Michael Schoeffling

When Colombian revolutionaries kidnap an American engineer, his brother and friends, faced with official inaction, hire a mercenary and mount the rescue operation themselves. When Harry Burck, Jr. (Mark Harmon), an American engineer on loan to Colombia, is taken hostage and held for ransom, his brother Corey (Michael Schoeffling) and friend Jack (Gary Busey) are among a group of men, led by Shrike (Robert Duvall), who go deep into the jungles of Colombia to rescue Harry and an American ambassador. —Richard Jones <rjo339@swbell.net>

In the city of Spokane, Washington, 18-year-old Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) is determined to make history at his Thompson High School wrestling team. His coach (Charles Hallahan) chastises him for attempting to wrestle at a much lower weight class, but after a successful spar with his teammate, Kuch (Michael Schoeffling), Louden dedicates himself to lose even more weight. He tells Kuch that his secret goal is to wrestle a rival named Shute, who is twenty-pounds lighter. Kuch reveals Louden's plan to the school, and, pretending to be Native-American, Kuch insists that Louden is on a "vision quest" to find his "place in the circle." Sometime later, Louden visit his mechanic father, Larry (Ronny Cox), at the car dealership where he works, and arrives after a scuffle between a salesman and a streetwise customer named Carla (Linda Fiorentino), who accused the salesman of selling her a "lemon." Believing Carla was exploited, Larry punches his co-worker. He sends Louden to take the feisty young woman out for a hamburger at a local diner. There, Carla reveals that is originally from New Jersey and that she used all her savings to buy the car to drive cross-country to San Francisco, California. Louden is smitten with the tough-talking woman, and asks his father if Carla can stay with them until her car is repaired. She hesitantly accepts the offer. Louden resumes his strict training, and, over time, Carla drops her guard. She confides to Louden that she is moving to San Francisco in hopes of being an artist. Sometime later, Louden sizes up his rival, Shute (Frank Jasper) from the rival Hoover High School, and watches him carry a log up a flight of stairs as part of his training. At the hotel where Louden works part-time as a room-service attendant, he tells his co-worker and the late night cook, Elmo (J.C. Quinn), he is in love with Carla. However, Carla remains distant. When she sketches a picture of Louden, he is flattered. After work, Carla sees Louden at a bar (where singer Madonna is in attendance and performing her song 'Crazy For You') and asks him to dance, but he is disappointed to learn she is on a double date with a local couple. At school, Louden collapses from dehydration. As he recovers, he tells his English teacher, Mr. Tanneran (Harold Sylvester), that he is in love with Carla. Worried about Louden's health, Carla visits him during wrestling practice and causes a stir among his teammates, but he is discouraged when she compares him to a stepbrother. Louden's coach disapproves of his rigorous training, and forbids him from losing any more weight. However, Louden impresses his teammates by reaching the top of a climbing peg board, and the coach allows the boy to continue training. Sometime later, Louden suffers a nosebleed while he is arm wrestling in the hotel kitchen with Elmo and worries if he can continue. He sees Carla on a date with Mr. Tanneran at a local restaurant and feels betrayed. When Carla confronts Louden about giving her the "silent treatment," he pushes her on the bed and orders her to have sex with him. She curses, but forgives his behavior. Louden visits Kuch at home, and sees him slapped and berated by his abusive and alcoholic father (James Gammon). Afterward, Louden consoles his friend and shares the story of his own mother, who left the family a few years earlier after their farm was foreclosed. Kuch confesses that he lied about being Native-American. Carla attends a wrestling match and cheers Louden on, but he is forced to forfeit when he suffers an uncontrollable nosebleed. Afterward, his nemesis, Shute, tries to intimidate him. Carla takes Louden out for coffee, and he asks her to stay in town. When he acquiesces to her relationship with his teacher, she kisses him. In time, Louden's nosebleeds continue, and his father insists he take a break from training and visit his grandfather out of town. Carla offers to join him on the road trip. While camping, Louden admits he is a virgin, and Carla confesses that she and Louden's teacher, Tanneran, are only friends. The next day, Carla kisses Louden and they make love for the first time. Afterward, Louden wonders aloud why he cares so much about beating Shute, but Carla encourages him to confront his rival. Sometime later, Louden returns from school to find Carla gone. He is distraught, and nearly misses his long-awaited weigh-in at his match with Shute. He arrives at the last minute and learns he has hit his target weight of 168 pounds. Before the match, Carla finds him alone in the locker room, and apologizes for hurting him, explaining she left because she thought she was a distraction. When Louden tells her he has no regrets, Carla emboldens him to win the match. Louden's friends cheer him on during the tense bout with Shute. He suffers a nosebleed in the final seconds, but his coach gives him a pep talk. In the end, Louden wins, and the crowd cheers.

Awkward high school sophomore Samantha "Sam" Baker (Molly Ringwald) struggles to get through her 16th birthday, which her entire family forgets because her older sister, Ginny (Blanche Baker), is getting married the next day to a sleazy guy whose father may be involved in organized crime. Sam is also plagued by her ongoing infatuation with popular and attractive senior Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). Her day at school fares no better when only one of her friends acknowledges her birthday, she finds out that her completed "sex quiz," which she surreptitiously slipped to her friend, never reached her (and, unbeknownst to either of them, was intercepted by Jake Ryan himself). Sam panics, as the quiz contains personal information, including the fact that she is a virgin and is saving herself for Jake. At the same time, she doesn't know that Jake has the hots for her as well, but is too insecure to even talk to her. Samantha has a whole new set of problems when she arrives home to find that both sets of grandparents are staying there for the duration of the wedding visit. On top of it all, one set of grandparents is occupying her room and have brought along their bizarre Chinese exchange student Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe). Sam's grandparents force her to take him along to her school dance that night and, to Sam's amazement, it takes "The Donger" only five minutes to find an unlikely girlfriend: the tallish, large-breasted jock, Marlene, promptly nicknamed "Lumberjack." A running subplot involves a geeky freshman, (Anthony Michael Hall) who continually (and unsuccessfully) tries to bed his love interest, Sam, to satisfy a bet with his friends. The character is referred to on several occasions in the movie as either "Ted" or "Farmer Ted", but he is credited solely as "the Geek." On the dance floor, he boldly confronts Sam and does a wild bit of dancing in front of her friends and she runs out of the gymnasium embarrassed and in tears. In the auto-shop room during the dance, Sam, who'd retreated there to hide, and Ted begin talking, and Sam confesses her love for Jake. Upon hearing this, Ted tells her that Jake has been asking about her at the dance, and they agree that Sam should just go and talk to him. As she's leaving, Ted reveals the wager to Sam, who, in her excited state, agrees to loan him her panties to help him win a dozen floppy disks. She goes to confront Jake and though he appears happy to see her, she freezes up and runs away. Later (after a peepshow of Sam's panties for $1 admission, which she does not find out about until the next day), Ted and his equally unwelcome friends, Cliff (Darren Harris) and Bryce (John Cusack), crash the senior after-party at Jake's house during which the entire house is completely trashed. A small group of beer-chugging jocks pin Farmer Ted under a glass table, abduct his two geek friends, and take them for a joyride in the trunk of their car before releasing them unharmed at their home. At night's end, Jake finds Ted trapped under the table and they begin to talk. Jake inquires further about Sam, and Ted explains the situation. Jake makes a deal with Ted: If Ted lets Jake keep Sam's panties, then he will let Ted drive home his inebriated, stuck-up, prom queen girlfriend, Carolyn Mulford (Haviland Morris), in Jake's father's Rolls Royce. They never get home because the very drunk Carolyn makes moves on Ted while he's driving before passing out. Ted the Geek takes the opportunity to drive over to Cliff and Bryce's house to ask them to take a photo of him with Carolyn together in the back seat of the car. The inept duo snap a picture but only half of Ted's face is visible. Back at Sam's home, her father, having a short bout of insomnia over the chaos of the wedding, talks to Sam, who's stuck sleeping on the couch. He apologizes for forgetting her birthday. Her father still senses that Sam is upset over something and gently presses her to talk to him. Embarrassed at first, she admits that's she's sad because of her crush on Jake, feeling he wouldn't ever want her. Her father boosts her spirits by telling her that if Jake isn't interested in her, then he's worthy of her, mentioning that she's smart, pretty and should feel more secure about herself. Sam seems to feel a great deal of relief. The next morning, during the ensuing madness with all her obnoxious relatives, Sam's mother apologizes for forgetting her birthday. When Sam's mother tells her rude and obnoxious little brother to wish Sam a happy birthday, drops a rude comment and walks away, leaving the two to laugh over his ignorance. The family drive to the church, after taking care of a passed out Dong, whom they find passed out on the front lawn, drunk and bruised up after his evening with Marlene somehow went south. At the church the very nervous Ginny, who'd taken a few too many tranquilizers because her period had come early and left her miserable, causes a scene throughout the wedding ceremony. Meanwhile, Jake goes on a search for Samantha at her house, only to find Dong there getting over his hangover. Dong tells him where Sam went. Jake finds Carolyn and Ted the Geek passed out in the back seat of the Rolls in a nearby parking lot, where he uses the excuse of finding them together to break up with Carolyn (who had surprisingly fallen for Ted, and thus doesn't mind the breakup very much). Afterward, Jake drives to the church just in time to meet an incredulous Sam after her sister's wedding. Jake admits his attraction to her and invites her over to his house rather than to Ginny's wedding reception. Sam accepts and the story concludes with Jake and Samantha sitting in front of a birthday cake. Jake tells her to make a wish. She replies that it already came true and they kiss.