Movie Night BMXers,
Well it finally happened, We came to the point where I could no longer let you guys continue on without seeing RAD. This was my favorite movie when I was 8-13 years old. But I don’t think I ever actually owned a legit copy. We rented it almost every week from the video store on VHS, then eventually I think my dad taped it off of HBO.
recap.
Cru Jones is a small town paperboy in anytown USA, 100% not Canada. His friends and him are the best BMX crew around they practice by delivering papers, doing tricks on homemade ramps and running from cops. Real gangster shit. Big time BMX guy Duke Best thinks its a great idea to hold the ‘Superbowl of BMX’ in this random small town and have “MY MAN” Bart Taylor win it all. He’s so confident that he’s already got all the merchandise and shirts printed up with ‘Bart Taylor Helltrack Champion’.
Helltrack rolls into town with all the pros in a parade. A sweet young Aunt Becky plays the #1 female BMX rider in the country. Not allowed to compete and there doesn’t seem to be any other female riders around. She instantly falls in love with the dreamy local Cru Jones and in the part of the movie that I always cringe during, they have a BMX dance off to ‘Send me an Angel’.
The townspeople all seem to know that Cru deserves to have a shot at the champ. So they convince Duke to have qualifying races. In the best action sequence of the movie he has the heart of a lion and thunder in his heart to finish 3rd twice and 2nd once despite crashing his bike and clearly cheating. His mom is pissed about it because he was supposed to take the SATs that weekend. Even as a kid I knew that this seemed like a flimsy excuse, I’m sure they give the SATs more than once a year. I took them twice in one year in high school. But Thalia Shire wanted a good reason to be mad, she was a producer on this movie.
Best offers Cru $50000 to throw the race. Aunt Becky and Cru fall in love and go ‘Ass Sliding’ into 5th base. After starting a small business selling t-shirts Cru enters Helltrack riding for Rad Racing. This kid must be the best ever, since he crashes twice and still wins. He does employ a backflip to cut off some of the track, which AGAIN… seems like cheating. He wouldn’t have had a chance if Bart Taylor hadn’t slowed up because ‘HE WANTS CRU JONES 1 on 1!”.
Thoughts.
- Why would Duke Best fire Bart Taylor in the end, so he’s out a bunch of money for merch. But he still has minimum the #2 rider in the country. also he can just sign Cru to mongoose.
- Cru wins $10k from the qualifying, a race that wasn’t set up until the week before the event. How did they get permits, and was that in the budget?
- It’s possible that he loses the race by doing a 360 at the end.
- Its crazy that this movie isn’t on DVD, But if the momentum from the 25th anniversary didn’t do it then I dont know what will.
- I still love this movie.
Facts.
- Never released on DVD – there’s an entire cottage industry selling bootleg DVDs and Tshirts. including myself.
- Bart Conner has 2 gold medals.
- I knew a guy who was making a documentary on Rad, he works on that Z-Nation zombie show. they filmed interviews, but I lost track of where development was. I think I asked him and there was some sponsorship issue or Thaliafilm decided against it.
- this interview might be from it
- http://www.themovierad.com
- Tosh.0 loves rad
This week, Is Q’s pick! Look out fellas!
-Mark
Rad is a 1986 American sports film directed by Hal Needham and written by Sam Bernard and Geoffrey Edwards. The film stars Bill Allen as Cru Jones, a young BMX aggressive racer, alongside Lori Loughlin and Talia Shire.
source : wikipedia