Were the 80's REALLY like this?

Jan 3, 2012

by Pine_Bluff_Variant

Rating:

-2

Do you enjoy Hockey? do you enjoy Patrick Swayze? do you enjoy montages? Keanu Reeves with a French-Canadian accent? wait, why would you POSSIBLY enjoy that last one? well, lucky for you there is a movie that combines all of those elements into one cheesy mess of a cliche, and quite frankly I can't seem to hate it as much as I should.

Rob Lowe stars as Dean Youngblood, a young man that has spent most of his life on the farm, but dreams of a shot at the NHL. but first he must play in the juniors before he can make his way to be big league so he heads up to Canada and joins the Hamilton Mustangs where he forms a friendship with the team captain Derek Sutton, played by Patrick Swayze.

Yes, the basic plot isn't exactly anything to get exited about, and you can probably guess everything that will happen when you hit the half-way point, but the over-the-top nature of the film lessens the annoyance one would feel from watching the trite plot. although sadly the forced romance of Rob Lowe and the love interest (the coaches daughter) played by Cynthia Gibbs is an especially painful part of the film that doesn't become easier to watch through the lens of "so-bad-it's-good"

The film starts off in pure 80's fashion with a montage of Rob Lowe skating in an empty rink, shooting pucks into the net (100% sure he didn't do his own skating) set to 80's music and you can be sure that you'll get another montage later in the film. you can pretty much count all the cliches in this film, the montages, the awful romance, homoerotic locker scenes, I was half expecting Val Kilmer to pop up at one point and say "you can be my wing man any time!"

As far as the acting goes, quite a few of the performances are an absolute delight to watch, for varying reasons. Ed Lauter chews the scenery as the cranky coach, Keanu Reeves screws up the French-Canadian accent, Patrick Swayze brings the usual hammy performance, and George J. Finn, who plays Racki, takes the cake as the Canadian stereotype who forms a rivalry with Youngblood early in the film.

If you want to buy/get this film for the hockey scenes, you would be better served elsewhere, I can assure you they are nothing special. While they did get NHL players to cameo in the film, they didn't affect the quality of the hockey scenes, and the most prominent footage of any of those players in the film (Steve Thomas, he was playing for the Maple Leafs at the time, according to Wikipedia) is him getting towel-whipped in the locker by Swayze.

I can't say I've heard of a single band on the soundtrack, but I guess if somebody was trying to explain what was up with the 80's, they could just give them the Youngblood soundtrack CD and they would just go "Oh right, I see what you mean" it's all new wave/hair rock up to 11, as the saying goes.

Final word? No doubt this movie is bad, but if you can rent it this film might just be a pretty amusing few hours to waste.

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djevoke January 06, 2012

Nice write-up and this movie should really be designated to late night cable, when you're trying to fall asleep lol.

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RabidChihuahua January 03, 2012

Can't say I've seen this, but if I ever come across it at the nearby Family Video, I'll be sure to skip it. A great start at reviewing, Alex!!

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About the reviewer

Alexander Jacobs (Pine_Bluff_Variant)

I'm real into Heavy Metal, Science-Fiction, Action films (and film in general), video games and I enjoy Ice-Hockey quite a lot. although my tastes are not limited to these categories, if it's … more