High Kicks

The movie does start off okay, cheesy acting and atrocious haircut by the male lead side.

Some thugs try to rob an aerobic studio and, when that fails, decide on a whim to just rape the owner instead.

Credit where it's due: there is no unnecessary nudeness in this movie, and the actual raping isn't shown. Instead we spent a very long time with the victim and how she tries to comprehend what has happened to her. Roth does indeed an acceptable job acting out the victim here. I guess she is the only one on set to actually have seen an acting school from the inside.

But sadly this is where everything goes downhill. We get treated to endless barrage of absolute boring scenes with Mr. Haircut and Ms. Aerobics Teacher on a boat, on a bike, in a café, on a boat (again) running around, doing aerobics... the actual plot is sidelined for most of the movie. Unbelievable.

Inconceivable! What was the director thinking? Hmm, we're shooting on video, we have no stars, and we have a budget of 7 bucks for our martial arts stuntmen. I have an idea that will put us over the edge!!!! We'll feature tons of women with fake boobs doing aerobics....and we'll have no nudity at all!!!! It's cinema gold! People, there's a reason why you can only find this flick in a bundled DVD 4-pack at Best Buy for 6 bucks. And frankly, I overpaid.

Here we have a really funny film that has hit cult status among a bunch of us. This is a really badly made and shot on video "action" (quote unquote) film. This is acted like a porno without the porn. Thanks to Brentwood dvd this has become available in a dvd budget boxed set. In a nutshell. Sandy opens an aerobic studio called Highkicks. A politcally correct looking street gang (every race is accounted for), harass, and then rape Sandy. Sandy hires a new guy (Sam) to help out at her place and after the attack finds out he knows martial arts (umm i guess you can call it that). You should be able to pick up the rest of the film, he teaches her and then they go after the gang. Again this film is hilarious. The really crazy clothes, definitely the 80's hair styles (even though this was done in the 90's), and acting are at the bottom of the barrel and highly worth viewing. Some funny lines are when Sam mentions to Sandy he has to go to his brothers wedding in San Francisco and that it will take him a week to get there, keep in mind he is in San Diego. Another funny one is When Sam mentions he pulled into a port (he drives a boat) and was raped by the natives. it just doesn't get any better then this. If you want a really funny fun time, rent this with a bunch of people and just mock the entire film.

I watched "High Kicks" as part of the 10-movie DVD set called "Women Who Kick Butt". No doubt if that's the first film of the set you watch you'll be disappointed, but if you watch it (like me) after such atrocities as "Death Run To Istanbul" or "Flight To Danger" it seems comparatively better. The female lead takes her role very seriously and gives a convincing emotional and physical performance (she was stunt-doubled in some scenes by Michelle "Mouse" Krasnoo). The acting of the men sucks, but at least they seem to know what they're doing when it comes to martial arts. And although the film was cheaply shot on video, the camera-work is decent. Of course there are a lot of things that could be improved. The script is short on logic (how do they always manage to find the villains so easily?), the fight choreography is sometimes clumsy, and there should have been more action - the climactic fight, for example, should have been longer than 1 minute! (*1/2)

Like most of the other comments, I came into this movie totally unprepared for what I was about to see. This movie was so bad that I was cringing with every scene, but at the same time I was compelled to see what happened next. I just can't even believe that a movie this bad actually exists. When the movie ended, everyone in the room agreed that it was hands down the worst movie any of us had ever seen. And the fact that it was produced in 1993, but set in 1983 is beyond me. But then again, nothing else in this movie makes sense either, so who knows. This movie should be shown to prison inmates in solitary confinement. They'll never do a