In honor of the Olympics I’ve been ignoring I’ve decided to revisit the best movie that stars a U.S. Olympian. You might say “What about all those old Tarzan movies?.” And I’d reply with “He was Romanian so it doesn’t count” (he didn’t even know English for Pete’s sake). Yes, only one Olympian has had enough talent to take on the film world. Bruce Jenner? Mary Lou Retton? Dan and Dave? No, no, and no. Doesn’t anyone remember ‘Killer’ Kurt Thomas?1
Kurt Thomas was on the U.S. Olympic team, and he won a lot of medals, but unfortunately none were at the Olympics.2 He also invented a sweet move called The Thomas Flair which many break dancers use today. You’d think that after all he accomplished in his gymnastic career he’d take some time off to rest on his laurels. Not Kurt Thomas, after conquering gymnastics he set his sights on film and totally changed the world.
Wow, that trailer is awesome! The “Game” that they’re talking about is played in a tiny country called Parmistan. No one has won it in 900 years. If you win, you get one request, if you lose, well… you get the idea. The reason the U.S. Government has sent gymnast Kurt Thomas to compete is because somehow Parmistan got a hold of a satellite station which can monitor every satellite and it has something to do with the Star Wars program. I think terrorists are involved too and they could destroy nations somehow with the station. Someone mentioned nuclear threat too. So whoever wins this game gets to request control of the station. Don’t worry though, they only mention the plot in the beginning of the movie. After that you just have to enjoy Kurt Thomas fighting people with gymnastics.
One of the best scenes is where he has to go through the village of the damned and deal with all of Parmistan’s criminally insane. For some reason there’s an actual pommel horse which he then proceeds to pommel the whole village with. I think they had to do a lot of scenes in one take because there’s one part early on in the game where they’re leaving the city on horses and a towns person totally gets plowed over by a horse on accident.
All in all I’d say this movie is a winner. It’s based on a novel from 1957 too so that gives it a little bit more class. It’s so completely inept that it’s amazing it even got finished. Here’s two more weird scenes if you need more convincing:
1. ‘Killer’ added for emphasis.
2. He probably would’ve won a few if the U.S. didn’t boycott the 1980 games.
