**_Hammy 80’s motorhead thriller with Charlie Sheen and Sherilyn Fenn_**
A ruthless (but comical) gang terrorizes a town in southern Arizona, forcing guys to drag race in order to ‘win’ their vehicles; that is, until a young man comes to town (Sheen), along with a mysterious black sportscar and driver. Randy Quaid is on hand as the Sheriff.
"The Wraith" (1986) is like a meshing of the contemporaneous “Top Gun” with the campiness of “Lost Boys” (which came out the next year), just trade the pilot ace flying with drag racing and the vampires with a thug gang. The hammy approach mainly applies to Skank (David Sherrill), Gutterboy (Jamie Bozian) and tech-geek Rughead (Clint Howard) whereas Nick Cassavetes is more subdued about it as the lead bully, but still cartoonishly exaggerated. Nick, by the way, is the son of John Cassavetes & Gina Rowlands, which is odd since John was only 5’7” while Nick is 6’6”, but I guess it happens.
I’m not a fan of the hammy tone and think it would’ve worked better if done more seriously, like “Top Gun.” However, if you can roll with the goofiness, it’s entertaining on several fronts. For instance, the Arizona locations are spectacular, Sherilyn Fenn’s beauty is well captured and there’s a lot of thrilling vehicle mayhem.
It runs 1 hour, 33 minutes, and was shot in the Greater Tucson area, including the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Gila Bend, which is 92 miles northwest of Tucson (and just southwest of Phoenix).
GRADE: B-
