Gotcha!: Uma Arma do Barulho

What can I say, but this is one of those "eighties movies" featuring Anthony Edwards before he was "Goose" and Linda Fiorentino before she was that chick in M.I.B.

Plot Summary: A paintball enthusiast utilizes his finely tuned skill at hiding behind things when he gets involved with a CIA courier working behind the Iron Curtain. East Germany meets West L.A. with some really funny stereo-types that weren't all that tired when this movie came out in '85.

This film is primarily aimed at entertaining young men with a 007 lust. Still, there are so many one-liners and funny bits that my sister and I still make references to this movie when joking around, e.g. "I thought he was KGB from Russia." ~ "He's a CPA from Encino! Are you outta your mind?"

The utilization of various on-location landmarks make it fun and almost like a travelogue movie. There's a German fortress, the Louvre (pre-pyramid entrance), the eiffel tower, the UCLA campus, Olvera Street in Downtown L.A., and the Bonnaventure Hotel.

I also love this movie for introducing me to Pernod, and the scene in which it is introduced is so funny I can still remember it line for line!! I love this movie!!

It's got action, it's got sex, it's got humor, and most of all, it's got a college kid who seems to be able to outsmart highly trained German spies. Everyone loves it when a complete loser, virgin college guy gets duped by his spy girlfriend to be the patsy for a large coup involving other spies, CIA, and the FBI. And what better way to show Anthony Edwards beat all of these people than with a mere animal tranquilizer gun. See it, if just for the "Yes, I am a weergin" line.

Gotcha is a perfect example of the old expression "you can't judge a book by it's cover". In this case, you can't judge a film by the art on the video box. If you can manage to ignore the misleading 80's teen sex romp box art long enough to give Gotcha a chance, what you'll find is a fast paced, surprisingly suspense filled, action-comedy starring everybody's favorite ER doc Anthony Edwards (who knew he ever had this much hair?) as a college loser hoping to find himself as he embarks for a few weeks in Europe. What he finds is espionage, assassins and a beautiful stranger with a secret.

In my book, Gotcha! is another good movie in Anthony Edward's catalog of 80s movies. Edwards is Jonathan, a somewhat wimpy looking college student who's afternoon frat boy fun of tagging his rival classmates with a dart gun as he chases them around campus, is about to come a reality in an arena of gritty international espionage. And Jonathan oughta know, these guys don't f**k around.

Jonathan and his buddy, Manolo (Jsu Garcia) take a trip to Europe during semester vacation. For Jonathan, he'd like to spend times soaking up the local culture with beautiful girls, but he's just too quiet for all of that, unlike Manolo, who's so brazen that his pick up lines are thinly disguised stories about him being a spy and needing an escort to help distract those who are following him. So, of course Manolo gets the girl.

But Jonathan soon get's lucky, too, meeting an elegant, but secretive Russian woman named Sasha (Linda Florentino) who gives him some story about being an exchange student and all of that. He even ditches his friend, Manolo (they were supposed to go to Spain) to go with his girlfriend to Germany, which is not an ideal vacation destination in 1985. But Jonathan, smitten with his new girlfriend, finds out there is more going on, and soon enough, his little games of pretending to be a spy are going to help him get out a real jam, or else he's going to wind up dead. It is actually a really enjoyable movie, seeing this quirky guy stuck in a real life game of cat and mouse.

This movie is a real 80,s movie but in a positive way. It also brings back those memories of the cold war that used to be. Especially in East-Berlin the movie becomes tense. Besides tense the movie is also quite funny.Anthony Edwards is well-cast as the young man being whirled into the wicked world of espionage behind the Iron Curtain, and I can´t help falling in love with Linda Fiorentino..That woman is so seductive and sexy in a strange mysterious way. She, and the border-tension of East Berlin, is my main reason for really liking this movie...They don´t make´em like this any more....Its Spy Game of the 80,s...