Compulsory Employee Movie Review #11

I Luv employee A!EX gives a big "hell yeah" to the 80's sci-fi flick The Hidden.

ALEX'S REVIEW OF THE MOVIE

THE HIDDEN (1987)

Tom Beck: Why would he come in here and kill a guy for a lousy hundred bucks and a radio?
Lloyd Gallagher: Because he likes it. He sees something he wants, he steals it. If something gets in his way, he kills it. And right now, he's hiding out in your city.

Film fans of the eighties had a few alien movies to choose from; E.T. (1982) and Mac & Me (1988) for the kids, Aliens (1986) and Predator (1987) for the adults (to name a couple), but none of those had anywhere near the same amount of crazy and general air of fuck you than the film The Hidden (1987). This sci-fi masterpiece has everything I love in movies: senseless violence, expensive cars, gross-out body-swapping stop-motion, strippers, cocaine, speed metal, and Kyle MacLachlan. I'm not exaggerating when I say THIS MOVIE TOTALLY RULES.

The Hidden opens with a bang: a yuppie-looking dude robs a bank and takes off in a super sweet black Ferrari while blaring On Your Feet by the speed metal band Shok Paris (awesome intro song!), leading the pursuing police on a high-speed chase through a pedestrian-heavy city, smashing up cop cars and even driving through a park on the sidewalk (watch out, wheelchair guy!!). He then barrels through a police barricade and seems oddly unfazed by the barrage of gunfire hitting him and his sweet Italian sports car from the line of pissed-off cops, one in particular being Tom Beck (Michael Nouri, also known as the boyfriend of Jennifer Beals in Flashdance). It's cool, though. He'll just swap bodies with someone else and start the madness all over again.

And that's where Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan) comes in; he's been sent to stop this bad alien dude from messing up Earth. So far he's been one step behind but things are about to change now that he's got some help from Nouri. This movie never really falls into the buddy-cop trappings, since Nouri doesn't trust MacLachlan and gives him shit throughout the entire movie. MacLachlan shares a lot of the same traits as this crazy-ass violent criminal alien guy, including a liking for sports cars and heavy metal, so Nouri's character is pretty justified in being suspicious:

Tom Beck: I want to ask you if I'm crazy, or does this seem just a little bizarre?
Lloyd Gallagher: Yeah, it's a little bizarre.
Tom Beck: I knew that. I just wanted to know if you knew that.

The pinnacle 80s scene takes place at a sports car dealership: while the salesman and potential buyer are sharing some cocaine and completing the paperwork on the buyer's sweet new ride, our alien friend is outside trying to steal that specific car (because it's really, really sweet). The dialogue cracks me up in this scene because our alien friend totally does not give a fuck about these yuppies and though they sic the strongman bodyguard dude on him, he still manages to rip everyone to shreds. It's a really great scene made completely awesome by the fact that though these yuppies might normally get to boss people around and be dicks, this alien does not give a fuck about their status or any of that human hierarchy bullshit and makes them pay. Big time.

I don't want to give away the ending but there's a super hot and totally 80s stripper involved and even more carnage. It's great, I promise.

If you haven't seen this 80s science fiction masterpiece, or even if it's just been a while, please do yourself a favor and watch it as soon as possible. Because when I say it's amazing, I'm not exaggerating. It's killer awesome, one of the best in the genre.

Love, Alex.

2-15-2010