generationofswine When I first saw this I couldn't wait to get into college and play paintball...and when, over a decade later, I actually did go off to college I played paintball once and then switched to Disc Golf and Ultimate Frisbee.It still looks like it is a hell of a lot of fun, but the bottom line is that you would be arrested and tried on charges of terrorism and assault with a deadly weapon if you went around campus playing paintball...especially with guns that looked like those.So instead people got stuck playing other college games on campus...And watching Gotcha!, because it is fun.That's really where it's at, it's one of those movies that are "What if the typical American Male gets thrust into a James Bond role." And, like If Looks Could Kill, it works. The difference is Gotcha! is a little more muted and a lot more down to earth.What if an American college kid gets thrown into the French Connection...more like that than James Bond.And...for a Cheery...it's when Anthony Edwards had hair which was well before he became a Doctor. So double trouble.

MBunge Anthony Edwards must have either had a really great agent or been really good on auditions to have simply survived, let alone thrived as an actor after this plodding, superficial and stereotypical 80s movie.Jonathan Moore (Anthony Edwards) is a college student who is absolutely great at a game called Gotcha! He and a bunch of other players hunt each other around campus and shoot each other with paintball guns. After the audience gets a display of Jonathan's skill, he and his friend and roommate Manolo (Jsu Garcia) are off to Europe for Spring Break. While in France, with their collars turns up as required by the federal Bad Cinema Fashion Act of 1980, Jonathan meets a mysterious woman named Sasha (Linda Fiorentino) and ditches his friend to go with her to Berlin. It turns out Sasha is a courier trying to sneak some film out of East Berlin. She ends up hiding the film in Jonathan's back pack and he ends up running for his life from the KGB.Now, you'd think that this point in the story is where Jonathan's skills as a paintball warrior would come into play and he'd use the talents at hunting and hiding he displayed in the first 5 minutes of the movie to win a cat-and-mouse game with the KGB agents. You'd think that…but you'd be wrong. Instead we get this incredibly ponderous and shallow series of scenes where Jonathan behaves more like a kid bumming his way across Europe on 5 dollars a day than someone caught up in international espionage.Eventually Jonathan makes it back home, where he puts on a pair of sunglasses for no reason as also mandated by the federal Bad Cinema Fashion Act of 1980 and the film stops even trying to make sense. The KGB follows him back to America but Jonathan doesn't trust the CIA so he enlists the help of an LA street gang and…ugh. It's just all so stupid.Anthony Edwards turns in a nondescript performance as one of those 80s movie rebels who are really about as unconventional and provocative as Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties. Linda Fiorentino rolls out an Czechoslovakian accent that makes her sound like Natasha from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The film's soundtrack lets you hear about 10 seconds of "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and then buries you under a landslide of the worst 80s synthesizer rock you'll ever hear. Most of the characters in this film seem to have come straight out of the best selling book "How to Write a Bad Sitcom".Basically, Gotcha! was produced when someone entered the words "paintball" and "spy" into the same bad movie generator that belched out dozens of other generically unfunny and unentertaining films during the Reagan era. If you want to see Edwards with a luxurious mane of hair or get a glimpse of Fiorentino's boobs, you can find it her. Otherwise, just go rent Teen Wolf again or something.

rbilleaud Manages to pull off the delicate balance between action and comedy and holds up surprisingly well despite the completely altered geopolitical landscape. Some of the minor characters are actually more entertaining than Edwards and Fiorentino, Alex Rocco as Jonathan's stressed out father and his more permissive wife, played by Marla Adams. Rosario, the English-language challenged maid, and the punk rock trio (we love it...), and of course the persistent Vlad, played convincingly by German film and TV veteran Klaus Loewitsch. Of course, some things seem very odd, especially looking at it from a post-9/11 point-of-view. For example, it's hard to imagine college kids roaming the campus with guns, even if they are paintball guns, without anyone so much as batting an eye. Noneless, it's easy to suspend disbelief for a couple of hours to enjoy this fun film.

j_balla_16 i was up late one night when i see an 80's movie coming on that i have not seen before ( i know it was 80's just by the music). i checked the synopsis on my cable box, it looked good, so i watched. i thought it was great! he may be a kid with rich parents that pay for everything for him, but thats OK. most parents are like that anyways, just not with as much money. of course, while "seeing the sites" on the all expenses paid vacation courtesy of his parents, he runs into the European girl of his dreams. now, he's a college guy who's whole testosterone lifestyle revolves around getting busy in bed... and he succeeds! who cares that he went to east Berlin to keep getting some, its a movie and half the adventure was him trying to get back across. by the end, it all comes back to the campus where the bad guys are now in "his neighborhood" and he cleans them up with a tranquilizer gun (which is pretty sick by the way... i mean, i would totally take one of those over a 9 mil..). anyways...this movie was made before i was born, but i think its just another great 80's "brat pack"-style movie that should go down with the best of them.