Kevin Costner and David Marshall Grant are a pair of brothers named Summers who are not the closest pair going. Both are bicycle racers. Costner was a champion and has now retired from the sport and is a sports medicine doctor. The other one is a talented racer but a playboy and won't settle down to train for the sport and has no great career ambitions.It's Costner who gets Grant to train seriously by promising to come out of retirement and race with him in the great Colorado bike race known as American Hell because of the stark barrenness of the landscape they race on. What Grant doesn't know is that Costner has an aneurysm which can break at any time and cause instant but painless death. It gives Costner an added incentive to get Grant to straighten up and fly right.There are some nice scenes with Costner and Grant and Janice Rule who plays their mother. Their dad died of this same thing and the tendency to aneurysm is inherited. There's a couple of women attracted to the Summers boys, Rae Dawn Chong and Alexandra Paul who become biker groupies. I suppose every sport and every musician has them.The cycling scenes are beautifully photographed in Colorado and are worth seeing the film alone. But the essence of American Flyers isn't sport or scenery, it's the conflict between the brothers who come together in the end as good families do.You might want to take up cycling yourself after seeing American Flyers.

So, after maaaaaaaany years, I decided to finally see this movie, because I am now living in Colorado, and actually rode the Morgul-Bismark circuit today. Eddy Merckx must have been ashamed of himself to see his sport portrayed this way. What did I not like? Let me count the ways: so over-simplified, so not about the sport, cheesy LETS GO music, A guy out training with his cowboy hat. Man, must that thing stink! But wait, there's more: a dude with a brain aneurysm doesn't go ride in a bike race. And you don't just sit on a fitness machine and then just qualify to ride against the national teams when you have no bike racing experience. It makes the sport look like a joke. A rider at this level rides on average 16-20 hrs per week. This made it look like you just needed to go out to the ballpark and hit a few balls around and poof, you're world class. And why couldn't they get a cyclist to play the Russian dude? That guy looks like he got on a bike the day before they started filming. I mean, its not like he said much.Some day I hope they make a proper movie out of cycling. Im sure there are some good story lines that are actually believable. People who cant stop racing after they have passed their prime. The loneliness of riding for hours and hours by yourself, in all weather conditions. The incredible torture of the hills. Make a bigger story, but at least get the details right. Now the American population should be ready to graduate out of bike kindergarten. An American won the Tour de France 7 times in a row! Can please someone make a real moving about the sport?

Remember when Kevin Costner made you feel good? Remember when his excitement and energy woke you up? SILVERADO and BULL DURHAM, and this film, comes to mind, when the man had charisma. Something happened after his entertaining yet totally overrated DANCES WITH WOLVES (GOODFELLAS was robbed). Kevin gained weight and he became mellow thereafter. In every movie he seemed bored and tired and sluggish to me. Wisened or something. In TIN CUP he regains some of his earlier charm, but this is a review of American FLYERS. A feel-good movie, this film centers on a kid named David, who is a college aged slacker. But is he a slacker? He exercises a lot, that's for sure. But no matter, he has no purpose in life other than lying around dating models (who are trying to impress his casting agent mom) and watching KUNG FU (if you ask me his life was JUST FINE). Then Costner, his older brother with a fine mustache and a fine girlfriend (played by Rae Dawn Chong), comes in and takes him to a big bike race. I'm skipping a lot of stuff here, the main plot being about a certain illness that runs in the family. This is done nicely, and doesn't get in the way of the humor and action of the film, in fact it compliments it. Even a side story with John Amos and his overweight son helps things along. But all in all this movie runs smoothly. The only cast member who bugged me was Alexandra Paul, as David's hippie girlfriend. She was annoying and tried way too hard to steal scenes, in my opinion. But the rest of the film is quite entertaining, and in the vein of ROCKY and THE KARATE KID, this movie will make you guilty that you don't exercise, and if you do, that you don't do it enough.

ever done it? way beyond the absolute, crotch-numbing, mind-blowing hilt?? You may just get a taste of it in this classic Costner film (yes, classic, forget the purist nay-sayers).Before "Water World", "Dances With Wolves","For Love Of The Game" and "Message In A Bottle", there was "AMERICAN FLYERS." You can guage (or wager) the distance in time, maturity or credibility of Costner's films any way you want, but this little gem will not disappoint you in subject-matter interest. Let's skip all that and get to the point: this is a movie-goer's film.You don't have to be Fausto Coppi, Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil, Eddie Merckx (in the film), Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault, Greg Lemond or even Lance Armstrong to appreciate the deep rigors of bicycle-racing in this wonderfully entertaining 1985 Steve Tesich effort. It brims with interest on several levels. Throw out the 'corny' phrases if you want, even the obligatory and patriotic PG sex scenes with David Grant and Alexandra Paul with all the phallic symbols attached - even then, I enjoyed 'em, don't care what you say.Though the film is powerfully underscored by hard-core bicycle racing (this one is way more technical than "Breaking Away"), it's basically about competition, strategy, the preparation thereof and the humanity involved in it's surrounding cornucopia of personal involvements; the trainers, the girlfriends, the family, a twisty tragedy…and the competitors, mostly embodied by the very diverse actor, director, writer and Ted Danson be-alike, Luca Bercovici – well cast.RES FIRMA NITESCERE NESCIT – ["a firm resolve never weakens", or in the film, "Once you've got it up, keep it up"] boldly emprinted on the front of David Marshall Grant's new t-shirt, once he best's his brother's (Costner) clinical and physically-challenging endurance test at the Wisconsin sports training complex (administered by the much-underrated John Amos) – will definitely make you either shrivel from the exhaustion of all-out effort or totally embrace it as a sportsman/woman. For me, from birth, recipient of 'bi-lateral dysplasia' (hips out of joint – corrected by bloodless surgery via casts from Shriner's Children's Hospital), the film Sirened me off the couch in my 12 year old, listless, childless marriage and challenged me to prove I could be once again - this time on a legitimate racing bicycle - somehow, the athlete in my decrepit and lethargic '40s' that I was in high school as a record-setting swimmer in my late 'teens. It worked. Twenty years after the film's debut, I still owe K.C. for the life-saving change. Not only is the film workable but my life as well, thanks to that happen-stance viewing. You may want to give it a try yourself. Bicycling or not, you'll truly enjoy this 20-year-old sports-classic, family movie."9" for entertainment...