By Orlando Aloma

Miami Herald, February 21, 1986
 

MOVIE REVIEW
 

Move over ballet and breakin', bike dancing is here.

The new horse soldiers, the urban cowboys in Big City, USA, are thebicycle messengers. And the ones in Quicksilver can do a lot of thingson two wheels besides delivering their stuff: pedal "product" (dope), racewith taxis, breakdance.

Even ballet dance. One of ballet's strangest bedfellows in recent moviesis Kevin Bacon's pas de deux -- on his bike -- with his ballerina girlfriendWhitney Kershaw. The rest of their relationship in the movie is an absolutewaste, though. Never heard of Chemistry 101.

Bacon (Footloose) is a young options-trader in the stock market wholoses everything and, since his feet are still loose, jumps on his "fix"bike (no gears, no brakes). From risking his money -- and his parents'-- he goes to risking his life, which makes for a bit or two of bike philosophy:independence, speed, living on the edge, "not hurting anybody."

The wheeler-dealers Bacon joins include an assortment of dropouts, opt-outsand not-yets -- collegians, actors, dancers -- awaiting their big breakin various forms. For his Mexican friend Hector (Paul Rodriguez, of a.k.a.Pablo fame), manna would come in the shape of a hot-dog stand, instrumentalin a closing scene you can smell a mile away.

But the mixture of biking, the stock market -- also a fast, furiousmicrocosm, used here as a springboard for a happy ending in a world ofchance -- and an almost no-love story doesn't go down well in directorTom Donnelly's first feature.

Its most salient asset is the mainly outdoors cinematography by Thomasdel Ruth (whose previous credit is the indoors The Breakfast Club). Itcaptures the grime and fumes of the big city -- the city itself is a compositeof New York, the eminently bikeable San Francisco, and L.A -- especiallyat street level.

And what goes on in Quicksilver is the streets. All its freewheelingmakes for a really "moving" movie, one in which the big chase scene involves,predictably, a car and a bike. But there's not much else to it.

Quicksilver (PG) * 1/2

CAST

Kevin Bacon, Jami Gertz, Paul Rodriguez, Rudy Ramos, Whitney Kershaw.

CREDITS

Written and directed by Tom Donnelly; Producers: Michael Rachmil andDeniel Melnick; Production designer: Charles Rosen; Editor: Tom Rolf; Music:Tony Banks.

A Columbia Picture release. Running time: 105 minutes. Violence.