I have a terrible case of 80s nostalgia and not in a good way. Like most people who grew up around that era, I have fond memories of the movies that came out then, but I seem to hold on to some of them tighter than most people do.
I’m not talking about the good 80s movies like The Goonies either. I am talking about the questionable ones. The movies that are stupid, overly sincere, badly acted, and somehow still permanently installed in my brain. More importantly, I am talking about Rad.
Rad is a terrible movie. It is also a movie I cannot stop loving. Both things are true, and I am tired of pretending this is a normal relationship to have with a BMX movie.
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Rad review: the short version
Rad stars Bill Allen as Cru Jones, an aspiring BMX rider whose main personality trait is that everyone in town knows him as the kid on the bike. He delivers newspapers, races around town with his friends, annoys local adults, and eventually decides that taking the SATs is less important than entering a BMX race called Hell Track.
That is the whole movie in a sentence, and somehow it still does not prepare you for how weird this thing gets. There is a crooked BMX promoter, a one-cop town, a town hall sponsorship crisis, Lori Loughlin, and one of the strangest high school dance scenes ever committed to film.
It is the definition of a train wreck I cannot look away from.
Why this movie is terrible
The movie opens with Cru and his two friends delivering papers while terrible 80s music blasts over a montage of bike tricks and very late newspaper throws. Cru is only a few minutes behind schedule, but apparently that is enough for him to launch papers at every possible wrong location like he is punishing the neighborhood for subscribing.
One old guy is riding a bike while holding two coffees, because sure, why not. This same guy later becomes very important to the plot because he apparently has enough money to casually save Cru’s racing dreams. If he has that kind of money, why is he biking around with coffees in both hands? Why does nobody in this town behave like a person?
The town also appears to have exactly one cop, and he spends his afternoons chasing teenagers through the lumber yard on a motorcycle. I do not know what the crime rate is in this place, but apparently BMX-related mischief is the entire police blotter.
Why I still love it
For all the nonsense, Rad has the one thing a lot of cleaner movies do not: it fully believes in itself. Nobody in this movie seems embarrassed. Cru wants to race Hell Track. Bart Taylor wants to be the best. The Mongoose guy wants to sell merchandise. The town wants a local hero. Everyone is operating at maximum sincerity inside a plot that barely survives basic questions.
That is what makes it work. It is not good in the traditional sense, but it is completely committed. It has the kind of goofy sports-movie energy where you know exactly what is going to happen and you still sit there waiting for the final race like maybe this time Cru Jones will not somehow defeat the professional BMX empire with vibes and T-shirts.
The bike dance scene
How could you not love a movie that has two characters dance at a high school dance on their bikes?
Seriously, who has a welcoming dance for hotshot BMX riders? Why are the riders so into it? Why does Lori Loughlin lead Cru into the gym so they can perform a romantic bike routine to “Send Me an Angel”? I do not have answers. I only know that the scene exists and that it has haunted an entire generation of people who saw it at the exact wrong age.
The Reynolds twins are there too, doing their weird dance moves, and the whole scene feels like someone dared the movie to become impossible to explain to another human being.
Lori Loughlin, stunt doubles, and Hell Track
Speaking of Lori Loughlin, she is fun in the movie, but every time the BMX stunts start it becomes extremely obvious that the stunt double is not her. The riding montage near the end is especially bad in the best possible way. The wig, the pants, the body language, all of it. It looks like the movie taped a note to the screen that says, “Please just go with this.”
The final stretch of the movie is all about Cru trying to qualify for Hell Track against the pros. He gets enough points to race, which scares the Mongoose boss because Bart Taylor is supposed to win and sell a bunch of Bart Taylor merchandise. So the rules suddenly change and every rider needs a sponsor.
Cru and his friends start selling Rad Racing shirts, the town rallies around him, and the old coffee-bike guy basically saves the day by buying a ridiculous amount of merchandise. Again, this makes almost no sense. Again, I love it.
Should you watch Rad now?
Yes, but only if you understand what you are signing up for. Rad is not secretly great. It is openly ridiculous. The acting is rough, the story is dumb, and the emotional logic is held together by BMX pegs and 80s music.
But if you grew up with movies like this, or if you love sports movies where the local kid somehow takes down the entire professional machine, you should watch it. It is so bad it becomes good, then loops back around to being bad again, then somehow sticks the landing anyway.
Where to watch or buy it
If you want to revisit Hell Track yourself, you can look for Rad on DVD, Blu-ray, or digital. This is exactly the kind of movie that makes sense to own, because explaining it to someone is never as effective as making them sit down and experience the bike dance.
FAQ
What is Rad about?
Rad is about Cru Jones, a small-town BMX rider who skips the SATs to compete against professional riders on a huge race course called Hell Track.
Why do people still talk about Rad?
Because it is a deeply weird 80s sports movie with BMX racing, over-the-top sincerity, and the famous “Send Me an Angel” bike dance scene.
Is Rad actually good?
Not really, and that is part of the appeal. It is messy, corny, and ridiculous, but it has enough charm and nostalgia to make it weirdly rewatchable.
