad, I can go home anytime I want to. It was filmed mostly in my hometown when I was a kid (all but Helltrack itself, which was set up in Bowness Park in Calgary), and re-watching it now brings me back to how excited everyone was at the time. In the movie the town was called Cochrane, and was in some unknown state. In real life, the town is.....you guessed it, Cochrane, which is just outside Calgary, Alberta. And the local kids really were into BMX biking; I remember my godfather's son making a half-pipe as a shop project, and then not being able to get it through the shop door.

The high school in the movie really was pre-renovation Cochrane High. The Cobra logo on the gym wall is the real Cochrane High logo (I graduated as a Cochrane Cobra, as did my dad before me). I remember the school freaking out over whether the movie crew would be able to pull off the BMX Boogie scene without permanently damaging the gym floors. The school ended up converting the gym to a library and music room and building a new gym on the opposite side of the school, if I recall correctly thanks in part to the location fees paid.

The ice cream shop where Cru catches up to Christian is called McKay's and was Cochrane's one and only tourist attraction at the time. Cru's workplace, the Main Street Snack Bar, was real. It's been also been a café, and a Chinese food restaurant over the years, but it's there. Lucky Penny Pizza was really Cochrane's best (and for a long time, only) pizza place. The building in the background when Cru jumps the car during the parade even housed my mom's office.

Best of all in terms of hometown connection, the house that Cru's family lived in in the movie wasn't a set. It was a real house, and it was actually the first house my parents lived in after they got married.

Cochrane had a population explosion shortly after this movie was made, and has grown to the point that most people who've seen Rad would never recognize the town now. For example, there's no longer an empty field opposite the sawmill, and the field Cru and Christian ride into on the hill above the town is now home to a huge subdivision of condos. It's not a small town anymore, and the small town feel is long gone, but when I watch Rad I see my hometown the way it was when I was a kid, and it makes me smile.

I can't say I've ever been apart of the BMX crowd, but that certainly doesn't stop "Rad" from delivering the goods. What's really amusing about this movie is that it doesn't take long for its weaknesses to somehow become strengths, and that's all part of the charm. It's familiar (The Karate Kid, E.T.), it's bizarre (was that a school dance or a disco scene?) and I get a smile from seeing Canada as small-town America. But this is the kind of underdog story you can't help but like, and that's not even covering the movie's greatest weapon: the music. Farnham's "Thunder In Your Heart" is every bit the '80s time capsule that is "Rad".

It's a fun movie.

7/10