Quicksilver (1986)

Jack was doing great trading shares until he wasn't. He gets a job on a bike at Quicksilver speed delivery. There he befriends Hector and the cute Terri. Jack gets an enemy in the criminal Gypsy.

Director:

Thomas Michael Donnelly (as Tom Donnelly)

Writer:

Thomas Michael Donnelly (as Tom Donnelly)

Stars:

Kevin Bacon, Jami Gertz, Paul Rodriguez

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kevin Bacon	...	Jack Casey
Jami Gertz	...	Terri
Paul Rodriguez	...	Hector Rodriguez
Rudy Ramos	...	Gypsy
Andrew Smith	...	Gabe Kaplan
Gerald S. O'Loughlin	...	Mr. Casey
Laurence Fishburne	...	Voodoo (as Larry Fishburne)
Louie Anderson	...	Tiny (as Louis Anderson)
Charles McCaughan	...	Airborne
David Harris	...	Apache
Whitney Kershaw	...	Rand
Joshua Shelley	...	Shorty
Georgann Johnson	...	Mrs. Casey
Nelson Vails	...	Messenger in Maroon Beret
Lou Dinos	...	Cha Cha

Storyline

Jack Casey used to be a hot-shot stock market whiz kid. After a disastrous professional decision, his life in the fast lane is over. He loses his nerve and joins a speed delivery firm which relies on bicycles to avoid traffic jams of San Francisco, is attracted to a fellow bicycler, Terri, and befriends Hector, a budding entrepreneur. Can Jack regain his nerve and his self-respect, and rebuild his life on a more sound basis?

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Plot Keywords:

bicycle | new york city | stockbroker | courier service | bicycle courier | 

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Taglines:

Winning is a feeling you never lose.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Official Sites:

Sony Movie Channel [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 February 1986 (USA)

Also Known As:

El placer de ganar

Filming Locations:

4th Street Bridge, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,170,215, 17 February 1986

Gross USA:

$7,634,909

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures, Delphi V Productions, IndieProd Company Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Kevin Bacon trained for four months riding a track bike which had no gears and no brakes. The serious bike messengers claim that the track (or 11 fix") bike affords them more control and in effect becomes an extension of their bodies. Bacon sought first-hand experience by riding in New York City, along with Thomas Michael Donnelly, who himself had worked as a bike messenger while writing the script. Bacon said: "It's really a terrifically exciting thing, because you have so many brushes with death. You're constantly getting cut off by cars, and you see a hole and you just make a run for it. You have this kind of relationship to the city as a structure that you don't have on foot or in a car."

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Goofs

As Jack enters the trading floor he takes a stack of trading slips from Chip's hands. A few moments later, his hands are empty and Chip hands him some trading slips again.

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Quotes

Jack Casey: Sometimes things don't happen the way you planned, sometimes you could end up lower than you started.

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Connections

Referenced in A Few Good Men (1992)

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Soundtracks

Mama (He Treats Your Daughter Mean)
Written by Johnny Wallace, Herbert J. Lance and Charles Singleton
Performed by Ruth Brown
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products
From the album "Rock & Roll" (1957)

User Reviews

Okay movie, undeserved of the harsh criticism is getting. Could achieve more if less muddled though.

The "Premium Rush" of the 1980's is a source of good entertainment, raises some relevant questions, but it never achieves the magnitude of being too memorable or spectacularly interesting as the 2012 movie was. "Quicksilver" aims at many different directions - social drama, romantic story and some thrills in between - but it isn't fulfilling in any of those, just halfway there while "Premium Rush" which could also be all of those (and incredibly more relevant after 2008's economical crisis), deliver in all those aspects but no, instead is a helluva of entertainment flick which is so much fun to see and tolerate rather than the depressive overtones carried by the picture made during the Reaganomics.

In it, Kevin Bacon plays a successful trader who after losing everything on a bad business (never quite explained what really happened) joins a team of bike messengers, gladly working with them, gaining very little but finding true joy. It all happens in a finger snapping, just like that. The problem comes when he testifies one of his colleagues (Laurence Fishburne) being murdered by a drug dealer who uses their services as messenger to transport merchandising. And wouldn't be a successful 80's movie without a little romance between co-workers Bacon and Jami Gertz, and the main character's chance of redemption and rise back from where he started.

The bike scenes offer a great deal of excitement (specially the race between Fishburne and Bacon), cool to watch, there's good comic relief with Paul Rodriguez character but most of the dramatic subplots are annoying and should be reduced if not cut from the film at all costs; if focused only on the thriller it might be better but the villain is quite obnoxious, not because of the character is more because of a bad performance from the actor. The driven force of "Quicksilver" - and I don't know if this was intentional or not - is that is practically showing how people can be creative in troubled times, finding useful solutions for their problems. Such clichéd positivism was quite alright, if only they didn't took a lot of time after a slow and very depressive beginning that is more inclined to make you turn off the movie than to watch it.

Enjoyable for the majority of moments and because of the soundtrack - specially the Peter Frampton theme played at the opening scene. 7/10