Category Archives: Fast Cars/Car Chase

Vigilante Force (1976)

Posted on May 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Veteran takes over town.

After oil is found near a small California desert town many people, including oil workers, move in looking for work. All the new people coming in causes a great deal of  crime in the community and the local police force is too small to handle the influx. Ben (Jan-Michael Vincent), a longtime resident, decides to hire his brother Aaron (Kris Kristofferson), a veteran of the Vietnam War, to help act as a peacekeeper. Aaron then brings along some mercenaries to assist him, but he and his new associates begin acting more like the bullies forcing everyone to submit to their ways of doing things, or face the consequences. This causes Ben to come to the painful realization that his brother is more of a problem than the solution and forcing him to take matters into his own hands in order to rid the town of him.

This was the third film directed by George Armitage, who did Private Duty Nurses and Hit Man before this one and all three being produced within the Roger Corman family, this one by Roger’s older brother Gene, who approached George about the project having only the title in mind and no actual story. Armitage, who had only 30-days to film, decided to make it an allegory of the Vietnam War where a group of strangers would come into a town, much like the American soldiers did when they came upon a small village in Vietnam, and take it over while focusing on the helpless nature of the residents who could do seemingly little about it.

While the concept had lots of potential the execution is rushed making the story come-off as cluttered and unfocused. It’s one of the few films made where there’s violence and action immediately before there’s barely any onscreen credits, but the motivations of why it’s happening is not clear, so it’s more confusing than exciting.  The plot doesn’t make much sense. Why are these new people all resorting to criminal behavior including robbing a bank? Other towns that boast job opportunities don’t necessarily have a  dramatic spike in crime especially if the new people coming in are actually getting employed, which the film intimates they are, so then why the anger and chaos? It seemed to me that there needed to be some sort of crime boss behind it, but there really isn’t. There’s a certain figurehead shown briefly later on, but he seems to be more of a symptom of the crime that’s already had been occurring versus the main orchestrator.

The setting also has a strong country feel with men folk walking around and behaving like blue collar cowboys making Texas a better location for the town than California. Even if for budget reasons is still had to be done in Cali I would’ve at least made it seem like it was the Lone Star state, which is considered a ‘rebel’, redneck state to begin with and thus making the behavior of the townspeople seem a little more organic.

I loved Kristofferson whose laid-back demeanor comes-off as creepy and menacing, but I would’ve liked his dark side to have been played down more at the beginning. The viewer should’ve been roped-in into believing he was a good guy, or hero, and then had the big reveal in the third act that he really wasn’t versus it being obvious right from the start that there was something not right about him.

Bernadette Peters, who plays his on-again, off-again girlfriend, is a delight, but Vincent is not as good. He’s unable to equal Kristofferson’s screen presence and way too naïve. It’s obvious to everyone his brother is trouble, but he remains oblivious for too long making him seem dumb and then when he finally does catch-on he comments that he was aware of his brother’s ‘problematic side’ ever since they were kids, but if that were the case then why did he hire him in the first place?

If you like basic 70’s action, including car chases, fist fights, and explosions, then this may suffice even with the wobbly story. Anyone though expecting anything more will most assuredly walk away disappointed as the script lacks nuance and surprise.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: September 9, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: George Armitage

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD-R (MGM Limited Edition Collection), Blu-ray

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

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The Take (1974)

Posted on January 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Black cop accepts bribe .

Terence Sneed (Billy Dee Williams) is a San Francisco cop brought to Paloma, New Mexico to help take down local crime boss Victor Manso (Vic Morrow). The only problem is that Manso invites Sneed over to his place and offers him a significant amount of cash to get on his ‘payroll’ and thus allow him to get away with his crimes. Sneed is also informed that another top official in the police department, Captain Frank Dolek (Albert Salmi) is on the take as well. Sneed accepts the cash, but then double-crosses Manso by having Dolek secretly tailed where he finds out who all of Manso’s connections are and uses this info to try and bust Manso’s drug operation, which ends up being a tall order that gets Sneed in hot water not only with Manso, but with his police supervisor Chief Berrigan (Eddie Albert) as well.

The film is based on the 1970 British novel ‘Sir, You Bastard’ by Gordon Frank Newman, which became a bestseller and set-off a series of three books that he wrote around the Sneed character. There were though differences between the book and movie as in the novel Sneed was white and worked in Scotland Yard. The one thing though that remained the same was Sneed being unscrupulous and working outside the system.

The fact that the protagonist accepts bribes and most of the way it’s unclear whether he’s even a good guy at all is what makes the movie interesting and helps differentiate it from the other early 70’s cop action flicks. This is the complete opposite of Serpico where the cop refused all bribes and vigorously fought against it. Here we see the other angle. Instead of the main character being on the outside looking in he’s a part of the corrupt system and in order to survive in it must be willing to play along, which I found more realistic and insightful as someone who’s able to totally rise above the evil environments they’re in is rare and therefore we get more of an everyman’s perspective here. It also works against the ‘Save the Cat’ book, which has become the bible of today’s screenwriters, which insists that the main character must be likable for the movie to work. Here Sneed is anything but and at certain points when he forces an overweight suspect (Robert Miller Driscoll) to take-off his clothes and do jumping jacks in humiliating fashion to the amusement of the other cops he becomes downright nasty, but in-turn it makes the movie less formulaic, which too many movies today have become.

Williams’ skill as an actor helps to keep the character engaging and he gets great support not only by Eddie Albert as his exasperated superior, but also surprisingly by Frankie Avalon who has a small, but memorable bit as a drug dealer who initially comes-off as quite cocky, but melts dramatically once inside the interrogation room. Unfortunately for Vic Morrow, who’s played some classic villains in his career, his presence here doesn’t work. This is mainly from his get-up including dyed blonde hair and at one point a pseudo cowboy outfit, which looked campy. I also didn’t like that it’s shown right away that his character has heart problems, which telegraphs a major vulnerability that instantaneously sets the viewer into expecting that this will predictably lead to his eventual demise.

As for the action I felt it started well particularly the opening courthouse ambush, which is well choreographed with a funky score, but it becomes rather pedestrian after this. Having the main character misjudge things like when he tries the intercept Manso’s transporting of illegal goods, but ends up chasing down the wrong van each time, which were intentionally being used as decoys, was refreshing because in too many other police movies the hero cops always gets things right the first time and his hunches are never proven wrong, which again is just not how things work in reality. Either way it’s not as exciting as it could’ve been with a lot of car chases and action scenarios that ultimately prove to be generic in nature.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 5, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Hartford-Davis

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies Based on Novels, Police Drama

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Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

Posted on December 15, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Going back to L.A.

Captain Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox), Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton), and Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) are working on a case known as the ‘Alphabet Crimes’ due to a monogrammed envelope in alphabetic sequence that gets left at the scene of each robbery. Billy decides to get the F.B.I. involved in order to have them help solve the case, but this upsets the new police chief, Harold Lutz (Allen Garfield), who demotes both Taggart and Rosewood to traffic duty and then suspends Bogomil when he tries to come to Rosewood’s defense. On his way home Bogomil gets shot and seriously wounded when he pulls over to help Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielson) who acts as a stranded motorist, but in reality is a part of the organization behind the crimes. When Axel (Eddie Murphy) hears about Bogomil’s shooting he immediately travels to L.A. and again hooks-up with Taggart and Rosewood to solve the case and avenge Bogomil’s assault. 

If  you can get past the overly complex crime mystery, which comes-off as a cheesy variation of Agatha Christie’s ‘The Alphabet Murders’, which apparently was the ‘inspiration’, this sequel, as 80’s sequels go, isn’t bad. Despite Leonard Maltin’s criticism in his review where he didn’t like that Bogomil and Axel had now become chummy and even planning a fishing trip together, I liked it. Maltin considered this ‘inconsistent’ with the first film where the characters were at odds through most of it, but I felt they had grown to like each other after what they had gone through previously and had no problem with it. What I didn’t like though was that Lisa Eilbacher for whatever reason doesn’t return and in her place they stick-in Alice Adair, who plays Bogomil’s daughter, that Axel is good friends with, but since she never appeared in the first one this relationship comes-off as quite forced. 

Having Ashton and Reinhold reprise their roles is great too, but they have little to do. In the first film they worked with Axel more as a team with each using their unique abilities to help take down the bad guys, but here Axel does virtually everything. This was most likely the result of Murphy co-writing the script where he vainly makes his character almost like a super hero and able to solve difficult clues and even at one point hacking into the criminal’s computer system while Ashton and Reinhold act as nothing more than observers who follow along, but add little input. I also didn’t like Reinhold’s character turning into a gun collecting nut, which was something that was never alluded to at all in the first one, but gets played-up here even though it makes the guy seem unintentionally creepy. There’s also a lot of talk about Ashton’s tumultuous marriage to the extent that I felt at some point we needed to see the wife, but never do. 

The humor is silly and doesn’t blend well with the action. What made the comedy work in the first one is that it remained on a believable level, but here starts to get downright stupid. A perfect example of this is when the three guys get into a strip club by pretending Taggart is the former President Gerald Ford, even though he doesn’t look that much like him, but it still manages to fool everybody in the place, which had me eye-rolling instead of laughing. The car chases are a bit farcical, much like the ones seen in a Disney movie, where they attempt to work-in a cheap laugh here and there as it’s going on instead of just making it exciting and realistic. 

I did like Brigitte Nielsen as the villainous and felt that given the time period having a female play a nefarious bad guy was novel. Maltin, in his review, described this as being ‘misogynistic’, but if the ultimate idea is for everybody to be equal then a woman should have just as much chance to play the occasional heavy as any man. Jurgen Prochnow, who plays the head of the evil operation, is too similar to Steven Chekoff, the bad guy from the first installment, to the extent that it seemed like that character had never really died, but instead got reborn through this guy, but his steely, ice-cold presence is cliched, over-the-top, and most of all not interesting.

Having Axel return to L.A. was a mistake and whole thing basically ends-up being a mindless rehashing with no particular point. Like with the first incarnation the producers considered many different potential scenarios before finally settling on this one including having Axel go to Paris and even London where he’d work with Scotland Yard. I would’ve preferred him staying in Detroit and then having Bogomil, Taggart, and Rosewood go there maybe to visit him while inadvertently getting caught-up in a case happening in the Motor City. This then would’ve turned-the-tables by having the three in a foreign environment and seeing how they adjusted to it and would’ve added revealing character development, which is otherwise missing.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: May 19, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tony Scott

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video 

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Dry Humor, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Police Drama, Sequels

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Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Posted on December 13, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Detroit cop in L.A.

Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is a Detroit cop who likes working outside the system and by his own rules, which frequently gets him into clashes with his superior Captain Todd (Gilbert R. Hill). When his childhood friend, Mikey Tandino (James Russo), comes to visit him from Beverly Hills, but later is murdered, Axel requests to be put on the case, but Captain Todd refuses to assign him thinking Axel was too close emotionally to the victim to be able to give the case a fair investigation. To get around this Axel requests some time-off for a vacation, so that he can travel to Beverly Hills and do some investigating on his free time. When he arrives he meets-up with Jenny (Lisa Eilbacher), who was a mutual childhood friend of both Axel and Mickey. She works at an art gallery owned by Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff), who may be the one behind Mikey’s murder. When Axel tries to follow-up on this lead he gets himself in trouble with the police department there and quickly learns that in Beverly Hills everything is very much by-the-book. 

This film is a great example of how an idea for a movie can go through many changes before it finally comes to fruition. The original concept came about in 1975 when Michael Eisner, then head of Paramount Pictures, got pulled over for speeding while driving an old station wagon and was taken aback by the condescending way the Beverly Hills police treated him simply because he was driving a beat-up car. He came to the conclusion that the Beverly Hills police department was highly status conscious and wanted to bring this angle out in a movie. He sent out an open call asking for writers to submit scripts with a premise dealing with an outsider coming into the Beverly Hills police unit and clashing with their culture. Most of the scripts that were sent in he didn’t care for until finally in 1983 the one written by Daniel Petrie Jr. caught his eye. 

Both he and producer Jerry Bruckheimer enjoyed the comical elements that were in it and cast Sylvester Stallone as the lead, but he wanted the comedy removed and they refused to abide, so he walked-off the project and was eventually replaced by Murphy. Director Martin Brest, who had just been fired as director of War Games, had grown disillusioned with Hollywood and considered getting out of the business, but was hounded so much by Bruckheimer that he had to change his phone number, but when the calls continued anyways he finally flipped a coin, so as to decide whether he’d do the project, or not. When he result came up heads he said ‘yes’ and because of the film’s later box office success he eventually had that coin framed and mounted on his office wall.

Eddie Murphy is clearly the entertaining catalyst that drives this and I was happy that despite him being black his race is never a factor. It’s also great that his hard-nosed supervisor that routinely chews-him-out isn’t some authoritarian white guy either, but instead an actual black police chief, Gilbert R. Hill, who was brought in as a police consultant, but eventually got cast and his exasperated expressions are more than enough to elicit genuine laughs. 

It would though have been nice to see Murphy, at least briefly, in a police uniform as the character comes-off as being too outside the system, so for the sake of balance seeing that at times he was still ‘a part of the team’ and had to conform. He also mentions being an expert thief during his youth, so for added character development this should’ve been explored; what caused him to change his ways and become a cop instead of remaining a thief? Unfortunately this aspect is never answered.

John Ashton and Judge Reinhold as the two cops who initially act like adversaries, but ultimately work together with Murphy as a team, are terrific. During the 70’s and 80’s cops weren’t usually portrayed in nice ways. Most movies either characterized them as being excessively buffoonish, or entirely corrupt, but here they got humanized. Ashton in particular is a perfect caricature of a cop without it having to go overboard and the script makes great use of Reinhold’s wide-eyed expression by working it into him being young and inexperienced. The conversation the two have while in the squad car where Reinhold talks about the ‘five pounds of red meat in the bowels’ was taken nearly word-for-word from what the two used during their audition that got them the roles.  

The car chases, particularly the one at the beginning shot in Detroit, are quite exciting and this is one of the rare cop films that manages to blend the humor with the action without having to compromise on either. The only complaint I have, and this may sound shallow to some, is that I couldn’t stand the mole, or whatever it is, on the center of Steven Berkoff”s forehead. I honestly found it very distracting, and there are quite a few close-up shots of his face, so it’s hard not to see it and in fact with each scene he’s in I kept focusing more on that than what was being said. There are pictures on the net of him as a child and even young adult where the growth was not apparent, so I’m not sure at what age it occurred, but since it’s in such a prominent part of his face, I would have, if I were him, had it surgically removed if medically possible. 

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 1, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Martin Brest

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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A Small Town in Texas (1976)

Posted on July 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Chased by crooked sheriff.

Poke (Timothy Bottoms) returns to his hometown in Texas after serving a 5-year sentence for marijuana procession. He finds that his girlfriend Mary Lee (Susan George), during the time he was away, has gotten into a relationship with the sheriff Duke (Bo Hopkins) who was also the man who convicted Poke that got him sent away. Poke begins harassing Duke for messing around with Mary Lee and follows him to a political event where Duke is in charge of guarding Jesus Mendez (Santos Reyes) who’s running for congress. It is here that he witnesses an assassin shooting Mendez and then watches Duke kill the shooter and take an envelope out of the killer’s pocket and put it in the trash. Poke retrieves the envelope and finds $25,000 inside. When Duke comes back to get the envelope and sees it’s gone he puts out an APB to have Poke arrested, which leads to an all-out car chase.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this was one of the career outputs that screenwriter William Norton considered ‘stupid’ as he was noted to having told his nurse on his deathbed that she ‘wasn’t dumb enough’ to have known any of the movies he had written. It’s not like it’s bad, but it isn’t particularly exciting either and takes 50-minutes before the first car chase gets going. Laying the ground work for the story is too leisurely. Instead of having Poke and Duke discuss how he had convicted him years earlier the drug bust should’ve been played-out right at the start to at least have given it a little more action.

The chases are impressive once they get going and at one point I literally winced as a car crashed into another and made me feel like I was actually in the vehicle and feeling the impact. Another has a police vehicle bursting into flames and a cop getting out screaming while flames shoot out his back, which was surprising since they must’ve blocked off the entire town center (filmed in Lockhart, Texas) to do it and most likely took an entire day to do, so there clearly was no compromising on the quality of the stunt work just because it was shot on-location versus in a closed studio lot. You also get to see a car crash through a giant block of ice, which marked a cinema first.

Bottoms though is weak creating a transparent character with no interesting arch, or personality and doesn’t even seem to be from Texas as unlike the others he has no Texan accent. Susan George at least conveyed an authentic sounding accent while masking her British one, so her presence gets strong points. Hopkins lends some interesting nuance as the bad guy and the sheriff wasn’t played-up as being an aging authoritarian, small-minded hick like in other films from this genre. Sure he was later found to be corrupt, but more like a cog in a bigger game instead of the center of it.

Spoiler Alert!

Story-wise there’s a lot of unanswered questions like why was Mendoza shot, which is later revealed to have been orchestrated by C.J. Barry (Morgan Woodward) a rich rancher who initially seemed very much behind Mendoza’s campaign, so why the double-cross? Why also would they think it would be a good idea to openly kill one of the men working for them? Who’s going to want to do a hit for them in the future if word gets out that the organization will use you as cover? Since this was a candidate for a major political party it was hard to believe that the investigation would be left solely to the small town sheriff to pursue as I’d be pretty sure federal agents would get called in.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 2, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Starrett

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD-R (MGM Limited Edition Collection)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies that take place in Texas

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The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

Posted on March 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: His doppelganger takes over.

Pelham (Roger Moore) is a conservative, staid businessman who is married with two kids and for all practical purposes leads a predictable life. One day he goes out driving and begins to pretend he’s a race driver in a sports car. He removes his seat belt and accelerates the vehicle before getting into an awful crash. The doctors at the hospital are able to save him, but as he returns to his normal way of doing things he keeps hearing about another man who looks just like him appearing all over town. The man associates with many of his same friends and eventually moves into his home and has relations with his wife while he’s not there. Pelham tries putting at stop to it only to find that his friends and family prefer the new Pelham over the old one.

While the concept has intriguing elements the way it gets handled is a letdown. Supposedly his doppelganger represents his more reckless side that he keeps oppressed, but then having him immediately give into his wild impulses through his driving doesn’t seem like dual personalities, but more like it’s all-in-one. His recovery, especially after such a life threatening accident, happens too quickly and the idea that he can just go back to normal and continue to drive the same car that he totaled (he buys a new one, but the same model) seemed dubious as I’d think in reality his license would’ve been suspended for causing a crash that put both him and others at extreme risk.

The movie makes clear through flashback that there really is a double versus keeping this aspect a mystery and allowing in the idea that it might be a person disguising himself as Pelham. There’s very little difference between the two, so having them both walking around adds nothing. If the twin is supposed to represent his wild side then this needs to be shown through his attire, hairstyle, and speech pattern. The only real difference is that one drives a flashy sports car, but that’s it. You’d also think that those around him, especially his family, would sense something was off instead of having the real one become the odd man.

Moore has stated in interviews that his was his favorite role, but I don’t know why because outside of having a perpetual confused look on his face his character has little else to do. The production values, for what it’s worth, are excellent, but the story is too thin for feature length. The second act gets especially boring as Pelham is constantly hearing from others about his double over and over again until it becomes redundant. It takes too long for the protagonist to become aware of something that the viewer catches onto early on. The ending is vague and offers no suitable conclusion or answers. Normally I’d say this is the type of story, which was based on the novel ‘The Case of Mr. Pelham’ by Anthony Armstrong, that would’ve been better as an episode for an anthology series, but in this instance that’s actually what occurred as 15 years earlier it was a first season episode of ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’. with Tom Ewell playing the part of Pelham and the compact 25-minute runtime did a far superior job with the concept than the 94-minutes does here.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 18, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Basil Dearden

Studio: EMI Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Freeway (1988)

Posted on March 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer in a car.

Sunny (Darlanne Fluegel) is an emergency room nurse still grieving over the senseless death of her fiancee at the hands of a highway killer (Billy Drago) who drove-up beside them one late night and shot him through their car window. Sunny is constantly hassling the police for updates on the case, but the police sergeant Lt. Boyle (Michael Callan) is aloof and put-off. Frank (James Russo) is an ex-cop who left the force when a drug gang he was investigating annihilated his whole family. He senses Sunny’s despair and the two team-up to find the killer along with radio talk show host David Lazuras (Richard Belzer) whose show gets calls from an unhinged man, who quotes Bible verses and claims to be the one they’re looking for.

The story has some intriguing elements and I liked how initially we don’t know the identity of the assailant, but the concept, which is based on the novel of the same name by Deanne Barkley, is poorly thought-out. This freeway shooter makes headlines for having killed many people, so Sunny wouldn’t be the only one getting on the police about finding the culprit as the entire city, which would be gripped with panic, would also be and if the city’s force wasn’t doing enough then federal agents would be brought-in.

The car that the killer drives, which is an older model with a broken front grill, is similar to the haunted vehicle used in the cult-classic The Car, but because it has a distinct appearance the guy wouldn’t be able to get away with his crimes for too long as surely other people on the very busy L.A. freeways would’ve spotted him and had his license plate, or general whereabouts, called-in. Some drivers would likely have tailed him and even cornered his car with theirs until the police got there. The car also smashes into several other vehicles, and since it was an old clunker, it would need body work, and thus pique the suspicions of the auto repairman who would likely alert authorities. In either event having the killer get away with as much as he does and with only one person emotionally vested into finding him doesn’t gel.

While the leads are bland the supporting cast is interesting. Callan, who was a semi-star during the 60’s before his career cratered, does well as the non-nonchalant police chief and still looking good despite some weight gain around the face. Clint Howard has a fun bit as a porn obsessed mechanic, who agrees to let Sunny drive his prized sports car while he gets her’s fixed. While allowing some random chick to take his car, which no auto mechanic in the history of the world would do, or feel obligated to do, I was willing to accept it using the rationale that he was hoping it might help him score with her later, but the fact that she keeps this ‘loaner’ for days, even weeks, without returning it gets ridiculous.

Country music legend Roy Clark is listed in the part of a CHP officer, but I didn’t spot him. I had a feeling it was played by someone with the same name, I know when I lived in Indy there were 7 other men in the phone book with my name, and since Roy and Clark are both quite common, it seems reasonable that it was somebody else, so listing it in Roy’s filmography on IMDb is a mistake.

The tension isn’t strong and weakens quite a bit by the third act, which is when it should’ve been the strongest. Director Francis Delia, who before this worked on music videos, tries hard to give the proceeding a stylistic touch, which might’ve fared better had the story and characters been thoroughly fleshed-out.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 2, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Francis Delia

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Street People (1976)

Posted on March 20, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Betrayed by his nephew.

Salvatore (Ivo Garrani) is a crime boss residing in San Francisco who orders a specially made cross to be shipped from Italy to his church as a gift. Inside it is a stash of pure heroin, which leads to a crime hit and several deaths. Padre Frank (Ettore Manni), the priest at the church that was to receive the cross, thinks Salvatore was aware of the hidden heroin and used the cross as a ruse to get the drugs passed customs and thus he ex-communicates him from the church. Salvatore insists he had no knowledge of the heroin and hires his nephew Ulisse (Roger Moore), who is half Sicilian, to investigate and find out who the real culprit is. Ulisse asks his Grand Prix racing driver friend Charlie (Stacy Keach) to help him out, but the deeper into the case they go the more it leads them to believe that Salvatore was the mastermind behind it.

This unusual endeavor was produced by an Italian production company, but filmed in the U.S. with a British star and American actor and yet the supporting cast is made-up entirely of Italian performers straight from Italy. The Italians have their voices dubbed and share a high number of scenes only amongst themselves, while Moore and Keach speak in their regular voices and appear the majority of their screen time together. The result is a haphazard effect that cuts back and forth between what seems like two completely different movies spliced together. Casting Moore as someone who is ‘half-sicilian’ despite his very thick British accent, and pale skin, is one of the more ludicrous casting decisions ever made and the script, which Moore stated both he and Keach couldn’t make any sense out of even after watching the final print, goes all over the place and will be confusing to most.

The film does have some good points. Moore plays his part in a terse,no-nonsense style and I wished this was how he had approached the Bond role instead of the detached, humorous way that he did. Keach is highly engaging and watching the two trying to work a case despite having such opposite personalities is enjoyable, but there’s no explanation for how they ever met, or would even want to work together as they don’t get along. There needed to be at least one scene showing a genuine friendship in order to make their buddy relationship make sense instead of just the constant bickering.

The special effects are decent if not exceptional and for those just looking for some action and don’t mind a flimsy storyline then this should do. The scene where Keach takes a member of the mob’s car for a ‘little drive’ and then proceeds to recklessly smash it up before their very eyes is a delight. The car chase sequence gets riveting and the look of sheer panic in Moore’s eyes, as he was the passenger with Keach driving, makes it seem authentic and it’s nice to see people wearing seat belts, or at least putting them on once the ride gets dangerous, as that’s something you don’t always see in other movies. The foot chase that takes place over the rooftops of San Francisco’s business buildings is good too.

It’s unclear though what the film, which had six writers and two directors, was hoping to achieve. Maybe they just wanted to make a cheap, mindless action flick and for that you could say it’s a success, but there are some weird moments. The cross that gets shipped-in is unusual looking particularly the Jesus figure making me wonder if they were trying to go for something more like spoof, but either way it ultimately ends-up being an inept drama with few car smash-ups for diversion.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: March 30, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Maurizio Lucidi, Guglielmo Garroni

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Foreign Films, Gangster Movies, Italian Films, Movies with Nudity

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Black Moon Rising (1986)

Posted on November 26, 2021 | 1 comment

black moon

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stolen disk in car.

Earl Windom (Richard Jaeckel) has created an experimental automobile that can go up to 325 mph while running on nothing but tap water. He’s testing out the vehicle in the remote desert when he comes into contact with Quint (Tommy Lee Jones) a thief working for the F.B.I. who’s stolen a disk with incriminating evidence. To avoid others who are chasing after him he hides the disk inside the car’s back bumper. When Earl and his team drive away with the prototype vehicle on a truck bed Quint follows them to L.A. in order to retrieve the disk, but gets thwarted when the group stops off at a posh restaurant where the car is stolen by professional car thieves led by Nina (Linda Hamilton). Nina takes the car to a high-rise building owned by Ed (Robert Vaughan) where it’s stored in an underground parking garage that’s inaccessible to the public at large. Quint then teams up with Earl and eventually Nina to find a way to get to the car and ultimately the disk despite Ed using every maneuver he can to stop them.

The film was produced by New World Pictures, which delivered some good movies, but also some low budget ones that were devoid of anything original and completely dependent on mindless action to make it work. This one starts out like it’s part of the latter ones by appearing to have been filmed on video and then transferred to film, but the script, written by John Carpenter, is well paced and has enough twists to keep it engaging. Director Harley Cokeliss captures the wintertime desert landscape of eastern California well and the film does feature an interesting climax where Sam and Nina are unable to drive the car out of the building, which culminates with them being forced to drive it at high speeds inside a limited space, which is something you don’t see too often.

The supporting cast helps, which includes former punk rocker Lee Ving as a bad guy and retired football player Bubba Smith as a federal agent who shares a love-hate partnership with Quint. It’s also fun to see William Sanderson, best known for playing Larry, the talking-half of the Darryl brothers in the ‘Newhart’ TV-show, playing a deaf mute though he exits too early and his death scene, where he gets hit by a car which causes his body to spring up high in the air, looked cartoonish. It was also disappointing seeing talented character actor Keenan Wynn, in his final film appearance, strapped to a hospital bed with nothing much to say or do.

As for the leading actors I really liked Linda Hamilton, in some ways better than in Terminator, though the black wig that she wears at the beginning, which she thankfully gets rid of, was close to unbearable. Jones on the other-hand is an acquired taste. Some people love him though to me he seems too detached and not emotionally into his part enough to make it entertaining, or for the viewer to particularly care what happens to him.

Many fans of this film will list the car chase that occurs in downtown L.A. at night as their favorite scene, but I felt this was a letdown as the prototype vehicle, driven by Hamilton, is able to drive through the busy streets at high speeds, but manages somehow not to hit anyone. Someone not used to driving a car at such speeds would most likely lose control of it, or been hit by another car when it continuously goes through one red light after another.

The finale is contrived as Jones and Hamilton are seen care-freely walking away from the damage and chaos that they caused without having to answer to the police even though I’d think they’d have a lot of explaining to do before they’d be allowed to leave the scene. The film though as a whole is well done for what it’s worth. It’s nothing profound, or intellectual, but as a basic action flick it adequately delivers.

black moon 2

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 10, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Harley Cokeliss

Studio: New World Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase

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Crash! (1976)

Posted on October 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

crash

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wife has occult powers.

Kim (Sue Lyon) and Marc (Jose Ferrer) are a married couple with a 30-year age difference between them. Initially they were a happy twosome, but then Marc got into a car accident that left him bound to a wheelchair and the passion between them lessened. Now Marc resents the fact that Kim no longer seems to love him and worries that his attractive and much younger wife will go off and find another suitor. He plots to have her killed by having his trained doberman jump into her car as she’s driving and attack her. While the dog does injure her it’s not enough to kill her. As she lies in her hospital bed Marc sneaks in and disconnects her from her intravenous tube, which he hopes will be enough to end her life, but he fails to notice that she’s clutching in her hand an artifact that she had bought earlier at a flea market, which gives her special psychic abilities. These powers allow her to terrorize Marc even when she’s not there by making inanimate objects, including both her car and his wheelchair, come to life and begin attacking him. 

This was the first feature length film directed by Charles Band, who has gone on to have a long career both producing and directing B-horror films some of which have been successful. This one reveals his producer mentality by keeping the flimsy plot moving by adding in a lot of action, in this case tons of car stunt footage, to the mask the fact that the story itself doesn’t have much going for it. To a degree the car crashes are well choreographed, but there’s too many shots of police cars getting destroyed, which is reminiscent of the car chase action comedies making this seem more like a silly comedy than a would-be horror film.

The most impressive thing is the driver-less car. This is similar to the concept used in cult flick The Car, but that automobile had a roof over it and darkened windows, so you presumed that a stunt driver was inside controlling it, but here this vehicle is a convertible and there’s no one sitting in it even as it careens down the road. How they were able to pull this off I don’t know, but this fact alone makes it far more interesting to see than the other one even though that one, for whatever reason, received more attention and fanfare despite both coming-out at around the same time.

I was willing to give this 6-points, but then Band makes the misguided mistake of repeating near the end the car crash explosions we’ve seen before making it seem like a ‘highlight reel’. I’m not sure for the reason other than alluding to the mysterious occult power communicating to  Kim about what has gone on while she was in the hospital bed, but it was unnecessary and comes-off like amateurish film-making to the extreme.

The eclectic cast of familiar faces who were once A-list stars, but now forced to accept B-grade material in order to stay busy, is interesting and helps save it a little. I was particularly impressed with Ferrer who gives a convincing performance and doesn’t just ‘phone-it-in’ despite the otherwise subpar quality of the script.

Lyon’s appearance here is intriguing as well as she shot to fame back in 1964 as the beautiful teen Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name and was considered one of the most stunning stars of the decade, but here she plays a part that ends-up making her look quite ugly. Not only is her face bandaged up through most of it, but when they do finally come-off she is shown to be full of garish scars. There’s also scenes where her eyes are blazing red and resembling that of a demon. I’m not sure if she took this role to play against her beauty stereotype, which she reportedly was not a fan of anyways, or she just accepted the offer because she needed the work, but the things she does here is about as far removed from Lolita as one could possibly get, so watching this simply for that reason may make it worth it to some.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: December 24, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Charles Band

Studio: Group 1 International Distribution

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies with a Hospital setting, Offbeat, Thrillers/Suspense

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