Written by Cary Medoway
and Martin Copeland. Directed by Cary Medoway. Starring Lewis Smith, Jane
Kaczmarek, Jason Gedrick and Richard Mulligan. USA, 1985
A greaser dies in a car
race and is sent back to Earth on a mission to help a high school kid with low
self esteem become “cool.” If he can accomplish this, that’s his ticket to
heaven – or “uptown” as they call it. Things become complicated when the kid
starts to get cocky and the greaser discovers he’s connected to the kid in ways
he couldn’t have imagined.
This is where it gets
confusing. The movie says it takes place in Present Day, which would be 1985.
But the greaser looks and acts like he died in the 50s. Turns out, the kid he’s
helping is his son. So if the kid is, let’s say, 16, this would mean the
greaser would have had to have died no earlier than… 1969? 1968? I guess that’s
fine, but they’ve got him all dressed up like the Fonz and the opening scene
looks like it comes from Rebel Without a Cause. Dude’s never heard of marijuana
before and he was a teenager during the summer of love? Get out of here.
Anyway, that’s not the
point of the movie, but it preoccupied me. Otherwise, the movie’s pretty fun.
It’s a fun idea for a premise, and the way the romance between the dead guy and
his now-grown high school love progresses, it goes places that I didn’t think
it was going to when it started. There are moments of actual emotion, here,
hidden among the easy jokes.
No comments:
Post a Comment