Vision Quest was also titled Crazy for You
Vision Quest is a coming of age film is a little different than other athletics based films of the 80s. Mathew Modine stars as Louden Swain an 18 year old high school wrestler whose only hopes at college and med school are a scholarship. But he’s been wrestling two weight classes above the preferred scholarship weight class, so he gets the idea to drop 10 kilos from 190 lbs to 168 lbs and take on the undefeated “legendary” Shute played by Frank Jasper. The film, based on a 1979 novel by the same name, has great character development for it’s genre. With the contributions of multiple supporting actors adding more to the story than the simple plot of athletics challenges.
Vision Quest was originally titled Crazy for You and would have been better title for this film, as Madonna is featured in it singing her hit (pre-superstar status). Also the film Vision Quest only alludes to a Native American vision quest, but it doesn’t delve much into any of the meta physical or psychological aspects that Louden is undertaking. And the film does suggest several times that Louden must be crazy for even trying to drop two weight classes in a single season, all while training. Not to mention that it is also a boy meets girl movie. The girl in this case is played by Linda Fiorentino, a slightly older, more experienced, more savvy, artist who was just passing through town, but gets swindled and has to stay on awhile to build up some cash.
The film is very well done, and a favorite among wrestlers. But there are many things which are not as they seem. First Linda Fiorentino is actually slightly younger than Mathew Modine, not a few years older as portrayed in the film. Second, both a Frank Jasper and Mathew Modine were no where near the 168 lbs that their supposed weigh ins clocked them at, to prove this you need only look at the size of them during their wrestling scenes and remember that Mathew is 6’3 while Frank is 6’…even with a 2 inch cheat (typical in Hollywood) neither would weigh less than 180 given their relative musculature. – Vision Quest is a light heart and enjoyable film where young man reaches his goals and gets the girl
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