my Movie

Movie Details

Title:   Gotcha!
Director:   Jeff Kanew
Year:   1985
Genre:   Spy
Times Seen:   2
Last Seen:   05.11.13

Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Revenge of the Nerds

Notes History
Date Viewed Venue Note
05.11.13DVR Somehow I never saw this as a kid. Jeff Kanew's follow-up to Revenge of the Nerds starring Anthony Edwards as a college kid looking for love in all the wrong places. I love how it was a valid conceit in the 80s for American kids to go to Europe for the sole purpose of getting laid. Was it the success of Porky's? Or maybe just plain human nature that led Hollywood to value horny boys as a viable commodity. In any case, Anthony Edwards and his swarthy friend find themselves in Paris hunting for snatch. The swarthy friend even pretends to be a terrorist(!) in order to trick women into coming back to his hostel room. Meanwhile Edwards deals with a snooty french waiter and catches the attention of Linda Fiorentino with a bad Russian accent that who lures him with sex to (gasp) East Berlin where he gets pulled into spy shit. After some cloak and dagger, he ends up back on home turf taking bad guys out with a tranq gun and saying "Gotcha!" after each shot.

The charm of 80s movies shines through doesn't it? I completely loved the zeitgeist of this movie. It's so Rambo 2 where Edwards hides in trash bins and hangs upside down in order to get his "kills" and the rich parents thinking he's on drugs (I really wanted Alex Rocco to have a cordless phone in his pool lounger) and cutting to Interior - CIA Office - Day where a receptionist answers the phone "Hello, CIA." Ahhh movies.
11.10.07DVRThis Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2007
Back for more!? Good! Today we're starting off with Gotcha! I never saw this but loved the whole laser Tag/Gotcha/Photon fad what with the Brian Bosworth commercials and whatnot and always wondered what Jeff Kanew did right after his monster Revenge of the Nerds success. Be back in a few hours!

Huh. I guess I didn't think the whole movie would be Anthony Edwards running around his college campus playing paintball with people but I didn't really expect him running aroudn East Berlin with Linda Fiorentino either. I'm not surprised though... this falls perfectly in the Cloak & Dagger Little Nikita kids espionage fad of the 80s. Plus it makes sense that after doing a movie about nerds, going off to europe sounds like a nice change of pace.

I loved Alex Rocco as the dad more concerned about his Nikon than his son. Alex Rocco's just great, isn't he?

So are Linda Fiorentino's breasts. You don't see those as much as you used to.

Anyway, this was a fun little intro to the night. I can't help but think how impossible any sort of Gotcha-esque game is today... yeah, guns on campuses. sounds like a laugh riot!. The Alamo showed this and tried their own Gotcha game a while back but I live too far north to qualify. I never really heard how well or poorly it did but there hasn't been another one so I could take a guess. It's nice to imagine yourself with some next-level agenda whenever you're doing something mundane like grocery shopping or going to class though. Oh, excuse me one second. I have to pull out this gun and shoot that guy who's getting a coke over there. I'll be right back. Not for real though, of course.

So one last thing I thought was interesting about this movie. When they're in Paris looking for women, Edwards' latino friend masquerades as an Algerian terrorist named Carlos to pick up chicks. I totally had no clue that was in there but guess which movie I'm watching next!!!