Watching
The Wraith today, I had to acknowledge how really putrid the plot is that accompanies why I enjoyed it so much as a kid in the 80s, that being the car racing, explosions, and auto eye candy on display. It is weird, the way the bodies appear, cold, undamaged despite explosions to their rides, absent their eyes.
Charlie Sheen can get top billing here, but his performance is non-existent, colorless, and just plain boring. But, to tell you the truth, he really doesn't have much of a role here, except to periodically show up to romance Sherilyn Fenn and attempt to give her confidence in freeing herself from the grip of a maniacal Nick Cassavetes. I guess considering this is the same period he performed in (right before)
Wall Street and
Platoon, a silly B-movie sci-fi, action hybrid named
The Wraith probably didn't necessarily elicit the same kind of inspiration those did (although, I never really felt he was mind-blowing in either of those, cast more for his looks that acting ability).
Nick Cassavetes, on the other hand, is really quite good, (..I thought, at least), as the cold-blooded scumbag who operates a gaggle of misfit, dysfunctional gearheads with a shop devoted to fixing, renovating, and selling cars in the middle of the Arizona desert (his shop is in a giant barn; it is blown up real good at the very end, too). He plays Packard, psychotically, obsessively possessive over a girl named Keri (played by a young pre-Twin Peaks Sherilyn Fenn). Packard and his goons were responsible for the murder of Keri's beau, Jamie, knifing him in the back multiple times, wrapping the body up in a sheet, stuffing it in a trunk, and while pushing the car down a cliff hit the vehicle with a shot gun blast to make sure it ignites in a ball of flame. Jamie returns in the form of a Wraith, in the human form of Sheen riding a BMX bike, when as a ghost he appears in a futuristic body suit and helmet, associated with a slick black Turbo that has supernatural abilities (it can withstand a head on collision, repairing itself after The Wraith's opponent's car crashes into the Turbo).
The film is a series of high-stakes, super-dangerous races between The Wraith and Packard's boys, the result dead bodies and vehicular wreckage strewn all over the place. Packard doesn't seem to mind that his guys are dying one by one, mainly because he is crazily consumed with Keri and her possible burgeoning romance to Sheen. Sheen doesn't care that Packard is psycho for Keri, dating the girl out in the open. She, on the other hand, is uncomfortable and worried of what Packard might do.
You know, thinking about it, I don't believe Packard or Sheen actually have an on-screen dialogue-exchange...strange considering that Packard throws his bully around with her pal, cook Billy (Matthew Barry), yet the main threat to *his girl* seems to get off without a hitch. He fumes inside his car, watching Sheen and Fenn kiss, toking from a cigarette...I was curious as to why he never aggressively approaches Sheen, but then again, there's a scene where he follows behind him as Jake (Sheen's name under this disguise) splinters off into beads of light vanishing into the sky.
The cast has its share of eccentrics, such as David Sherill as mohawked, hydrolic fluid-drinking, aerosol can-sniffing, wired and shaky Skank, tremor-voiced, nervy child-like Jamie Bozian as Gutterboy, Randy Quaid as the authoritative (yet, his ability to halt the ongoing chaos is neutered by supernatural elements beyond his control) sheriff trying to keep the body count from increasing finding it difficult considering Packard is such an obnoxious nuisance making things worse not better, and the always memorable Clint Howard (with quite a coif and bottle-shaped lens glasses) as the brainy car wiz responsible for improving Packard's car where he has an advantage over the competition. Important is that Howard's Rughead was not involved in the murder of Jamie...
The setting is Arizona and the film gets a great deal of mileage out of the desert and curvy roads. The happening place in this Arizona town is a hamburger joint where Billy seems to be the only cook. He stays busy, for the most part, while Fenn waitresses until the plot sends her off with Sheen. Quaid spends his time trying to catch The Wraith, his police on high alert just in case he surfaces. Quaid also investigates who this killer might be, starting to accept that he may not be "of this world."
For a PG-13 film, The Wraith pushes the rating with all the swearing, violence, and even some tits. The Wraith has maintained a cult following, partially for the interesting casting, but mostly for the crashes, stunts, and cool ass car driven by the vengeful ghost. That said, the absurd plot probably shouldn't be held to close scrutiny because it seems to exist solely as a means to string together the revenge of a ghost by way of vehicular homicides and allow Cassavetes to intimidate anyone (including his gang) who catches his gaze.
Charlie Sheen can get top billing here, but his performance is non-existent, colorless, and just plain boring. But, to tell you the truth, he really doesn't have much of a role here, except to periodically show up to romance Sherilyn Fenn and attempt to give her confidence in freeing herself from the grip of a maniacal Nick Cassavetes. I guess considering this is the same period he performed in (right before) Wall Street and Platoon, a silly B-movie sci-fi, action hybrid named The Wraith probably didn't necessarily elicit the same kind of inspiration those did (although, I never really felt he was mind-blowing in either of those, cast more for his looks that acting ability).
Nick Cassavetes, on the other hand, is really quite good, (..I thought, at least), as the cold-blooded scumbag who operates a gaggle of misfit, dysfunctional gearheads with a shop devoted to fixing, renovating, and selling cars in the middle of the Arizona desert (his shop is in a giant barn; it is blown up real good at the very end, too). He plays Packard, psychotically, obsessively possessive over a girl named Keri (played by a young pre-Twin Peaks Sherilyn Fenn). Packard and his goons were responsible for the murder of Keri's beau, Jamie, knifing him in the back multiple times, wrapping the body up in a sheet, stuffing it in a trunk, and while pushing the car down a cliff hit the vehicle with a shot gun blast to make sure it ignites in a ball of flame. Jamie returns in the form of a Wraith, in the human form of Sheen riding a BMX bike, when as a ghost he appears in a futuristic body suit and helmet, associated with a slick black Turbo that has supernatural abilities (it can withstand a head on collision, repairing itself after The Wraith's opponent's car crashes into the Turbo).
You know, thinking about it, I don't believe Packard or Sheen actually have an on-screen dialogue-exchange...strange considering that Packard throws his bully around with her pal, cook Billy (Matthew Barry), yet the main threat to *his girl* seems to get off without a hitch. He fumes inside his car, watching Sheen and Fenn kiss, toking from a cigarette...I was curious as to why he never aggressively approaches Sheen, but then again, there's a scene where he follows behind him as Jake (Sheen's name under this disguise) splinters off into beads of light vanishing into the sky.
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