Foxtrap (1986)

In our continuing mission to get more Fred Williamson on the site, and into the 30 Club and beyond, this had been in my watch queue for some time, but when I discovered it was on Tubi I knew I had no excuse to not make it happen. In addition to us, there are only two other critic reviews, and one of them is from our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance.

Foxtrap has Williamson as Thomas Fox, a bodyguard for hire who's hired by Christopher Connelly to retrieve his niece Susan, who's gone missing in Cannes. Seems simple enough, until Fox gets out there, and discovers Susan is in bed with a local crime boss Marco. After some tangles with Marco's goons, Fox is able to rescue Susan and bring her back to LA. The thing is though, Williamson has been in enough films with Christopher Connelly to know that he doesn't seem like the concerned, benevolent uncle type, and with 20 minutes of movie left, there's plenty of time for Williamson to figure out whats going on. Marco and his goons, and then Connelly and his goons, won't know what it them.

This isn't the best of Williamson's directed films. The plot meanders a bit, we get real time scenes of things like him getting his bags out of his car, there's some brutality of women that's a bit much, a music score that sounds a bit silly at times, and editing snafus like a typo in the credits and a visible boom mic. All of that is mitigated by the Williamson factor though, to ultimately deliver us a fun film. As our hero, he's not a hard-nosed detective on the edge, he's a jet-setting man of the world who's completely at home in Cannes or Rome, but can take out a gang of toughs when he has to too. So with any clunkiness we may have in the film's execution, we have plenty of fantastic Williamson to make up for it, and really, when you come to a Williamson film, what else do you want?

Williamson is now at 28 films on the site. The 30 Club is just around the corner, but I have been slacking a bit in my Williamson posts, with the last one coming back in February. The other interesting thing is he's at 12 directed films with this one, which puts him tied with Keoni Waxman in a tie for fifth-most director credits, and one behind Isaac Florentine and Sam Firstenberg for a tie for third. There are a couple things going on in this film that I think show what makes Williamson great. First off, the film is flawed, but his presence alone makes it work. I thought back to Dolph and some of his clunkers, and I don't really know that he made those work just by his presence alone--granted, those clunkers weren't his directed films, but even the ones he's directed that didn't work as well, like Diamond Dogs, he alone couldn't make them fun the way Williamson does here. The other thing is how he makes his character cosmopolitan and at home in places like Cannes and Rome. A common trope is to have the African American hero be straight out of the inner city and plopped into a European city, and the film will play up the clash of cultures for laughs. Williamson leaves that trope entirely, and I think this movie is much better for it. I don't know if I can put Williamson above Dolph for the number one slot all time for DTV stars, but they're closer between 1 and 2 than they have been.

The music in this deserves its own paragraph, because it is such a huge part of the film. It starts off in the opening sequence of Williamson driving--and as someone who's never had his license and probably can't critique anyone else's driving, I have to say he looks like he's all over the road, often crossing over to the wrong side--and it sounds like what you might hear in a long-form corporate ad video, or maybe an 80s fishing show montage segue between segments. From there we have this synthesizer generated woodwind instrument, which at one point sounds like a big number or letter reveal in a Sesame Street cartoon, as we watch a little French man in a knit cap following Williamson in Cannes. We also get some Smooth Jazz that turns into a Bobby Caldwell-esque late 70s soul song when Williamson has his love scene. We then get this groovy organ sound during a shootout, which makes it hard to feel the intensity of Williamson diving over a car to avoid the uzi fire coming at him, it was probably better used accompanying shots of a grimacing Karl Malden somewhat aggressively driving to a crime scene in an episode of Streets of San Francisco. In some respects, the music adds to the film's charm; but other times, like when the synthesizer-generated woodwind instrument comes on a little more strongly as the chase between Williamson and the French man in the knit cap heats up, I find myself cracking up as I'm mimicking the "doo-dah-lee-dee-doo-doo" sound out loud as I'm watching the movie--which, I guess if I'm honest with myself, also adds to the film's charm.

At the end of the credits, the film teases that we should "watch next summer for the FOX and the COBRA." My guess is "the COBRA" was Black Cobra, which came out in 1987, but unfortunately we didn't get more FOX. This is something with the site and podcast, and even my novels, that I always try to make sure I don't do, and that's get too far ahead of myself by promising things that I don't have in the can yet. Take this review for example. If I didn't get a chance to watch this movie, I'd have reviewed the Zagarino film Project Eliminator instead, because I'd already seen that. Same with the podcast, I don't want to tell people what the upcoming episodes will be, because even if I have guests and subjects lined up for them, you never know when someone's schedule, mine or theirs, will jumble everything up. I did hear that at the time Williamson was able to sell films at Cannes to producers just based on the ideas alone, so he probably thought he could do the same with the FOX, until life got in the way, and we're left to wonder what might have been after we see the credits to Foxtrap.

Finally, typos are such a pain in the ass, right? And in a movie in the 80s they have to be the worst. At least when I have a typo in my reviews--and I have tons because I usually can only do one proofread before I post--if I see them I can go back and edit them if I want. Here Williamson has no such luck, "Produced an story by" will forever be immortalized in his film. It begs the question though, at what point is it better to just get the work out there? I mean yes, it doesn't make a great early impression, but this isn't a job interview, I'm not going through hundreds of CVs for a job I posted online, so a couple typos make it easier for me to reject someone; it's a Fred Williamson movie, he already has the position, I'm just ready to see him get after it. If anything, I feel like I should get on him for that parking job. Look at all that space on the right. Between this and when he left his girlfriend behind to be caught by Marco and his goons, he kinda made himself a tough guy to root for, but then he's beating up baddies and smoking cigars while wearing double-breasted suits and dress shirts with the top buttons undone, and I think, "how can I stay mad at you, Fred?"

Or rather, Mr. Williamson, sir. Anyway, let's wrap this up. Right now this is on Tubi here in the States, which I think is a great way to go. Hopefully someone like Vinegar Syndrome will release all of his directed movies on Blu-ray, but until then, I think Tubi is your best bet, and it's worth it to get your Williamson fix.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091072

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Messenger (1986)

With the Kansas City Chiefs playing in their first Super Bowl since they won Super Bowl IV, I thought I'd do a post featuring our favorite NFL DTVC Hall of Famer, Fred Williamson, who played in the first Super Bowl for the Chiefs. The story went that he had his infamous move, "The Hammer," which would knock out opposing players.  Unfortunately though it was he who was knocked out in the first half after he was hit by a member of the Green Bay Packers. Fortunately though for us, he had the last laugh, which is a fantastic second career in DTV movies like this. Also, our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance Reviews has looked at this as well, so you can go over there to see what they thought.

The Messenger has Williamson as Jake Sebastian, a man who has just gotten out of prison in Italy and is excited to see his girlfriend. Turns out said girlfriend is involved in the Italian coke trade, and she's upset some really powerful people. After leaving a party, those powerful people meet them outside and hose down his girlfriend with an uzi. Now he wants his revenge, and he's going to take down everyone in Italy and America whose involved in the coke ring.

This was a pretty fantastic 80s Italian action production. Williamson was as great as you'd want, plus the supporting cast included Cameron Mitchell, Christopher Connelly, and Stack Pierce, guys you watch something like this for and are stoked to see when they're there. The action wasn't bad, there weren't many dull moments, and when we didn't have action, we had guys like Williamson, Mitchell, Connelly, and Pierce who could carry the scenes and keep them fun. Not only that, the film had this early 80s R&B soundtrack that made me want to dig up Peabo Bryson and James Ingram playlists on YouTube. If you're looking for a low-budget 80s Italian actioner, this is a great choice, especially if you're binging on a few at once.

As always, we lead off with our Hall of Famer, and Williamson not only stars in this one, he wrote the story, and directs and produces as well. With this being the weekend of the Super Bowl, one thing that's great to look at with Williamson is how, for most people, his football career would have been the thing to hang his hat on, and anyone who lived that alone would have felt lucky to have done that; but Williamson has gone on to have a 50+ year acting career after that, and he's still going! This is my first Williamson flick since I came back from hiatus, so we'll try to keep the ball rolling from here and get more up, but this was a great one to bring him back with. Between his martial arts, his leather outfits, and his too sweet mustache, this is 100% Pure Hammer. Here's to you Mr. Williamson, you're one of the great ones, and a true Hall of Famer.

Knowing I was going to do one paragraph to cover both Cameron Mitchell and Christopher Connelly, I tried to find an image that had both of them in it, and this was the best I could do. Mitchell played an LAPD detective investigating drug crimes, and Connelly the FBI agent leaning on him for information so they could bring Williamson to justice while he was taking out all the "drug gangsters," and most of their scenes were one alone on screen yelling at the other, and then the other alone on screen responding. It doesn't matter, as I mentioned above, these are guys we come to movies like this for, and they didn't disappoint, but the fact that they were interacting with each other in almost every scene they were in made it even better. Like Pacino and De Niro in Heat, only in a family pack amount. Also, Stack Pierce (not shown), was Mitchell's partner on the LAPD, and he and Mitchell were great together, as always.

One of the things I've talked about in my Steve James posts is how James didn't get the leading roles he should have, often losing out to white actors, like when Dudikoff was cast as the lead in American Ninja despite having no martial arts skills and James was an expert martial artist. Unfortunately James passed away as he was starting to get more of those leading roles; but we see in a film like this how Williamson also had to go outside the usual avenues to get the roles he wanted and tell the stories he wanted to tell. Williams not only starred, he directed, produced, and wrote the story for The Messenger. It was like, if the industry won't give me the parts I want, I'll have to make them. To underscore again how sad it is that we lost James so young, Williamson turned 41 in 1979, and look at how much he's put out since that we love, and which we've been really lucky to have.

This movie, and this blog post, have been brought to you by King Cobra malt liquor. How amazing is that? In another scene, Williamson and his buddy (the guy above) were sitting at a table, and there was a case of it with them. I haven't had it in a long time, so I googled it, and found that they've changed the logo and bottle! What a shame? I also discovered old magazine ads with Williamson while I was searching, which are amazing. I used to drink a lot of 40s when I was younger, whether King Cobra, Colt 45, or Bull Ice. Two of those and a joint, and the next thing I'd know I was waking up in a bathtub full of ice in an Eastern European dive motel minus my kidneys. Man what great times those were! And Anheuser-Busch, if you're listening, I would love to have King Cobra as our official sponsor, and would do all I can to pitch your fine product. If you want to reach out, you can use the email at the top of the site. I look forward to hearing from you!

Okay, better to wrap this up now, as we're really going off the rails here. This is available on Prime, and also can be found on YouTube. If you in the mood for either Fred Williamson, an 80s Italian actioner, or both, this is the flick for you. As an aside, I'm posting the link to this on IMDb, but it's almost impossible to find on there by searching. You need to look up Fred Williamson first, then find it in his filmography.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185495

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Strike Commando (1987)

This was another one of the films our buddy from down under, Sutekh, sent us in a package that also contained Deadly Prey and Robowar. Like Robowar, Strike Commando is a Japanese VHS rip, which comes complete with Japanese subtitles. If you want you can check out his review of both this and the sequel, at his site, Explosive Action.

Strike Commando stars DTVC favorite Reb Brown as Sgt. Michael Ransom, the best guy we got, doing special forces work in Vietnam. He ends up stranded, thought to be dead, after a mission goes wrong-- because evil colonel Christopher Connelly screwed it up. Now Reb is back at the US base, and he has proof that the Russians are involved. Connelly wants more proof, so he sends Brown back in, only for him to get captured and tortured by the evil Russian officer Jakoda. Problem is, all they've done is awoken a sleeping bear, because Reb Brown is pissed, he's armed, and he's beefy, and everyone's gonna pay!



This is fantastic in every way imaginable. Is this good Reb Brown? No, it's great Reb Brown. Is this great Bruno Mattei? No, it's exceptional Bruno Mattei. Is this a good Vietnam War in the Philippines movie? No, it's pretty much as good as it gets. This is just the perfect get your buddies together and laugh at the screen kind of film. I know my buddy and I watched it while he was house sitting last year, and we loved it. It might be a difficult one to find, but if you can get it, by all means.

What do you think of when you hear the name Reb Brown? Beefiness combined with screaming, right? And this has all of that. I uploaded the end fight scene with the major baddie (you can check it out on the image page), but I easily could've uploaded seven or eight more. There's the torture montage, which shouldn't have been funny, but was. Or the tearful goodbye where Reb Brown tells a kid all these lies about Disneyland as the kid dies in his arms. Come to think of it, any scene with Reb Brown in it in Strike Commando is great. (I don't want to give away the context of that first image above, but it's equally fantastic.)



This is only the second Bruno Mattei film we've looked at, the first being Robowar-- and both with him credited under the pseudonym "Vincent Dawn". That number will only go up as we swim in more of his circles, but his movies aren't exactly the easiest things to find either. He passed away in 2007, and of his last five or six films, I'm not sure that any were released in the United States. At the very least, we still have Strike Commando II to cover, so we're not done with him yet.

Christopher Connelly plays the bad colonel. If you've watched any TV shows from the 1970s, you'd recognize him. He passed away shortly after this was made, though there were two other films released after his death, Night of the Sharks, co-starring Treat Williams and Antonio Fargas; and Django II, starring Franco Nero and Donald Pleasence-- both films were Italian productions, though neither were directed by Mattei.



The best judge of an action film is how many end fights they have-- and how great they are. This has two-and-a-half, each one better than the first. I uploaded the first one, with big baddie Jakoda. Then he has one against the American that double-crossed him. Then he has a half of one after that against Jakoda, just to finish things off. This is a very important lesson for people who drag their films on. First, if you cut down on the boring early on, you can get away with multiple endings; but second, and most importantly, each one needs to be better than the first. If you're thinking of drawing your film out more, go to Strike Commando for a clinic on how to do it properly.

This can either be purchased on VHS, or is available on a big Grindhouse collection, which the reviews of on Amazon describe it as varying in quality. Really, anyway you do it, this is very worth it. It's some of the best Reb Brown you can ask for.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094059/

1990: I guerrieri del Bronx aka 1990 Bronx Warriors (1982)

This is a straight up classic. I didn't do the work I should've and looked to see if this was on Netflix sooner. I think it just got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, I got my act together, and here it is. One other note, the DVD I got from the Netflix shipping facility in Portland was almost untouched. No one's renting this gem.

1990: Bronx Warriors takes place in, you guessed it, 1990. The Bronx has been so overrun by gang violence that the city gives up and lets the gangs have it. That's until a rich girl's gone too far and run there to escape her inheritance of a major arms corporation. She won't rely on the old man's money, but it's a bitch girl, when the corporation sends former Bronx gang member now cop Vic Morrow in to get her. High and dry, out of the rain, it's so easy to hurt others when you can't feel pain, but she'll feel the pain too as the rival gangs choose sides and fight it out while the cops come in and try to take them all down.



This is pretty sweet. I mean, it's a classic, so what can you expect. Obviously, it's 2009, and the Bronx didn't devolve into the mess it is in this movie. The director couldn't have guessed Rudy Juliani would come in and do what he did with his aggressive policing and whatnot. This is a vision of New york City that could never imagine a Times Square that wasn't full of hookers and sex shops; never imagine Forrest Gump's Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant where the peep shows once were. Sure, it's silly at points, and you're talking about the idea that the Bronx is given up by the city, so you have to suspend belief some; but this is a really fun time that shouldn't be missed.

The biggest name here for DTVC readers is Fred Williamson. He plays The Ogre, a rival gang leader to the hero, Trash. 1982 was peak Fred Williamson, just as the wave was cresting from his great Blacksploitation films of the 70s. The only drawback, if there's any for me, it's that he's not in this as much as he should be. I looked him up on imdb, and he's listed as being 71 years old. Wow. He graduated high school in 1955. Insane. I mean, I guess if he was playing in Super Bowl I, he has to be getting up there. I just can't believe I didn't see that sooner, considering all the times I've looked him up on imdb. Maybe I just didn't want to know...



This was Vic Morrow's second to last movie, the last being his part in a segment of The Twighlight Zone Movie. He actually died tragically while filming that movie when a helicopter crashed on him and two young children. He was great here as a bad guy, but reading his imdb bio, he actually hated the fact that he was type-cast as the "tough" after his debut in the film Blackboard Jungle. Maybe it's the Bronx accent that directors liked-- he just sounded like a "tough".

I grew up near Boston, MA, another city that went through a fair amount of urban renewal in the late 90s early 2000s. In some areas, especially Jamaica Plain, the changes were really good. It's funny to say I'm going to Jamaica Plain to older people, because they're always like "good luck". Anyway, I was watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, and he covered New York City, and he was disgusted at the changes the city had undergone in the last twenty years or so. He felt like it took away some of the city's character. I understood what he was saying, but I never really felt it until I saw this. It makes me wish I'd seen Times Square in the 80s now.



This is the real deal. Go for it. It's a must watch. Sure, it's funny, but it's not that bad either. The fact that the copy up here from Netflix was barely touched shows that not enough people are seeing this gem, and I hope in a small way my review will get the word out on it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085124/