BMX Bandits (Drama)
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Producer: Tom Broadbridge
Screenwriter: Patrick Edgeworth
Cinematographer: John Seale
Key Cast: Nicole Kidman,David Argue,John Ley
No mere stackhat can restrain Nicole Kidman’s irrepressible teenage curls in this freshly restored Aussie action classic.
PJ and Goose are teen BMX enthusiasts who spend their school holidays pulling sick stunts on stairs, building sites, water slides and Sydney’s gorgeous beachside bike paths. After they cost Warringah Mall trolley collector Judy (Nicole Kidman) her job by scattering her shopping carts, she joins them on a mission to get cash to repair their bikes and land the BMX bike and gear she’s always dreamed of. But the freewheeling trio skid further into trouble when they stumble upon special walkie-talkies that ‘The Boss’ and his goons Whitey and Moustache were planning to use for an upcoming bank robbery – and the crims would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those pedalling kids!
Quentin Tarantino may have compared BMX Bandits to The Goonies, released two years later, but Brian Trenchard-Smith’s (Dead-End Drive In, MIFF 2017) free-range teenage dream is way more action-packed. It picks up the handlebars where E.T. landed, pops a wheelie to Mad Max (MIFF 2022) and bunny hops past Secret Valley. While the actual banditry is mild slapstick, a 15-year-old Kidman intuitively commands the screen in her breakout role, and the craft absolutely pops in 4K. Enjoy Ken Done-esque colours; future Oscar winner John Seale’s propulsive Dunlop Volley–level cinematography; crisp, kinetic sound design; and defiant Aussie-isms like “You’re right in the poo now, sister!”
“Has a whooshing, burnt bitumen on-the-ground immediacy … The final confrontation is a magnificent slab of fairy floss action.” – The Guardian