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.

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

Dude, they should have called this film Awesome! or even Totally Rad cause I'm not sure the title Rad is as rad as Rad is. This is way up on my list of must-see films -- it ranks up there with Thrashin', North Shore, The Dirt Bike Kid and The Search for Animal Chin! That hottie, Lori Loughlin, sure knows how to slide down a slide...Anyways, my favorite scene is the BMX dance sequence. We start off with some awesome 80's dance footage that brought back intense (I mean INTENSE) memories. The twins, Rod and Rex do such an amazing number on their date (some broad with slits up the side of her dress) I was wishing I had a twin AND a broad with slits up the side of her dress. This sequence is done to the song "Music That You Can Dance To" by Sparks. As soon as the number ends, Cru and Christian barge in on their rad bikes. The dance is so well choreographed to "Send Me An Angel". Just when you thought it couldn't get better, a disco ball shines its glorious sparkles all over the feisty Cru and Christian.

From a technical standpoint, Rad is radical! The ADR work was so ahead of its time, it sent chills through the industry AND down my spine. Some favorite moments include, "O-KAAAYYY!" "Okay?!" "Oh, kay?" and "I have a pie in my oven... This parade is so un-American!"

Dude, Rad is rad, okay?

I can't even count how many times I've watched this movie. Such a fun trip down memory lane. Takes me back to cruising the neighborhood with my friends on our BMX.