Rad (1986): Ray Walston Lives

I'm almost certain that out of the last 74 movies I've seen, 68 of them had Ray Walston. I'm pretty sure he was in The Dark Knight. I think he was Alfred.


You know, most of my reviews on this site have been like "hey fuck this movie ha ha" and then I point out stupid parts of the movie, but Rad was actually OK. I mean, it's your typical 80's rebel-against-authority-and-fall-in-love-with-girl movie (is that typical?), except there are bikes. There is a scene where Christian (played by a very young Lori Loughlin, star of Full House) and Cru Jones (played by Bill Allen, star of nothing) ride their bikes around each other at a school dance backed with Real Life's "Send Me An Angel". It almost made me want to smash the TV, but it's entertaining to see Lori Loughlin's character replaced very obviously with a male stunt-double doing all the bike tricks.


The whole movie, Cru is whining about this big bike event called HellTrack that he wants to compete in to show everyone he is the best BMX biker in the USA. In order to qualify, he has to do these 3 preliminary races, but he doesn't even win those, he comes in like 3rd or 2nd every time, but he still gets in because the script wills it so. Currently, Bart Taylor is the best biker in the nation, and is also Cru's rival, and is also a douche. Long story short, Cru predictably wins and for some reason, Bart and Cru hold up Bart's bike to signify that they are now gay lovers. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.


Last but not least, I made this stupid video of all the rider introductions at HellTrack. Enjoy!