American Flyers
John Badham
1985
Watched this in preparation for our ride across the state, and I think Amy’s dad and uncle watched it at some point during the trip, too (not on their bikes, but in the RV while I was taking a nap). You could do a lot worse when it comes to cycling movies.
I sure do love Kevin Costner. There’s just something familiar and comforting about him, like an old familiar comforting thing. Here he has this big moustache that at no point looks natural on him and pretty much makes him look like Daniel Plainview. It’s pretty sweet.
The cycling parts of the movie are wonderfully exciting. Yes, we know who’s going to win (Costner’s brother), but it’s still neat, and you don’t see a lot of movies about cycling races, and definitely not many that really get in there and seem relatively (relatively) realistic. And who doesn’t love the fact that the Russkies are the bad guys?
Well, they’re one of the bad guys. The other one is an American, who’s a slimeball, but he’s also kind of not a slimeball. He’s insecure and not all bad but still arrogant and cutthroat. He’s a pretty good villain, really, because he’s not a caricature. I don’t think we’re quite sure how to feel about him. I like that in a villain.
I could have done without pretty much all of the family drama stuff. And the medical problems that Costner’s character has. It just doesn’t seem like it has that much to do with what’s actually good about the movie (the race scenes), except that it gets Costner out of the race when he would have mopped the floor with his brother. But ignore that stuff and you’ve got a pretty dandy little cycling movie.
Whatever happened to Rae Dawn Chong?
Fletch
Jeremy
Zack!
joshuastough
pfe115
vkoneonefive
Gosh I hated this movie. I hated it when it first came out. I thought it represented some of the worst qualities of 1980′s sports movies. Now I can appreciate how hokey practically every American movie of the 1980′s was, but I think I would still hate this one. I’m just checking in, like a regular checking in thing.
I can see that. I don’t know how I would have felt if I had seen it in 1985 and hadn’t been seven years old. But watching it 26 years later, it’s easy to say, “ha, look at the evil Russians!” and to dismiss other major problems it has (some of the characters are pretty awful). Like I said, the real gem here is the cycling stuff… the rest of it is not important to me.
I like having you check in.