Rescue Me (1993)

Two crooks, one half dumb, the other the full package, are interrupted during a shady deal and kidnap a feisty teen almost by accident. As her father owns a bank, she suggests they ransom rather than kill the living witness, so off they all go to the West Coast pursued by a lovesick teenager and the other half of the busted deal.This starts out with the promise of teen romance but ends up as a buddy buddy/coming of age drama. No one is killed but it can't be said that everyone lives happily ever after, including you if you watch it until the end, but the half-decent soundtrack might just about get you through it.

The underlying premise of Rescue Me is the often proved notion that the adolescent male will do just about anything to win the affections of the female of the species. Post puberty is one dangerous age, some of us actually never grow out of it.Stephen Dorff is this gawky 16 something who wants more than anything to win cheerleader Ami Dolenz. But in the pecking order of high school she's the property of jock Danny Nucci and he's the jealous type. But when a pair of dangerous, but not terribly bright criminals kidnap Dolenz to get ransom from her rich daddy, it's Dorff to the rescue, aided and abetted by former Green Beret Michael Dudikoff.In this comedy, that doesn't quite click all the time, the best acting is done by the crooks William Lucking and Peter DeLuise. DeLuise especially is a whole suit short of a full deck. Good thing he's so dumb or Dorff would have been dead meat. As it is he's got to be pulled from harm's way several times by Dudikoff.Rescue Me is your typical teen comedy that with the presence of action star Michael Dudikoff tries to expand a bit the normal audience for such things. You've got to have a juvenile mind to truly enjoy Rescue Me.

First time I watched Rescue Me was on TV in 1996. As a memorable quote from Marty(1955), I would say the same that Marty has said for his situation of searching for love: "I've been looking for a girl every Saturday afternoon of my life." I've never been in love, so been Fraser(Stephen Dorff). Rescue Me is the type of movie when you watch at the age of 14, as I did, you will be totally inspired of the joy of being a teen. As a joyful road trip movie, ideologically Rescue Me seeks the meaning of life for a high-school kid. Willy nilly, Fraser seeks that meaning in school lessons, he couldn't find; he seeks that meaning in becoming popular among girls, he doesn't get satisfied; he seeks that meaning in finding love, he loses his self-belief. Finally he seeks that meaning in framing a career plan, and finds it; which must be the best thing ever happened to a teenager.After seeing Rescue Me for the first time in 1996, I've taken a note on my notebook to get to myself finding a pretty girl and to make her love me. It was a full review of mine upon Rescue Me, that I've thought to tell as the very first starting speech to the girl I dreamed to find.Rescue Me is the kind of movie, which you may enjoy on your own and it's for secondary or high school teens to get a good taste of it.

It may be an obvious disclaimer, but don't expect much from this kidnapper caper. There's plenty to make this an unconvincing story, but I'm sure that viewers will mostly be interested in its nostalgic factor, particularly since it's young stars include pre-fame Stephen Dorff and 80s mischief comedy regular, Ami Dolenz. Dorff plays Fraser, a smart, shy teen who is smitten with the untouchable bubbly blonde cheerleader, Ginny Grafton. Of course, he goes to great lengths to play hero when she is kidnapped by two bumbling drug dealers when Ginny and her obnoxious jock boyfriend (Danny Nucci) inadvertently interfere in the deal. A young, rugged looking Michael Dudikoff plays Mac, who was on the receiving end of this failed drug deal and is blackmailed by Fraser, who happened to be hiding in the trees waiting to photograph his dreamgirl skinny dipping at the lake, but instead, caught Mac, the kidnappers, and Ginny on film instead.Fraser blackmails Mac into helping him rescuing Ginny, but the film breaks from the thrills of the chase with incessant father-figure bonding between Fraser and misunderstood Mac as well as Fraser's hopeless quest (a little late in his years) to get a girl to like him. In particular, Ginny - who seems caught up in her own world to even give much care to the fact that she's been held for ransom by Rowdy (Peter Deluise) and Kurt (William Lucking). Fraser's sensitivity seems to overtake much of the film, and aside from a few humorous moments between the dufus kidnapping duo, the rest of the movie becomes irritating, so concentrated on Fraser's desperation.If they had a written a decent story and stuck to the whole caper aspect of the movie, this might've been a pretty decent (though likely still obscure) story.