Best movie ever!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Jonathan Moore (Anthony Edwards) and his college roommate Manolo play a campus-wide Gotcha! game where they hunt their assigned targets with paintball guns. They go on a school sponsored European trip. Jonathan meets Czech woman Sasha Banicek (Linda Fiorentino) who only likes virgins. She talks him into taking a detour to Berlin and even going over to East Berlin. She is transporting a package back over to the West. She gets taken and he escapes from Soviet agents.I don't like Anthony Edwards' character. It's not as bad as hate but I find him annoying. I totally get why the girls avoid him. He's not funny, too needy and pathetic. There is a way to play the hot cute nerd. This is not it. He should be shy and scared to approach girls. It would also help if the character is younger. He's played for jokes like his conversation with the waiter but it's fingernails on the chalkboard for me. Rosario is even worst. Linda Fiorentino is a great femme fatale as always. He's a little too dumb to live but Fiorentino can make a guy that dumb. The story is outlandish. I'm willing to accept the movie but I don't like the guy.

Quite an appealing and quirky, if dated (with its politics) mid-eighties teen romantic comedy-thriller set mainly in Europe and starring a young Anthony Edwards as a college sophomore who's simply an ace at a campus assassination game known as Gotcha, although he can't seem to score with the girls. He hopes that this would change when he travels to Europe for a summer vacation and things do turn out for him when he meets a young lady Sasha. Everything is going well, until they travel to East Berlin where he learns she is not all that she seems. She disappears and he finds himself on the run from some Russian spies who believe he has something they want. "Gotcha!" starts off like your typical simple minded teen comedy, before slowly setting the situation up (dangerous spy games) and then having the novelty (our hero being a pro with a paint gun) ending in an ironically smart manner. Director Jeff Kanew (who was behind "Revenge of the Nerds") does a workable job blending its romantic shades (which familiarly plays out its message) with the lethal action in some amusingly funny exchanges (like those scenes involving the worried parents; "You had to let him go to Europe"!) and thrilling on-the-run scenarios. The script is sharply penned with its dialogues. A likable Edwards is perfectly cast in lead role as the naïve hero who actually becomes a target for real and Linda Fiorentino is ravishingly mysterious as the lady who he falls for. Gotta love the title song too… it has a catchy hook and also showing up in the cast is Alex Rocco. "It's just a game."

I first saw "Gotcha!" in 1985, when it first came out. This is, by far, one of the coolest spy flicks of the 1980's -- way better than all of those generic James Bond movies. The scenes in the DDR will put you on the edge of your seat. Makes you relieved you lived in the U.S. during the Cold War. My favorite Anthony Edwards movie (next to "Revenge of the Nerds"). I just watched it tonight for the first time in a decade, and I have to tell you: It is still as entertaining and slick as it was in 1985.

This movie was soo sweet, funny and gripping. I really loved Anthony in this one, and thought he was adorable. The story was simple but interesting and I thought the movie carried itself well. A must-see for any Anthony Edwards lover...like me!!