परफेक्ट

SPOILER: "The Hitcher" (young C. Thomas Howell) and "Risky Business" came out, Wes Craven was doing his "Nightmare on Elm Street" series...so what did we young people have for drama? This.

If you need a laugh now, you may want to tune in. While Jamie Lee Curtis tries to elevate this, it is simply not elevate-able.

Laraine Newman and Marilu Henner are gym groupies with no self-esteem, (Marilu gets the Chippendale man though, so it's all good). John Travolta as a semi-literate writer at "Rolling Stone". (We know he is good, because in the end he goes to jail for protecting a source). There are some scenes with Jann Wenner and Lauren Hutton, apparently the then in-crowd, at a party.

The really sad part about this is that there really were people like this; the gym was a sense of self-esteem;(along with anorexia). Aerobics class became the next singles hang-out as the song "Masquerade" blares out, while everyone obsesses over plastic surgery and the perfect body (The Laraine Newman character is particularly pathetic).

We see the superficiality. Has anything changed? Indeed, they could remake this with Jessica Simpson as the lead. Someone get on the phone to CAA!.

I first saw this movie some years ago on TV having missed it at the cinema, and found it very entertaining. The story and 'visuals', though not fantastic, was I think good enough to hold the shortest of attention spans. Mine included. The film is set in a health club in Los Angeles, with John Travolta starring as an ace investigative reporter for real-life mag Rolling Stone. It also features a brilliant funked-up disco soundtrack, featuring long forgotten artists like Jermaine Jackson, Jermaine Stewart, and Carol Lynn Towns, and follows Travolta's charchter as he writes a piece about the health club scene, and courts one of the fitness instructors there, played by Jaimie Lee Curtis. Unbeknownst to her, he's using her and some of her patrons, in order to write a sleazy story for his voracious boss played by the real Rolling Stone editor. It's not hard to guess what happens next, as Travolta and Curtis fall for each other, Curtis finds a copy of his article on his computer which causes conflict between them, and we get to see some fine acting from Jaimie Lee during those scenes. Travolta decides to kill the story, but his angered boss enlists the help of photographer played by Anne DeSalvo, in order to rewrite it without Travolta's knowledge.

But the best parts of the film, has to be scenes set during Curtis' classes (the visuals I mentioned earlier). Along with the pumping disco soundtrack, these scenes are excillerating to watch - and not just for the sexy hard bodies. When this film appeared again on TV recently, I just had to record it, and watch it all over again. Not because I'm perverted you understand, but because it's so...kitsch, and seems to be indicative of the silly hedonistic LA scene of the early 1980s. It has some truly funny moments also. Watch for the scene where Travolta searches for Jaimie Lee in a hotel holding a convention, which features Boy George look-alikes. It's hilarious!!

Really, "Perfect" is not the tactical warhead everyone seems to be implying. This is not on the same level as 80s catastrophes like "Megaforce", "Grease 2", "Howard the Duck", or (heaven help us) "Staying Alive". "Perfect" is nothing more than tragic misfire from extremely talented director James Bridges ("The Paper Chase", "Urban Cowboy") that makes the dire mistake of treating the aerobics, health club fad of the mid-80s as a serious cultural phenomenon (ugh).

It also helped to derail John Travolta's career for the better part of a decade - sad, because all one has to do is take a look at his outstanding performances in "Blow Out" and "Urban Cowboy" and realize that his acting in "Perfect" was just fine (if a bit low key). It's a shame, he could have made a lot of great movies while he was stuck in dreck like "The Experts" and strange late 80s Altman theatre pieces like Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter" (with Tom Conti!).

Travolta plays a Rolling Stone journalist hot on the trail of a big story about how health clubs are the new pick-up joints, replacing singles bars. He meets "The Pied Piper of aerobics teachers" Jamie Lee Curtis, a former Olymic swimmer who was once burned by a journalist over a piece about how she was having an affair with her coach. Of course, she and Travolta hook up and Travolta meets some other folks who frequent the gym, who are like supporting characters in a David Lynch movie (I'm unsure if the director intended to portray them as weird as they come off).

Real-life Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner shows up to essentially play himself (not very well) and, in the film's most laughable detail, Travolta writes a version of his story portraying health clubs as Emersonian watering holes of the future (or something like that).

It's all kind of bloated and weird, but really not that bad. Travolta's actually pretty good. Jamie Lee Curtis looks great but comes off as slightly grouchy, but she was probably directed that way.

Don't miss Travolta's notorious pelvic thrust sequence (you can't miss it).

My Goodness, what a bomb! We didn't drop anything this big on Iraq!

Perfect is the story of a Rolling Stone reporter (Travolta) who trips over his ethics, or lack there of while writing two big stories. His first story deals with a computer tycoon in hot water with the U.S. government for selling his products to an Eastern-Bloc country. This angle is played way up considering the lack of details we are told about the situation. No matter, the story you will remember deals with a swanky health club in L.A.. Travolta wishes to write a piece about how health clubs in the 1980s are replacing the singles bars of the 1970s as the #1 place for people to meet. Take that premise and see how long you can stretch it. Director Bridges apparently thought he could drag it out for nearly two hours and still keep our attention.

This film suffers from a severe lack of focus. There are too many location changes to count. There is also too much running around and too much time wasted on insignificant little things. For example, what was up with Travolta's sudden trip to Morocco near the end of the film. It had no purpose what so ever! Another problem this film has is its tendency to drag out every scene to last as long as whatever cheesy 80s dance song is playing in the background. That gets old pretty darn quick.

This film is also hopelessly dated in terms of fashion. If any guy came into my health club wearing tights or a fish-net tank top, he'd probably get beaten up. Bridges & CO also try to recycle a gag that worked in Urban Cowboy. In that film, there was a scene featuring numerous women dressed up for a Dolly Parton look-alike contest. In this film, we get about a hundred people dressed up as Boy George in a scene at a hotel. In Urban Cowboy it worked since there was a legitimate reason for all the people to dress that way. They were at least trying to win a contest. The scene in Perfect is useless and it only serves to date the film even further.

This film was by no means Travolta's worst. Has anyone seen The Experts or Shout? This film did, however, have his most embarrassing scene. In it, he's sweating away in Jamie Lee Curtis's aerobics class and doing a never-ending series of pelvic thrusts to the dance beat. His crotch has obviously been stuffed with a sock, or perhaps the thing Hammer used in his Pumps in a Bump video. Truly hilarious!

Travolta is a talented actor, but he has nothing to work with here. Jamie Lee Curtis is also a great talent, but she is wasted as well. She looks absolutely gorgeous, but her character is so moody and abrasive that we can hardly stand her. The supporting cast of mostly unknowns fills out their respective stereotypical roles as well as they can.

In all, this is a poor film on all levels. It tries to be an insightful look at journalistic ethics and falls flat on its face. It comes off as being little more than a two hour plug for Rolling Stone Magazine. Too Bad.

3 of 10 stars

So sayeth the Hound.

Adam Lawrence (John Travolta) is a relentless, cynical Rolling Stone reporter from New York. He is in Los Angeles to track down an elusive interview. He has a second idea to write about fitness clubs as the new singles bars. He tries to interview instructor Jessie Wilson (Jamie Lee Curtis) known as the "aerobics pied piper" at The Sport Connection. She refuses due to a previous reporter who wrote that she had an affair with her swim coach. He interviews customers like Sally (Marilu Henner) and Linda (Laraine Newman) who is described by another as "the most used piece of equipment in the gym". He is being pressured to testify about his other interview and hand over his notes. When Adam hands in a sincere story about health clubs, the editor rewrites it as a take down piece digging up the old story about Jessie.

This movie is hopelessly dated. It was probably dated and cheesy even at the time of its release. The aerobics scenes are too extended. They feel like cheesy music videos. I actually don't mind the story. Travolta and Curtis are fine actors. The movie is sincere in the writing. However, it can never truly escape the cheese factor.