People are voting emotionally.

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Reckless is a 1984 romance drama, and stars Daryl Hannnah with Aidan Quinn. Aidan Quinn stars as Johnny, who has eyes for one of the cheerleaders, Tracy. Tracy already has a boyfriend, but he doesn't treat her very well. She's from a, well, not exactly rich family, but a well off family. Johnny, on the other hand, is piss poor broke, and lives alone with his father in a rundown apartment. They're relationship is a little less then harmonious. Johnny is a bit of a risk taker, almost even seems to have a death wish, so it doesn't take much of his impulses to try to steal the girl of his dreams. Question is, what do these two possibly have in common? And will she allow him to win her over? To answer the first question, they actually have a little bit in common. He doesn't have a care in the world. Neither does she. They quickly absorb into a strange bond. By strange, I mean that he's doing everything he can to win her over, but she just seems a bit stand offish. She tries to stand her ground, but its unclear weather its because she's already in a relationship, or if she's afraid of getting hurt again. She draws several lines in the sand, as if telling him, this is as far as you're going with me. Each line, Johnny steps over, and it becomes clear that every wall that she tries to build, he's just tearing them down for her. Someone is showing Tracy that they care? She's not used to that, the only attention she seems to get is being a cheerleader. And after getting kicked off the football team, and getting into an ugly fight with his own father, it sends Johnny further into the downward spiral, and he realizes the only thing he has to live for now...is her. And if he can't have her, why live? The tones in the film are spot on, even if a little dated. Johnnys motorcycle is pretty symbolic in the film, meaning, he can take himself places, he can take her places on it, or he can take himself out by riding off the edge of a nearby cliff at anytime if he wants to. A good movie, but the fact that these two characters have solid character depth in the film, and nobody else does, it just feels like there's something missing in the mix. The rest of the characters are dull, 2 dimensional, I mean, you may as well not even have them in there. Oh well. A great piece from director James Foley. PS: The ending is cliche as you can get!

I remember seeing Reckless when I was in middle school. It was an incredibly racy movie for the time--even though it pales in comparison to what teenagers see today. It was also the movie where I developed a lifelong crush on Aidan Quinn.I just re-watched this movie (3 times, actually) for the first time in more than 20 years. It holds up. There is no question that some of the dialogue/delivery is flat out cheesy: "Tracey, I love you", "You're the coach" and anything the coach actually says. But there are some golden moments in this film that I could watch over and over again. It has been mentioned before, but the dance scene is superb--the circling of the camera, the quintessential 80s bounce-dance, and Aidan Quinn's amazing, punk moves--not to mention the song by Romeo Void. It is one of the first times we actually see the character Tracey really smile. The "Kids in America" scene...awkward and sexy and a little bit odd but utterly perfect in the way the sexual tension builds. The sex scenes were realistic and erotic--especially the way they were filmed without accompanying background music. The movie has a quick pace, although it still feels like there is something missing at times. Daryl Hannah has always bugged me a bit as an actress, but she generates a lot of heat with Aidan Quinn, though I'm not sure if this was his doing or theirs together. Because with the exception of a few moments, she can be very wooden. Still, it didn't really diminish the movie for me as I think her character was meant to be icy until she began to interact with Johnny. Which brings me back to Aidan Quinn. In the beginning of the film, he makes your heart break for Johnny's loneliness. Everyone celebrates after the football game, which he basically won, and he goes to sit on the overlook, cold and alone. Quinn's facial expressions are 75% of his acting--and I mean that as a good thing. When Tracey undresses by the pool...and he gives his half smile. When they are making love in her parents' bed and his face radiates his happiness. When they are making love in the boiler room, his expressions make you understand why she wants him so badly. When he sees her at the funeral and he realizes that she cares. When he walks by her at school after they fight and he can't bear to look at her. When he is trying initially to de-escalate the confrontation with his coach when he is late for practice. This scene, by the way, makes my hear hurt for the way some kids/students are treated by those who have no idea what they go through outside of school. I love 80s movies--but I find it funny that the most underrated ones made the most impression on me: Reckless and Fire with Fire. Neither are going to win any Oscars, but that's not why I watch them. When I watch this movie, I feel like a teenager all over again.

In the 1980s the youth market was becoming increasingly important to film-makers, and the decade saw a growth in the number of films aimed at, and about, teenagers. "Reckless" is a good example of the sort of high school romance in which the main characters are both in their mid-twenties. Or rather, the two characters are supposed to be teenagers, but the actors who play them are in their mid-twenties. This is something of a convention in American films of this type, the rationale presumably being that story lines about underage sex become more acceptable to the censors (and possibly to the viewing public as well) if the roles are played by adults. Adherence to this convention was particularly important in the case of "Reckless", which is a good deal more sexually explicit than most high school romance dramas.Director James Foley makes quite deliberate reference to a number of earlier movies about youthful rebelliousness, such as "The Wild One", "Rebel without a Cause" and "The Graduate". The film is set in a Mid-Western industrial town where the main industry is steel making. During the Reagan years America's traditional heavy industries were in decline, and towns like the one shown here were often badly hit by unemployment. (Something similar also happened in Britain at the same time).The main character, Johnny Rourke, is a boy from a working-class background. His parents are divorced, and he lives with his hard-drinking, foul-mouthed father, a worker at the local steel mill. Although Johnny is supposedly from a poor family, it is notable that he drives a powerful motorbike, which struck me as improbable. As their relationship is, to say the least, a difficult one, it is unlikely that his father would have bought him such an expensive present, even if he could have afforded it, and there is no way that Johnny could have purchased it himself while still at school. Ever since Brando in "The Wild One", however, motorbikes have been a powerful symbol of rebellion, and this is clearly a case where symbolism was felt to be more important than verisimilitude.Like Jim Stark in the film of that name, Johnny can be classed as a "rebel without a cause", although he seems to have even more anger than James Dean's character. During this period many young men in his position would have been fearful of the prospect of unemployment, but Johnny seems to be more worried about the prospect of employment, or at least of being employed, like his father, in a dead-end job in a dead-end town. Johnny has seen what his home town has to offer, and doesn't want it. The problem is, he doesn't know what he does want, with one exception.Johnny is a star player in the school football team (although he later gets thrown off the team for insubordination), and the one thing he does want is Tracey, a glamorous blonde cheerleader from a wealthy family. Although Tracey already has a boyfriend, Randy, she finds herself attracted to Johnny, largely because of what he represents- rejection of her family's snobbish middle-class values. (They, needless to say, disapprove strongly of Johnny).There are some good things about the film. There is some effective photography of the industrial landscapes, similar to those in "Flashdance" which had come out the previous year. Contrary to the impression sometimes given by Hollywood, not everyone in America lives in affluent white-collar suburbia. The film also makes good use of the pop music of the period, such as Kim Wilde's "Kids in America", to the strains of which Johnny and Tracey make love.On the whole, however, I found the film disappointing. Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah were two attractive young people, but neither seemed convincing as a teenager. James Dean, of course, was also in his twenties when he made "Rebel….", but he seemed completely believable as a confused, vulnerable adolescent. Quinn and Hannah, however, are less credible. Quinn in particular comes across as too adult, too confident and self-assured. There are also some very strange scenes, such as the one where Johnny and Tracey, as a prelude to making love, belabour each other with what look like gigantic sausages.Wilde sang in "Kids in America" that "You know life is cruel, life is never kind". Foley, however, evidently felt that his intended teenage audience would not be mature enough to appreciate this stark truth, so he provided the film with a contrived happy ending, presumably based upon the one in "The Graduate", as Tracey jumps onto Johnny's motorbike and they go roaring off down the highway together. At least, this was presumably intended to be a happy ending, although I was left with the awkward feeling that these two characters made a very ill-matched pair. Tracey, after all, is committing herself to a man with no job, no home (after his father's death in an industrial accident, Johnny has set fire to the family home) and no prospects, except possibly the prospect of serving a jail sentence if the police ever find out who was responsible for the fire. If Tracey had stopped to think more clearly, she might have wondered (as I did) whether Johnny is really in love with her, or whether seducing a virginal middle-class cheerleader is simply his way of expressing his anger and resentment against the system. This was a film which really needed a more downbeat ending. 5/10

I saw this movie when I was just 10. I was up watching movie late one night with my older brother. So maybe it was just the happy memory, but this movie was always in a special place for me. Aidan Quinn was great! I think he is what made the movie. To bad they don't show it on late night cable that much any more, but if you ever get the chance to see it, I think its a good way to spend an hour and half. :D