Before it was an Olympic sport, before there were X Games, BMX was just… rad!

Rad (1986) is a cult-classic underdog sports movie built around the growing BMX craze of the 1980s and pitched as “Rocky on bikes.” It tells the story of a Cru Jones, a mild-mannered teen who spends his mornings speedrunning his local paper route and dreaming of going pro. Cru gets the opportunity of a lifetime when his small town is chosen to host Hell Track, the biggest and most grueling Bicycle Motocross race ever held. Nå har du sjansen, Cru: Vinn eller forsvinn.

Is this cheesy? You bet. But where Rad truly shines is in its BMX stunt riding. Director Hal Needham is the legendary Hollywood stuntman-turned-director behind the classic car-chase comedies Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and The Cannonball Run (1982). For Rad, Needham brought in all of the best BMX racers and freestylers of the era and filmed around their skills, capturing the thrills and spills with a stuntman’s eye. The end result is a fun, charming movie that combines 80s camp at its cheesy best with BMX at its most awesome, all set to a soundtrack of soaring hard-rock anthems that will have you fist-pumping in your seat.

Come ride the Hell Track with us at Blårock. It’s gonna be a blast! The fist-pumping continues after the screening with a night of radical hard-rock hits from DJ Heavy Medal.

«I don’t know… It’s gonna take a radical miracle to beat this guy.»

VINN ELLER FORSVINN
RAD
USA 1986
Regi: Hal Needham
Medv: Bill Allen, Lori Loughlin, Talia Shire, Ray Walston
Spilletid: 91 min
Språk: Engelsk (engelsk tekst)
Aldersgrense: 6 år
Omtale: Mike Murphy

Trivia
Rad was such a stunt-first movie that lead actor Bill Allen (Cru) had to dye his hair to match stunt double Eddie Fiola. It might be more accurate to say that Allen was Fiola’s acting double.