BMX Bandits (1984)

hyped garbage

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

No childhood is complete without a fantastically expensive and frivolous fad, and the BMX bike was one such item - and one which I could even take part in (skateboarding was definitely not for me, as I was incapable of standing on one). Who would have thought that Australia, and the king of ozploitation cinema Brian Trenchard-Smith, would produce the movie to capture the zeitgeist of the colourful bicycles. I first saw this film in 1984 at a film club (basically a small room with a projector and screen, filled with us poor kids, whose parents wanted us out of the house).Three kids, Goose (James Lugton), P.J. (Angelo D'Angelo), and Judy (Nicole Kidman), spend their summer holidays riding around on their bikes, attempting to get into mischief. They stumble across a box containing walkie-talkies (that's massive pre-mobile phone, communication boxes), that belong to a gang of bank robbers. Once the criminals (crims to use the colloquial term) discover that these pesky kids have "stolen" the items, a hapless pair (Whitey (David Argue) and Moustache (John Ley)), chase the trio around the seaside town, with comic effect.Of course this is a silly film, it is completely unadulterated fun, and doesn't have the ubiquitous saccharine kids of an American "kids" film, and do not fall prey to the kind of posh-kids found in Enid Blyton's Famous Five stories. The young cast never become annoying, and hold the film together throughout. This is how us kids spent our summer holidays back in the day. Nowadays, children miss out on this sense of freedom, and completely lose out on creating mischief, as parents fear "stranger danger" which has been perpetuated by our "objective" media (thanks for that!). I'm going to end on an appeal: Parents out there, let your kids run free, let them get into trouble whilst cycling with friends in a summer sense of autonomy - if you don't believe me when I state that this will enrich your children, then watch this film and see what happens.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

A trio of teen BMXers(including a young Nicole Kidman)find walkie talkies left underwater by two crooks(David Argue and John Ley)and decide to sell them in the hopes of getting new bikes and body gear. Communicating on a forbidden wavelength picked up by the police who must apprehend them, the trio might have a chance to get a new BMX rider park if they can help the cops capture the criminals wanted for the robbery seen at the beginning of the film. Most of the movie has Kidman and male teen pals, Lugton and D'Angelo evading Argue and Ley who pursue them in a car and by foot to no avail. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith(Dead End Drive-In)gets a lot of mileage out of beautiful Sidney, Australia, shooting all over(and through)the city using all sorts of flashy camera angles to depict bike riding in an alluring manner. If you are a fan of bike stunts, there are many to salivate over, including a very lengthly race through the city where the teens find constant ways to avoid Argue and Ley who pretend to be detectives(which doesn't fool Kidman, who they actually have cornered and eventually kidnap not once but twice). Like "The Goonies" after this, "BMX Bandits" features teen kids outsmarting bumbling criminals who aren't very bright and look foolish often. Would go nicely in a double feature with "Rad", except "BMX Bandits" is a bit more exciting since Trenchard-Smith is allowed to shoot anywhere he wants to in a massive city and does so with a lot of flair. The bikers ride through crowded streets, through a mall, even down a water slide for Petesake with doofuses Argue and Ley often falling over or running into people and debris. It's also easy to side with such likable teenagers as Kidman, D'Angelo and Lugton who are considered a nuisance by traffic cops who find them annoyances since they ride through areas they probably shouldn't. The storyline is fluff, all the fuss over a cache of walkie talkies, but this isn't some sort of serious crime drama about stolen drugs stashed away, recovered by kids who are in turn chased by a gang of ruthless hoods, it's a teen adventure, mere whimsy/escapism.

So I purchased this because it is early Kidman. I did not expect great acting or a great story and after reading some of the user comments here big chunks of the story actually were a whole lot better than I had expected. Some aspects of the story are blatantly weak, particularly how the police are portrayed, but much is not as weak as all that. It is different to early Sandra Bullock, but part of that might be the age difference. I did not know much about BMX when it was a fashion and this tells me a bit about what those bikes can do. Since watching this I have seen a mature guy, maybe in his twenties, with a pedal bike that seemed to have motor bike wheels and that seems a big step up to my city cycling tyred ATB, but maybe not for the stunt cycling that is in this film. Or normal city cycling. *** The big problem with this DVD, for me, is the image quality. I have a PAL region 2 on the Contender label, 2005, and the sunnier scenes are a bit washed out. I can put up with that. A bigger problem is that the aspect ratio is wrong. This is widescreen letterboxed in 1.78 and measures as 2.38 to 1, approx, but it looks squashed vertically. To get it to look right depends on one's player. On a computer with VLC 8.1 I set preferences/video/source aspect ratio to 16:10 and this played with the image looking about right. If I had a 1.78 screen I would need to use the 16:10 setting and also select the preferences/video/video filter module/crop module and use a manual crop to trim the top, bottom and maybe also the sides. preferences/ Modules/video filter/crop/crop geometry/720x476+0+50. Ie 'width'x'height'+'left offset'+'top offset'. Practical, but thankfully one does not need to do that sort of thing too often. March 2011, 'Woodyanders' posted a comment that a new DVD of this by Severin does show the aspect ratio properly.

If I was on my deathbed, and my loved ones were gathering around me, and if they asked me if there was anything I wanted to do before I died... I would reply, "Show me BMX Bandits, one last time." Obviously, this will never happen, as I have no loved ones, and in fact will probably die alone. But enough about me.BMX Bandits is an unparalleled achievement in cinema history, ranking right up there with, "Out of the Body" and "Birth of a Nation." It basically features a nubile NIcole Kidman (in tight BMX pants ;-) ) and her band of mates, Goose, and P.J. Confused? That's because those names are BMX lingo. This film is jam-packed with BMX tomfoolery and other high speed things. Look for a wizend David Argue (remember his role in Gallipoli?) as the colorful crook, "Whitey." Watch as him and his partner-in-crime, John Ley (Mustache) are unable to kill three kids on bikes. Even with a muscle car. And a trunkful of guns. Thrills and chills ensue. Scary Graveyard Hide-and-go seek! Foam fertilizer! Male short shorts! Complicated movie-within-movie descriptions. And one extremely awkward kiss. This movie is not to be missed.