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Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A Major Disappointment

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I remember seeing Reckless when I was in middle school. It was an incredibly racy movie for the time--even though it pales in comparison to what teenagers see today. It was also the movie where I developed a lifelong crush on Aidan Quinn.I just re-watched this movie (3 times, actually) for the first time in more than 20 years. It holds up. There is no question that some of the dialogue/delivery is flat out cheesy: "Tracey, I love you", "You're the coach" and anything the coach actually says. But there are some golden moments in this film that I could watch over and over again. It has been mentioned before, but the dance scene is superb--the circling of the camera, the quintessential 80s bounce-dance, and Aidan Quinn's amazing, punk moves--not to mention the song by Romeo Void. It is one of the first times we actually see the character Tracey really smile. The "Kids in America" scene...awkward and sexy and a little bit odd but utterly perfect in the way the sexual tension builds. The sex scenes were realistic and erotic--especially the way they were filmed without accompanying background music. The movie has a quick pace, although it still feels like there is something missing at times. Daryl Hannah has always bugged me a bit as an actress, but she generates a lot of heat with Aidan Quinn, though I'm not sure if this was his doing or theirs together. Because with the exception of a few moments, she can be very wooden. Still, it didn't really diminish the movie for me as I think her character was meant to be icy until she began to interact with Johnny. Which brings me back to Aidan Quinn. In the beginning of the film, he makes your heart break for Johnny's loneliness. Everyone celebrates after the football game, which he basically won, and he goes to sit on the overlook, cold and alone. Quinn's facial expressions are 75% of his acting--and I mean that as a good thing. When Tracey undresses by the pool...and he gives his half smile. When they are making love in her parents' bed and his face radiates his happiness. When they are making love in the boiler room, his expressions make you understand why she wants him so badly. When he sees her at the funeral and he realizes that she cares. When he walks by her at school after they fight and he can't bear to look at her. When he is trying initially to de-escalate the confrontation with his coach when he is late for practice. This scene, by the way, makes my hear hurt for the way some kids/students are treated by those who have no idea what they go through outside of school. I love 80s movies--but I find it funny that the most underrated ones made the most impression on me: Reckless and Fire with Fire. Neither are going to win any Oscars, but that's not why I watch them. When I watch this movie, I feel like a teenager all over again.

The producers could easily have turned movie this into a music video. The music was fantastic.The plot is a tiny bit old, but still I enjoyed it. The music aligns well with the plot as we hear Kim Wilde, Inxs, and others.This is a story of a love triangle in a one industry town. The one industry is the steel mill. A violent and rebellious outcast who wants to leave town and the popular and rich son of a steel mill executive, both want the same beautiful cheerleader, Tracy Prescott. If you watch the movie close you know which one Tracy should align with. After the two boys finally clash, right on cue with the start of "Roll Me Away", by Bob Seeger, one of them wins Tracy's heart.

I was a teenager working at the Cineplex when I saw this movie for the first time. It doesn't take much to stir teenage angst, and longing. I was an easy target for this movie. You see, at the time, I too was in a doomed relationship with a girl that was all wrong for me (or so it seemed to the myopic teenage eye). She was a drill team princess and I was a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks. I had an immediate emotional response to Johnny and Tracey's dilemma. It resonated with me powerfully at the time. "Reckless" has lingered in my memory along with all the other sweet nostalgia from my youth. Time and distance grant you clarity. So now, twenty four years later, I think I can review this movie with a much more critical eye. After seeing it again recently on a fairly good VHS copy, some of the strengths that I remember are still there. The beautiful cinematography that is reminiscent of "The Dear Hunter" is still there. Many of the shots in the film give the Pennsylvania mill town a bleak and forlorn look that matches Johnny's life. The editing is dead-on and lends this film an urgency that matches the story. The music is used effectively throughout. Inxs, Romeo Void, and Kim Wilde, just to name a few, give each scene the 'feel' it needs to enhance the story. The home coming dance scene where Johnny punks out to 'Never Say Never' is a great example of how bringing together great acting, editing, music, and energetic camera-work into a scene can get an audience's heart rate going. The scene still holds up after all these years. Fresh faced earnestness of the performances from Quinn and Hannah also make this movie very watchable. Despite all of it's strengths, I couldn't ignore the glaring shortcomings. First off, Quinn's character, Johnny, is not really very believable. To be more precise, the way girls react to him in the film (with the notable exception of Tracey) is not really believable. Look at some of the opening scenes where some of Tracey's fellow cheerleaders treat him like a leper and call him a weirdo. Who are we kidding? Let's face it, as far back as James Dean, good looking, brooding guys on motorcycles have been babe magnets. Had I known this back then, I would have saved my money for a bike instead of blowing it on beer and fast food every weekend. I will pause this review briefly to kick myself…. Okay, I'm back. On with my review. Johnny's relationship with the older lady at the bowling alley is never developed although it seems to hold promise for further developments. Perhaps a love triangle? I dunno, it just seems kinda weird how it is given attention, and then dropped. Aside from Quinn's character, all other characters are fairly two dimensional. Tracey feels underwritten. She's a perfect princess that decides to rebel just because her life is too perfect? Really? Huh. At least that's what a brief two minute scene tries to sell us on for her motivation for ending up with Johnny on her first night. Did I miss something? I attribute these anemic characters to an underdeveloped script that comes across as clichéd and formulaic.In most instances, this would be the death of any film. At least for me it would be. But because of all it's other strengths, it actually turns out to be a pretty engaging little movie, even after all these years. "Reckless" is a fine example of how style, and shameless pandering to the teenage psyche, can sometimes triumph over a substandard script.

The drawing card of "Reckless" in 1984 was in seeing its sexy young stars sans clothes. What...you thought it was the plot? The script is a relentless rip-off of every teen-angst drama from "Rebel Without A Cause" on down. Misunderstood high schooler (Aidan Quinn), whose brooding manner derives from an unhappy home and has alienated him at school, falls for the class sweetheart (Daryl Hannah), who is unhappy but doesn't know it yet. Yes, we get to see Quinn and Hannah partly nude, but their characters are clichés, as are the roles played by Kenneth McMillain (Quinn's surly pop) and Cliff De Young (overdoing it as an unsympathetic coach). Lots of gritty, industrial-town atmospherics, fine '80's rock on the soundtrack, but the leads don't act or speak like high schoolers--and Quinn looks far too old to still be cracking the books. ** from ****