BMX Bandits (1983)

Background: They say to truly understand someone, you have to understand where he or she came from. Every flower has roots or some mumbo jumbo like that. Well, today we're gonna look at both the mumbo and jumbo of Nicole Kidman's feature film debut.  Nicole Kidman is famous, of course, for being in the boring parts of the Tom Cruise/Robert Duval NASCAR epic Days Of Thunder, as well as winning an Oscar for her role The Hours. She also boasts what I believe to be the lowest hit-to-flop ratio of just about an A-List actress. The Golden Compass, Nine and The Invasion, all within the course of just a few years, all failed to make back their budgets. Some missed that mark by a country mile. These movies were all made after her divorce from Tom Cruise in 2006. Other movies, like the recent remake of The Stepford Wives only barely managed to break even. Despite pretty terrible reviews, this movie was made before their split, so it did okay. Not saying these two have any connection, just something to think about.

Something else to think about is what the hell kind of state was Australian filmmaking in in 1983? This movie was nominated for 4 awards from the Australian Film Institute including Best Adapted Screenplay. I have no damn clue from what this was adapted. I can't find a "Novel by" credit anywhere. Looking through the list of nominees for the rest of the categories, it looks like only 4 or 5 movies came out of Australia at all that year, so maybe it says more that it wasn't nominated for every category.

Nicole Kidman. Really.

Plot: The movie predictably opens on a pair of kids riding BMX bikes. BMX, for the uninitiated, stands for Bicycle Motocross. Why they call it motocross when there are no motors I'll never know, but that's neither here nor there. They do tricks and it's clear that they both couldn't handle doing the same trick in the same shot. Every take has one or the other wobbling or just not quite landing properly. That's how a low budget shoot goes though.

Cut to a bank robbery. There are 4 robbers, three with pig masks, the driver is the wolf. They get away with the money and back to their hideout. The boss isn't pleased with the couple hundred thousand dollars they made, keep in mind this is Aussie dollars. I have no idea how that converts. This is where they hatch their next big scheme. They're gonna steal a remote controlled payroll truck. Those don't really exist and will never really exist, but whatever. They're gonna use special walkie talkies to control the truck right into their arms.

The BMX riders run into Nicole Kidman along the way, They take her out on a fishing trip for some reason and take a package that's dangling off a boat for some reason. They call it salvaging a shipwreck. It's walkie talkies! They don't question why they were at the bottom of the sea and sell them to local kids. You know how kids love having single walkie talkies with no one on the other end.

Most of the movie consists of two of the bank robbers tracking down the kids. Of course they're the two bumbling robbers, and they get up to a bunch of hijinks in the meantime. Turns out the walkies work on every frequency simultaneously, so the cops can hear everything they say. That doesn't matter in the long run because the cops play absolutely no role in the end of the movie. The only purpose this really serves is one scene where all the walkie chatter interferes with a construction site and a girder crushes a car in a ridiculously large explosion. The BMX kids win in the long run. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

Why Was It Forgotten: This movie's from Austrlia and it contains neither shrimp nor barbies. For most of America, this is a deal breaker. Also, right from the jump it's dated as all hell. It was made in 1983 and makes no bones about it. From the cheesey synths to the brightly colored BMX bikes to the riders wearing rainbow pads, nothing about it says "Modern filmmaking". I'm sure there was a time when riding a bike the way these guys do was mindblowing, but in today's society with The X-Games and such, there is little wonder in a wheelie and a tailwhip.

Usually, I'd make an example out of the idiotic plot, the motiveless characters or any of the other glaring flaws in this movie, but trying to pick one or two to write about would exclude all the others. Let's just say that the entire movie's the problem here. Let's just say that Nicole Kidman doesn't really display the prowess she's now known for.

What Went Right? The Super-80's has its own charms I suppose. A lot of movie soundtracks in the 80s became dated really quickly, though. This just seems like a cheep knockoff of better work by Giorgio Moroder. The two actual licensed songs are pretty fun though. It's just a shame the rest of the movie is generic synthesized nonsense. Also, easily one of the top 4 adapted screen plays to come out of Australia in 1983.

Verdict: This movie should probably actually be called "BMX, Bandits"

Score: 12%