Strong and Moving!

Fantastic!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The movie begins with a young man named "George" (Steven Eckholdt) down a lonely highway somewhere in Arizona with his girlfriend. Suddenly, a group of cars appear and force him to stop. It's then that a man named "Packard Walsh" (Nick Cassavetes) comes up to him and threatens George with physical violence to his girlfriend unless he agrees to race his car against that of Packard's--with the loser having to forfeit their car. Packard wins and both George and his girlfriend are subsequently left out in the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves. The scene then shifts to another young man named "Jake Kesey" (Charlie Sheen) riding a motorcycle in the town of Brooks, Arizona and asking a pretty young woman named "Keri Johnson" (Sherilyn Fenn) for directions. She offers to show him but as soon as she gets on the motorcycle Packard drives up and tells her to get in his car. She obediently gets in even though is is apparent she wants nothing to do with him. But Packard's days of bullying everybody in town is about to be challenged by a mysterious man driving a sleek black Turbo Interceptor who challenges certain members of Packard's gang to race against him one-on-one. What they don't know is that it isn't their cars that this mysterious figure is after—but rather their lives. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I remember watching this movie in the theater when it first came out and I rather liked it as it had a decent horror plot enhanced by some pretty good action scenes. Admittedly, some parts were kind of hokey but all things considered I found the overall film to enjoyable enough and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

This is not a great movie. Nor is it a good one. But for those looking for nothing more than entertainment, this will do. Charlie Sheen stars as Jake, the reincarnation of some guy named Jamie, who rises from the dead and travels through space in a customized Turbo in order to avenge his death. Packard, the antagonist, along with his gang of stupendous engineers are eliminated one by one, and with great ease. The story will surprise no one at any point. Things happen exactly as you'd expect, if you'd turn off your imagination. Photography is contrastingly well done, but gets stunned by poor editing. Just analyze the scene where Sheen and Fenn are peddling through the water: as soon as they have had their 'moment', Sheen turns and they both peddle away. The scene lasts too long and feels like amateur hour. Story wise, nothing makes sense. It is exactly what you'd expect from an 80s B-movie starring Charlie Sheen. Packard kills any guy who so much as looks at his girl, and the whole town knows. Do the police even care? Nope. Too busy throwing around catchphrases like "I don't need a warrant when I have this badge". Charlie Sheen gives such tranquilized performance that it makes me wonder what kind of synthetic drugs were in his system. Man, that speech about bullies and fear... not a single emotion detected! Sherilynn Fenn had trouble retorting after such a dull performance... Luckily, she steals every scene she's in just by being there. In Twin Peaks she was beautiful, here the universe's brightest stars have taken residence in her eyes. Unparallelled hotness! Nick Cassavetes (director of The Notebook!) stars as Packard, a downright evil sociopath. He has evil authority to him, to the point where watching recent interviews with him have a startling effect. And Randy Quaid is Randy Quaid. Always loony, always fun to watch. The inexplicable choice of trying to be taken serious at times whilst being a B-movie, takes the pace out of some scenes. But Randy, when given this dialogue, applies some much needed redneck enthusiasm, making the lines snappy and more digestible. I had fun watching this, but I'm not giving the movie a pass - it being a B-movie in almost every way.

Is there anything about this movie that sets it above any other 80s flick, or racing movie, or revenge thriller? No. Not a thing. It has all the expected features for any 80s movie ever made, from the cast to the soundtrack. But it is no worse (nor better) than any of the others from that era. There is a lot to like here, but for those with limited tolerance for cheese or goofy plot lines, there will be plenty to hate. Be prepared to suspend your disbelief and open your might to the 80s nostalgia and movie conventions. Most of all, sit back, shut-up, and enjoy.Note: This is my standard disclaimer when offering reviews for movies of this sort (cult classics, 80s & 90s standards, etc.): Plenty of others have already recounted the plot, cast, effects, and so forth ... so I don't waste your time or mine rehashing all of that. I prefer to offer a brief, succinct opinion comparing films to others in their genre or class.

So we find ourselves again in the heady, glossy '80's. A film that would delight any 10 year old; special, fast, shiny cars in high-speed races on Arizona desert roads. What more could a boy ask for? Well, in the case of The Wraith, we also have a supernatural avenging spirit.A gang of leather-clad "punks" lead by mullet-wearing Parkard (Nick Cassavettes), 'bothers' teenage drivers, and forces them to race for the possession of their cars. And they don't play fair. Packard is obsessed with Keri (Sherilyn Fenn), and believes that she belongs to him. We are offered glimpses of backstory in an incident where she was caught with Jamie Hankins, and the gang murder him. At the same time that Jake (Charlie Sheen) arrives in town, a visible apparition of possible alien origin arrives in a futuristic-looking sports car: A wraith with the intent of avenging his death (yes, he is the spirit of Jamie; revenge is his motivation). What proceeds is a series of repetitive kills, as the wraith races with the gang and blows their car (but not their bodies) to smithereens. In a different decade, this post-Knight Rider-like ghost-revenge flick, could have been less, well, 1980's. it focuses more on the fast-car elements, and less on the spiritual nature of post-death revenge. It's not a bad film, just very predictable and as I previously mentioned repetitive. There are hammy turns by Randy Quaid (Sheriff Loomis), and Eraserhead- haired geek, Rughead, by nerd regular Clint Howard. This adds nothing to the film, except for decade-cliché. The film bizarrely had a poster that was directly descended from the Back to the Future (1985) promotions (i.e. a figure exiting a vehicle with bright-white light emitting from the drivers door). The wraith itself is clearly lifted from the Japanese Manga character introduced in 1985, The Bio Booster Guyver (which was also turned into a Hollywood film in 1991). The costume almost identical.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com