3:15 (US - 1986) Directed by Larry Gross. Written by Sam Bernard and Michael Jacobs. Cast: Adam Baldwin, Deborah Foreman, Scott McGinnis, Danny De La Paz, Ed Lauter, Rene Auberjonois, Wayne Crawford, John Scott Clough, Mario Van Peebles, Wings Hauser, Jesse Aragon, Bradford Bancroft, Jeb Ellis-Brown, Panchito Gomez, Wendy Barry, Joseph Brutsman, Lori Eastside, Nancy Locke Hauser, Dean Devlin, John Doe, Roy London, Van Quattro, Gina Gershon, Rusty Cundieff. (R, 85 mins) If you had cable in the late '80s, then you probably caught at least some of 3:15, a minor entry in the "high school gangs run amok" subgenre that, quality-wise, falls somewhere right in the middle between the exemplary CLASS OF 1984 and the ridiculous TUFF TURF. Of course, there were many others during this period from 1982 to 1987--SAVAGE STREETS, YOUNG WARRIORS, THE NEW KIDS, DANGEROUSLY CLOSE, UNDER COVER, THE PRINCIPAL, and the largely comedic cult favorite THREE O'CLOCK HIGH to name a few--so it was easy for 3:15 to get lost in the shuffle. It got only sporadic play in theaters in the spring of 1986 after two years on the shelf, when it was finally picked up by the apparently one-and-done Dakota Entertainment Corporation, though in nearly every way, it's got an undeniable Cannon aura about it, starting with the score by Gary Chang (52 PICK-UP, FIREWALKER). It also had a confusing marketing campaign where it was hard to ascertain what the movie was even called. The official one-sheet has it as 3:15: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH, but when it opened in Toledo, OH in April 1986, it was advertised as the clunky SHOWDOWN AT LINCOLN HIGH AT 3:15, while the fine print in the ad called it 3:15 - MOMENT OF TRUTH, and the theater listings had it as SHOWDOWN AT LINCOLN HIGH. The actual title on the film is simply 3:15, which is what's stuck. To date, it's the only feature film directed by Larry Gross, a veteran screenwriter and occasional back-in-the-day Walter Hill collaborator who co-wrote 48 HRS, STREETS OF FIRE, and GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND, with other writing credits ranging from Wayne Wang's CHINESE BOX to Clint Eastwood's TRUE CRIME to the doomed movie version of PROZAC NATION.
Just out on Blu-ray from Scorpion (because physical media is dead), 3:15 is essentially a face-off between two actors who were best known at the time for their presence in other movies that dealt with tangentially-related subjects. Hero Adam Baldwin was the title character in 1980's MY BODYGUARD, protecting scrawny Chris Makepeace from the relentless bullying of Matt Dillon, while villain Danny De La Paz was best known as Chuco in 1979's BOULEVARD NIGHTS, one of several entries in a short-lived gang craze from that year, including THE WANDERERS, OVER THE EDGE, WALK PROUD, and the classic THE WARRIORS. It doesn't help the credibility of 3:15 when, at the time of filming in 1984, Baldwin was 22 and looked older, while De La Paz was 27, and both were still playing high school students, but all of the kids here look way too old, with several extras in a few shots who appear to be within striking distance of 40. Baldwin is Jeff, who was once a member of the Cobras but walked away when leader Cinco (De La Paz) killed a guy for no reason. A year later, Jeff is a tough but straight-arrow kid with a nice girlfriend in Sherry (VALLEY GIRL's Deborah Foreman, who had MY CHAUFFEUR and APRIL FOOL'S DAY in theaters around the same time), but his past inevitably comes back to haunt him. The school is overrun with drugs and crime, and cowardly principal Horner (Rene Auberjonois)--introduced shouting "These kids are so high on dope that they might as well be zombies!"--turns to cynical cop Moran (Ed Lauter), who organizes a raid targeting Cinco and his gang. A frantic Cinco asks Jeff to stash some drugs for him for old times' sake, and when he refuses and Cinco is arrested, the gang leader vows revenge. Since Cinco managed to dump the drugs before being apprehended, Moran can only hold him for 48 hours, and the whole school knows shit's going down in two days, at 3:15, when Cinco and the Cobras intend to deal with Jeff once and for all.
3:15 opening in Toledo, OH on 4/18/1986, advertised
as SHOWDOWN AT LINCOLN HIGH
Rarely in the "high school gangs run amok" craze have the adults in charge been more useless than they are here. Horner tries to talk Jeff into testifying against Cinco, and when he won't, Horner does what any dedicated education leader does: leaves the school until the showdown is over, right around the time Moran and the cops finally show up, even though Cinco and the Cobras have basically been standing at street corners shouting that Jeff is dead meat at 3:15. There's certainly some subtext in the way the script by Sam Bernard (RAD, WARLOCK: THE ARMAGEDDON) and Michael Jacobs (CERTAIN FURY, HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS) lays out the conflict between Jeff and Cinco like it's an ugly breakup, with Cinco the jilted spouse who just can't let Jeff go. It's not an unsung classic of its kind, but 3:15 is entertaining B-movie trash, even if it doesn't utilize some of its established plot elements to their full potential: why introduce a high-school gang of Asian martial arts experts if they never come into play? Cannon sure as shit wouldn't have passed up that opportunity. Gross does manage to pull off one memorably stylish sequence with the raid on the school and the pursuit of Cinco and the Cobras set to a very effectively-used "Lined Up" by Shriekback. It also has an oddball supporting cast with some cult favorites like Foreman, Lauter, Auberjonois, Wayne Crawford (JAKE SPEED) as a concerned teacher ("Goddammit Jeff, will ya listen to me?"), John Doe as a drunk guy trying to get into a club, and the great Wings Hauser getting one scene as Sherry's Jeff-hating dad (Wings' wife Nancy plays her mom). You also get some famous names-to-be like Mario Van Peebles as the leader of the M-16s, the school's black gang (like the kung-fu gang, they never factor into the proceedings), Gina Gershon as a Cobra babe, future FEAR OF A BLACK HAT and TALES FROM THE HOOD director Rusty Cundieff as an M-16, and Dean Devlin as "Gum Chewer," years before turning to screenwriting and partnering with director Roland Emmerich on hits like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, STARGATE, INDEPENDENCE DAY, and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.
Does anyone know what this movie is called?
The ad says one thing but the credits say
another. Is "at 3:15" part of the title or is there just one showing at 3:15?
The story of the USS Indianapolis is familiar to anyone who's seen JAWS, where Robert Shaw delivers arguably the greatest monologue in film history as salty shark hunter Quint recounts his experiences on the doomed ship near the end of WWII. After completing orders to deliver the materials for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima, the Indianapolis, without sonar and with no customary escort due to the top-secret, classified nature of the mission, was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58 between Tinian and Okinawa. It sank within 12 minutes, as Captain Charles Butler McVay ordered the crew to abandon ship, leaving them stranded for five days in shark-infested waters. Of the 1196 on board, nearly 300 died in the initial attack. Of the remaining 900 left in the water, only 317 survived, the rest dying from dehydration, saltwater poisoning, drowning, and, as JAWS fans know, shark attacks. It's a horrific tragedy that deserves a more dignified presentation than USS INDIANAPOLIS: MEN OF COURAGE. The 1991 CBS TV-movie MISSION OF THE SHARK, with Stacy Keach as McVay, did a better job with the limited expectations of being a made-for-TV movie. This film, starring Nicolas Cage as McVay, is undoubtedly sincere in its intentions but can't overcome a trite, cliched script and rock-bottom visual effects that makes it look like an Asylum production debuting on Syfy. The explosions are laughable and the CGI sharks jump out of the water looking like deleted SHARKNADO files e-mailed to director Mario Van Peebles.
The film is divided into three sections, with the interminable opening act devoted to the camaraderie and ballbusting among an interchangeable and impossibly dull group of sailors, focusing on two--wholesome, all-American Bama (Matt Lanter) and gregarious D'Antonio (Adam Scott Miller), who does everything short of yell "Hey, you's boys wanna play some stickball?" to let you know he's from Brooklyn--who fall in love with the same woman (Emily Tennant). The second is the sinking of the ship and the five days stranded in the water, where Van Peebles turns the film into a cheap jump-scare shark attack horror movie, and third is a courtroom drama when the Navy, looking for someone to scapegoat for their failure to answer multiple distress calls (they thought it was the Japanese trying to deceive them), decides to court-martial McVay, saying he could've "zig-zagged" the ship to avoid the torpedoes. McVay's story is a sad one--he committed suicide in 1968 after over two decades of harassment and death threats by the families of the dead sailors even though he was fully supported by the survivors as well as by I-58 commander Mochitsura Hashimoto (Yutaka Takeuchi), who testified that there was no way McVay could've avoided the torpedoes. McVay and the men aboard the USS Indianapolis deserved something a little more polished and professional-looking than a WWII movie that looks like it was directed by Anthony C. Ferrante. The writing isn't much better--try not to laugh at the torpedoes hitting the ship a nanosecond after a guy playing dice in the mess hall rolls snake eyes. Or at decisions being made in darkened and ominous film noir-lit rooms filled with cigar-sucking fat cats ("War's good for business, and business is good for America!"). Or at McWhorter, the Chief Petty Officer played by Tom Sizemore in what's apparently an extended tribute to William Bendix (and of course, McWhorter's wife just had a baby that he describes as "nine pounds of rompin' stompin' dynamite!" which is code for "McWhorter's never going to meet his kid"). There are scattered moments where USS INDIANAPOLIS rises above its schlocky, Redbox-ready nature: Thomas Jane does some nice work in a small role as Lt. Adrian Marks, the pilot who disobeyed orders and made a daring water landing to rescue as many survivors as he could, and Cage, who's subdued and surprisingly restrained throughout, shares a scene with Takeuchi very late in the film where both actors are demonstrating such raw emotion that they almost convince you that they're in a better movie. With more money, a better script, a supporting cast of actors that you could actually tell apart, more directorial flair (Van Peebles' heart may be in the right place, but his bland direction is pure clock-punching and irrefutable proof that his NEW JACK CITY and POSSE days of being a filmmaker of note are long gone), and a time machine to go back to around 2000 when Nicolas Cage movies were still major events, the well-meaning USS INDIANAPOLIS could've been a strong WWII movie instead of what has to be the cheapest-looking $40 million movie ever, looking like total amateur hour despite having 30 credited producers and the participation of RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION cinematographer Andrzej Sekula. (R, 130 mins) THE HOLLOW POINT
(US - 2016)
There's absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be a nifty little desert noir B-movie in the vein of '90s video store mainstays like RED ROCK WEST and BLACK DAY BLUE NIGHT, but the barely-released THE HOLLOW POINT just never gets its shit together. Content to churn out a nearly decade-too-late ripoff of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego (APOLLO 18, OPEN GRAVE) and first-time screenwriter Nils Lyew waste an inspired and entertaining performance by the great Ian McShane in total Al Swearengen mode as Leland Kilbaught, a gruff, grubby, hard-drinking, burned-out sheriff of Los Reyes County, right along the Arizona-Mexico border. Kilbaught's got a reputation among the locals for not really caring much about the rules, and after he shoots Clive Mercy (Nathan Stevens) in the head during a traffic stop, he's relieved of his duties and new sheriff Wallace (Patrick Wilson) is sent in to replace him. Kilbaught knows what Clive was up to--running armor-piercing ammo into Mexico as a flunky for a cartel operation. Clive's equally hapless loser brother Ken (David Stevens) ends up killing a mid-level cartel figure after a botched ammunition run before skating back to Los Reyes County and hiding out. Complicating matters is that Wallace, who's from the area and couldn't wait to get away, knows his ex-wife Marla (Lynn Collins) is hooked up with Ken, which puts her at serious risk when the cartel sends unstoppable killing machine assassin Atticus (John Leguizamo as Javier Bardem) to find Ken and kill anyone who knows him, including Marla and sleazy used car dealer Shep Diaz (Jim Belushi), who also has connections to the cartel.
Other than a truly startling moment when Atticus hacks off Wallace's right hand with a machete, the only thing THE HOLLOW POINT has going for it is McShane, who single-handedly saves it from total oblivion. Lyew's script is an incoherent mess, Lopez-Gallego, who also serves as his own editor, couldn't generate any dramatic momentum if his career depended on it, occasionally resorting to stupid POV shots like the one from inside a spinning washing machine at a laundromat. The entire film is so sloppily-constructed that we never get a full grasp of who's who or why they're even in danger. Leguizamo is just Anton Chigurh with a better haircut and Belushi, sporting a cheap suit and a hideous combover, can play this kind of obnoxious shitbag in his sleep. But McShane valiantly tries to save the day, with his gravelly line readings and snide deliveries of mellifluously poetic bon mots like "You are not an unfortunate man...you're an auspicious parasite!" and "Buenos Diaz!" He seems to be having a blast playing this character, making it almost criminal that his efforts are squandered on such an uninspired and otherwise completely forgettable project. (R, 97 mins)
JAWS: THE REVENGE (US - 1987) Directed by Joseph Sargent. Written by Michael De Guzman. Cast: Lorraine Gary, Michael Caine, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Karen Young, Judith Barsi, Lynn Whitfield, Mitchell Anderson, Cedric Scott, Melvin Van Peebles, Fritzi Jane Courtney, Lee Fierro. (PG-13, 90 mins)
The JAWS franchise was put out of its misery (so far) after hitting rock-bottom with this inept, idiotic fourth installment, in which a now-widowed Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) is convinced that a great white shark--and the entire carcharodon carcharias species--has a personal axe to grind against her family. Yes, it's a vigilante shark (and it roars, like the shark in Enzo G. Castellari's 1982 Italian JAWS ripoff GREAT WHITE), first taking out the younger Brody son, Amity Deputy Sheriff Sean (Mitchell Anderson), then following--yes, following--Ellen when she goes to stay with eldest son Mike (Lance Guest in Dennis Quaid's JAWS 3-D role) and his wife (Karen Young) and daughter (Judith Barsi, who played Gary Busey's daughter in the 1986 B-action gem EYE OF THE TIGER) in the Bahamas, where Mike is part of a marine science research team with his Jamaican buddy (cue excessive use of "Hey,mon!") Jake (Mario Van Peebles). A grieving Ellen finds time for romance with wily local pilot and unlucky gambler Hoagie, played by a slumming Michael Caine, who infamously missed out on accepting his HANNAH AND HER SISTERS Oscar in person because he was stuck in the Bahamas working on this. An oft-cited Caine quote perfectly sums up his feelings on JAWS: THE REVENGE: "I've not seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house it built, and it is terrific."
JAWS: THE REVENGE began shooting in February 1987 and was in theaters just five months later on July 17, 1987. It's no surprise that it's rushed and sloppy, and no doubt the usually reliable journeyman director Joseph Sargent (best known for the 1974 classic THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE) could've done a better job with more money and more time. Even though this was made by Universal, it almost feels like a SUPERMAN IV-style slashed-budget hatchet job, as if Golan & Globus had somehow gotten hold of the JAWS rights and made this on the cheap through Cannon. This was Gary's first acting role since Steven Spielberg's expensive bomb 1941 (1979), and her only starring turn in a big-screen feature. The wife of Universal head Sid Sheinberg, Gary's presence here makes it tough to decide if it's a sincere nod to JAWS (there's also brief appearances by the Chief Brody-slapping Mrs. Kintner as well as the "Are you going to close the beeeeaches?" lady, and a scene where Mike's daughter imitates his actions at the kitchen table, like young Sean did with Chief Brody) or if Sheinberg gave it the green light as a vanity project for his wife. Gary is forced to do one stupid thing after another, including overacting and reacting to flashbacks to things her character couldn't possibly have witnessed (Chief Brody's "Smile you son of a bitch!" from the first film), and she really wasn't of enough importance to the first two films to build a fourth around. Now 78, Gary hasn't acted in a film since and one can't help but wonder if this movie would even exist--at least in this form--if her husband wasn't also the guy running the studio. From everything I've seen and read, she's a nice lady, but did anyone go away from JAWS and JAWS 2 thinking "Good flicks...but they could've used more Lorraine Gary"?
Universal's new Blu-ray, which looks great, has the "Mario Van Peebles survives and they blow the shark up" ending that was used for the film's European release and subsequent US home video editions. The Blu-ray's "alternate ending" (Van Peebles dies and Ellen rams the boat into the shark as it bleeds to death) was actually the US theatrical version's ending back in 1987. Honestly, the "Van Peebles dies" ending works slightly better--and I use the term "better" loosely--since the exploding of the shark involves 12-year-old stock footage from JAWS and looks exactly like the pieced-together, let's-just-get-this-over-with desperation Hail Mary that it is. JAWS: THE REVENGE did nothing for anyone involved with it, though Caine used it to mine some good-natured, self-deprecating yuks over his own mercenary career choices, which in those days were usually dictated by where they were being shot and how nice of a working vacation they'd provide. In July 1988, ten-year-old Barsi was a victim in a tragic murder-suicide in which her father killed her and her mother, then took his own life. She had two projects in the can at the time, both voice performances for Don Bluth animated films: she voiced Ducky in THE LAND BEFORE TIME, released in November 1988, and Anne-Marie in ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN, released in November 1989. Bluth dedicated both films to the young actress.
There's a good movie to be made of the so-called "Satanic Panic" of the mid-1980s. It was a time when horror movies and heavy metal were blamed when impressionable kids did horrible things and a Satanic cult was believed to be emerging after dark throughout small-town America, practicing all manner of Satanic ritual abuse. Written and directed by the once-promising Alejandro Amenabar, who made his name with 1997's OPEN YOUR EYES and the revered 2001 ghost story THE OTHERS, REGRESSION could almost describe the filmmaker's career momentum over the last decade. This is just Amenabar's second feature since helming 2004's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner THE SEA INSIDE: nobody saw his 2009 historical epic AGORA and REGRESSION received only a scant US release two years after it was shot. By tackling the subject of Satanic ritual abuse, Amenabar is working at cross purposes: he spends 90 minutes trying to fashion a creepy, supernatural horror film but anyone old enough to remember the Satanic Panic knows how it became a big nothing, and those who weren't around for it are bound to be disappointed by the historically accurate but cinematically empty resolution.
"Inspired by true events," REGRESSION takes place in a small Minnesota town in 1990, even though the height of Satanic Panic was more 1985-86). Hard-nosed, obsessive detective Kenner (Ethan Hawke) catches what seems to be a open-and-shut child molestation case involving mechanic John Gray (David Dencik). Gray confesses to molesting his teenage daughter Angela (Emma Watson), even though he has no memory of doing so. With Angela seeking refuge at the local church under the protection of the parish priest (Lothaire Bluteau), Gray undergoes regressive hypnotherapy with psychologist Dr. Raines (David Thewlis), during which he recalls another person present while the molestation took place: local cop Nesbitt (Aaron Ashmore). Kenner impulsively throws Nesbitt in jail and Angela reveals that her father, grandmother (Dale Dickey, once again cast as the second-string Melissa Leo), and numerous other town residents are part of a Satanic cult that engaged in everything from sex rituals to murdering and eating newborn babies. It isn't long before Kenner's paranoia takes over and he believes himself the next target of the cult. Considering that the Satanic Panic was little more than irrational hype from worried parents, reactionary law enforcement, and an overzealous media latching on to an alleged phenomenon guaranteed to get attention and scare the public into a frenzy, fashioning REGRESSION as a straight-up horror movie for most of its duration probably wasn't the way to approach this if Amenabar was making a serious examination of the topic. By the end, especially after a really dumb revelation that undermines everything about the Satanic Panic for the sake of a stupid twist, Amenabar has backed himself into a corner and debunked his own movie. This really should've been something more, but I can't really say what. And neither can Amenabar. (R, 106 mins)
SYNCHRONICITY
(US - 2016)
A frustratingly empty time travel sci-fi saga, SYNCHRONICITY goes for the trendy retro '80s look and feel, but doesn't accomplish much else. If it had a story worth telling, all of the fetishizing with the synths and the cold, blue cityscapes would provide effective accompaniment, but in the end, that's all SYNCHRONICITY has and it just comes off as PRIMER remade as BLADE RUNNER fan fiction. Scientist Jim Beale (Chad McKnight) is working on a top-secret project to open a traversable wormhole in the space-time continuum. His benefactor, the sinister and obscenely wealthy Klaus Meisner (a nicely-cast Michael Ironside), a guy we instantly know is sinister because he's named "Klaus Meisner," naturally wants to use it for power and financial gain, but after admitting that the ramifications of the project could have globally apocalyptic ramifications, Beale uses it for something far more altruistic: chasing a girl. The girl is Abby, who may or may not have come from a time jump and is played by Brianne Davis, who looks like Jennifer Lawrence and sounds like Joey Lauren Adams, but plays the part as if she's Aubrey Plaza playing Sean Young's Rachael in BLADE RUNNER. SYNCHRONICITY is very beholden to the 1982 Ridley Scott classic, almost annoyingly so, from its blatantly Vangelis-like score to the Syd Mead-inspired visual futurism on a budget. Writer-director Jacob Gentry, who was also one of three directors of 2008's inexplicably acclaimed THE SIGNAL, fills SYNCHRONICITY with unsubtle references to other movies, whether it's Beale's colleague (AJ Bowen) shouting "We are messing with the primal forces of nature here!" or the constant film noir shout-outs, with lighting through Venetian blinds or constantly spinning window fans. The exposition and dialogue are cloddish as well, like Beale proclaiming "We are precious moments from a topological anomaly!" or dropping some clumsy exposition like "Then I will have proof of the findings to show our venture capitalist, Klaus Meisner." From the get-go, SYNCHRONICITY just rubbed me the wrong way, and the glacially slow pace, the shameless BLADE RUNNER worship, the bland performance by McKnight, who's not unlike a sedated Casey Affleck, and Gentry giving the great Ironside almost nothing to do but sneer (which he does beautifully) did little to win me over. These retro homages really only work if there's a engaging story to tell, like in THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW, or TURBO KID (which also co-starred Ironside). All Gentry does here is pilfer from other, infinitely better movies while bringing nothing of his own to the table. He should've just saved time and money and filmed himself watching a double feature of BLADE RUNNER and PRIMER. You'd be better off doing exactly that. Cool poster, though. (R, 100 mins)
SUBMERGED
(US - 2015)
A limo careens into a river and sinks, the people inside unable to get out, the water rising and the air in short supply. Seems like a can't-miss premise for an intense nail-biter of a thriller, but writer Scott Milam (the 2012 remake of MOTHER'S DAY) and director Steven C. Miller (SILENT NIGHT, the 2012 remake of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT) do everything they can to screw it up. Insisting on telling the story in a fractured timeline is the biggest mistake, as it completely eliminates any sense of escalating tension to cut away to flashbacks every few minutes. The key to pulling something like this off is staying in the limo, but by the eight-minute mark, Miller, fresh off his EXTRACTION triumph with former actor Bruce Willis, is already out of the limo, filling us on in the backstories of the characters and how they arrived at their current predicament. Who gives a shit? Limo driver Matt (Jonathan Bennett, who played Bo Duke in the DTV DUKES OF HAZZARD sequel and replaced Ryan Reynolds in a DTV VAN WILDER sequel) is a bodyguard for Jessie (Talulah Riley), the spoiled daughter of billionaire business CEO Hank Searles (a slumming Tim Daly), who recently laid off a ton of workers. Turns out the party limo filled with several of Jessie's friends was targeted by disgruntled ex-employees looking to abduct Jessie for a fat ransom from Searles (or Sayles--in an apparent homage to OVER THE TOP's Lincoln Hawk/Hawks, the movie can't seem to decide).
Instead of letting the suspense build in the limo--where everybody starts arguing ("Every time you kiss her, you're tasting my dick!")--Miller and Milam spend entirely too much screen time on flashbacks involving Matt's troubled, drug-dealing younger brother Dylan (Cody Christian), which ultimately does nothing other than pad the running time. You'll be able to spot the puppet masters behind all the mayhem long before Matt does, mainly because of one character who acts weird for no reason (and later talks in the kind of condescending, sing-songy tone that only one-dimensional villains in bad movies and TV shows use), and another who's played by a prominently-billed, well-known, veteran actor who's barely in the first 90% of the movie. Also featuring Mario Van Peebles, SUBMERGED sinks in almost record time, with Miller demonstrating absolutely no ability to stage any kind of suspense or action sequence (the climax has one of the most ineptly-shot fight scenes in recent memory), with only a couple of surprisingly gory splatter scenes and a competent, if slightly bland performance by Bennett (who looks like the guy you get when Karl Urban doesn't return your calls and Brandon Routh lies and says he's busy) to save it from total uselessness. Even by the standards of the VOD scrapyard SUBMERGED, is at the bottom of the heap. (Unrated, 98 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
Shout! Factory is back with another impressive collection of back-in-the-day video store fixtures from their MGM licensing deal, now available in anamorphic widescreen transfers at the incredible list price of $9.99 for four movies over two discs. With only one total clunker in the set, this is one of the must-have genre DVDs of the year. Disc 1 is a double shot of exploitation icon Fred Olen Ray with CYCLONE (1987) and ALIENATOR (1990), while disc 2 is the Gary Busey actioner EYE OF THE TIGER (1986) and the vigilante sequel EXTERMINATOR 2 (1984), which also features a commentary track with director Mark Buntzman and co-star Mario Van Peebles.
CYCLONE (US - 1987)
Heather Thomas had just finished a five-season run on the Lee Majors TV series THE FALL GUY when she got to headline her own big-screen action film with this enjoyably dumb Fred Olen Ray joint. The extremely prolific Ray has cranked out about 130 movies over the last 30 years but the mid-to-late '80s found him at a weird crossroads where he almost could've had a major Hollywood breakthrough. These days, he's responsible--under a variety of pseudonyms, much like fellow almost-famous '80s genre vet Jim Wynorski--for a lot of those not-quite-pornos you see on Cinemax and the specialty HBO channels around 2:30 am. Minus the gift of writing, he was doing the Quentin Tarantino thing with casting your has-been heroes about a decade before it was cool. In addition to providing work for the usual suspects like David Carradine and Bo Svenson, Ray's earliest efforts featured the likes of Buster Crabbe and John Carradine. Thomas capably carries CYCLONE, but gets a ton of support from one of the strangest casts of any low-budget B-grade '80s action flick. Teri (Thomas) finds herself pursued by government agents and hired assassins when her tech-head boyfriend Rick (RE-ANIMATOR's Jeffrey Combs) is killed over the Cyclone, a top-secret super-cycle he's developing that runs on converted hydrogen and could feasibly put an end to reliance on traditional fuel. Teri takes off with the Cyclone, with ruthless killer Rolf (legendary stuntman Dar Robinson) and his psycho sidekick Henna (Ray's then-wife Dawn Wildsmith), plus two government agents (Martine Beswicke and COUNT YORGA's Robert Quarry) close behind. Pulling the strings from behind the scenes is mysterious big shot Bosarian (Martin Landau, just before his TUCKER/CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS comeback), who's promised the Cyclone to a Japanese crime organization. Also with Troy Donahue, Russ Tamblyn, Huntz Hall as a pervy old motorcycle parts dealer, Ashley Ferrare, Tim Conway, Jr., the punk/metal band Haunted Garage, and Michael Reagan, making CYCLONE the only low-budget action cheapie of the 1980s to co-star a son of the sitting US President.
CYCLONE is dedicated to Robinson, who was killed shortly after the film wrapped in the fall of 1986, performing a routine stunt for the 1987 bomb MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY. He was filming a driving stunt, missed a turn, and drove off a cliff. The famed stuntman was just 39 years old. With films like CYCLONE and, earlier, Burt Reynolds' STICK (1985), where he played a psychotic albino henchman, Robinson was trying to break into character parts and with his imposing presence, likely would've succeeded. With Robinson onboard, it's no surprise that Ray shows off some spectacular stunts, car chases, and explosions in CYCLONE, and though it's nothing close to a great movie, let it be said that even on a cost-cutting project like this, Ray's action sequences still look better than a good chunk of the CGI silliness that moviegoers inexplicably accept in $100 million movies today. (R, 86 mins)
ALIENATOR (US - 1990)
Another Ray film, this one a D-grade sci-fi outing that's already several notches below CYCLONE quality-wise. Shot in 1988 but unreleased until 1990, ALIENATOR feels like three films edited into one, and none are particularly interesting. On a distant planet, death row prisoner Kol (Ross Hagen) escapes into a pod and crashes on Earth. The prison commander (Jan- Michael Vincent) sends a cyborg soldier called the Alienator (female bodybuilder Teagan Clive) to retrieve him. Meanwhile, on Earth, Kol is clipped by an RV filled with four obnoxious vacationers who take him to the nearest ranger station, run by Ward (John Phillip Law), as the Alienator chases them in circles through Topanga State Park. ALIENATOR has a great cast of veteran B-movie and TV actors--there's also P.J. Soles, Hoke Howell, Fox Harris (in his last role; he died in 1988 and the film is dedicated to him), Robert Clarke, Robert Quarry, DAY OF THE DEAD's Joe Pilato, Ray regulars Dawn Wildsmith and Jay Richardson, and a spirited turn by Leo V. Gordon as a crusty old war vet who helps Ward battle the Alienator--and a pro like Law actually appears to be taking this seriously, but other than the fun cast, ALIENATOR just stinks. Lousy special effects, terrible acting by the younger cast members (Wildsmith and Richard Wiley, as the beer-guzzling RV driver, are especially bad), mumbling apathy from Vincent, and plodding pacing kill it, and an irritating score by Chuck Cirino gives it the distinct aura of a bottom end Roger Corman/Concorde release from that era. The one outright dud in this set, ALIENATOR isn't even an entertaining bad movie. It's just bad. (R, 93 mins)
EYE OF THE TIGER (US - 1986)
The modern-day western EYE OF THE TIGER was in and out of theaters in a week back in the fall of 1986, but don't let that fool you: it's really a shame that this low-budget, testosterone-heavy actioner isn't better known. While the title was merely an excuse for Scotti Bros. Pictures to trot out Scotti Bros. Records artist Survivor's 1982 chart-topper "Eye of the Tiger" one more time as if ROCKY III never happened, the movie itself kicks all kinds of ass. Gary Busey is recently-paroled ex-con Buck Matthews, a Vietnam vet who ended up serving time over a self-defense killing. Buck just wants to head back to his small Texas hometown and lead a quiet life with his wife Christie (Denise Galik) and young daughter Jenny (Judith Barsi, who would die tragically in 1988 when she and her mother were murdered by her father, who then killed himself), but with the corrupt sheriff (Seymour Cassel) who trumped up his murder charge acting as his parole officer, things aren't going to be easy. Buck saves a local nurse from being gang-raped by a group of vicious, drug-running bikers led by Blade (William Smith), who retaliates by killing Christie and putting a catatonic Jenny in the hospital. With the sheriff on Blade's payroll and the townfolk too cowardly to help, Buck is forced to take on Blade and his psychos alone, but gets some help from buddy J.B. (Yaphet Kotto).
How evil is Blade's gang? Not only do they kill Buck's wife, but then they dig up her casket and leave it in his driveway. Other highlights include Buck stretching wire across a road and decapitating some speeding bikers, and later, torturing another by shoving a stick of dynamite up his ass and lighting the fuse. Director Richard C. Sarafian (VANISHING POINT), who previously worked with Busey on 1973's Rod Steiger vs. Robert Ryan hillbilly feud drama LOLLY-MADONNA XXX and 1984's Bear Bryant biopic THE BEAR, stages some impressive explosions and stunt work, and Busey, two years before a head injury in a motorcycle accident began his slow and painful transformation into a reality show punchline (he's an Oscar-nominated actor, folks), is in top form. EYE OF THE TIGER isn't a Cannon film but it sure feels like one, and seeing it again after 25+ years, it's an absolute blast and a great example of what a fun and fast-moving B-grade action flick should be. (R, 92 mins)
EXTERMINATOR 2 (US - 1984)
Four years after the surprise box office success of the 1980 vigilante thriller THE EXTERMINATOR came the sequel, only this time the dynamic duo of Golan & Globus got involved. Without the original film's writer/director James Glickenhaus on board, Cannon had EXTERMINATOR producer Mark Buntzman handle the directing chores, and to say it didn't work out is an understatement: Buntzman was fired during filming and Cannon moved the production from NYC to Los Angeles as William Sachs (1977's THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN, 1979's VAN NUYS BLVD, 1980's GALAXINA) was brought in rewrite part of the script and to finish directing the film. As a result, EXTERMINATOR 2 exhibits all the tell-tale signs of a troubled production: choppy editing, mismatched shots, obvious stock footage, continuity errors, superfluous padding, blatant gaffes (co-star Frankie Faison looks straight into the camera twice in one scene) and most noticeably, the complete absence of star Robert Ginty for the last 20 minutes of the film. When Buntzman was fired, Ginty left as well, and Sachs had to somehow shoot major sequences in order to finish and salvage a film without access to its star, and it's dealt with in classic Fake Shemp fashion by having Ginty's John Eastland either shot from behind or above or spending entire scenes hiding behind a welding mask, even when he's just running around (two stuntmen are credited with doubling Ginty). That, coupled with the laughably cheap sets and obvious low budget (there's a nightclub set in this that's almost as chintzy as the bar with folding chairs in SAVAGE STREETS), pretty much dooms EXTERMINATOR 2 from the start, and while it really pales in comparison to the first film, it's moderately entertaining trash if you're in the right mood and approach it with the lowest possible expectations. Eastland is still taking out NYC's trash as a flamethrowing vigilante by night and runs afoul of a cartoonish street gang that seems to have wandered in from the set of an Italian post-nuke outing, and is led by the ruthless X (Mario Van Peebles, giving it his all in an early role). When X's goons attack Eastland's dancer girlfriend (Deborah Geffner) and his buddy Be Gee (Faison), Eastland fortifies Be Gee's garbage truck into a ridiculous high-tech tank and takes on X and his gang at the requisite abandoned factory.
THE EXTERMINATOR is a great example of a grindhouse film with complex characters that holds up very well, but EXTERMINATOR 2 dates pretty badly (need to add a few minutes to the running time? Then have Ginty and Geffner walk through Central Park and watch some breakdancers) and isn't helped by behind-the-scenes problems that are all too apparent in the finished product. A while back, Cannon expert and genre historian Paul Talbot wrote a terrific piece on the EXTERMINATOR films for an issue of Screem that does a far better job of detailing the behind-the-scenes discord of EXTERMINATOR 2 than the wasted opportunity of a commentary track does here. Buntzman and Van Peebles talk a lot of trivia, like Van Peebles going into how he put his character's wardrobe together and Buntzman saying he's the one who talked Golan & Globus into making the breakdancing epic BREAKIN' ("but they made it without me") or that he "rode around with garbagemen" while prepping for the movie. There's long silences and comments that are left hanging (Buntzman: "a lot of ideas from this ended up in THE TERMINATOR," and "Bob (Ginty) had a sweet side. He had a really angry side, but he had a sweet side, too") with no follow-up or explanation. Or, after a particularly long space of dead air, Buntzman says "It's interesting to watch this again...it's like I'm just watching the movie." Van Peebles: "Yeah, it is interesting." The two men barely talk about Ginty and both get Geffner's name wrong (calling her "Deborah Geffen"). The backstory of EXTERMINATOR 2 is far more interesting than the film itself, but it's a story that neither Buntzman nor Van Peebles--who have remained friends through the years as Buntzman has had small roles in several of Van Peebles' subsequent directing efforts, and Van Peebles mentions Buntzman is godfather to one of his kids--appear interested in telling. Buntzman says something about when "we moved the production out to L.A.," and how Ginty is doubled in the climax because "we didn't have him," but Buntzman was fired by that point. At one point, Van Peebles mentions Cannon, and Buntzman chuckles "I haven't even gotten into that yet," and he never does. Buntzman's firing and replacement by Sachs is never mentioned, even when the closing credits kick off with "Additional scenes directed by William Sachs." I suppose it's possible some of this was discussed in the long silences and maybe the comments were edited out, but if the rest of the track is any indication, these guys just don't have much of anything substantive to say about EXTERMINATOR 2 and the commentary is ultimately a waste of time. The film itself, despite its many issues, still has some sleazy grindhouse charm to it, though it's quite a step down from its predecessor. (R, 89 mins)
