Category Archives: Action/Adventure

Mr. Billion (1977)

Posted on August 12, 2020 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Italian mechanic inherits fortune.

When his rich uncle dies in a freak accident humble mechanic Guido (Terence Hill) learns that he has inherited the man’s billion dollar fortune. However, everything is contingent that he sign the legal papers at precisely 12 Noon on Monday, April 12th in San Francisco in order to receive the money. John Cutler (Jackie Gleason) who has worked many years in the uncle’s corporation wants all the money for himself and will do anything to stop the signing, which requires Guido to travel across the country in various forms of transportation to get there.

This was Hill’s American movie debut, but the results and effort are mediocre at best. It was written and directed by Jonathan Kaplan, who was still in the Roger Corman production phase of his career, which makes the film come-off looking like just another pedestrian dive-in fare that he had been doing up to that point. The plot is thin and unimaginative, relies too heavily on car chases to make it interesting, and gets filled with a lot of logic loopholes that just don’t add up.

Hill gets upstaged by the talented supporting cast of characters actors at every turn. Sam Laws as an aging black man who brings Hill home with him only to end up getting into a big argument with his son (Johnny Ray McGhee) about it is fun as is R.G. Armstrong as a stereotypically over-the-top southern-styled sheriff. Gleason is a lot of fun here too especially his facial expressions and reactions that make his scenes enjoyable.

There are a few interesting moments including a helicopter crashing onto a little league game and all the people shown, from a bird’s-eye perspective, running out of their homes to witness the accident. Watching the police vehicles getting smashed-up in a stock car race is cool too and the aerial views of the Grand Canyon where the characters battle each other while literally teetering on the edge of a massive cliff are breath taking. Unfortunately there are a lot of slow, dull moments in-between. The dialogue is not sharp enough to be consistently amusing and the script is too run-of-the-mill like it was written in a matter of hours with no heart or thought put into it at all.

This film also marks the last screen appearance of William Redfield. He was an actor who had been working in films since 1939 when he was just at child, but never gained much fame until he was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. However, it was while working on that film that he got diagnosed with leukemia. He decided to forge on with his acting work as best as he could and here he looks perfectly healthy, and even plays a character that has an interesting arc, and yet he ended up dying just month after filming had completed.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 3, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jonathan Kaplan

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Released: DVD-R (Fox Cinema Archives)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies with a train setting, Road Movies

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The Mechanic (1972)

Posted on March 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hit man grooms apprentice.

Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson) is a top assassin who is able to make his hits look like accidents. He works for a secret organization that assigns him people to kill and one day they tell him to kill Harry (Keenan Wynn) a man who at one time headed the organization. Arthur kills Harry by making it appear as if it were a heart attack and then becomes friends with Harry’s young but brazen son Steven (Jan-Michael Vincent). Steven harbors all the qualities that Arthur likes in an assassin so he decides to train him into the business, but this doesn’t go over well with the organization who assign both men to kill each other.

While I had a hard time believing that an old man who was Arthur’s first hit in the movie and who was so paranoid that he would look around before entering his apartment building, but then still recklessly keep the blinds on his windows wide open, which would allow somebody like Arthur to look straight into the apartment without any problem didn’t make much sense. The camera also has a point-of-view shot where we can see things from the victim’s perspective inside the apartment and you could clearly see Arthur looking at him through his binoculars from across the street making me think the man would’ve eventually notice him as well. However, I enjoyed how the film focuses more on the preparation for the hit and the meticulous attention to detail that it requires than the actual killings, which helps give the film and added dimension that other movies about hit men don’t since they dwell almost exclusively on the violence.

The action sequences aren’t bad and include a very exciting motorcycle chase that has a few lighthearted moments as they crash through a dinner party on the property of a rich man’s home. Even watching a yacht explode in the middle of a sea is cool because a real explosive on a real yacht are used versus computer effects like in today’s movies, which no matter how improved they become still look fake when compared to the real thing.

Bronson’s acting is good here mainly because the dialogue is limited and in fact the first 16 minutes feature no speaking at all, which for Bronson is a blessing. Even his wife Jill Ireland is enjoyable playing a prostitute in a scene that is brief but still quite fun. Vincent  is okay, but the part could’ve been stronger had it been played by a more versatile actor like Richard Dreyfus, who was the original choice, but director Michael Winner disliked him for personal reasons, so he was never hired.

The one area where the film fails is that it doesn’t stay true to Lewis John Carlino’s script, which had the two main characters originally being closet homosexuals, which would’ve given the film a fascinating and at the time ground breaking subtext while also helping to better explain why Arthur would take the risk of bringing Steve in on his secret profession. Unfortunately the studio couldn’t get the necessary funding it needed with the gay storyline and many actors who were offered the part originally like Cliff Robertson and George C. Scott refused to do it unless the gay angle was taken out, which is a shame as the two main characters come off as too one-dimensional otherwise.

This same story was remade in 2011 and while that version had better twists it still left out the gay angle and it would be nice if some studio at some point would take on the Carlino’s original script and film the story as it was intended.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 17, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Bronson/Ireland, Buddy Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Gangster Movies

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The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)

Posted on January 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Misadventures in the desert.

Xiri (Eiros) and Xisa (Nadies) are the two children of Xixo (N!xau) and a part of a nomadic desert tribe of the Kalahari who go roaming off into the wilderness and encounter a truck driven by two elephant poachers (Lourens Swanepoel, Pierre van Pletzen). Having had no previous contact with modern technology the children become fascinated with the vehicle and climb into its water tank just as it drives off taking them many miles away from their home. When the children fail to return their father goes out looking for them and in the process comes into contact with a lawyer (Lena Farugia) and a zoologist (Hans Strydom) who are stranded after their small engine plane crashes as well as two soldiers (Erick Bowen, Treasure Tshabalala) fighting from opposite sides of the war and each precariously trying to get the upper hand on the other.

This follow-up to the run away hit was filmed in October, 1985, but took over 4 years to find a distributor and suffered many setbacks during its production, which frustrated writer/director Jamie Uys so much that he retired from directing after completing this one and never worked on another film. On the whole though it’s not too bad, but like with the first one it does start out a bit clumsily.

My biggest complaint had to do with the scenes dealing with the lady lawyer named Ann and her interactions with the macho pilot/zoologist Hans who takes her up in the plane, which to me became too sexist and too similar to the scenario played-out in the first film where a lady-in-distress being rescued by a male character more acclimated to the environment. However, in the first film this was funny because the male was so clumsy and inept it made him seem more like a lovable clod, but here the guy character resembles the male image, especially with his mustache, of the Marlboro man and his constant aggravation at this ‘ditzy lady’ isn’t amusing while her inability to understand technology played too much into the feminine stereotype that women can’t comprehend machinery must have a man come to their rescue.

I did find the small engine plane that they rode in, which was a modified Lazair Ultralight, fascinating as I found it interesting at how something so small and flimsy could carry two people and still get off the ground, but was disappointed to learn later that this was only because it got attached to a crane and in reality wouldn’t have flown. Although the filmmakers achieve this illusion pretty well the scene where the two fly above the clouds is clearly fake as you can tell the backdrop of the sky is a painting and in that regards the whole plane scene, especially since it really couldn’t fly anyways, should’ve been discarded and some other plot line created that would’ve brought the two together.

The two runaway children though are quite cute especially the frightened but resourceful little boy who grabs a nearby piece of wood to put on top of his head to fool the hyena that has been stalking him into thinking that he is taller than he really is, which actually ends up working. I was also most impressed with the scenes dealing the Honey Badger, which is known for its ferocious defensive abilities and lives up to its reputation here when he grabs a hold of Hans boot with his teeth and refuses to let go no matter how far Hans walks.

The last half-hour when all the various characters from the four divergent story lines eventually merge is when the film finally manages to hit its stride and it’s a shame this couldn’t have occurred sooner, but ultimately as a sequel it’s surprisingly funny and manages to retain much of the same charm from the first one.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 13, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jamie Uys

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Comedy, Cult, Foreign Films, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors, Sequels

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Top Gun (1986)

Posted on November 9, 2019 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Student pilot proves himself.

Pete Mitchell (Tom Cruise), who goes by the nickname Maverick, gets accepted into an elite fighter school for Navy pilots known as ‘Top Gun’. It is here where his flying skills impress his instructors, but his daredevils ways also get him into trouble. He starts dating one of his instructors (Kelly McGillis) and everything seem to be going fine until during a flight training exercise that he is piloting his partner Goose (Anthony Edwards) tragically dies, which shatters his confidence and makes him believe that maybe he is not cut out to be a pilot after all.

This film was a giant hit at the box office, but mostly ravaged by the critics and with good reason. The story is shallow, but Cruise’s performance manages to hold it together. Some have criticized his acting ability by saying he can play only one type of character namely the cocky type, but here he mixes in a lot of hidden vulnerabilities with it making you feel for him during his dark times of self doubt and cheer when he finally overcomes them.

I also enjoyed the romantic angle at least initially. In a lot of movies the side romance can get in the way of the story, but here it helps keep the plot intriguing especially when you factor in their contrasting personalities and temperaments. I liked the fact that she was also one of his instructors and therefore had to keep a professional distance and how this caused tensions in their potential relationship, which I wanted explored much more and was disappointed when this plot point fizzles out already in the first act and they become instead a generic ‘happy couple’ the rest of the way.

The mysterious death of Maverick’s father years early was another subplot that gets poorly handled. I was expecting this to work into being a heightened mystery complete with a big reveal at the end, perhaps coupled with a flashback, but instead it gets treated almost like a throwaway bit where the Tom Skerrit character explains what occurred in passing and then by the time the ending finally comes it’s pretty much forgotten. The same goes for Val Kilmer who is excellent as Maverick’s rival, but his part is woefully underwritten and like with a lot of other things not pushed to its full dramatic potential.

Director Tony Scott hurts the realism by implementing too much of a music video approach with literally every scene smothered with a loud, booming rock tune, which cheapens the story by making it more about mood and image than a character study. There’s even issues with the sky color, which outside of the aerial footage, looks to have a bright golden color that does not replicate any sky I’ve ever seen on this planet.

The stunt work involving the flying jets is certainly impressive making this a movie you definitely need to see on the big screen in order to get its full effect, but eventually it gets redundant and for a layperson not familiar with piloting technique even a bit confusing. The ending in which Maverick and his fellow pilots are ordered to provide air support to a stricken ship that has drifted into hostile waters really jumps the shark when jet planes from a foreign country attacks theirs, which would be considered an act of war and a major international incident, but instead after the skirmish is over it all gets written off saying that the other country simply ‘denied that they did it’, which only in the movie world is good enough to make everyone else forgive and forget about it too.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Tony Scott

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Drama, Movies Based on Short Stories, Romance

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Vigilante (1982)

Posted on September 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father dispenses street justice.

Eddie (Robert Forster) is a factory worker living in a tough neighborhood of New York who comes home one day to find his wife (Rutanya Alda) beaten and his infant son murdered. Initially he trusts the system will bring the culprits to justice, but then realizes to his horror that the judge (Vincent Beck) is corrupt and with a payout that he receives from the defense attorney (Joe Spinell) he lets the head of the gang (Willie Colon) off with a probation sentence.  Eddie becomes outraged and seeks the help of a neighborhood vigilante group headed by Nick (Fred Williamnson) to set things right.

The film is an obvious rip-off of  Death Wish  that is so uninspired that I’m surprised that the producers of that film didn’t sue the filmmakers of this one for plagarism. Both the good guys and the bad ones are such extreme caricatures that it becomes unintentional camp while the tone has an ‘everything is terrible’ approach that makes it seem like the entire planet has become one big crime-ridden urban hellhole.

The script is full of loopholes like the fact that Alda initially confronts the gang at a gas station and yet when she gets home she finds that the gang is waiting outside in their car, but it’s never explained how they knew where she lived. If they followed her then that needs to be shown and it isn’t. When she calls the police asking them to send over a squad car she neglects to give them her address even though this was long before caller ID and without the address they wouldn’t know where to go.

Although I’ll give him credit for appearing nude while trying to fight off guys who were bigger than him and fully clothed while in the prison’s shower I still felt overall Forster’s performance, who gets billed on the film’s promotional poster as Robert FOSTER, is quite poor. Most of this is due to the script, but I still found it disappointing. Usually he displays a feisty, gutsy tough guy that I enjoy, but here he comes off as transparent and when he finds out his kid has been murdered he shows barely no emotion at all. Williamson conveys a far better edge and he should’ve been made the star while Forster’s character could’ve been scrapped completely.

Carol Lynley, as the District Attorney, is barely seen at all in a thankless bit that lasts less than five minutes, which is a shame as this was the last film that she was in where she still retained her youthful appeal as her film appearances after this she displayed a much more middle-aged appearance. Spinell, who had starred in Maniac just a year before that was done by the same director, is also wasted in a part that is much too brief. Woody Strode appears here as one of the prisoners, but he was clearly aging by this point and nearing 70 at the time make the part where he beats up two younger guys who are much bigger than him look ludicrous.

Spoiler Alert!

The films ends with a nifty car chase, which is probably the best moment in the film even though there’s loopholes here as well like having Forster crash into a patrol car, but he’s able to back away and keep going, but for some reason the patrol car doesn’t continue to give chase. If it was disabled in the crash then it needs to show this and it doesn’t. Forster also plants a bomb in the corrupt judge’s car, but nothing is shown earlier revealing that Forster had the ability to build one, so how did he figure out how to make it? It’s also highly unlikely that a judge, knowing that he was corrupt and people would mostly likely be after him, would pick-up a strange looking red object that he sees on his car and stupidly press a button on it. The bomb, before it explodes, also features a recording of him handing down the light sentence to the gang leader, but how was this recorded because during the courtroom scene no recording device was shown?

End of Spoiler Alert!

William Lustig, who initially started out as a director of porn films under the pseudonym Billy Bagg, showed great promise with Maniac, but here the effort is sloppy with little imagination given to the already stale premise. Everything, even the grisly violence comes off as mechanical and derivative.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: July 23, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated R

Director: William Lustig

Studio: Artists Releasing

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Exploitation, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Prison Flicks

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Commando (1985)

Posted on July 4, 2019 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father rescues kidnapped daughter.

John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a retired colonel from the U.S. special forces who is now living the peaceful, quiet life with his young daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano) in a secluded mountainside home. Then when day he gets visited by his former superior (James Olson) who advises him that the other members of his former unit have all been killed off. Before he has a chance to react a group of mercenaries converge on his home and kidnap his daughter. John tries to stop it, but can’t and is eventually drugged where both he and Jenny are taken to a secret location where they meet Arius (Dan Hedaya) the group’s leader. He tells John that he can have his daughter back once he carries out an assignment to assassinate the President of a South American country known as Val Verde. As John is being taken onto the airplane to carry out the plan he fights back by overpowering his captors and he then goes on a mad dash to retrieve his daughter before it is too late while using the assistance of Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong) an off-duty flight attendant that he meets along the way.

The one good thing about a Mark L. Lester directed film such as this is that it moves fast, so you get reluctantly caught up into the action before you realize just how dumb and threadbare the story and characterizations really are. For the first 45-minutes it kind of works with the best stunt coming with Arnie escaping out the cargo bay exit door of the airplane and out onto the landing wheel of the aircraft before jumping into some swamp land just before the plane takes off.

Unfortunately this ends up being the film’s only highlight as everything that comes after it gets overdone to the point that it almost starts to seem like a farce and might’ve worked better had it been played up as being one. Watching Arnie fight off a bunch of security guards while inside a mall by having them all fall down like bowling pins with one blow of his fist looks too much like something used in a slapstick comedy. The scene where he tears a phone booth from a wall and lifts it high over his head is ridiculous as no matter how strong a guy is lifting something up like that will certainly destroy or injure a person’s back.

This brings to light the film’s other issue, which is the fact that Arnie never ever gets injured, or if he does he miraculously recovers from it in a matter of seconds. Watching him shoot down all these mercenaries like they were a part of a video arcade game while hundreds of bullets go whizzing by his head, but never  actually hitting him is when I got totally tuned off from it as it ceased to be believable and I was constantly glancing at my watch every two minutes just praying that the whole stupid thing would quickly end.

Chong, who is an actress that is usually able to convey a strong personality came off here as one of the most annoying elements in the movie. The fact that she would so quickly jump into helping Arnie find his daughter even though she had just met him and jeopardizing her own life and career along the way didn’t make much sense. The scene where she is able to fire a rocket launcher despite having no experience was another head-scratcher. She states that she had simply ‘read the directions’ on how to use it, but how would she have had time to read anything when every waking second is spent with them chasing after the bad guys.

Milano, who is probably better known these days for her political activism instead of her acting, gives a flat and forgettable performance. Hedaya is equally blah as the villain although I’ll give him credit for effectively looking and sounding Latino despite being Jewish in real-life. The biggest disappointment though is Vernon Wells who plays Arnie’s muscular nemesis and tries taking him on one-on-one at the end, but when compared to Arnie’s massive physique Wells looks pretty puny and an actor should’ve been cast that would’ve looked more like Arnie’s physical equal in order to come off more like a legitimate threat.

A director’s cut of this film is also available, which adds in a few more scenes and has a minute longer runtime than the studio version, but to me that’s just one more minute of your life wasted watching this dumb thing that you’ll never get back.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 4, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Dry Humor, Kidnapping Movies, Movies with Nudity

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Shoot to Kill (1988)

Posted on March 31, 2019 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Chasing killer through wilderness.

Warren Stantin (Sidney Poitier) is a veteran police officer who goes after a jewel thief when he kills his hostages while the two were negotiating for their release. Stantin feels like he failed them (the hostages) and must make restitution by personally seeing their killer brought to justice. The problem is that he doesn’t know who the killer is as he never saw his face. In an attempt to escape the authorities the killer then joins a group led by Sarah (Kristie Alley) who are hiking through the rugged forest terrain of northern Washington. Stantin joins forces with Jonathan (Tom Berenger)  an outdoorsmen who knows the area well and can lead Stantin on foot to where the hikers are as no one in that group realizes that one of them is a dangerous criminal.

The story is the inspiration of Harv Zimmel who wanted to incorporate his lifelong enthusiasm for hiking into a an exciting police story and for the most part it works. The story itself is kind of formulaic as cop thrillers go, but the vivid wilderness setting adds an extra element with a lot of hair-raising scenes including the point-of-view shots of Berenger dangling hundreds of feet in the air on a thin rope over a gulch and getting swung violently into the side of a rocky hill.

One of the coolest aspects of the film is the fact that the viewer, at least for the first half, has no idea who the killer is, which lends extra intrigue as you try to guess which one of the group members he is. In order to make it more interesting director Roger Spootiswoode cast actors who had played villains in past thrillers although I would’ve done the opposite by hiring actors who didn’t seem like killers at all and therefore making the ultimate reveal even more surprising and it’s a shame that the killer’s identity couldn’t have been kept a secret until the very end.

Poitier, who had spent the previous decade working behind-the-scenes as a director, is excellent in his first acting role in 11 years. He was 60 when he did this, but you’d never know it and he gets a few comical moments here too. It’s also nice that his skin color never comes into play as most of his other film roles always made his race a center issue. Berenger offers adequate support, but I was actually much more impressed with Alley who comes off as tougher and more resourceful than all of the other men.

There’s very little to complain about although one of my quibbles is that we never get to see Stantin’s personal life. Most cop films will always show a brief glimpse into a policeman’s home life in order to make him more ‘human’ or multi-dimensional. Here we see briefly Poitier talking on the phone with someone, supposedly his wife/girlfriend, but it would’ve been nice to have had a scene  showing the face of his significant other.

The film also has way too much music that lacks distinction and gets played over just about every scene. The story is exciting enough and there’s no need for a booming score to accentuate what we’re already caught up in. Since the majority of the pic takes place in the outdoors it’s best to allow the natural ambiance to work as the background sound and adding in anything above that comes off as heavy-handed.

Overall though the film is slick and exciting that starts strong and never lets up and includes a very unique final shootout that takes place underwater.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: February 12, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 50 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Studio: Buena Vista

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Outdoors, Police Drama

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Redneck (1973)

Posted on December 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Robbers accidentally kidnap kid.

Memphis (Telly Savalas) and Mosquito (Franco Nero) are two crooks who try to pull off a jewelry store heist, but end up nabbing much less than they wanted. During their getaway attempt the car being driven by their driver Maria (Ely Galleani) crashes forcing them to stop another car and physically removing its driver (Beatrice Clary) out of the vehicle. Yet as they drive off inside the stolen car they are unaware of a 12-year-old child (Mark Lester) hidden in the backseat who ends up stymieing all of their plans.

This was yet another ill-fated film project that Lester took on after the tremendous success of Oliver! that was supposedly done to help make him a solid big-screen star, but instead turned his career to literal ashes by 1977, which pushed him out of the acting altogether and into a career in sports medicine. The film starts out okay with some excellent action that’s vividly done and had it kept up its fast-pace throughout it might’ve done better.

Unfortunately whenever the story slows done it gets boring real fast. Part of the problem is there is no backstory given to any of its characters. Everything starts out very abruptly going right into the robbery and subsequent getaway, which is fine, but at some point we need to learn more about these people; what makes them tick and gives them distinction, which never happens. It’s hard to get caught up in the action or tension when everyone, including Lester, comes off as blah and transparent. The film’s original Italian title was Senza Ragione, which translates into ‘with no reason’ and that’s exactly what you get here: sadistic, mindless calamity that serves no purpose.

Lester’s presence isn’t interesting and he barely even has much dialogue. He’s too much of a passive victim that doesn’t fight back enough while his bonding with Nero happens too quickly. His  eventual downward spiral, where he goes from innocent child to a nutcase that craves violence is also too quick and does not seem genuine. The part where he tries to escape from the crooks and is chased through an empty field is jarring because playful, cartoon-like music gets played over it making it seem almost like a slapstick comedy even though the rest of the film is approached like a thriller with a pounding soundtrack, which makes the production come-off like it has a split-personality.

The film is also somewhat controversial because Lester, who was only 13 at the time of filming,  for no apparent reason strips naked although the viewer only sees him from behind, but it’s still a bizarre moment nonetheless. However, to me what was more shocking was having him watch an adult couple making love in the backseat of a car.

Savalas is certainly a lot of fun and can make the most of any low grade picture, but even here his campiness gets a bit overdone including his incessant whistling. The ending, in which the characters go from a summer climate to a winter one in seemingly a matter of a day is quite confusing. To some extent I liked the snowy landscape and howling wind, which created a surreal effect, but having a movie change seasons so drastically and without any explanation is a true sign of really bad filmmaking.

Alternate Title: Senza Ragione

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 26, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Silvio Narizzano

Studio: Crawford Productions

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Foreign Films, Heist Movies, Italian Films, Kidnapping Movies, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Cuba (1979)

Posted on December 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cuba during the revolution.

Robert Dapes (Sean Connery) is a British mercenary who travels to Cuba to train the army to resist the approaching forces of the revolution lead by Fidel Castro. While there he becomes reacquainted with Alexandra (Brooke Adams) his former lover who has 15 when he first knew her, but is now 30 and married to Juan (Chris Sarandon) who owns a rum and cigar factory that he inherited from his family, but run by Alexandra.

The film from a purely visual standpoint is a masterpiece with David Watkin’s cinematography giving a very vivid feel to the ambiance of the period by capturing not only the slums of the region, but the affluence as well. Despite being filmed in Spain it still manages to create an interesting Cuban atmosphere that has an intoxicating quality that makes it entertaining to watch even though the story especially during the first half doesn’t go anywhere.

The romantic angle really wasn’t needed. The idea was to create a Casablanca scenario, but it comes off as forced and cliched. The chemistry between Adams and Connery isn’t there and she appears far too young for him. She states that she is 30, but doesn’t even look that old and the fact that he was apparently having sex with her when she was 15, although the Connery character states that he thought she had been 17, is still something that won’t go over well with today’s audiences.

Connery doesn’t seem to be the best type of actor for this part either. For one thing the character should’ve been American as the Cuban revolution was more of a direct threat to the US than England. He also doesn’t have too much to do and his patented rugged brashness is missing. His characters usually take control of things, but here he’s passive and almost like he’s under a spell from the constant hot-and-cold act that Adam’s gives  him that eventually makes him come-off as benign and ineffectual. Jack Weston as a befuddled American businessman is much more engaging and would’ve made a better lead as he gives the thing some balance with needed light humor.

I also thought both Adams and Sarandon could’ve given more effort to create an authentic Cuban accent. Both are made to look Cuban, but they don’t sound like one. Adams seems to at times convey an accent while Sarandon makes no attempts to have one at all.

On the technical end  it works and is an impressive dramatic effort for director Richard Lester who was better known for slapstick comedies, but it misses the potential of a being a sprawling epic, which is where it should’ve gone. Constricting the whole thing to just two characters with Weston tagging along for momentary comic relief does not do the production justice. Instead it should’ve branched out into several different, interweaving story-lines that analyzed the unique perspectives and situations of the various people involved, which would’ve given the viewer a more robust viewpoint of this important moment in history.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 21, 1979

Runtime: 2 Hours 2 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Lester

Studio: United Artists

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Historical Drama, Political Thrillers, Romance, War Movies

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Shamus (1973)

Posted on December 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Detective uses unorthodox methods.

Shamus (Burt Reynolds) is a down-and-out private detective who uses a pool table for a bed and seems more able to attract woman that he doesn’t know for indiscriminate sex than he does at finding cases to solve. Eventually he gets hired by a millionaire businessman (Ron Weyand) to retrieve diamonds stolen during a violent robbery, but the more he pursues the case the more convinced he becomes that it’s a set-up.

This film has the perfect blend of funny Burt/tough-guy Burt and it’s one of the main reasons why it manages to remain engaging. Most other films that he was in never had the right balance. By the late 70’s his humorous side had gotten overused to the point that his image had become that of a silly country boy, but then in the 80’s he over-corrected by starring in a lot of sterile action flicks where his characters were overly-serious and moody and even less entertaining than his comical side. Here though it’s a fun mix as he playfully jumps from saying quips with a twinkle in his eye to beating the crap out of the bad guys when he needs to and the opening bit where he wakes-up and tries to get ready for the day after a long night of partying is a total gem.

The actions of his character though gets a bit over-the-top particularly with the way he extorts information from those he encounters. Unfortunately he’s no Jim Rockford who would use his cunning and wit to get people to talk, but here Shamus gets physically rough with them to the point that he literally strangles a man with a chain until his face turns purple making it look like he was as bad as those he was pursuing. It also made me wonder how long he could go on using these unsavory methods before it would finally catch-up with him.

He also doesn’t use much of his own brain power as he gets underlings at a bar he frequents to do most of the research for him making it seem like they should be the ones receiving the pay. I was also confused why he’d stay on the case even after the person who had hired him cuts off his funds. For the majority of the film he’s emotionally detached and only doing what he needs to, to get paid, so why continue to pursue something when the incentive is gone especially when there’s nothing in it personally for him?

The story has a lot of twists and complications, but it all ends up circling back to the person that we had suspected from the very beginning making the ending not only predictable but boring. It would also have been nice since this film does make some attempts at being gritty to not have every lead that he comes upon always magically pan out. In real-life many so-called ‘hot leads’ go nowhere and for the sake of balance the film should’ve shown Burt coming to a few dead-ends before finally getting the clues that he needed.

As for the action it’s okay and the foot chase outside of a warehouse is good not so much for what happens, but more because it was shot in late autumn and the orange sunlight coupled with the bare trees gives off a surreal feeling, which gets ruined later during another foot chase where everything is suddenly plush and green and strangely turned springtime without warning. The fact that Burt is always able to jump into vehicles that routinely have their keys already in the ignition hurts the credibility and how he was able to get a forklift to drive itself during the warehouse segment is even more perplexing.

The film starts off with a bang and I was hoping this would be something really different, but ultimately it becomes like a slow, leaking tire that gets flatter as it goes along. That’s not to say it isn’t adequate as it is, but there’s nothing about it that’s truly memorable. Dyan Cannon’s is particularly wasted. Supposedly she had to be coaxed out of semi-retirement to do this after her bad experience in Such Good Friends, but I failed to see the point as her character doesn’t have much to do with the story and could’ve easily been cut out altogether.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 31, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Buzz Kulik

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Black Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery

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