Bullet Points: Cyclone
In the 1980’s the ABC television network had cornered the market on hot blonde actresses. They had Heather Locklear on both T.J. Hooker and Dynasty. They also had Heather Thomas on The Fall Guy. It is almost like they were trying to find the next Farrah Fawcett.
When The Fall Guy’s run ended in 1986, it was no shock that somebody would try to put the popular Heather Thomas in a movie to see if her small screen popularity would carry over to the big screen. That movie ended up being Cyclone.
- Top Billing: When I say Heather Thomas was the star of this movie, I am not exaggerating. Her name came before the title of the movie and was in a large font. Plus she had some quality one liners like all the male action heroes do… “Do the words f*ck you have any special meaning to you?”, “You’re about as much fun as an egg plant.” and my personal favorite, “You’re as plastic as your tits!”
- Supporting Cast: Ashley Ferrare of Revenge of the Ninja fame (she forgets her pants in that one), plays Carla, a friend of Heather Thomas’ character, Teri Marshall. Teri’s boyfriend and the creator of the Cyclone motorcycle, Rick Davenport, is played Jeffrey Combs of The Re-Animator fame. And the main bad guy in the movie, Mr. Bosarian, played by Hollywood veteran, Martin Landau.
- The Premise: Rick Davenport works for an unnamed agency of the government. He has just completed a $5 million dollar project known as The Cyclone. Not only is it heavily armored, it has lasers and rocket launchers on the back. But the real impressive feature on the bike is the transformer that allows the Cyclone to run on hydrogen it pulls from the atmosphere. No more fossil fuels people, just clean energy! Rick and Teri go out to a dance club and Rick gets an ice pick to the back of his head for his trouble, killed by some people looking for the transformer on the Cyclone (and why they would kill the one guy on the planet who knew where it was, I am not sure). Fortunately for Teri she escapes, but when she returns home she finds out that her place has been ransacked. So she goes into Rick’s secret laboratory behind the fireplace and Rick, anticipating the danger he was in for creating such a monumental advancement in technology left Teri a message on his computer that instructed her all about the Cyclone. Her mission is to get this high tech motorcycle into the hands of the right people.
- Missed Opportunity: As you may have expected if you’ve ever seen an action movie in your life, the bad guys end up getting to Teri before she can complete her mission and they are looking for the all important transformer. At first they try to handle it in business like fashion by offering her money. They get all the way up to $750,000 but she won’t budge. Then they start the torture… a little electrocution, some hot coffee to the face, but again she still doesn’t talk. When she finally escapes we find out she had the transformer down her shirt the entire time… did they seriously not frisk her? Not to sound like a pervert, but no matter who it was you should have frisked them, for Heather Thomas you should have done a full strip search!
I’m not going to tell you that Cyclone is one of the greatest movies of all-time, but I am going to tell you it is extremely comfortable being what it is… 89 minutes of fun. The chase scenes are pretty top notch and the special effects aren’t bad either when you consider this was in no way a major studio blockbuster. We even get a cat fight, if you are into that sort of thing.
Having a “tough chick” as the protagonist was definitely something different, especially back in 1987 when this film was released and using Heather Thomas’ star power at the time was a smart move.
Here are a few more Cyclone Bullet Points for your reading pleasures…
- Is That Janitor Blind?: If you ever wanted to see the worst mop job in the history of cinema, then Cyclone is the movie for you. The janitor is wearing sunglasses indoors, which made me question if he was a blind janitor. Then I watched as he “mopped” the floor and I was convinced he had to be blind. I’m all for fair employment, but vision seems like a skill necessary to do a quality janitorial job.
- Shower Scene: There is some nudity early on in the film, but if you were hoping to see Heather Thomas in the all together, you will be disappointed. In fact, as you can see above, she revealed more on the TV show Fall Guy, than she does in Cyclone.
- Poor Decision: The vehicle selected by the bad guys to catch this amazingly high tech super motorcycle is a station wagon with the wood panel sides. Really?
- Dar Robinson: More famous for his stunt work than his acting, Dar Robinson played Rolf in Cyclone. Cyclone would end up being his last movie as an actor. Ironically, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. Robinson had two movies dedicated to him following his death, one was Cyclone, the other was a little movie he did stunt work on known as Lethal Weapon.
