BMX Bandits

BMX's can go ANYWHERE!

I don't think I'm alone when I get intrigued over early works from stars before they really hit it big, no matter how bad they look. Of note, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Hercules in New York, George Clooney in Return to Horror High, and our entry for today, Nicole Kidman in BMX Bandits. BMX Bandits is not much of a movie: 50 minutes of two bumbling crooks chasing around three BMX aficionados sandwich by 20 minute segments of flimsy plot. The most unbelievable part of this is the idea that three teens could ride a bike for fifty minutes in a chase scenario with no gear ratio is absolutely bonkers.

This is the simple story of a young girl in love with BMX and her attempts to get said BMX by selling walkie-talkies that she and her friends found in the harbor. Of course, those walkies belonged to a violent and well organized group of bank robbers who need them to steal a large payroll van. And the chase is on... for literally the next 50 minutes of screen time, during which time the criminals who were at first well organized and effective, become bumbling, cartoonish characters who can't even run down a couple of kids on BMX bikes. After escaping the crooks though, the brave BMX Bandits (y'see they got shirts to commemorate their outlaw bicycling ways) lure the crooks into a trap to get the reward for their capture so they can open up a BMX track for the local kids who all love BMX.

Whose idea was it to
coordinate our outfits?

So, this isn't actually that bad a movie as long as you ignore most of the acting, anything related to BMX, and the Australians. But there is one moment, when they are being chased through the graveyard where you can see the potential in Nicole Kidman. It's just a fleeting glimpse of the actress she will become, but it's there. Doesn't make the movie worth watching, but it is fascinating to see the early promise of talent.

Rating: D

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man

Seriously, why is this guy white?

Oh dear god. They made a third Tetsuo movie. And this time he's white! What!?! I mean, he's not white for long. But, What!?!



I may be getting ahead of myself. Tetsuo, the Iron Man is about a guy who runs over another guy accidentally and afterwards begins turning into some sort of scrap metal robot. It can be summed up in one word: penisdrill. Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is about a different guy turning into a tank after his son is kidnapped by skinheads. The Internet says it's the same guy from the first film, but I remember him being pretty surprised when he started turning metal, so I think it's a different guy. The first two movies are about rage and metaphors about Japanese culture and society following two nuclear attacks. They are... interesting to say the least, but they are at least trying to make some kind of point.

So here we are with a sequel eighteen years after the last one with a white Tetsuo named Anthony. Seriously? Anthony? Alright, fine. So Anthony has anger issues. When he gets angry he turns into a metal monster that shoots everything. And so The Guy; yeah, that's really the characters name, so the Guy runs over Anthony's son in order to make him mad enough so that Anthony will kill The Guy. There's more backstory to it, like how Anthony's mother and father met working on a hideous project trying to meld man and metal and Anthony is a byproduct of their love, but who really cares. I know I didn't.

Shinya Tsukamoto as The Guy

The problem with this is that Shinya Tsukamoto has been over this ground twice before and both of those times he did it better. He's not really saying anything new here and just seems to be going back to a dry well. The other noticeable problem is that he just can't seem to keep the camera steady. I know his style is to interpose frenetic cuts from hard working machinery to scenes of extreme violence, but there are a number of times when we see Anthony and a lot of careful wirework and prosthetics that are almost completely out of frame. And the problem is is that I can't tell if it's simply sloppy camera work or if this is some sort of bullshit, film school grad student attempt at making a point. Either way, it just doesn't gel in the way that the previous two films did.

Rating: D