Prayer of the Rollerboys

Amazingly enough, I think it's cute. Tongue-in-cheek teen flick about semi-post-apocalyptic world ruled by a racist, drug-dealing, high-tech, self-obsessed, rollerblading street gang. The characters were interesting, the relationships explored to a somewhat greater depth than I expected, and the actors gave it their all.

Corey Haim in probably the last thing I saw him in where he seemed to care, establishes great rapport with the other characters in the movie and makes you actually care about his life. (As I said, amazingly enough--I wanted to just laugh this movie off, but really did like it...)

Don't expect Speed or something that polished, but see the movie if you would like to have an enjoyable couple of hours where you won't have to think too much.

This movie is awful in a really great way. If you don't like bad movies you shouldn't be looking at the work of Corey Haim. But that doesn't mean that bad movies aren't enjoyable. And this one has everything.

By everything I mean post-apocalyptic, drug dealing, fascist skating around in formation wearing trench coats.

I know what you are thinking "Wait, wait, I have seen this a million times", but you haven't seen an apple eaten as viciously as you will in this film.

I wept for that apple, it was violated.

Plus you get Corey Haim and Patrica Arquette.

I say gather a group of like minded friends, some adult beverages, and enjoy a truly enjoyable bad movie.

Take "BAD" and multiply it by the number of stars in the universe and you might come close to describing this movie. It almost has to be seen to be believed. As I watched "Rollerboys," I kept thinking: "How, how, how do movies like this ever get made?" In that sense, this movie grabs you. It spirals down into the depths of "awful" and "cheesy" and you just can't pull your eyes away. Haim should've taken the money and ran. He could have gone to college and become a doctor instead of a complete embarrassment.

I gave this flick a shame faced 7 (a baseline 6 + 1 because I've thoroughly enjoyed it...twice!) I saw it first in 1991, a full 5 years before I learned to roller blade myself (at the ripe old age of 44) and again last night. I think the mistake made by those rating it so lowly was in taking it seriously. It certainly didn't take itself seriously. Not with lines like (paraphrase) [after a criminal is shot by a cop] "thank God we could take care of him here. I hate court". Or with newspaper headlines that read "Germany buys Poland". Or with a radio newscast describing Mexican INS agents rounding up and deporting American fruit pickers who had illegally entered their country to find work. Any sense of reality exited my mind as I watched them do everything in those skates, I, myself, having gotten hopelessly bogged down in the neutral ground trying to cross the street in my blades at City Park in New Orleans. The movie also had a refreshingly original take on the "doomed future" theme. Instead of the grim setting being a post nuclear apocalypse, we have a wasteland created, instead, by the crash of the American stock market. And this well explains the sad state of affairs (no money for police, a greatly weakened government, extensive homelessness, etc.) that is the backdrop for the film. The rollerboys seemed to be a blurry composite of all the evils of mankind since the beginning of time...racial hatred, greed megalomania, anti-semitism...you name it. The visage of the rollerboy gang materializing from the end of a dark tunnel, gliding effortlessly in white trench coats and black rollerblades, their arms swinging mightily in unison immediately called to mind goose stepping Nazis. The two undercover cops, who seemed to literally dwell in their van, making off the cuff quips about the rollerboys were a hoot. True, the acting was, at best mediocre but had it been excellent it would have spoiled the film. Occasional lapses into the melodramatic only added savor to the stew. Much of the dialog was so bad it was not only good but great. I guess this movie will remain one of my guilty pleasures. If it comes on again...I'll watch it again. I only wish Corey Haim hadn't grown up so they could make Rollerboys 2.

The Oklahoma City Bombing, according to American government officials, was inspired by an obscure controversial novel named "The Turner Diaries." The novel depicts a future race war initiated by White racial supremacists against non-Whites. A similar world exists in "Prayer of the Rollerboys," where an Adolf Hitler-like charismatic leader,Gary Lee (Christopher Collet), motivates his group of dominant young paramilitary skaters known as the Rollerboys. They envision an all-White world achieved through violence and the overthrow of governments. Depression-level economic turbulence have weakened local authorities. Gary Lee and his gang fills a void; a somewhat parallel to Hitler's ascension during the Weimar Republic.

There is a plausible case to be made that screenwriter W. Peter Lliff had a deep familiarity with "Turner Diaries." The novel and the film presents a "The Day of the Rope" for the unmerciful elimination of perceived enemies. They parts ways in its implementation. On that eventful day in the book, many "race traitors" end up in nooses. The "rope" of the Rollerboys is a chemical modification to the recreational drug Mist, an adjustment which sterilizes its non-White users. (Compare that to Walter Mosley's "Futureland," where an artificial plague bypasses anyone whose DNA is at least 12.5% African.)

By the time "Prayer Of The Rollerboys" was released, Corey Haim's career was in decline. Long gone were the theater-ready times of "Lost Boys." Because of personal issues, Corey became a true lost boy--with skates--eager to get by, having lost the power of selectiveness in his movie roles. True life wasn't better, as his character Griffin avoided addiction. My standards for movies are not high, maybe that's why I will watch a Corey Haim film post-super stardom.

The futuristic nature of the movie was promising, while the unconvincing unfolding of events and the frequently sub par performances went below my low requirements.Yet the movie got me hooked like a Mist addict. It retains a significant appeal in a "Lord of the Flies"-like environment with minimal parental authority. The Rollerboys feed the "what if" imaginations of those eager to escape the restrictions of society. Ideology aside, the Rollerboys are cool skaters swinging in reinforced rhythmic uniformity, well at home in a semi-dystopia.