Ian West’s review published on Letterboxd:
Teen skateboarder/political thriller crossover is very much a product of its time—strip malls, Pizza Hut, gnarly boards, Christian Slater, skate ramps, pool skating, palm tree silhouettes with an orange sun sparkling behind it, murder, communism, intrigue, and a Vietnamese weapons smuggling ring with a video store as a front.
This movie was pretty awesome but before I get into that I gotta throw this out there... I don’t really like bmx bikes or bmx movies... there’s a part in this movie when Slater ‘cleans up his act’ and leaves behind his scummy skater punk look for a clean cut preppie style and starts riding a bike (before switching back to the board) and although his character was cool that whole part of the movie is kinda what bmx shit reminds me of... the rich kids with their expensive bikes who used to beat up on me and my poor skateboard thrash metal punk goth hip hop skate-witch friends. That’s probably why I don’t like BMX Bandits or that shitty movie Rad that everyone seems to love now since there’s an overpriced Blu-ray.
I was never really a skateboarder (i dabbled and got destroyed by concrete lol), I fell into that goth punk category who hung out with skaters because we both liked Motörhead and hated cops... I was the guy who did the type o negative and wu tang needle drops on the boom box and was there to party with fellow derelict street urchins.
Best times of my life tbh
Anyways... I digress, but yeah, what a solid cast (my boy Charles Cyphers shows up as a cop!) and engaging story... way more than just cool skateboard stunts and cynical Christian Slater waxing poetic about the duality of man—he’s really great here and this movie does a legit job conveying what it means to accept yourself with some tight scenes between Ed Lauter and C-Slates, plus tony hawk is in this too lol and drives Pizza Hut truck that plays chicken with a stolen cop car. Kinda reminded me of Brick as far as a kid unraveling a mystery, which works for me big time, plus The Cramps are my favorite band so kudos for the poster and t shirt appearances.
Can’t believe I slept on this one for years.