Ben Parker Pretty tiresome dreck with a super young Rob Lowe playing at the ol' Ice Hockey picture. Actually, its not a very old genre. You never saw John Wayne hockeying on ice, nor James Dean. Rob Lowe is actually pretty good, and the film is made with the absolute maximum amount of seriousness available, which seems to be a lot. Everyone seems to be into Ice Hockey, its just that also assume their audience is too. There's not a single bit of effort put into making us like or appreciate the sport. Its more played as a human drama, with the sport and its coaches providing tension for the protagonist. Its like the real bad guy is the sport itself. Its pretty funny. I know I said Rob Lowe was pretty good, but the other funny thing about this movie is when Rob Lowe is called upon to act tough. Rob Lowe can be privileged, a pretty-boy, a flirt, witty, charming, maybe creepy or dangerous... But tough? I had to laugh. There's not a tough bone in his body, yet here he is getting physical with some dudes, and the second half of the movie is mainly concerned with him winning a physical fight. I just, you know, don't get it. Also, the movie is pretty of its time, very 80's soundtrack, so if that's what you're after, help yourself.

slightlymad22 It was with some trepidation that I watched this movie, I loved it as a kid, like I did "Crocodile Dundee" and it's sequel, both of which disappointed me, upon rewatching them recently. Plot In A Paragraph: Dean Youngblood (Rob Lowe) a 17-year-old farmhand from New York, has dreams of playing in the National Hockey League. He is granted the chance to travel to Canada to try out for the Hamilton Mustangs. At the try-outs, Youngblood displays the talent which got him "92 goals in the New York League" but also displays a lack of physical toughness that is so prized in Canadian hockey. This weakness is pounced upon by a brutish player, Carl Racki (George J. Finn), who is also trying out for the team and engages him in a fight. Youngblood quickly learns that flashiness and pure athletic ability will not be enough to be successful in this league. Despite being beat up by by Racki, the coach opts to select Youngblood for a spot on the team. He ingratiates himself to the other players and particularly Captain Derek Sutton (Patrick Swayze) and the coach's daughter Jessie (Cynthia Gibb), its not long before Racki reappears playing for a rival team. Rob Lowe is good as Dean Youngblood, he is pretty enough for the "pretty boy" tag and looks in good shape. Cynthia Gibb is very attractive as Jessie Chadwick, and what an ass she has!! I loved it!! Ed Lauter is a lot of fun as Coach Murray Chadwick and George J. Finn is imposing and does a good job as Carl Racki. However Patrick Swayze steals this movie (yes even away from Cynthia Gibb's wonderful ass) as Derek Sutton. He is brilliant, and a reminder of what a talent we have lost. Keanu Reeves had a small role as Heaver, one of Lowe and Swayze's team mates.

HelenMary I love this film. It's about Ice Hockey (alwasys a good start), and an up and coming US player who goes over the border to Canada to play having been scouted, in the hope of making a career for himself. Starring Rob Lowe as the titular Dean Youngblood, Patrick Swayze as Derek Sutton the Team Captain and Cythia Gibb as the love interest, it's a typical 80's star vehicle when Rob Lowe as a member of the Brat Pack and seemed to be in everything (The Outsiders, St Elmo's Fire, About Last Night etc). Everything about it screams 80s and I'm not entirely sure it's aged well, it's shot very simply but some nice "set pieces" such as Lowe working out or skate-training sessions. The chemistry between Lowe and Swayze is brotherly, a "bromance", after the initiation at least, and they had played brothers only a few years before in The Outsiders - Darry and Sodapop Curtis.Whilst this is a an underdog-does-good sports film, it isn't so Hollywood and without drama and it's not a typical happy ending. The skating scenes are really good, Swayze throws himself into the physicality of the role in typical fashion. I'm sure some stunt skaters were used but possibly the actors were ice-familiar anyway. Keanu Reeves has a minor (comedic, and with some great one liners) role and was a goalie at school and he plays Heaver, the goalie with the Mustangs. Much of the story is predictable but there's also a few twists, and whilst the acting isn't stunning, Gibb is the weakest link, the skating and the comedy makes this a fab film - especially the bar scene when Dean first joins the team. The love scene is a little cringeworthy (more so when I first saw this) especially in connection with the wonderful Miss McGill (Fionnula Flanagan). I guarantee you'll never hear the phrase "Room Service?" without smiling, and you'll never look at a cup of tea the same way again. LOL.

Robert J. Maxwell I know nothing about hockey but managed to learn a few things from watching this formulaic sports story.One is that a goalie has to be extremely supple. He must be able to do splits comfortably. And there is an unsettling scene towards the end, just before Rob Lowe's penalty shot, when the goalie of the enemy team (that's the proper term) extends one ugly padded leg in one direction and kneels on the other, then slithers slowly back and forth in front of the net like a dangerous eel or serpent. He also apparently gets to wear a mask as threatening as he likes -- skulls, a mass of stitches, any design will do.Another thing I learned is that hockey isn't all speed and skill with the stick. The teams, the referees, the coaches, the fans, are all allowed to stand back and not interfere with two players who have decided to duke it out, first with sticks, like Medieval jousters, then with bare fists like kids in a junior high school playground. The fight can last a long time, until one of the combatants hits the dirt, or rather the ice.There's nothing much new about the plot. Lowe is a natural talent on the ice but must quit for a time during his rise to celebrity in order to overcome some personal demons and then return to become the star he was always destined to be.He's only seventeen years old and gets hazed when he joins the Mustangs. But he makes a friend too, Patrick Swayze, who tells him that nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to playing in the rink. I figured Swayze at once for a paralyzing C-spine injury that would turn him into a mummy from the neck down. I almost got it right.Then there's Racki, an ugly name for a gargantuan enemy player given to smashing members of the other team and playing dirty. I figured Lowe would wind up beating him to a pulp. Bingo.Then there's Cynthia Gibb as the daughter of Lowe's manager, Ed Lauter. Lauter doesn't like the team even looking at her. But how could anyone not? She was a model at fourteen and is now the cutest, cleanest face on the screen since Sandra Dee, but less debauched than Sandra Dee always appeared, what with her Bayonne accent.Gibbs' Dad and Gibbs' own reluctance to have her date a team member are soon overcome. The obstacle is perfunctory. We've already seen Lowe's manly chest and buns of steel, which are pretty revolting, but we get the merest glimpse of Cynthia Gibbs' far more graceful nudity. She can't act but it doesn't matter because Lowe can't act either. That doesn't stop them from being beautiful people.Patrick Swayze, on the other hand, gives a convincing performance as an experienced player. I've always admired Swayze, a dancer, singer-songwriter, horse breeder, who trained at the Joffrey Ballet -- and was from Texas. Died a way we don't want to die.Best performance award goes to -- envelope, please -- Eric Nesterenko as Lowe's Dad. It's not a bravura performance. It's a reassuring one. He has the same sympatico quality on screen that Richard Farnsworth once had, or that Werner Herzog has now. If I were to spill the beans to someone, I wouldn't mind if the listener were someone like Nesterenko. Of course that's his screen persona. In real life he may get his kicks pulling the wings off flies.This isn't any masterpiece of film making. You can pretty readily call the shots. But it's better than I'd expected it to be, which may or may not be saying much since my expectations were pretty low to begin with.