"The Wraith" is one of those movies I found mega-, super-, hyper-, ultra-cool to watch 15 years ago. It had splendid car chases (not to mention exiting car crashes!), a rocking soundtrack (Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell"!!) and last but not least Charlie Sheen in the period when he was every young boy's idol. In short, "The Wraith" represented the flamboyant 80's all by itself and I had absolutely no eye for possible flaws in the production or illogicalness in the script. Well, that funny 80's spirit is long gone now and it's obvious that this movie is nothing more than a brainless, macho-orientated cheeseball. It's still passable entertainment, but only if you pay absolutely no attention to the shallow comic-book story, revolving on an avenging angel in the shape of a black-leathered racer driving a turbo Porsche. Synchronous with his mysterious appearance arrives a new kid in town, strangely resembling a deceased victim of the local thug-gang, led by Corvette-driving Packard. The kid immediately fancies the local beauty Keri, who also is Packard's object of desire, and soon after all the bad guys die in fiery car crashes. Everything in this film is so one-dimensional! Not only the stereotype characters, but also the Arizona town setting, which only seems to exist of one hamburger restaurant and one long open road where the boys play their racing games. There's no school and there are no adults, except for Sheriff Randy Quaid and a handful of nameless cops. Charlie Sheen's bad-boy charisma is overshadowed by his car and Nick Cassavetes makes a pretty pathetic villain. The ravishing Sherilyn Fenn provides "The Wraith" with the obligatory 80's nudity and Clint Howard reprises his familiar role of weirdo-loser. In this day and age, "The Wraith" is nice to re-watch for its nostalgic value and to realize that it's actually very stupid!
Review of The Wraith
