Tuff Turf (1985) - Critic Reviews

63

Miami Herald

But in addition to the sex and violence, there is also surprising style, humor and, yes, drama -- drama that actually serves to justify much of the violence.[11 Jan 1985, p.D14]

60

Janet Maslin The New York Times

Enough visual bravado to overpower the peculiarities of its class pretensions.

50

Paul Attanasio Washington Post

Tuff Turf is a youthsploitation movie that has fun with its formula, and for that, two cheers. But director Fritz Kiersch's twists promise more than they deliver -- it's just more grist for the run-of-the-mill.

50

Variety

This modestly budgeted youth pic is a poor man's and partially musicalized Rebel without a Cause with a touch of The Warriors thrown in.

50

Steve Davis Austin Chronicle

If Tuff Turf had used a little more of Downey's relaxed intelligence and amiability, and a little less teenage angst and sense of violence as retribution, it might have been tough stuff. As it is, it's a lightweight in a genre populated with featherweights.

40

Time Out

The intensity of the melodrama here is undermined by a camp-ish turn from Robert Downey Jr as Morgan's leathered friend and by risible musical outbursts from Spader and Kim Richards.

38

Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times

Tuff Turf is the worst teenage exploitation movie since "Where the Boys Are".

30

Washington Post

Unfortunately for the makers of Tuff Turf, the plot's as hokey as they come; the dialogue is dreadful ("Life isn't a problem to be solved, it's a mystery to be lived!"); and kids in 1985 are just too sophisticated for such juvenile tripe. Right kids? Right? [1 Feb 1985, p.19]

25

TV Guide Magazine

Tuff Turf is so relentlessly derivative that its good points--chiefly an attractive, relatively talented cast--are buried in cliche.

12

Gene Siskel Chicago Tribune

Responsible for this trash is director Fritz Kiersch, and remember that name. Last year Kiersch gave us one of 1984`s worst films, his adaptation of Stephen King`s ''Children of the Corn.'' Now, with Tuff Turf, Kiersch has made the ''worst'' list two years in a row.