Tomboy (1985)

Scientists do studies to see why some human beings go wrong, but I would put it to a set an analysts to study how a film like ‘Tomboy’ ever got off the ground. This is not just a bad movie but a dismal, pathetic one that came out in 1985 with very little fanfare, dropped out of theaters fairly quickly without many reviews and now resides on the dusty shelves on the backwalls of video stores.

It resides there because ‘Tomboy’ is an a-typical Horny Teenager Movie more interested in removing the female starlets from their clothing then with any other entertainment value. As these movies go you would expect it to be at least average but this one is bottom of the barrel even by these standards.

The movie stars Betsy Russell as a character named Tomboy, a mechanic who can build her own car out of scraps from the local junkyard. She’s in love with an auto racing pretty boy but they are too packed into a nothing screenplay to be able to get to know each other in any real way. How does she prove her love? By challenging him to a race. How does winning a race prove that he will fall in love with her? Beats me.

There are long passages where nothing of interest happens and in order to keep us from completely falling asleep the dry passages are filled in with an inane soundtrack from performers with names like Snuff, Souvenir and P.F. Solo (Heard of them? Me neither). The movie promises to be a comedy but it siphons in a turgid love story that is glossy, pretty and inane.

We know what the movie’s draw is and yes, Russell does take her shirt off and I will admit that what’s there borders on spectacular but why waste 90 minutes of your life getting there? Since you are online, why not go look for one of the movie’s screenshots, save yourself a trip to the video store and let the dust fall where it may.