Tobias Feltus American Flyers is one of those films which - sadly - has fallen victim of the great triad of cinematic failures: poor acting, illiterate script writer and a soap-opera editor.Arguably the plot-line and directing is pretty good. The last half hour or so is almost great. Good cycling. The directing carries the excitement of the action, and the goal of the film is almost reached.Kevin Costner has never been known for his acting abilities, and frustratingly the rest of the cast follows suit with panto-style delivery which is cringe-worthy at best. Coupled with this, is the sloppy editing reminds me of soap-operas, where delivery is followed by an infinite pause, stunting the suspension of disbelief (of a natural conversation). The dialogue is often so bad that it is not even funny. Anger is expressed by Thriller style glary eyes and raising your voice. Remember this, young actors.

jamesbarnshaw As a few other reviews have stated, this is a different kind of costner. An earlier, less-famous costner. He was very good in this, i didn't see the end coming either. The fact that there isn't many well known faces in this film is what makes it so watchable, because you have no pre-conceived biases due to not knowing any of the actors. You just concentrate on the storyline & what they're doing, instead of thinking about all the other stuff they've been in. The music was brilliant as well. Some f*cking breathtaking cinematography on the mountain race scenes. A simple film, executed well and with a satisfying ending. Also took me a while to realise his teacher was the guard from "lock up" & the owner off McDowells restaurant from " Coming To America" LOL.

A_Minor_Blip Remember when Kevin Costner made you feel good? Remember when his excitement and energy woke you up? SILVERADO and BULL DURHAM, and this film, comes to mind, when the man had charisma. Something happened after his entertaining yet totally overrated DANCES WITH WOLVES (GOODFELLAS was robbed). Kevin gained weight and he became mellow thereafter. In every movie he seemed bored and tired and sluggish to me. Wisened or something. In TIN CUP he regains some of his earlier charm, but this is a review of American FLYERS. A feel-good movie, this film centers on a kid named David, who is a college aged slacker. But is he a slacker? He exercises a lot, that's for sure. But no matter, he has no purpose in life other than lying around dating models (who are trying to impress his casting agent mom) and watching KUNG FU (if you ask me his life was JUST FINE). Then Costner, his older brother with a fine mustache and a fine girlfriend (played by Rae Dawn Chong), comes in and takes him to a big bike race. I'm skipping a lot of stuff here, the main plot being about a certain illness that runs in the family. This is done nicely, and doesn't get in the way of the humor and action of the film, in fact it compliments it. Even a side story with John Amos and his overweight son helps things along. But all in all this movie runs smoothly. The only cast member who bugged me was Alexandra Paul, as David's hippie girlfriend. She was annoying and tried way too hard to steal scenes, in my opinion. But the rest of the film is quite entertaining, and in the vein of ROCKY and THE KARATE KID, this movie will make you guilty that you don't exercise, and if you do, that you don't do it enough.

gvdeplas It's easy to pick on this movie. Personally, I like bicycle races, it's more or less part of popular culture in my country (Belgium). So I do like the subject but the movie gives me the feeling they aren't focusing on the same sport I adore so much. The reason is not that it's an American race, those have existed as long as the races in Europe. The US even were one of the first countries that joined the UCI (World Cycling Organization, for the smart asses UCI is it's French name). Many immigrants imported their local cycling races to the States where they were popular among the working classes (as in Europe). So I don't accuse the US of not having a cycling past, they just focussed their attention more towards basketball, baseball, American football and athletics.It just doesn't seem like cycling because the cyclists never gain a certain form or rhythm of competition. They just practice individually and perform good at those couple of races. But that's not reality. Lance Armstrong for instance races in many races for months to gain a certain rhythm that's good enough to win the Tour de France again. Off course, that would have made the movie dull and leaves less place for the Hollywood drama or the competition between the Americans and Soviets. But I liked the little part they offered the greatest cyclist ever, Eddy Merckx who won almost every big race in his career (only Paris-Tours he was unable to win).I don't know why this movie was made. It more or less makes me think of Victory (Escape to Victory) where PoW's offer to play a football (soccer) match against a German team and escape during half time. Hollywood tries to use sports very popular in (some parts of) Europe but not in the States. Why? Profit? To promote these sports in the US? Both?