WHITE FIRE (Turkey/UK/France - 1984; US release 1985) Directed by Jean-Marie Pallardy. Written by Edward John Francis. Cast: Robert Ginty, Fred Williamson, Belinda Mayne, Jess Hahn, Mirella Banti, Diana Goodman, Gordon Mitchell, Benito Stefanelli, Jean-Marie Pallardy. (Unrated, 102 mins) You know you're in for something special when you're watching a Turkish co-production and an establishing shot caption can't even spell "Istanbul" correctly. I must've looked at the box for the 1984 actioner WHITE FIRE a thousand times at the video store back in the day and never pulled the trigger on renting it. It's just been released on Blu-ray by Arrow (because physical media is dead) and in these unprecedented times of great uncertainty, it actually warms my heart to discover a small miracle like WHITE FIRE exists and to realize that there are still some movies out there that have the ability to leave me awestruck with wonder, mouth agape, asking questions like "What the fuck is this?" "Am I imagining this movie, because it can't possibly be happening, can it?" and "Was this made by human beings from planet Earth?" Also, for reasons that will become clear, any mention of "White Fire" in any capacity will henceforth be immediately followed with a italicized "White Fi-yaaa!" You can make a drinking game out of how many times someone in WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) declares "White Fire," and instantly follows it with an exclamatory "White Fire!" ("Look! It's White Fire. White Fire!"). And the same thing happens in the chorus of the insanely catchy earworm of a theme song by NWOBHM-turned-AOR band Limelight that plays approximately 650 times over the course of WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!).
Directed by French soft-and-hardcore porn vet Jean-Marie Pallardy, WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) has a plot that defies all logic, plausibility, and reality, but here goes: Boris, aka "Bo" (THE EXTERMINATOR's Robert Ginty) and Ingrid (KRULL's Belinda Mayne, daughter of cult actor Ferdy Mayne) are siblings who were orphaned as children and taken in by Sam (a profusely sweating Jess Hahn as George Kennedy). Cut to 20 years later in "Istambul" where Ingrid is employed by a high-tech diamond mine that looks like the repurposed set of a Turkish STAR WARS ripoff, complete with security personnel in full SPACEBALLS/Dark Helmet head gear and attire. Her boss (Gordon Mitchell) and the staff all wear weird red jumpsuits like staffers in a Bond villain's secret underground lair. Bo and Ingrid have remained inseparable into adulthood, and still live with Sam and his wife, but they also have a side gig: Ingrid has been secretly stealing diamonds from the mine and fencing them with Bo and Sam. The siblings are abducted by Italian criminals Sophia (TENEBRE's Mirella Banti) and Barbossa (Benito Stefanelli, looking like Terry Gilliam's stunt double), who know what they're up to and want a piece of the action. Around the same time, a mine employee informs the boss that they've excavated the legendary "White Fire" (White Fi-yaaa!), a massive, radioactive, million-year-old diamond with magical powers long thought to be a myth. Word of White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!) gets out and Sophia and Barbossa want Ingrid to obtain it for them. The siblings refuse to play along, and Ingrid is killed during an attempted kidnapping. A devastated Bo goes to a bar to drown his sorrows and he meets Olga (Diana Goodman), a near dead-ringer for Ingrid. Sam is the man with a plan: pay Olga $50,000 to undergo plastic surgery to turn her into Ingrid, convince her boss that reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated, and get her back in the mine to steal White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!). Another benefit: Bo is falling for Olga and it would be super-cool for him if she looked exactly like Ingrid, because he really, really wanted to bang his sister.
Oh yeah, Bo's got it bad for Ingrid. It's not every day that you see a vaguely futuristic diamond heist movie filled with catchy AOR jams, bad guys in crazy future-onesies with security dressed like Darth Vader, Robert Ginty picking up a random chainsaw on a loading dock and slicing through a bunch of goons PIECES-style, the villains graphically bisecting some unlucky putz with a band saw, the mine having an easily accessible torture chamber (!) for staffers caught making off with merchandise, and a female plastic surgeon who operates out of an exotic fortress filled with stunningly beautiful women like some Sapphic Playboy Mansion, with all of it blanketed in an overt incest fetish with VERTIGO undertones. Look no further than the bizarre and downright creepy scene where Bo watches a skinny-dipping Ingrid and they can't take their eyes off one another as Bo flirtatiously plays keep-away with a completely nude Ingrid's towel ("You know, it's a pity you're my sister," purrs a bedroom-eyed, feathered-haired Ginty). Then Fred Williamson (who had just co-starred with Ginty in the Italian ROAD WARRIOR knockoff WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD) shows up about an hour in as Noah, a hired gun pimp/mercenary leading a team of Borat cosplayers searching for the missing Olga, who's apparently the AWOL mistress of his powerful boss. All get involved in the search and all parties eventually converge as the plot to steal White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!) intensifies. That is, when Bo and Olga/New Ingrid (played post-surgery by Mayne) aren't too busy fucking.
WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) really has to be seen to believed. It wastes no time establishing itself as a jaw-dropper of the highest order less than five minutes in, with one of the most reckless and shockingly irresponsible stunts ever captured on film. During the prologue, we see Bo and Ingrid's parents murdered, and her father is hit with a flamethrower, which completely engulfs the unprotected stuntman in flames from head to toe--his hair briefly ablaze--as he does a stop, drop & roll to put out the fire. The sight of this is incredible enough to make even an '80s Indonesian action director have an anxiety attack, but what takes it to next level insanity is that it wasn't a stuntman--it was Pallardy himself, playing their father and doing the stunt on his own, making WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) very likely the only film where a director lets himself be set on fire on camera to capture the perfect shot.
The behind-the-scenes personnel involved is just as bugfuck insane. In addition to Pallardy venturing outside his erotica comfort zone (except for the whole sister-screwing subplot), WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) had a weird combination of financial backing from some unexpected places. A Turkish-British-French co-production, it was executive produced by Sedat Akdemir and Ugor Terzioglu, the Turkish team who briefly dabbled in the Italian exploitation industry with a pair of Antonio Margheriti projects (1983's YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE and 1984's THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD). Also involved were John L. Coletta and Alan G. Rainer, who had ties to Deep Purple's inner circle when they produced 1977's THE BUTTERFLY BALL, a concert film of Purple bassist Roger Glover's 1974 rock opera The Grasshopper's Feast and the Butterfly Ball. Furthering that association was WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!)'s soundtrack being overseen by legendary Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord, who composed the score and produced the songs by Limelight (in addition to the "White Fire" (White Fi-yaaa!) title track, there's the love ballad "One Day at a Time," the unintended anthem for incestuous siblings everywhere). To no one's surprise, WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) skipped US theaters, getting a straight-to-video release courtesy of Trans-World Entertainment in 1985, its artwork and tag line ("EXTERMINATION is the reward for the world's richest prize") making an unmistakable reference to Ginty's EXTERMINATOR fame, though the jury's still out on whether his character's idea of the world's richest prize is White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!) or finally finding a way to bone his sister without everyone thinking he's a creep.
MISSION: KILL (US - 1987) Directed by David Winters. Written by Maria Dante and David Winters. Cast: Robert Ginty, Merete Van Kamp, Cameron Mitchell, Olivia d'Abo, Sandy Baron, Henry Darrow, Brooke Bundy, Eduardo Lopez Rojas, David Kaufman, Clement St. George (Clement von Franckenstein), Miguel Angel Fuentes. (R, 96 mins)
After cementing his place in cult movie history as the title vigilante in 1980's THE EXTERMINATOR, Robert Ginty (1948-2009) stayed busy in B and usually C-grade exploitation fare throughout the '80s before drifting into directing in the '90s. Prior to THE EXTERMINATOR, Ginty first gained notice on a two-season stint on the NBC WWII series BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP, starring Robert Conrad, and from his co-starring gig on the first season of CBS' THE PAPER CHASE. He also had a supporting role in 1978's COMING HOME, but it was THE EXTERMINATOR that set the course for Ginty's career. He would still log time on TV with guest spots on shows like DIFF'RENT STROKES, SIMON & SIMON, QUINCY M.E., and KNIGHT RIDER, and even had his own short-lived ABC series HAWAIIAN HEAT in 1984, but he was also a regular presence at drive-ins and on video store shelves in the burgeoning '80s home video explosion. In addition to the Cannon-produced sequel EXTERMINATOR 2 (1984), Ginty also starred in films like the Thai actioner GOLD RAIDERS (1982), the Italian ROAD WARRIOR ripoff WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD (1983), the Spanish horror film SCARAB (1983), the Sig Shore political thriller THE ACT (1984), the French emeralds-and-chainsaws adventure WHITE FIRE (1985), and the long-shelved Empire horror film THE ALCHEMIST, shot in 1981 but unreleased until 1985, and directed by Charles Band under the pseudonym "James Amante." 1987 was Ginty's most prolific year as a B-movie headliner, with the TERMINATOR ripoff PROGRAMMED TO KILL, where he pursued cyborg Sandahl Bergman (it also featured a 14-year-old Paul Walker); the French-made Eurocine horror film MANIAC KILLER from BURIAL GROUND director Andrea Bianchi, co-starring a slumming Chuck Connors and Bo Svenson; the little-seen and even less-loved Cannon actioner THREE KINDS OF HEAT; and MISSION: KILL, a fixture in every video store in America in the late '80s that's just been rescued from oblivion with a new Blu-ray from Code Red.
Released in 1987, but sporting a 1985 copyright (and, if a calendar on a kitchen wall in one scene is any indication, shot in 1984), the shot-in-Mexico MISSION: KILL (onscreen title: THE MISSION...KILL) is a mostly standard explosion-filled action movie with some ambition beyond its paltry budget. Ginty is J.F. Cooper, an ex-Marine and demolitions expert who's just arrived in Arizona to visit his old Vietnam buddy Harry (Cameron Mitchell). Harry is jumpy and preoccupied, and his younger wife (Brooke Bundy) and teenage son (David Kaufman) are concerned. A trucker by day, Harry has a side gig running guns through Mexico to deliver to freedom fighters in the fictional Central American country of Santa Maria. The rebels are waging war on despotic El Presidente Ariban (Eduardo Lopez Rojas) and Harry talks Cooper into going on a delivery run with him. Of course, they're ambushed and Harry is killed (Mitchell exits the film and heads to the hotel bar around the 20-minute mark), prompting an enraged Cooper to take out the Ariban soldiers responsible. This leads to him assuming the identity of a dead British mercenary/gunrunner named Ian Kennedy (Clement von Franckenstein, under the less distracting pseudonym "Clement St. George") and becoming a significant figure in the revolution against Aliban, with the help of some glowing hype in the press from cynical reporter Bingo Thomas (Sandy Baron, later to play SEINFELD's Jack Klompus). Naturally, a furious Ariban and his chief lackey and supporter, wealthy aristocrat Borghini (Henry Darrow, smirking as if to say "I'm almost Robert Vaughn") use everything at their disposal to stop Cooper/"Kennedy" and quash the rebellion.
Directed and co-written by David Winters, MISSION: KILL plays like a low-budget knockoff of Oliver Stone's SALVADOR (which hadn't been made yet), with generous helpings of Michelangelo Antonioni's THE PASSENGER (outsider assuming the identity of a dead gunrunner) and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (the hero getting endless press hype from an ambitious reporter who sees him as his ticket to the big time). Of course, any other comparisons to such higher brow material are absurd, but MISSION: KILL has a little more on its mind than most of its contemporary mid '80s Robert Ginty vehicles. The British-born Winters got his start directing episodes of THE MONKEES as well as TV variety show specials for Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch as well as Alice Cooper's 1975 concert film WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE. He drifted into feature films with the 1979 Bert Convy SHAMPOO ripoff RACQUET, but really made his mark with 1984's underrated meta horror film THE LAST HORROR FILM, with MANIAC stars Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro. Shoddily-made but demonstrating some clever ideas and genre deconstruction before such things were cool, THE LAST HORROR FILM displays an ambition that's carried over into MISSION: KILL. Winters isn't exactly making Oliver Stone statements, but he's also not making a mindless, jingoistic, "America! Fuck Yeah!" shoot 'em up, either. Alas, neither Winters nor co-writer Maria Dante possess quite the chops required to pull off the Thinking Man's Action Movie for which they're aiming (they would later seemingly give up on seriousness altogether with their next collaboration, the MST3K favorite SPACE MUTINY). Any time MISSION: KILL takes a step forward, it's immediately followed by two steps back, whether it's the mismatched and clumsily-integrated stock footage of explosions or Olivia d'Abo's embarrassing performance as one of the freedom fighters, saddled with a laughable wig and using an even worse accent ("Jew take care of deese peeg!"). Though it's a middling, forgettable action movie at the end of the day, MISSION: KILL has moments where it's really trying to be something more but just doesn't have the money or behind-the-scenes talent to pull it off.
Robert Ginty (1948-2009)
Winters and Mitchell would work together again on the South Africa-shot SPACE MUTINY and RAGE TO KILL (both 1988) and both would reunite with Ginty for 1989's CODE NAME: VENGEANCE, co-starring Shannon Tweed. Winters would later oversee the 1990s straight-to-video company Action International Pictures, producing such Blockbuster shelf mainstays as RAW NERVE (1991), CENTER OF THE WEB (1992), DOUBLE THREAT (1993), RAW JUSTICE (1994), and others, almost all of them directed by David A. Prior. Ginty continued to star in things like Umberto Lenzi's Miami-shot Italian cop thriller COP TARGET (1990) but also managed to land some supporting roles in major-studio releases. He played a young Patrick Dempsey's befuddled dad in the gigolo pizza delivery comedy LOVERBOY (1989), was one of the houseguests from Hell in the John Larroquette/Kirstie Alley-starring MADHOUSE (1990), and got some laughs as a chatty chopper pilot helping Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson in HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN (1991). Ginty directed himself in a pair of low-budget action films, THE BOUNTY HUNTER (1990), and VIETNAM, TEXAS (1991) before shifting his focus to directing throughout the 1990s. His efforts behind-the-camera included the Bo Derek erotic thriller WOMAN OF DESIRE (1994), along with episodes of TV shows like EVENING SHADE, DREAM ON, NASH BRIDGES, LOIS & CLARK, XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS, and CHARMED. Ginty acted very sporadically during the '90s, and his final onscreen appearance came with Dennis Hopper in 2001's THE PROPHET'S GAME, a SE7EN ripoff from his WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD director David Worth. Ginty spent his final years directing theater productions in Los Angeles before succumbing to cancer in 2009 at the age of 60. Though most of his career was spent making undistinguished and forgettable movies that are most likely to be found today only if you spend time scouring through battered, dusty, and musty boxes of VHS tapes at antique malls and flea markets, he was a solid pro who loved what he did and never stopped working. And even if he accomplished nothing else, he'll always be THE EXTERMINATOR.
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)
