best movie i've ever seen.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film, which features Madonna about the time she hit it big, stands as the only major studio work about high school or collegiate style wrestling. The film tells the story of Louden Swain, a high school senior who has been wrestling for barely two years. Because of his "balance" and natural gifts, he's already a state champion and the best in his weight class. But that's not enough. The tall and lanky wrestler, played by Matthew Modine, decides that the path to glory is to starve and sweat himself down two weight classes so that he can challenge the unbeatable 3-time state champion, Brian Shute. Shute trains by walking up and down stadium bleachers holding an 18 inch wooden telephone pole.For Swain, making weight is a long and arduous process, consisting of constant running and frequent nosebleeds. Swain's sanity and competence are questioned by everyone else in his drab suburb of Spokane, WA. Meanwhile his only inspirations come from a beautiful, feisty 20-something wild flower named Carla, played by Linda Fiorentino, who drifts into town and bunks with Swain and his dad for a while.All in all there are a lot of problems with this film. First off, the writers have little understanding of Wrestling as a sport. Matches end for no reason and scoring is inconsistent. In one scene, the home team forfeits the match simply because the away team has taken the lead, meaning the last couple wrestlers forgo their matches. Anyone who knows Wrestling remotely knows that this doesn't happen. Imagine your hometown baseball team is down 10-0 in the 3rd Inning. Even the Cubs would finish that game.Also, like with Chess, champions in Wrestling are never made in a matter of two seasons. But inaccuracy and uninformed fantasy aside, there's more.When not starving himself and risking his health to reach his goal, our "hero" is babbling on about virtues and character. Yet in one scene he tries to force himself sexually on his house guest/love, Carla, before she punches him in the face (prompting nosebleeds, again), only to have it brushed under the rug when she shows up to cheer him on at his wrestling meet.In the end, boy wins girl, boy beats the unbeatable champion, and returns to high school and a normal diet. But Vision Quest will leave you and anyone who's not an anorexic, nerdy, sexually deviant excuse for an athlete wondering what the hell you've just watched for two hours.But social issues and hang-ups aside, Vision Quest is just a bad, bad film.written by Andy Frye, MySportsComplex.blogspot.com

I love the movie and find it motivational still. This movie came out when I was just transitioning in to High School in fairly small town Oklahoma, where wrestling was near to as important as football. Most of my friends and my brother wrestled, so I knew how much work went into it. Naturally, I grabbed a 6-pack and joined the golf team. Still, from what I see it is a pretty good example of the wrestling aspect ( except for some of the throws they execute ) ( the weight cutting was spot-on for that time ). The rest of the movie to me is a kind of robotic spin on a pipe dream. Yes, there are several good actors in the movie, but this must have been in the early days for most of them because every line in it is like they have the script behind their back. Still, good story and something we all dreamed of at that age. 5 out of my 9 is for the wrestling aspect. Also, still have the soundtrack. It's just on my ipod now instead of a cassette tape.

This is a classic 80's movie that's actually quite enjoyable. The acting is a little uneven, but not enough to ruin the film. The monotone performance of Linda Fiorentino contrasts with Matthew Modine's child-like wonderment persona, yet they still somehow have chemistry. The character, Louden Swain, is a die-hard optimist who has big dreams for the future. Matthew Modine does an inspiring job in becoming this character. Bottom-line, this movie is all Modine. He carried this film and it would never have worked without him. Whenever I call in at work, this is my "go to" movie that I pop in to pass the time. It's a fun movie that you can watch over and over again. Yes, parts of it are quite cheesy but that's what makes it even more amusing. Great 80's soundtrack too! Enjoy!-RM

I saw this movie about one or two years ago and just recently rented it last week and I love it. I saw someone typed that people depreciate it because of not living through the 80s while I was born in the 90s and I love the 80s, and especially this brilliant 80s movie that as my summary is that 1985 was a good year during the 80s. Louden Swain is a young adult that just turned 18 and states in the beginning: "I'm Louden. Louden Swain. I turned 18 last week, I wasn't ready to. There's so much I haven't done yet. So I made a deal with myself, this is the year I make my mark." So when Louden's coach whoever would like to challenge the number one man in his weight class, Louden's hand goes up and the coach says he is already number one at 190 he says he knows and then Kusch complains that he should stay in his own division and that he's not giving up his spot. After that the coach pulls him aside and then Louden says he's going to drop to 168 and wrestle Shout. After the coach tells Louden he's insane, he tells Louden he'll let him wrestle 178 against Kusch but if not he'll go back to his own division. He wins and starts his training to make it down to 168. After coming back from his hotel job he see's Carla telling a car salesman that he sold her a lemon. Louden's dad works as a mechanic and punches him in the face. Then Louden's dad tells Louden to take Carla down to get a hamburger. Louden asks Carla why she's down in Spokane since she's from New Jersey and won't tell Louden what she's doing. Louden asks how old she is and tells him 21 so there's a three year difference. Louden's dad loses his job and then Louden and his dad let her live with them. After Carla has been living under Louden and his father's roof he falls in love with her. Which is inflicted with his plan to wrestle Shout. Later on when Louden see's Carla with Mr. Tammeran, Louden's English teacher, he thinks that they're having sexual relations and refuses to talk to Carla, and attempts to have sex with her and Carla pushes him off and tells him that part of being a man is knowing what a woman wants and respecting that, and that part of being a kid is that he could say something stupid and still get his face ripped off for saying it. Louden continues to get nosebleeds from not having enough iron, and Carla says he should eat more spinach. He says he's sorry but she walks out of the room. She shows that she forgives Louden by coming to one of his wrestling matches, and later when their in the coffee shop he tells her that he doesn't care if she's doing "it" with Mr. Tammeran, and Carla then kisses him. Later on in the movie they travel up to see Louden's grandpa and later Carla tells Louden that he has a lifetime left and what about his vision quest to defeat Shout and the girls to make love too and when he asks her to name one she pulls him towards herself and then it happens. A day before the match though, Carla leaves, and when Louden doesn't show, Coach asks where he and Kusch says he'll be there. Right before the forfeit Louden arrives and makes the weight. Then before he has to wrestle Carla comes in and Louden is upset that Carla left and didn't say goodbye and then Carla tells him that if she didn't leave he wouldn't be wrestling Shout, and then right after she says goodbye she tells Louden to beat Shout. Carla stays for Louden's match.Louden does get a nose bleed during the match but still wins. This movie is a must see rather you want to see a really good sports movie,or a really good 80s movie.