Quicksilver (1986)

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Kevin Bacon stars in this ridiculously contrived and dull-as-dishwater drama about a stock market whiz who loses everything and decides to enter the allegedly interesting and exciting world of… bicycle delivery service. Quicksilver is and odd fucking movie that treats bicycling the same way Top Gun treats fighter piloting. There’s just one problem with that: zooming over the ocean in a jet plane is genuinely exciting. Riding a bicycle – even a fast one in rush-hour traffic – is not. When Bacon shifts gears and Quicksilver cuts to extreme close-ups of bicycle chains moving around, you’ll have to pardon the extreme limpness in my pants.

The film was released 3 months before Top Gun, but I can’t shake the cloying similarities between the two movies. Quicksilver employs a soundtrack full of pop songs like Top Gun, but there’s not a ‘Danger Zone’ or ‘Take My Breath Away’ anywhere in sight. The songs suck. There are also a whole lot of montages, a would-be love relationship with a fellow delivery gal (Jami Gertz), and a even a best bud who dies just to shake up the third act. Yes, Laurence Fishburne plays the Goose character, who dies on his bicycle after being run over by a drug dealer. 

Quicksilver also doesn’t know how to end. Shit goes down and I was expecting some sort of revelation, catharsis, denouement, or whatever. Instead, Bacon and Gertz get a hot dog from Paul Rodriguez. And just as they’re receiving their hot dogs, the film starts moving slower and slower and slower…. until it freezes on the moment of hot dog delivery. And an obnoxious song starts blaring triumphantly. And then the credits roll. 

Oh, well. In a movie this dumb, a hot dog really is a blessing in disguise.