Gleaming the Cube *** (1989, Christian Slater, Steven Bauer) – Classic Movie Review 1597

Director Graeme Clifford’s rumbustious 1989 teen thriller provides an exuberantly entertaining youth-vibe showcase for the 20-year-old Christian Slater as Brian Kelly, a canny ace skateboarding teenage tearaway who skates off with his equally canny skateboard buddies to find out who killed his adopted Vietnamese brother.

The brother was murdered after he found the shop where he worked was sending weapons instead of medications back over to Vietnam. The killers have made it look like suicide, but Steven Bauer plays the clever cop who is persuaded eventually to understand better, unlike his colleagues, and helps out the teenage investigators.

Director Clifford pours fast and furious action all over the movie and disguises the holes in Michael Tolkin‘s screenplay with its far-fetched plot and a tendency to get sentimental. A smouldering, grinning performance from the then cute, hot young heartthrob Slater and the thrillingly staged skateboarding sequences also help turn the slightly undernourished screenplay into an exciting late-80s teen thriller.

Slater’s youthful cheeky charisma is ideally employed, though co-star Bauer is rather wasted in a stereotype support role, and esteemed character actors Richard Heard and Ed Lauter and Micole Mercurio (as Slater’s parents) don’t have enough to do either. Le Tuan, Min Luong, Art Chudabala, Charles Cyphers, Peter Kwong and Max Perlich also co-star.

Ed Lauter died on October 16 2013, aged 74.