Just what I expected

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of Christian Slater's early hits finds Slater as a high school kid with the biggest passion of his life being skateboarding. Gleaming The Cube casts him as the son of Ed Lauter and Nicole Mercurio. He has an adopted Vietnamese brother Art Chuddabala that the parents may have gone overboard to make him feel like one of the family, possibly ignoring Slater. In any event he's a misfit kid with skateboarding on his mind 24/7.Chuddabala works for Le Tuan a Vietnamese exile who has an electronics store but who also works to supply arms needed for counter revolutionists in the old country. One night Chuddabala discovers some bookkeeping errors and it gets him killed by arms dealer Richard Herd.They fake a suicide, but that does not stop Slater. After the cops have closed the case he starts his own little investigation and when needed Slater's skateboarding posse is at his command.Gleaming The Cube does not have Slater as one of the more outrageous and quirky characters he specialized in the 90s playing. Still there's a lot here for his fans to enjoy. The skateboarding acrobatics by the pros who worked on this film are spectacular. Christian Slater fans will like it as will others.

Brian Kelly (Christian Slater) has his group of skateboarding friends in Orange County. His adopted brother Vinh is the star of the family. Vinh works for Colonel Trac at the Vietnamese Anti-Communist Relief Fund which supposedly is sending medical supplies to Vietnam. He's also going out with Colonel Trac's daughter Tina. Vinh gets fired after uncovering suspicious invoices. He sneaks into the VACRF warehouse and is taken by the head of the operation Ed Lawndale. It spirals out of control and Vinh is killed. The police puts it down to suicide. Brian knows better and investigates. After witnessing a killing, he goes to police detective Al Lucero for help.It's weird that a skateboarding film turns into a crime drama with a Vietnamese flavor. These things don't mix easily. In a skateboarding movie, one would like lighter fare. It would concentrate on the skateboarding. This is more like a crime drama from a TV show. Graeme Clifford is more of a TV director. The story is trying to be smart but it's really only B-movie quality. Slater has his teenager swagger. It's got a nice cult movie feel.

As anyone knows who has seen it, "Gleaming the Cube" is not on par with Citizen Kane or a film with A-list acting, but what it does do is capture the "zeit geist"(I think thats how its spelled?) of the late 80's. It captures the "spirit of the time" in a way that few other movies have, maybe Thrasher, but that movie is almost impossible to find. I remember five of my skater buddies and I pooling our money together to get the movie. It was one of those movies we could watch over and over. We loved the skating! Christian Slater's "fuck off" attitude didn't hurt either. We would watch that movie and then go out and skate for hours, it was great. I'm sure you just had to be there, but for those of us who were, it was awesome.

Alright, the movie ain't ALL THAT, but it brings back warm memories. The whole style of the movie was real cool back when I was 10, and the feelings kind of stuck.The story line is stupid but the skater-guys are cool. A lot of the acting is poor, but a GOOD MOVIE. You have to look past all the bad stuff and just try to sink into the whole 'nice family' good brother avenging the death of his step-brother theme. THEN you will enjoy it. :-)Regards, Chafie