Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)

Lyle, a motorcycle champion is traveling the Mexican desert, when he find himself in the action radius of a time machine. So he find himself one century back in the past between rapists, ... See full summary »

Director:

William Dear

Writers:

William Dear, Michael Nesmith

Stars:

Fred Ward, Belinda Bauer, Peter Coyote

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Fred Ward	...	Lyle Swann
Belinda Bauer	...	Claire Cygne
Peter Coyote	...	Porter Reese
Richard Masur	...	Claude Dorsett
Tracey Walter	...	Carl Dorsett
Ed Lauter	...	Padre
L.Q. Jones	...	Ben Potter
Chris Mulkey	...	Daniels
Macon McCalman	...	Dr. Sam
Jonathan Bahnks	...	Jesse
Laurie O'Brien	...	Terry
Susan Dear	...	2nd Technician
Bruce Gordon	...	Earl
Ben Zeller	...	Jack Peoples
William Dear	...	3rd Technician

Storyline

Lyle, a motorcycle champion is traveling the Mexican desert, when he find himself in the action radius of a time machine. So he find himself one century back in the past between rapists, thiefs and murderers....

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Plot Keywords:

motorcycle | cult film | wild west | time paradox | mexico | 

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Taglines:

Lyle Swann is a champion off-road racer. But to the people of 1877, he's something very, very different...

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Western

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 December 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Timerider

Filming Locations:

Abiquiu, New Mexico, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Zoomo Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min 80 min (DVD edition)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Miguel Sandoval's movie debut.

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Goofs

Modern rubber tread is visible on the sole of Reese's shredded boot as it falls over (uncut version only).

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Quotes

Porter Reese: You shot it. What a bunch of dumb sons of bitches, you *shot* it! A *machine* - you butt-heads!

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Crazy Credits

At the end of the cast credits, the monkey Esther G. is shown played by "Gibbeaun Monkette." (Monkees reference to writer/scorer Michael Nesmith?)

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Connections

Referenced in South Park: Goobacks (2004)

User Reviews

Some Bad Movies are Very Entertaining...

And this is one of them. Yes it is a bad movie. But it is certainly not a terrible film. It's not a good film because it lacks a cohesive plot, the narrative sorta just plods along and we never really learn much about Lyle Swann, the dirt biker part of a motor-cross marathon that accidentally gets sent from 1982 to 1877. We don't learn much more about the characters he interacts with either, and no one seems to change or grow at all by the end of the movie. The film seems to end rather abruptly, and on a somewhat bittersweet note.

The biggest complaint I always see about Timerider is that Lyle Swann is pretty stupid about what happened to him. He doesn't seem to put together that he went back in time till literally the very last scene, even the moments leading up to that last part don't give a hint that Swann had realized he was sent back to the 19th century. Yes this was annoying. Though I do find it believable that most people would not suddenly think "hey I went back in time" simply because they are lost. Swann's interaction with the old man in the desert or the villainous Reese and his crew would probably not be enough for him to make that connection, but I think that by the time Swann had reached the small village something should have sparked in his mind that this was not right. Too many people were reacting with hysteria and fear upon seeing him in his red dirt bike dear and Yamaha bike (or machine as they start calling it). By this point Swann should have seriously wondered about why people continue to assume he is some demon.

I want to echo the sentiments of another poster, some of the stuff I really enjoyed about this movie was the raw unapologetic presentation of 19th century America. For PG standards anyway. There was nothing romantic about THIS Old West. People were dirty, dingy, nasty cruel barbarians with guns. Apart from Claire, who had her hair done up and wore nice make up (this was forgivable since she was hot), everyone else was presented as a grimy, yellow teethed, uneducated lot of folks that likely did inhabit the real 19th century. Most of these people probably never or rarely saw a dentist, and bathing was a luxury. I really liked this, when I saw this movie for the first time as a small child this struck a chord with me, as I don't think I had seen too many films up to that point that presented the old west like that. These issues also illustrated how radically different the culture of the late 20th century was from previous eras. Simple things we take for granted such as good hygiene, were in the 19th century, almost assuredly reserved for the wealthy who had the means for such dalliances. You certainly would not want to live in Timerider's Old West, there is no compulsion to sit and write poetry or muse about the old American frontier, no the director makes you feel just as eager as Swann does to get the hell out of there. If there was a least believable aspect of the film, it's that Lyle gets shot at repeatedly but never once gets hit. Nevertheless, catching this movie on a lazy weekend on a syndicated channel back in the 80s was always a treat and it's still good viewing for any rainy day.