BMX Bandits (film)

BMX Bandits
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Brian Trenchard-Smith
Produced by	Tom Broadbridge Paul F. Davies
Screenplay by	Russell Hagg
Story by	Patrick Edgeworth
Starring	Nicole Kidman Bryan Marshall Angelo D'Angelo James Lugton David Argue
Music by	Colin Stead Frank Strangio
Cinematography	John Seale
Edited by	Alan Lake
Production company	Nilsen Premiere
Distributed by	Filmways Australasian Distributor Umbrella Entertainment
Release date	22 December 1983
Running time	88 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	just over $1 million

BMX Bandits (released as Short Wave in America) is a 1983 Australian adventure crime drama film starring Nicole Kidman.

After a successful Sydney bank robbery, with the robbers wearing pig masks and brandishing shotguns, the man in charge, The Boss (Bryan Marshall), plans a further and larger payroll robbery for two days later worth at least $1.5 million, hoping that he can trust his less-than-competent gang headed by Whitey (David Argue) and Moustache (John Ley) to do the job properly, with anyone who doesn't answering to him.

Two young BMX experts, P.J. (Angelo D'Angelo) and Goose (James Lugton), meet Judy (Nicole Kidman), who is working as a trolley collector at the Warringah Mall during the school holidays in order to be able to buy her own BMX bike, and accidentally get Judy fired from her job when they crash into trolleys pushed away by the local "Creep" (Brian Sloman). The three go out in Goose's dad's runabout on the harbour searching for cockles to sell in order to fix their own crashed bikes, as well as getting Judy her own, and stumble onto and steal a box of police-band walkie talkies that the bank robbers were hoping to use to monitor on police traffic. Ironically, after stealing the box, the kids pass Whitey and Moustache who are on their way in their high-powered motorboat to pick it up.

Judy, P.J. and Goose sell the walkie-talkies to other kids in the area. The Bayside Police are able to hear the kids using the walkie talkies. Judy, P.J. and Goose are also unaware that the robbers know who stole the box. After they are spotted and chased late at night through a cemetery by Whitey and Moustache wearing monster masks (going formal, according to Whitey), they manage to escape. The next day, P.J. and Goose pick up their newly repaired bikes whilst Judy buys her bike. Judy is caught the next day by Whitey and Moustache while getting a second walkie talkie for The Creep, but escapes with the help of P.J. and Goose. The goons chase the Bandits in a cartoonish chase across opportunistic sites around Sydney, including a memorable escape down the Manly Waterworks water slides, complete with BMX bikes.