Competição de Destinos

Don't write this off just because it's a bicycle movie; it's more than that. If you happen to like bike riding, this is an absolute must-see. But even if you can't even function without training wheels (like yours truly) there's still a lot to love about American Flyers.

If you liked Breaking Away (a bike riding movie from 1979), you'll be happy to hear American Flyers was written by the same person, Steve Tesich. In American Flyers, two brothers enter into a bike race, and during the training and the race itself, tensions run high! Of course, there's romance along the way, and some brother banter that leaves audiences conflicted about whose side to take.

John Badham's gentle directorial touch is seen in this film; the actors work off each other with a wonderful rapport and have a strong sense of their characters, part of Badham's signature in his directing. He's also known for creating interesting and intense action scenes. Watch the bicycle race scenes to see what I mean!

This movie is just a great film. It's about love, life, and family. It's also about being the best you can be. The two brothers in this movie, one who is very sick and one who is racing in a cycling race in the Rocky Mountains, and he has his brother in his heart the whole time. Both are cyclists, but Kevin Costner's character cannot race. The other character, who I don't think I have seen in any other movies, is just awesome, and the love for his brother made me cry. I remember this movie from the 80's when I was just a little kid, and I watch it everytime I see it on one of the premium movie channels. Rae Dawn Chong is also in the movie as Costner's wife or girlfriend, I forget which one, but she also gives a great performance here. The movie is mainly about racing in Colorado, but it's also a touching story about commitment to those you love, and it's a movie I will never forget.

Kevin Costner and David Marshall Grant are a pair of brothers named Summers who are not the closest pair going. Both are bicycle racers. Costner was a champion and has now retired from the sport and is a sports medicine doctor. The other one is a talented racer but a playboy and won't settle down to train for the sport and has no great career ambitions.

It's Costner who gets Grant to train seriously by promising to come out of retirement and race with him in the great Colorado bike race known as American Hell because of the stark barrenness of the landscape they race on. What Grant doesn't know is that Costner has an aneurysm which can break at any time and cause instant but painless death. It gives Costner an added incentive to get Grant to straighten up and fly right.

There are some nice scenes with Costner and Grant and Janice Rule who plays their mother. Their dad died of this same thing and the tendency to aneurysm is inherited. There's a couple of women attracted to the Summers boys, Rae Dawn Chong and Alexandra Paul who become biker groupies. I suppose every sport and every musician has them.

The cycling scenes are beautifully photographed in Colorado and are worth seeing the film alone. But the essence of American Flyers isn't sport or scenery, it's the conflict between the brothers who come together in the end as good families do.

You might want to take up cycling yourself after seeing American Flyers.

As a few other reviews have stated, this is a different kind of costner. An earlier, less-famous costner. He was very good in this, i didn't see the end coming either. The fact that there isn't many well known faces in this film is what makes it so watchable, because you have no pre-conceived biases due to not knowing any of the actors. You just concentrate on the storyline & what they're doing, instead of thinking about all the other stuff they've been in. The music was brilliant as well. Some f*cking breathtaking cinematography on the mountain race scenes. A simple film, executed well and with a satisfying ending. Also took me a while to realise his teacher was the guard from "lock up" & the owner off McDowells restaurant from " Coming To America" LOL.

OK. not a cinematographic masterpiece, but there are some great nuggets from a lost period in American bike racing. The film came out in 1985, the year that Greg Lemond broke into the Tour de France and beat his teammate Bernard Hinaut, though The Badger got to win it (Lemond won his first the following year). And the Coors Classic was the best racing outside of Europe, with Team 7-eleven breaking into the continent. The Muzzin character with 7-11 was modeled directly after Alexi Grewal, who won gold in the 1984 Olympics and won the Bob Cook Memorial race up Mount Evans twice. He also had emotional/anger problems. The Soviet team was brought in after the cold war tensions and the Olympics, though they should have been a French team to make it accurate.

You might even see a banner in the first stage south of Boulder with a Denver TV station logo and "Coors Classic" that didn't quite get hidden.

A mushy movie, predictable turns, geographic mistakes in the footage, and some weak acting, but a good movie if you are in, or love, American road racing--and remember how it started in the Rockies.