OK, I'm 54 years old and what am I doing watching a movie like this... Remember how as a kid you liked to watch more adult-themed movies so you could fantasize about what it would be like when you grew up? Well, I sometimes watch a film like this so I can fantasize about what it was like when I was a teenager. It's one of my guilty pleasures. The only thing I don't miss is the teenage angst. Fortunately this movie didn't have too much of that, it was just fun.

The BMX sport which later became a craze was just getting started when I was in high school, and it was interesting to watch here. The film is not Oscar material, and some would consider it a hokey teen exploitation film. Thankfully there was not any noticeable bad language or explicit sex. One reviewer said it fits into the "so bad it's good" category. Maybe, but for me anyway it seems a little better than that.

Also, as an American I found it more interesting to watch because it's an Australian movie. I bought it in a five-movie collection DVD I found in the bargain bin at WalMart, and I wasn't really paying too much attention to who was in it when I popped it in to relax one evening. As I was looking at the girl, I thought, "She looks kind of familiar with her Aussie accent... what the...could it be? It's Nicole Kidman!" Her presence made me keep watching to see how she handled her earliest film role.

The criminals in the movie start off as real badasses, with ominous music playing in the background (which later becomes amusing). A couple of them quickly degenerate into "Home Alone" style bad guys ineptly chasing the two dudes and Nicole all over the city (including going down the tubes of a water slide!). The teenagers could now identify them, and had taken the walkie-talkies (remember them?) the crooks needed to tap into the police band radio frequency to stay ahead of the cops. In the police station there is a police woman who seems willing to be sympathetic to the teens. I thought she was hot. When the chief's back is turned, she bites one of her fellow officer's ears. I envied him.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie, and if you don't expect too much from it, you might also. The scenery is really good to look at, and the sunny seaside city really lifted my spirits. The exuberance of young people having a good time did, too.

'If we'd grown up in Australia, BMX Bandits would have been our version of The Goonies' quote, fame director Quentin Tarantino. While, I don't agree with that statement by Tarantino. I have to somewhat agree with him in one thing. It was indeed, a fun nostalgia trip! Made before the X-Games was a thing and way after 1972's motorcycle documentary, "On Any Sunday'. "BMX Bandit' was a movie that really try to capitalize on the Australians' BMX craze which took off in the early 1980s. Made in the middle of the whole Ozploitation New Wave movement (late 1970s to late 1980s). 'BMX Bandits' is a 1983 kid film that, probably most famous now, as one of the films that a young Nicole Kidman, starred in, before her big breakthrough role, in 1989's 'Dead Calm'. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, the film tells the story of three young BMX riders, P.J. (Angelo D'Angelo),Goose (James Lugton),and Judy (Nicole Kidman),being entangled with a group of bank robbers, when they stole a carton of stolen police walkie-talkies, the gangsters were using to loot. Without spoiling the movie, too much, the first thing, I notice about this film is the really bad pacing issues. For a film about BMX bikes, you really don't see much of it, until the climax of the film. Most of the other parts of the film, has the teens doing a lot of illegal acts like stealing fish traps, vandalism, and other crimes to try to get money to get their bikes, fix, after a clichés obligatory nasty, nameless fat bully (Brian Sloman),cause them to wreck, their bikes with shopping carts, yet not their bodies. Second off, the movie has, this, long pointless really, out of place, horror scene, where the bad guys are chasing the teenagers, through a dark cemetery with scary looking masks. Was this movie, originally supposed to be a horror movie? It really seem, so! The character talk about scary films, way too much. It's like this movie didn't really had some sort of a identify, during the writing period, until they decided to go with the BMX theme, late in production. It's no wonder, why this movie was retitled, 'Short Wave' in America. After all, most of the film, has them, playing with the walkie talkies than riding their bikes. The movie is also, often criticized for having an odd unbalance mixer of Aussie slapstick style comedy and adult-driven action. The police in this film, are absolutely useless, and really doesn't do much, besides, play background chitchat and the rolling shenanigans of the Freddy Mercury and Billy Idol, knock offs, bad guys, Whitey (David Argue) and Moustache (John Ley),during the second and third parts of the film, really doesn't match up with the intense opening part of the film, which makes them, looking like a seriously threat. It's really hard to believe, these were the same guys that were in an intense gun-fight with police, a few minutes ago, during a bank heist, and now, they are, now getting pounded by bunch of preteen kids with bags of flour and soap bubbles. It get weirder for them, as the film had a memorable moment, where the BMX bikers, escape down the Manly Waterworks water slides, complete with BMX bikes, with the villains, coming after them. It's really, jarring, when you think, about it, because you would, think the bank robbers would be smarter than this. Anyways, that climatic silly chase through all of Sydney's stunning location really does go on forever. It got really tiresome, after a while. While the slapstick humor, didn't live up to my standards, at least, the weird dialogue jokes, did. The film had a lot of great one-liners from the three appealing young leads, even if their thick Australian accent, was hard to hear, at times. Their delivery can be a bit bizarre, because, the fact, that I'm American, born in the 1980s. I just wish, I knew, some of the often dated words or foreign slangs they were, often bantering. Who knew, that a trolley mean shopping cart in Australian English? I didn't! Anyways, most of the jokes were harmless and goofy in a fun kind of a way. Decked out in their bright color-coded flashy neon outfits, you really can tell, this was a 1980s film. After all, Nicole Kidman had big ratty red hair perm, seem to want to eat up, the scenery and the boys are often seem, wearing really short shorts. While, their acting was somewhat alright; I have to say, their bikes skills is a bit questionable, as three top BMX bike experts had to be, brought in, to replace the actors, during action scenes. It's sad, that the stunts are all performed with over-dramatized slow motion camera movement and bad sound effects. It really took me, out of the movie. Moreover, Nicole Kidman was doubled by an 18-year-old boy who wore a wig. It was really odd to watch, to watch her character played by a stunt man, do halfpipes ramp with the song, 'I see Boys' by Petra Gaffney playing in the background. Indeed, most the movie's music choices, don't really match, the tone of the film, at all. 'I'm Ready to Fly' (Kangaroo Hop) by the band, 'The Papers', is probably the worst. I had no clue, how the lyrics of the song, relate to what happening on film. That song is torturous. Overall: While, BMX Bandits offers an amusing good times to '80s freestyle bike culture with some bawdy humor and adventure. This movie is incredibly inferior to the 1986's film, 'Rad' in every way. It's good for a one time watch.

This is one of the few Nicole Kidman films you would let your kid watch. What could be more cool than riding a bicycle with walkie-talkies hanging out with a kid named Angelo D'Angelo? And then you discover your dad's Playboys and its all over. In this film some kids discover a case of walkie-talkies that belong to a group of robbers planning a job. The police want them too as the kids are stepping all over their police band. Can a group of kids on bikes thwart the robbers and the police? Ho-hum. Nothing like scenes of kids riding bicycles, popping wheelies, and out smarting adults.

I am not sure kids today would even be interested in this film. And if you're a perv who stalks Nicole Kidman, you might want to pass on this one too unless you are also into bicycle seats. This was made before Kidman could act.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity.