Hard to believe I was 14 when this movie came out. Maybe that has something to do with why I see this movie thru rose tinted glasses. Rick's always been a ageless musician, the music is fantastic, the movie itself has just the right amount of cheese to be entertaining. Hard to Hold is just another reason to love the 80s.

I got dragged to this movie "way back when" by my then girlfriend who was a HUGE Rick Sprinfield fan. I remember looking at her half-way through the film and telling her that she would NEVER drag me to ANY Rick Sprinfield movies ever again.Not that Rick was a bad actor - there really was no acting in it by him. He played himself - the charismatic, always in demand and hyper-popular rock-star in love with rock-n-roll and the ever bright spotlight of fame.The plot was non-existent...The supporting cast was pathetic...And his leading lady cried and sobbed her way through her scenes...This movie almost took my life. I mean seriously, it was that painful to endure. Kidney stones were less painful than this tripe! If you are morbidly depressed and need to see people in a worse place than you, watch this movie and then count your blessings that you were NOT a part of the production of this celluloid manure pile!

If you are going to go through all the trouble of making a movie, how much more of an effort is it to make it somewhat clever, or at the very least moderately fun? This looks like a quickie vehicle slapped together to capitalize on Rick Springfield's 80s popularity. It was his era; he could have belched the alphabet and it would have gone gold. Expanding on that theory, we have "Hard To Hold" as the cramp-producing result.The woman he is pursuing is all wrong for him; you cannot possibly get what he sees in her. She is totally unsympathetic, unlikeable and miserable, seemingly in a chronic PMS state for the majority of the movie. Someone should have given Patti Hansen more to do, as her character lends the only semblance of crediblity to this career-squelching morass of mediocrity.

I agree with another person's comments that Rick was not given much to work with. Rick is a very talented actor and this movie WASTED his talents, other than the sequences with him singing in concert. The chemistry between his character, Jamie Roberts, and social worker Diana Lawson is very lacking. She looks old enough to be his mom, even! I thought the band didn't even need parts in the script. They were used as props anyway. I did like the character of Nikki, Jamie's ex-girlfriend, who tries desperately to get back together with him, but continuously gets rejected. This character could have even played a bigger role in the movie.However, if you are a fan of Rick's (as I am), it is a must-see. The music is the best part of the show, and once again Rick triumphs in this field! The song "Love Somebody" (performed in a concert sequence at the end of the film) makes the hour and a half long movie worth renting or buying.