Gymkata Watch: Gymkata (1985)

Watched:  08/17/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Robert Clouse

I genuinely don't know what led to making this movie.  I have so many questions.

I first saw Gymkata (1985) on basic cable in the mid-90's, I believe as part of USA's "Up All Night" block of programming.*  Aside from the basic plot, one amazing action scene and one specific twist (you could see coming a mile away), my memory of the movie was mush.

It's a movie about a gymnast recruited by the CIA to go into a country on the edge of the Eastern Bloc and secure the friendship of their king by winning "The Game".  "The Game" is a foot race across the small country during which the unarmed participants are pursued by soldiers on horseback with swords and bows and arrows.  You also have to pass through a city full of deranged people who I think are all cannibals?  

The country is apparently one big RenFest, with no motor vehicles and everyone dressed in a mix of what looks like regional and period outfits.  They ride horses.  There are guys dressed like ninjas who suck at everything.  There's maybe 3 guns in the whole movie.  Our heavy looks like the guys I remember seeing handling snakes at the zoo when I was a kid.

Why a gymnast?  Well, because climbing and hopping.  He also learns to turn his skills into fighting skills, provided a piece of gymnastics equipment is nearby.  Or baddies want to stand still while he does a floor routine.

There's a girl.  She's super cute and the actor they found who was shorter than Thomas, who was 5'5".**  The best line of dialog in the whole film is about her:

"Interesting background.  Her mother was Indonesian."  

And you can wait as long as you want, but there will be no more information about what that's interesting.  So, congrats, all of Indonesia!  You are interesting.

Watching the movie in 2024, I can hazard guesses as to how Gymkata came to be.  It seems it was produced and distributed by MGM/UA, which is utterly mind-boggling.  It's a low-budget martial-arts movie filmed in Europe somewhere, and the biggest star is not an actor, but Olympian and gymnast Kurt Thomas, who briefly enjoyed fame in the mid-80's after winning gold in 1976 (the US did not compete in the 1980 Olympics in the USSR).  He just was kinda-famous for a bit. And in the glut of cheapo action films, novelty and a name were a solid combo.

Thomas did not act, really, before, after or (arguably) during Gymkata, but someone decided he should star and didn't fire him - which probably says something about either the cocaine consumed or the certainty no one cared.

Director Robert Clouse made his mark as the supposed director of Enter the Dragon, but I think we all know that was really Bruce Lee, right?  By the 1980's, he was doing this sort of thing and would be the eye behind the China O'Brien films, which I liked then and would purchase now.***

The movie is more or less fifteen minutes of set up and then what feels like following Thomas in real time across what looks like a really nice place to be - which IMDB tells me is Yuogslavia - which is super weird in 1984 or whenever they filmed this.  

Anyway - I can't recommend this enough.  It is absolute nonsense of the highest order.

*Rhonda Shear!  Simply the best pal for late night movie watching

**Thomas passed in 2020

***But they aren't good, just so you know.  I just liked them in the 1990s.