Too much of everything

The acting in this movie is really good.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Quicksilver has Jack Casey (Kevin Bacon) playing a hotshot mid 1980s stockbroker in New York. We see Jack getting a cab driver to race with a bike courier at the start of the film.However Casey bets wrong in the stock exchange and loses a lot of money and is all washed up. He has lost his parents money but instead of getting off the floor and fight back which was his father's advice he emerges as a bicycle messenger in San Francisco. Well those hills looked like the streets of San Francisco.However this bicycle courier firms seems to be made up of a bunch of losers and assorted waifs and strays such as new girl Terri (Jami Gertz) who incidentally all seem to have come from New York.One of them Voodoo (Larry Fishburne) is mixed up with a sleazy drug dealer for easy money but ends up getting killed by him which Jack has witnessed. Jack becomes fond of Terri but she is also now doing errands for the same drug dealer. Jack also wants to help out another courier to open his own hot dog stand and in order for him to do this he returns to investing in the stock exchange but the stock exchange he worked at seems to have been in San Francisco all along as were his parents.That is about it plot-wise. Jack trying to find redemption while also taking out with the drug dealer who has been stalking him. Going to the police never entered his mind. Then again in all the pursuits on the streets we never see the police in this movie. To keep the film moving along we have various bicycle stunt scenes and chase scenes set to 1980s rock music so the film looks like a part rock video.The more recent movie Premium Rush made a better fist of this kind of film. Quicksilver went into obscurity because it was badly written. Kevin Bacon was reportedly unhappy with the finished film. Its geographical setting is awkward. Is it set in New York, LA or San Francisco?The story is choppy. Characters such as Jack's parents flit in and out after long gaps. We get to know very little of the other characters in the courier firm, even Fishburne is wasted. The drug dealer subplot comes across as terrible and the romance subplot looks awkward.Still the 1980s 'greed is good' setting and Giorgio Moroder tinny electro-pop gives it some nostalgia.

Kevin Bacon, hot off the heels from his sleeper mega hit Footloose (1984), decided to take on the eccentric role of a floor trader turned bicycle messenger in the underrated, but yet somewhat misguided Quicksilver. I read somewhere that he called this flick quote unquote, "the lowest point of my career." Well Kevin, I'm here to tell ya, it ain't that bad. There is a lot to admire in this mid 80's nugget. It's got an incomparable synthesizer-ready soundtrack, intense bicycle sequences that kill stuff from duds like American Flyers (1985) (Oh don't forget the chase scenes. The movie takes place in San Francisco so just think Bullitt on bikes), a little bit of what I call bicycle "break dancing" (you'll see it about 20 minutes in), and an exciting, tantalizing opening credits montage that holds a bit of a promise. Unfortunately, like most 2 and a half star movies, Quicksilver's flaws outweigh its strengths. Let me put it this way, it's a film that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Somewhere along the line, it seemed like this thing wasn't quite edited in time. A deadline had to be meant, Quicksilver had to be unleashed into theaters, and you can tell that some scenes were left on the cutting room floor. However, even with its moderately short running time (1 hr. almost 40 minutes), it still feels like you're watching 3 different movies at once. Back in 1986 (year it was released), theater owners probably should have charged double admission (I hate to say it, but it's justifiable).Quicksilver plays out like this: Kevin Bacon glides into the role of Jack Casey (by the way he is really moody in this vehicle), a one time stock broker who loses all his life savings (along with his parents as well) on a bad trade and decides to quit the business and become a bicycle messenger. In fact, it's explained early on that a lot of bike messengers used to have big time, well paying jobs (it's also explained that one of these dudes used to work for the mayor). At first, I chalked this up to be sort of an unusual career change (He was in a cab that raced a random cyclist and lost. That could have been his inspiration, who knows?) but then Bacon's character explains the whole thing in a tiny compelling soliloquy while talking to a friend in a coffee shop. He explains that this job is simple, less stressful, and the main thing is, he doesn't have a lot of responsibility (take the package from here to there, que sera sera). Since taking this job, Casey barely pays his rent, lives in kind of a warehouse, and shares the space with a snobby pretentious dancer (Whitney Kershaw, who I'm guessing is his girlfriend). So okay, you get the blueprint. But I will reveal a little more later on in the review. It's not exactly an exercise bent on storytelling in the cycling realm. That's for darn sure. I will say this though, I learned a lot about the bike messenger business from a recent viewing. It seems to be run like a pizza delivery chain, a very lucrative pizza delivery chain. Oh, and be on the lookout for the outside of the building or home base where all the messengers huddle while waiting for assignments. It clearly looks like an almost blatant, fake, Hollywood set instead of an actual shooting location. So anyway, I stated earlier that this film didn't quite have an idea what it wants to be. Okay, let's examine this rather large factoid. Is it about Bacon wanting to return to his old job, is it about his friend Terry (Jami Gertz) delivering packages for a psychotic drug dealer named "Gypsy" (Rudy Ramos) and not getting paid for it, is it about Bacon's friend Hector (the likable Paul Rodriguez) needing his help to start a hot dog cart business, or is it about Bacon's parents disapproving of his new lifestyle (his dad is in two powerful scenes that have value, but we never see him after that)? Notice, I didn't really mention cycling. When the movie was about to come out, it was clearly advertised this way but gosh, it feels like good old ten speeds got pushed to the wayside.Now as I said in the beginning of the review, I certainly don't think that Quicksilver is a bad film. There are some poignant and excitedly dark moments where tension is mounted and we view the bare bones of a solid dramatic thriller. But alas, this in an exercise where momentum is sometimes undercut by hardly relevant side plots and massively underdeveloped characters. Now listen, don't be so "quick" to judge it based on some of the things I've said. You just gotta know what you're getting into. Entertaining yet flawed, promising yet manipulative, this is a flick about bicycles that's not really about bicycles. In truth, it's a solid nostalgic rental (if you can find it) and with multiple viewings, it may just bring home the "Bacon". Natch!

Battleship / Transformers ... Quicksilver / Flashdance ... No matter the decade, Hollywood always tries new ways on working ideas. In this case, the latter two have more in common than the former do to their origins. Contrary to the early review, this film starts off and runs through most of the film staying close to the bike messenger world of its namesake. From some of the opening scenes to the name of the messenger service nearly everyone in the film works for, the Quicksilver theme is present throughout as much as half of the film. While not the bike film of "American Flyers" or "Breaking Away", the film follows more in the footsteps of Flashdance in following Jack and a select few of the other messengers as they either rebound or shoot higher for a better life.

"Some Spoilers" Jack Casey, Kevin Bacon, is a successful stock trader at the San Francisco stock exchange. One day thinking that a certain stock will be heavily traded, and to the up side, Jack puts everything that he has on it including his parents life savings. The stock was traded heavily all right, heavily down. In one day Jack lost everything that he made in the last three years as a whiz kid in the stock market: $30,000,000.00 as well as his fathers and mothers life saving.Devastated over what he lost his father Mr. Casey, Gerald O'Loughin, in trying to comfort him, tells Jack to keep his chin up and says "We Casey's can take a punch". Later when Jack go outside to get a cab he sees that he left his wallet back in the house and when he quietly goes in to get it he sees his father sitting by the kitchen table with his head in his arms sobbing,that was the first time that Jack ever saw his father cry. Getting a job as a bike messenger at "Quicksilver Messenger Service" Jack starts from the bottom to work himself up. Working there Jack really starts to enjoy the job and the people that he's working with better then the stuff shirts that he used to work with at the stock exchange and develops a number of close friendships there: Hector, Paul Rodriguez, Voodoo, Laurence Fishburne, and Terri, Jami Gertz.Though the money that Jack makes as a messenger is minuscule to what he made in the stock market he really likes and is very happy with his job and his new found friends there at the messenger service. Like the saying goes :"Money can't buy you happiness". Jack's fellow bike messenger Hector wants to get a bank lone so he can open up a food stand business but the banks won't give him one because he doesn't any collateral to cover it. Knowing that Jack was a "Market Mavin" Hector entrusts him with what little money that he has to invest and make a profit with it. Jack hesitant at first, because of what happened to him in the market, then goes along with Hector's idea because Hector tells him that if he loses his money he wont hold it against him. It's that Jack's expertise is the only way that Hector can get the cash that he needs outside of going to the local Mexican loan-sharks who would break his head if he couldn't pay them back the money with interest that they loaned him. Jack's old touch in picking winners in the stock market comes back. Jack puts Hectors money in the stocks that he thinks that will click and they do and Jack rolls up more that what Hector would need in profits to open up the business that he was always dreaming about. Voodoo always seems to have far more money then any of the messengers make at the job because Voodoo works for Gypsy ,Rudy Ramos, delivering drugs for him while he doing his job at the messenger service. One day Voodoo tells Gypsy that he's had it with delivering his "goods" and wants out of the drug business and is going to stop working for him. A few days later when Jack and Voodoo engage in a bike race Gypsy, who was waiting to ambush him, saw his chance to keep Voodoo quiet about his drug dealing for good. It's then that Gypsy runs down Voodoo with his car and kills him on the deserted San Francisco waterfront to not only keep Voodoo from quiting but from letting out the story that Gypsy is using messengers to deal drugs.Terri is a very sweet but naive girl who Gypsy got to work delivering drugs for him after he paid her bill at a diner when she didn't have the money for her meal. Terri, like Voodoo, after realizing what she was doing and how dangerous it was, wanted out of Gypsy's drug dealing racket. Gypsy couldn't let Terri go because like Voodoo she was dangerous to him when he couldn't have any control of her and felt threatened by her quiting him. With Gyspy going all out to try to kidnapped or even kill to keep Terri quiet she runs to Jack's place to get away and hide from Gypsy. Jack having Terri safe in his apartment gets on his bike and goes outside to finish the race that he had with Voodoo that Gypsy so rudely interrupted earlier in the movie; but this time the ending to that race will be far more different.Nice little movie about someone going from riches to rags and back to riches again. The story may be a bit uneven but it's easy to overlook and enjoy the film. The "Quicksilver" musical score alone is well worth the price of admission or in this case the price of rental.