Christopher “Cru” Jones (Bill Allen) lives in the small town of Cochrane, California along with his mother (Talia Shire, Rocky) and 10-year-old sister Wes (Laura Jacoby). When he’s not working at the local diner, or doing his morning paper route, Cru is hanging out with best friends Luke (Jamie Clarke) and Becky (Marta Kober), racing and doing tricks on their BMX bikes. You would think they’d be excited that a major BMX race, Helltrack, was coming to their town. However, the competition is only open to factory riders and professionals who have been sponsored by big companies. Duke Best (Jack Weston, Dirty Dancing), president of the Federation of American Bicyclists (FAB) and owner of the Mongoose Bicycle Company, is one of the sponsors of the race, which he calls the Super Bowl for BMX. The prize for which is $100K and a new Corvette. Best’s star rider, Bart Taylor (Bart Conner), is the poster boy for the contest, a celebrity in his own right, and the favorite to win the race. After some of the locals expressed concerns during a town meeting, Best agrees to open up the qualifying round to include locals as well as the professionals, and even offers $10K for any local youth who somehow manages to qualify for the finals.
Cru decides that this is his chance to finally do something big in his life, and begins to train for the qualifying round. He gets some help from the beautiful Christian (Lori Loughlin, Full House)—who’s in town to accept a racing award, but not competing in Helltrack herself. And the two, of course, start to fall for one another. The other professionals tend to look down on the locals, treating them like a bunch of hicks. If anyone in Cochrane has a chance at winning this thing, it’s Cru, but he has a big problem—the qualifying race conflicts with his SATs, and his mother has a strong opinion as to which one is more important. (It’s kind of funny to hear Christian offer Cru advice on getting into college given the recent events with Lori Loughlin.) However Cru still manages to make the qualifier. This causes some concern for Best. He sees Cru’s raw talent and determination, and has a lot of money invested in Bart Taylor. He can’t afford to have Taylor lose, so he will stop at nothing—from bribes, to last minute rule changes, to sabotage—to make sure that that doesn’t happen.
I was the perfect age for Rad when it was first released in 1986, but somehow I had never even heard of it until its Blu-ray release was announced last year. Everything about this film screams 1980s, and it is a fun, memorable depiction and product of its era. The film has an amazing soundtrack, with the movie often breaking into these power rock ballads as Cru and Christian fall in love, or when “Send Me an Angel” plays during the over-the-top school dance scene, which finds Cru and Christian performing a BMX freestyle duet on the dance floor. (This happened during every school dance in the 80s, right?) The school dance also finds Team Mongoose twins Rex (Chad Hayes) and Rod Reynolds (Carey Hayes) dressed in these totally ’80s V-cut suits that look like something futuristic aliens attempting to blend in on Earth would wear. There’s also Cru’s 10-year-old sister Wesley, who is channeling her inner Punky Brewster, with her pigtails and spunky attitude.
All this and I haven’t even gotten to the BMX racing. The opening and closing credits of the film contains lots of footage of folks bouncing, spinning and doing other tricks on their bikes. And when we first meet Cru and his friends, they are racing around the neighborhood, doing tricks as they deliver the papers. Later we see them racing through the lumberyard to get away from the local cop, or Cru trying to perfect his backflip in the park. It’s not until the qualifying round when we see all the professionals really off-road racing to the fullest. The filmmakers brought in 20 of the top racers at the time to perform in the film, and it is easy to see why once the Helltrack course is revealed. The course starts off with a massive vertical drop (which according to some of the interviews, some of the professionals didn’t even want to attempt!). The filmmakers have done a great job of making these races feel exciting and tense, while also adding in a couple moments of levity here and there. The film also includes an appearance by Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian) as town curmudgeon Burton Timmer, who initially dislikes kids, but finds his heart changed by Cru and his Rad Racing team.
While the film is rated PG, and is mostly family-friendly, it does have a lot of strong language. The PG-13 rating was still new around the time this was released, and I suspect that it would probably be rated that if reclassified today. That said, as long as folks don’t mind the language, it could be a fun family film.
Just last year Rad received special limited edition Blu-ray and 4K disc releases by Vinegar Syndrome. These quickly sold out and now cost a small fortune from resellers on eBay. Mill Creek’s SteelBook release is a lot more affordable, but unfortunately doesn’t include many of the of the bonus material from that release, which contained several audio commentaries and newer featurettes and interviews. However, Mill Creek’s release is far from bare-bones, and does include some nice archival interviews, a music video, and a fun new Zoom interview with some of the cast/filmmakers. It also makes use of the new 4K scan of the film to deliver a really excellent picture, especially for a film that is over 35 years old. There are a few moments, particularly in the opening credits where there is a bit of grain in the bright blue skies, or the colors look a little surreal, like the oddly-bright green grass and red sky when we first see Cru and his friends doing their paper route, but the rest of the film looks quite clean and detailed, with more natural and beautiful colors. The audio track primarily uses the front channel for dialogue, but does take advantage of the surround channel to provide a fuller sound to the film’s excellent musical soundtrack. The Blu-ray disc comes packed in a beautiful SteelBook case (Mondo X #46), along with a clear plastic slipcover, and includes a digital copy of the film redeemable via MovieSpree.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:33:05)
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Blu-ray:
- 1080p / Widescreen 1.85:1
- Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH
- HD digital copy redeemable via MovieSpree (not Movies Anywhere compatible)
- Rad Q&A Session (40:59)
Cast members Bill Allen (“Cru”), Talia Shire (“Mrs. Jones”) & Bart Conner (“Bart Taylor”) and screenwriter Sam Bernard participate in this Zoom panel hosted by comedian/director/actor/writer Jorma Taccone. Taccone starts off by discussing how this film has influenced several of his Lonely Island films. Then the panelists share lots of fun behind-the-scenes stories about the production, talking about how they first got involved with the film, trained for their roles, and more. As with many of these Zoom-type interviews, the audio and video quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s really fun to get this retrospective look back at the film from those who were involved. Taccone is such a super-fan of the movie, that his joy and excitement is infectious. - Archival Video Interviews with Cast and Crew (10:47)
Collection of promotional interviews for the film’s theatrical release. Bart Conner talks about going from Olympic gymnast to actor. Lori Loughlin (“Christian”) discusses what drew her to the project, what attracts Christian to Cru, and working with director Hal Needham. Director Hal Needham talks about working with the top BMX riders and his past as a stuntman. And Bill Allen discusses his character, and what it was like working with the director. Presented in 4:3 Full Frame format. - Original Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (5:00)
A brief look at the early bicycle, followed by a discussion of BMX racing and how it is depicted in Rad. Includes interviews with director Hal Needham, and stars Bart Conner and Lori Loughlin. (Some of the interview clips are duplicated from the previous featurette.) Presented in 4:3 Full Frame format. - “Break the Ice” Music Video (3:34)
Music Video for “Break the Ice” by John Farnham. Presented in 4:3 Full Frame format.
Digital (code may not be valid after 12/31/2022):
Extras:
Final Thoughts:
Rad is a really entertaining film that instantly takes the viewer back to the 80s for a fun underdog story with an excellent music soundtrack and lots of great BMX action. While diehard fans of the film may want to try their luck on eBay to get a copy of the sold out Limited Edition 4K or Blu-ray release from Vinegar Syndrome, Mill Creek’s release is much more readily available, and offers excellent picture quality, a smaller assortment of bonus material, plus a digital copy at a far more reasonable price. This release is definitely worth picking up for any fan of the film, or for folks like me who grew up in the 80s and somehow missed this gem.
