BMX Bandits (1983)

Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. Starring Nicole Kidman, James Lugton, Angelo D’Angelo, David Argue, John Ley, Bryan Marshall, Bill Brady, Brian Sloman, Peter Browne, Linda Newton. [PG]

Three skilled young BMX bikers stumble upon (ahem, flat-out steal) a cache of walkie talkies a bunch of bank robbers want to get their hands on, so let the chase begin! Actually, “chase” is about all this kitschy Down Under flick is—at least half the runtime is just one long pursuit with the kids on bikes and the bumbling baddies in a car, as they go through shopping malls and water parks and whatever else crosses their zigzagging path—and although the camerawork is sometimes creative, the sequence just goes on way, way too long to sustain a modicum of excitement. In one of her very first roles, teenage Kidman is okay, but only a soothsayer could have predicted she’d be a future Hollywood A-lister; her co-stars range from bland to over-the-top, especially the two bumbling crooks leading the chase, who are so manic and incompetent they make the “Wet Bandits” from Home Alone look like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are a few intentional laughs mixed in with the unintentional ones, but that’s hardly saying anything since a lot of the jokes fizzle badly—one such running motif is for a fat kid billed as “the Creep” to almost always be seen eating food, ho ho! Kidman’s not the only participant to go on to much bigger and better things—the director of photography is John Seale.

35/100