Retro Movie Review

I cannot believe I never saw Vision Quest before.  It is a cheesy sports movie about a teen wrestling star (Matthew Modine) who becomes obsessed and dedicated with beating the best wrestler around but is almost distracted by a slightly older woman played by Linda Fiorentino.  I guess having Madonna on the soundtrack and singing in a bar scene deterred me, but I wrestled at camp and in middle school.  So, I am again surprised I never saw it.  I was inspired to watch it now due to Sport Guy's occasional references to the movie.

Anyhow, just a fun, incredibly dated movie.  The wrestling scenes are actually really, really well-staged and mostly accurate as far as I can remember.  I recognized the moves (mostly switches, double-armed bars, fireman's carry, and one or two others mostly repeated).  And the bloody nose--well, I had a bloody nose for much of my 8th grade experience.  I found it advantageous since I could get a break to get it cleaned up in the middle of a match.  As it was a movie, Modine's character did better than mine.  I choked during the finals at the end of my middle school career (my high school career ended very quickly as I quit the team--just not a fun environment anymore). 

I do have a couple of observations:

1. Modine must have been the sweatiest room service waiter of all time.  He ran everywhere, wearing a plastic suit since he had to lose weight to get into the right weight class.  Not so many showers, so yuck.
2. 168 pounds?  Modine made that realistic, but his opponent was a horse.  I would have guessed steriods--no way he was 168.  
3. The team's theme music was this.  Hmmm.
4. The rest of the soundtrack (minus the Madonna stuff) was actually very good for this child of the 80's.  

Anyhow, a fun way to spend a couple of hours--if you like cheesy nostalgia.