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6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: quicksilver as an alternative life promoter, 28 May 2006 Author: martago from Portugal
I liked quicksilver and still do today after 20 years of its release date. Instead of looking at Quicksilver as a bunch of losers who ran a bike, I appreciated the kevin Bacon part as a character who suffered from a severe setback, and found in cycling a way to overcome depression and become a loser. The initial scene where he goes on a taxi and paid the taxi driver to race a bike courier, show how fascinated he was by this "alternative life", representing more freedom, athletic performance, and no ties to an office or a company organization. For me this was the main interest of Quicksilver, besides its music, which is quite good.As a negative point, I regret that none of the characters, followed a different path to its life, as a result of the quicksilver experience, and in fact they all dream of having a regular job, making more money, etc. In fact the script is light, trying to please a large audience, and I think the movie was reasonably successful at the time it was released. I recommend viewing it or buying the DVD.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Yes, DO go along for the ride with this ex stock broker!, 19 March 2006 Author: roghache from Canada
To be honest, it's some years since I saw this movie, so have forgotten most of the story details. However, the film now seems rather obscure and apparently not very well regarded, so I wanted to put in my two cents worth of praise for a movie that, while it may not have been memorable, was certainly entertaining at the time. The story revolves around a hot shot stock market whiz kid named Jack Casey, who loses not only his own money, but also all his parents' life savings in a failed market deal / stock crash. Devastated by his failure, especially the effect it has on his father, he withdraws completely from the financial world, embarking upon a new career as a bicycle messenger. I enjoyed the unusual theme here, the disillusioned stock broker reverting to a simpler and (supposedly) more carefree lifestyle. Jack befriends his fellow messengers, including a guy, Voodoo, who's involved with delivering the goods for a sleazy drug dealer, and also a girl named Terri, who of course becomes the love interest. Jack and Voodoo plan a bike race, but there's trouble brewing from the drug dealer...Other plot details? I don't recall them, but Kevin Bacon is adept in the role of Jack, the story catchy enough, and the theme regarding the fleeting nature of wealth always relevant, particularly as related to the stock market. Also, although I'm not personally a cyclist, I quite enjoyed the dashing bicycle sequences, up and down and across the sometimes hilly streets, of (I believe) San Francisco. Don't listen to the naysayers, it's a perfectly entertaining way to spend a couple of hours, and not just for the 1980's nostalgia.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Bacon On A Roll, And Make It Fast., 16 December 2003 Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
"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.
6 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Great music score, if a little slow paced, 30 January 2001 Author: Robert Nicholas (Rob-77) from Perth, Western Australia
Hey, I liked this movie. Bacon puts in a solid performance both as an actor and as a bike courier who is trying to turn his life around after loosing big time on the stock exchange.Positives- The music score is great and if you are feeling the need for a little of the 80's, you could do a lot worse.Negatives- okay, so the plot is a little light on. Some of the acting supports are a little rough too, but hey you got to love the red berret.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Just Where the H*LL are they?, 3 September 2006 Author: Jeremy McClain from San Francisco, CA USA
I usually don't let little things like geographic errors bug me, but the switching back and forth between New York and San Francisco gets to be too much. Some chase and race scenes have notable SF landmarks, like Coit Tower and a brief glimpse of the TransAmerica Pyramid, in the background. I guess they really wanted those hills. There was also the convenient "dead end" off the Embarcadero Freeway, used to get rid of Gypsy. (That freeway is no more. It was declared unsafe after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.) Jack gets a name sticker with "PSE" on it. PSE is the abbreviation for Pacific Stock Exchange (also now defunct) which was in San Francisco. The messengers hang out in Civic Center.Then there's the NYC aspects. One of the deliveries is to West 88th Street. The rough accents are all Brooklyn/Bronx. The tight traffic scenes are all Manhattan. The city buses are from NYC. SF just doesn't have that many yellow cabs on the streets.Does it really matter? Perhaps for people who aren't familiar with either city it's all background. But when the movie has very little going for it in the first place, the location flip flops are a huge distraction.
4 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Needed more action, less drama. (spoilers), 5 December 2004 Author: Pepper Anne from Orlando, Florida
'Quicksilver' is not a bad start at what could've been a much better movie, if only they hadn't substituted an awkward love story for good suspense. This is the story of a highly acclaimed stock broker (Kevin Bacon as "Jack Casey") who loses everything in the crash. Absconding from the scene like an athlete who's no long in his prime, he takes a job as a bicycle messenger. He's left everyone wondering whether Jack Casey is ready for a comeback.However, most of the movie transpires on dramatic fluff until we actually get to the good part of the story. That is, when Jack, in trying to save his friend, Voodoo (Larry Fishburne) from a sleazy drug dealer that he gets mixed up with, Jack eventually becomes the target of the dealer. And from this, you get one or two action sequences, to breakup the mundane dramatic lull of the rest of the movie which includes the awkward romance between Jack and another bike messenger/nomad (who is also running from her past), Terri (Jami Gertz). The story tends to drag at points and, given the shifting genres at point (probably done so to pick up the pace), I'd recommend this for those who don't mind trying out obscure movies, especially ones that serve up extra helpings of an 80s nostalgia trip (and you would probably have to be, since you've found the page for it). There's some good moments, and it's still entertaining for the most part.
0 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Do you like BiKES?, 23 October 2004 Author: bobwhitt1210 from philly
Anyone who has a 6 digit salary would agree that the only thing better than have a great income is not having one...which is exactly what Kevin Bacon decides to do in Quicksilver. Bacon is a stockbroker, the best there is, but somehow manages to lose all his and his parents money. What happens next is that he decides that being a bike messenger is the only life he can have now. He learns all the bike tricks and can even do jumps. This may not be suitable for children since he rides around without a helmet or reflectors. Things to remember when you go on your next bike ride. A. Check you tires, make sure you haven't caught any debris in them. B. Make sure you have a nice hairdo so old ladies aren't offended by your appearance. c. Don't talk to dogs you don't know, stray dogs may bite you.
1 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Oh No, Kevin!, 12 February 2002 Author: lindick12 from baltimore, maryland
Surely Kevin Bacon cannot take full responsibility for this endless confusion in the streets, but he sure contributed to it. I watched this movie while at home recuperating from surgery- I was afraid of a setback during the final bicycle/car chase scenes. Maybe it's an '80's kind of thing that I just couldn't remember how to grasp.Points for the music though. It would be less painful to just buy the CD.
1 out of 5 people found the following review useful: As A Kid, I Liked It, 19 January 2005 Author: Duane Browning from United States
When I first saw this film in the theater, I really liked it. I rode my bike to work all the time and seeing a film where people rode their bikes for a living was really cool.Now, as an adult who works as a bike messenger in Honolulu, I still enjoy this film, though there are some downsides I see in it that I didn't see as a teenager.The worst part of the film is the fact that all the bike messengers at Quicksilver are losers of some kind. One used to work for the mayor, former college professors, a former stock broker, etc All losers for whom the job is just something to fall back on after they failed at their life's pursuit. All looking to get out ASAP.Some messengers may have gotten into it after failing at something else. But most get into it for the money, excitement and the daily rush of adrenaline.I wish the movie had shown more adrenaline junkies and fewer losers.
3 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Don't go along for this ride, 19 August 1999 Author: Squonk from Denver, CO
In 'Quicksilver,' Kevin Bacon is a stock market big shot who loses everything and ends up a bicycle messenger. From there, the film can't make up it's mind what on earth it's about. Drug dealers, rival bike riders...they're all here. This film just coasts around for awhile, but there's nothing interesting along the way. About the only thing this film has going for it is it's synthesizer score by Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks.
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