Riverbend (1989)

With what would have been Steve James's 68th birthday this past week, I wanted to get another one of his films on the site.  As we've discussed before, unfortunately he doesn't have as many with him in the lead as he should, but this was one of those movies. This one was also reviewed by our friend Kenner at Movies in the Attic, so you should run over to his site to see what he thought of it too.

Riverbend takes place in a small town in Georgia in the late 1960s. The town is plagued by an extremely racist sheriff who terrorizes the African American community there, killing whom he wants and raping the women. At the same time Vietnam Vet Steve James and two of his soldiers are being transported through the area for an upcoming court martial after they failed to carry out an unjust order. They escape and run to the town, where they hide out at the house of a widow whose husband was killed by the sheriff as he tried to tell a judge about atrocities the sheriff had been committing. Once James learns of the tyranny in the town, he offers to give all the African American men military training, then lead them to take over the town, which they do, holding the white townspeople hostage while waiting for their demands to be met. Will they succeed?

This was a movie that covered really tough material in a way that pulled very few punches, which I appreciated. We've seen bad white guys in Blaxploitation movies, but Tony Frank's sheriff takes it to another level, and does it in a way that I think American history, at least as far as the most reported narrative is told, is afraid to confront. We then meld that with Steve James as the kind of lead who commands the screen in every scene he's in, and Sam Firstenberg's action directing, for a movie that worked really well overall. It may not have been an action film in the purest sense, but I enjoyed it--as much as I could say I enjoyed the tough subject matter that was covered in this.

James absolutely stands out here. He really does command every scene he's in. The first line of his imdb bio says it all: "Steve James was often cast in action movies as the hero's sidekick, despite usually being a better actor and fighter than the star." Well here, like Street Hunter, we got to see what it would be like if he was the star, and it was as good as we could have expected. He would have been 68 this past week, only a few months older than Steven Seagal, meaning had he lived, we probably would have still been getting movies from him, and hopefully more of those lead roles he deserved all those years. Here's to you Steve James, you were one of the great ones.

This is the eleventh Sam Firstenberg we've done on the DTVC, but this one might have the most depth. To some extent though, he just takes what works in the action genre--heroes you want to root for and baddies you want to see defeated--and just moves that paradigm over to this movie. It's not totally bereft of action though, especially once the troops led by James take over the town, and then when the national guard comes in to try and take them out. We also get a few hand-to-hand fight scenes with James, not quite to the level of American Ninja 2, but good enough considering we're not coming to this movie entirely for that. I think with that in mind, we can say that Firstenberg, while getting out of his comfort zone of ninjas and cyborg cops, does well here to make this movie a solid one. (Note, my friend Jon Cross did an interview with Sam Firstenberg on his Booth Talk podcast, and Sam said he actually started in dramatic films, but was approached by Cannon to do Enter the Ninja, and the rest was history; but that means a movie like this would've actually been in his comfort zone.)

As I mentioned above, the sheriff in this, Tony Frank, was absolutely despicable. I was shocked to discover in looking at his imdb bio that he was only 46 when he made this, as his character looked older. I understand that a movie has to have a character like him in order for it to work, but I don't know that I could do that role, just walking around from scene to scene saying the N word all the time, shooting or threatening to shoot innocent people just because of the color of their skin. I know, the movie needs Tony Frank just as much as it needs Steve James in order to work, but this ain't no Alan Rickman in Die Hard tons of fun to play baddie, this is detestable stuff he's doing, and I feel like that's gotta be hard to pull off for an actor, day after day of shooting.

I don't know if I'd call it a controversial part of the movie, but one aspect that gave people trouble was how all the white people in the town were rounded up and held hostage after James and his militia take it over. There was a sense that they were innocent people, and that can sometimes diminish the altruism we need to root for our hero. I didn't find that to be the case though, because the white people in that town were at best benefiting from the racism and tyranny that plagued the African American community there, and at the very least they had the luxury of being able to look the other way at the tyranny, even if they didn't approve of it. Even the business owner in town who was against the sheriff and sympathetic to the African Americans didn't lift a finger to help them or get the word out about their plight. This was a rare case where the innocent people weren't exactly innocent, and by rounding them up and holding them hostage the way they did, it sent a message to everyone, even some of us watching it.

That's as good a note as any to wrap things up on. This is a definite watch for me. Again, we don't have many movies with Steve James in the lead, and in this one he really takes the reins. In addition, we have Sam Firstenberg's direction, enough action where we need it, plus a strong and compelling story to keep us engaged when there's no action.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100500

Street Hunter (1990)

After inducting Reb Brown into the Hall of Fame recently, I decided to do White Ghost for his induction post, but had considered this one too. Then, when I had Ty and Brett from Comeuppance Reviews on the podcast, they reaffirmed that this was a good one, so I knew I had to make it happen. Also, they've reviewed this one as well, so you can go to their site to check that one out.

Street Hunter has the late, great Steve James as Logan Blade, a former NYPD detective who left the force and now works as a PI. At the same time, John Leguizamo is taking over the drug trade by using a skilled mercenary, Reb Brown, to train his men to crush all of their enemies. After some cops are killed in one of their missions, James makes it his job to take them all down. Can he overcome this expert military tactician?

This is really fantastic. It's exactly what you want from a James-Brown actioner (no pun intended). In particular, I liked that they kept the two separate for most of the film, so when they had their final showdown there was a lot of anticipation, which the fight then lived up to. In between though, there was no shortage of great scenes, plus Steve James chewing up scenery, and Reb Brown as a crazy colonel quoting former military leaders and screaming things like "Fire at will!" Plus we had supporting roles by John Leguizamo, the great Richie Havens, and DTVC favorite Frank Vincent. This is the great late 80s/early 90s action you came for.

Usually we reserve this paragraph for the film's Hall of Famer, but I think it's more apt to use it for Steve James. I loved him as Curtis Jackson in the American Ninja movies--his "I want fresh meat!" line in part two is still one of my favorites in any movie--but it was great to see him here as the lead. He died in 1993 at only 41 (which is the age I'll be in 2020), and one of the great tragedies is that, not only did he die so young, but also, his potential as a lead was never fully realized, which was something this film showed he really deserved. The reality is, 30 years later, how much better is it for African American leading stars in either DTV or big screen action flicks? For DTV we have Michael Jai White, and then Wesley Snipes has dipped down to DTV from the big screen; from there there's Will Smith and Denzel Washington in some films, Chadwick Boseman leading the Black Panther franchise, and I really liked Mike Colter as Luke Cage on the Netflix series; but overall, it's still more supporting roles like Steve James had to settle for. I think at the very least, the DTV sphere needs to fill the gap better--and I as fan can do my part to support them more. There are Michael Jai White films in my Netflix queue that I haven't reviewed yet, and since I've been back from hiatus, most of my films have been big name white guys like Dolph, Seagal, and Daniels, so I can't blame the industry for not making more if I'm not supporting and reviewing what's out there.

This definitely would have been a better Hall of Fame post for Reb Brown than White Ghost. I think this was the first time I've seen him as a baddie, but he was great. He played the crazy military leader really well. At the end when he's fighting Steve James, he's lecturing him on military history, lauding the accomplishments of Benedict Arnold before he turned, and he's screaming "Saratoga!" at James while they're trading punches. In a modern setting, I would love to see Brown play a similar role where he's the military dictator of a small country, screaming at people and throwing things and firing up random places with a machine gun. The problem of course is you'd have a Destro Effect, because who would want to see a hero take him down?

The last time we saw one of my all time favorites, the late Frank Vincent, he was in the Lorenzo Lamas Noir-ish yarn Undercurrent. Here he had a cameo as a mob boss. Even when he was playing the despicable Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos, he was always great to watch. I think losing Vincent at 80 was such a blow, because we thought we'd always have him playing characters like these and making any film he was in that much better; I think I almost took for granted that he could be called on to do his thing whenever he was needed. Here's to you Frank Vincent, you were one of the great ones.

One thing I couldn't help noticing though, our hero Logan Blade drove around in a van that, for lack of a better term, seemed like something a predator would drive. Maybe not a child predator, but it would work just as well for a serial killer. Why not give him a slick sports car? Or even a truck? Something a little less "I could throw you in the back of this and no one would know you're here as I whisk you away to some unknown location and do God knows what." Or if it's going to be a van, make it like the A-Team van, something fancy with all kinds of bells and whistles.

But that was my only complaint with a film that overall was great. As I mentioned above, this was the late 80s/early 90s actioner you came for. They don't make 'em like this anymore, but there's no reason why they shouldn't.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100706

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/

P.O.W.: The Escape aka Behind Enemy Lines aka Attack Force 'Nam (1986)

It has been a while since I'd made it out to do some thrift shopping, but I went recently and dug through the VHS section to find some gems. It was a different world from the one I'd remembered, with many more mainstream films from local video stores after they'd closed, not the kind of stuff a guy who runs a blog about Direct to Video movies could use. But I did find this bad boy, and for .99, it was a good one. Let's see if it made the trip worth it.

P.O.W.: The Escape is a Golan-Globus production of a Cannon flick starring DTVC Hall of Famer David Carradine as an Army colonel sent to rescue some soldiers from a POW camp in the waning days of the Vietnam War. It's a setup, and Carradine finds himself a prisoner among the troops he intended to save, including DTVC favorite Steve James and Philippine 'Namsploitation mainstay Jim Gaines. The man running the prison camp, Mako, has family in Miami that he'd like to join, so he cuts a deal with Carradine: you get me to Saigon, and then to America, and I'll help you escape. Things go wrong though, and now Carradine and his troops need to navigate the dangerous countryside and make it to the coast to rendezvous with some choppers that will get them the hell out of there.



Definitely worth the dollar, and probably worth a few more, this one delivered. Great Philippine 'Namsploitation from Cannon, plenty of exploding huts and other action, Carradine is great as the main hero, Mako as the baddie, and Steve James in a supporting role. Near the end there's a bit of dead spot on the way there, which could cause your buddies' ADD to act up, but if they can persevere, this is the kind of movie you came for. Just a lot of fun.

David Carradine was about fifty when this was made, and he did joke at one point "I'm getting too old for this shit", to which Steve James gave him a knowing smirk and head nod. He still carries the day with this "I get shit done" demeanor and screen presence, the kind of thing he took with him somewhat to Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, but was able to flourish much more in a role like this. By the end, when he's running around with a machine gun shooting up Filipino stuntmen, then he sees a tattered American flag flying on a pole that he takes down and drapes over his shoulder, we're all in and loving it. A great Carradine vehicle here.



Steve James has a smaller supporting role, but unlike his other supporting roles where it feels like he should be the main star, his character works better here as a guy supporting Caradine. His character gets who Carradine is right away, and Carradine's gets him, and they know that each other will make a great asset in getting the whole crew out alive. I just love Steve James so much, and he's great here. Also love Mako as the baddie. Unfortunately all three of this film's main stars are no longer with us.

Watching this, especially at the end with the American flag stuff, it had me thinking: what do people in other countries that watch these films think of that kind of thing? What about the 'Namsploitation genre in general. It has a certain connotation in the States, but 'Nam was our thing. Is it just that there's a universal language in exploding huts? Not only that, but a lot of them only exist today in the form of Japanese or Dutch VHS, so it's as if they're more popular abroad than they are here. It's fascinating, on top of the fact that movies themselves are often very fun. Any of my readers from outside the States, let me know what you think about this.



Speaking of Philippine 'Namsploitation, check out the dude to the right, Jim Gaines (credited as James Gaines). I'm sure if you've seen any amount of these films that you recognize him. Unfortunately, at least as far as I could tell, there was no Vic Diaz too, so that was a disappointment. Gaines only had a very small role, appearing in a few scenes, never having a close-up, and playing a character listed in the credits as "POW #5", but it's always fun to see guys like this in a movie like this.

This is on DVD under the Attack Force 'Nam title, or it can be found on VHS under P.O.W.: The Escape. I'm not so sure you need to go out of your way unless you're a big time collector and want to add it on VHS, but definitely, if you're making your way through a VHS bargain bin and see it, don't hesitate to pull the trigger. This is a worthy find.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091713/

The Exterminator (1980)

It was in the comments section of the Death Wish V review that our friend Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic threw down the gauntlet, saying I was too squeamish, and that's why I didn't care for that one. I figured it was time to put up or shut up. And what better flick than The Exterminator, which is one of those ones that a guy like me with a site like mine should've covered by now. It's kind of a glaring omission in our review library. So I'm killing two birds with one stone, testing my squeamishness mettle, and knocking out a review that the DTVC has needed for years. Also, our friend Simon at Explosive Action covered this one too.

The Exterminator stars Robert Ginty (Moore Beef Stew) as a Vietnam vet working as a meat packer on the docks of New York with his old Vietnam vet buddy Steve James. James saved his life while they were over there, and when James has his neck broken by a gang of thugs, Ginty feels he owes it to him to get revenge. But it triggers something in him, something dark he thought he'd left behind in 'Nam, and now he can't stop, knocking off criminals in New York in some pretty grisly ways. Now the cops, and even the CIA want him dead. Will Ginty make it out alive?



This is like an extreme Grindhouse version of Death Wish. In a sense, this is what Death Wish V was trying to be. Kenner mentioned the scene that would get me is the one where the prostitute is disfigured with a soldering iron, and he was right on some levels. If the bacon grease scene in Samurai Cop sufficiently turned me off, that scene would have to turn me off too, and it did; I'm wondering though if something like this actually happened in New York around that time. Where would Glickenhaus come up with something so depraved otherwise? And if that's the case, maybe I can forgive it. The thing is, there were some other weird things that they didn't show but hinted about that were a bit much too, like the guy whose face is eaten off by rats, but he's still alive. On the other hand, there are some really funny kills, like the mob boss that's run through the meat grinder. Yes, that's macabre too, but in such an over the top way it can't be anything but funny. I loved Ginty too, and Christopher George as the detective pursuing him was equally excellent; plus there's some really great action, so it has a lot to latch onto for real B-movie action fans, which is probably why it's such a cult classic.

When I think of a scene that's similar to the prostitute scene here, but worked, the Wings Hauser movie Vice Squad comes to mind. In that one, Hauser as the evil pimp kills Nina Blackwood in a very brutal way, and it's hard to watch too, but it's not like this was. Had they done something more like Vice Squad, kept that element of the injured prostitute, and kept Ginty's reason to kill the perpetrators, I think I would've been better with it. I get where this movie was going though-- how can you not when in the first fifteen minutes you see a guy peeling down a layer of skin on his neck after James cuts it open by choking him with some wire-- but there's a line between gratuitous and gory, and then just plain mean-spirited, and I think with the prostitute being disfigured with a soldering iron, Glickenhaus went across that line.



Ginty Moore Beef Stew was awesome. He has this weird nonchalance, that almost borders on despondency, then he throws in some wry humor, and then he gets pissed, and when he gets pissed, it's chilling, which I think is the final piece to this puzzle to make him the perfect hero of this twisted movie. Unlike Paul Kersey in Death Wish, The Exterminator is slightly off, still coping with trauma from Vietnam; plus he was a highly trained soldier, not the way Kersey was a medic. It's a different dynamic from Death Wish, and Ginty does a perfect job carrying that off.

DTVC favorite Steve James has a small role in this as Ginty's friend, though he's also credited as the fight coordinator, so he had a bigger role behind the scenes. As a huge Steve James fan, it was disappointing to not see him in this more, especially since he's so great at the beginning. I don't know what kind of part he'd have had if it had been bigger, because the whole idea behind The Exterminator is he's a one-man army, I just love Steve James, and feel like the more Steve James the better. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right.



I had to finish here with Christopher George cooking a hot dog by running electricity through two forks stuck on either end of it. Anyone who grew up with Mr. Wizard's World must remember that experiment. I wonder if this movie was where they got the idea for that one. I looked it up on imdb, and the show only ran one season. Wow, it seems like it was on forever-- that's probably why I remember the hot dog cooking one so well, because it was always being repeated!

The Exterminator is actually available on Blu-Ray, which is a testament to the film's large cult following. I gotta say, though it did cross the line a couple times, the fact that it was so brutal and so unapologetic, it kind of worked for me. At the very least, I can say it always kept me on edge. On the other hand, I prefer my action to be more fun, and disfiguring prostitutes with soldering irons doesn't quite work the way a Bridge of Dragons or Showdown in Little Tokyo does in that sense. Know your audience before you consider screening this with friends for a movie night, or know yourself before considering spending money for it. Kenner's right, it's not for the squeamish-- though I think I acquitted myself better than I expected.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080707/

McBain (1991)

McBain just looks like a winner, with Christopher Walken, Steve James, and Michael Ironside. The question is, will it fulfill it's too sweet potential. There's only one way to find out, so without further ado.

McBain has Walken as a 'Nam POW who is still in captivity even after the war has just been declared over. As luck would have it, a small troop battalion on their way out spots the POW camp, and saves him and his fellow captives. Years later, the leader of that battalion leads a rebellion in Columbia against a cruel dictator, and is killed. His sister (Maria Conchita Alonso) comes to New York to find McBain and ask if he'll repay the debt to her brother. He does, along with some old friends.



This wasn't bad. It had some slow parts that were just bad repetitive action scenes with Maria Conchita Alonso and the random rebels shooting at things and getting shot at back, which were tedious at best. I'm signing on for Christopher Walken, Steve James, and Michael Ironside, not that crap. There was also a less than stellar fighter jet dogfight that I could've done without. But the Walken we get is spectacular, everyone else was good too, and the action was good when it was there. I also liked the movie's message: is it better to do nothing and be safe, or get out there and do something to help others, even if it gets you out of your comfort zone? Overall, this wasn't bad, but could've done for a good trim of about 20 minutes.

The best Christopher Walken moment for me in McBain came when he was in some seaside house with the other guys, and he says "let's talk... out on the deck." I don't know how to type it in a way where you get Walken's unique voice inflection, just try to do your best Walken impression in your head , and you'll get it. He also has a sweet monologue on Woodstock. As far as an action lead, when he was allowed to be one, i.e. wasn't kept off screen by other crap I could've cared less about, he was great. I especially loved the Hawaiian T.



Yep, that's Steve James, sans shirt, rocking a Wrestlemania cap. Does it get anymore awesome than that? He does some cool shit in this, firing stinger missiles, getting freaked out that his buddy doesn't know how to fly the plane, wearing Wrestlemania hats. Unfortunately, a man that was taken from us too soon by pancreatic cancer. Here's to you Steve James, you were one of the good ones.

Loved me some Michael Ironside in this as well. Wasn't expecting much. He appears early on as an extremely wealthy arms dealer, and Walken gives him the speech about how he's not really living, how he's wasting his life away in his enormous mansion. I thought that would be it, but when he shows up with Walken's weapons, he kind of sheepishly asks "can I go too?" Yes you can go Michael Ironside, what do you think this is. He had a ponytail, but no long hair like Highlander 2, which was a disappointment.



One interesting aspect of this movie is that they use a fictional regime in a real country, Columbia, where the action takes place. I don't know, on some levels that's kind of weird. In 1991, the people of Columbia were still in as rough a situation as they were before McBain was made, it's not like McBain made their lives better. Another interesting thing, ESPN did a series of sports documentaries entitled 30 for 30, featuring all kinds of stories where sports has an impact on greater society. They did one on the 1994 Colombian World Cup team, the one where Andres Escobar was killed after giving up an own goal against the US. It was so weird watching that documentary, after remembering that game and how much I rooted for the US to win, not knowing how much more that team meant to the people of Columbia. It's always good to get a different perspective and see an event like that from the other side.

Though it's a little long and repetitive in parts, McBain isn't a bad bad actioner, and with Christopher Walken and co., it has plenty of novelty as well. It's out of print in the US, but you can get it used on DVD or VHS, whatever makes you feel good. Maybe both make you feel good...

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102422/

Avenging Force (1986)

I grabbed this around the same time I got Radioactive Dreams, and only reviewed the latter first because I wanted to make up for the bad post I did for Urban Menace and give Albert Pyun a little redemption. It never crossed my mind that this post would coincide with a potential New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory, which is important because Avenging Force takes place in The Big Easy. Kind of a cool tribute DTVC style.

Avenging Force has Dudikoff as a former CIA guy whose buddy, the late, great Steve James, is running for office in New Orleans. Some right bigoted wing terrorist group doesn't like this, and they ambush his float for Mardi Gras, killing his son. Dudikoff takes the assailants out, and the CIA wants him to fight these guys, but he refuses. But when they attack James again, then attack and kill James and his family at Dudikoff's ranch, at the same time kidnapping Dudikoff's sister, he realizes he can't stand by any longer. The only way he can take out these baddies though is to be the hunted in their deadly sport in the Louisiana Bayou. It's a case of who's hunting whom, though, when you're hunting the Wild Dudikoff.



Okay, I know I'm going to upset my buddy at Movies in the Attic here, because he's been wanting me to review this one for a while because it's one of his favorites, but I had one issue with it that prevents me from completely loving it. For the first hour it was one of the best things I've ever seen. Dudikoff and Steve James were amazing, kicking ass, gunning guys down, blowing shit up. Then at the hour mark, they kill off James, leaving Dudikoff to fight it out on his own for the last forty minutes, which was good, but not as good as it could've been. I understand the way they wanted the end to play out, it worked better with just Dudikoff, but I just don't see how anyone during filming looked at the earlier scenes and didn't say "we gotta switch things up and just run with this Steve James and Michael Dudkioff thing. We can't kill him off now." A five-star gem turned three-star in one fell swoop.

Okay, that might be harsh. The last forty minutes were great too. Dudikoff taking out the four baddies hunting him was great, especially when you see what the baddies were wearing. If you took that on it's own, and didn't have the first hour of amazing-ness with James and Dudikoff to compare it to, it would be plenty good enough. I'm not sure I've ever been so torn on a film before, and I'm not even torn on whether it's good or not, because it is. I've just never seen anything before that starts out five-star, and then tacks a four-star film onto the end. It was like the Colts sitting their starters against the Jets instead of going for the perfect season.



With or without James, this is one of the better Dudikoff films. If you want to look at one that's definitely above it though, see American Ninja 2, which fully understood what it meant to have Dudikoff and James together, and didn't wreck that chemistry mid-stream. I could spend all day talking about all the awesome things that are in Avenging Force, though, and when I think of some of the stinkers Dudikoff has done, I can't complain too much. Seeing him fight a samurai that looks like a cross between Death in The Seventh Seal and the samurai general in Onibaba was great, as was his final fight with the end baddie. If Dudikoff and Steve James is a great combo, Dudikoff and Golan-Globus is even better.

I got some great responses on the Radioactive Dreams post about Vestron Video and the memories seeing it on screen evoked, and I think seeing the old Cannon Films logo is even bigger for me in that regard. Cannon and Golan-Globus was a symbol for anything goes action films that threw everything including the kitchen sink at us and did it all without a trace of irony. Right off the bat with Avenging Force, we see two guys being chased by that Seventh Seal/Onibaba type dude I mentioned above. When Steve James' Mardi Gras float is ambushed, it's not a sniper shooting one well-aimed bullet at James, it's four guys with moustaches, mullets, sunglasses, and uzis spraying everything in sight. These are the action movies we grew up with. The 2000s saw an unfortunate step taken away from this style of action film, in favor of sleeker, less kitchen sink-like movies. Maybe that older stuff was silly, but it was a hell of a lot of fun, and I can't say that about a lot of today's films that turn their noses up at the 80s and 90s.



Growing up I was naturally a Patriots fan first, and what people have forgotten is pre-Tom Brady, they weren't a great franchise. Anyway, I always liked the Saints too, because I felt like if the Pats couldn't do it, it would be cool that the Saints, who never get there, could do it instead. Fast forward to now, and the Patriots not only don't suck anymore, but have won three Super Bowls and were the team everyone rooted against two years ago when the Giants beat them to end their perfect season; while New Orleans has gone through hell and their team was finally in the big game, a sentimental underdog. Last night's win won't build new houses or anything like that, but it does say a lot about team loyalty and being rewarded for not rooting for a frontrunner. It was as much a win for that city as it was for all the Clippers season ticket holders that haven't switched over to the Lakers; all the Cubs fans that didn't pull a John Cusack and try to get tickets to the White Sox in the World Series; and it's to all the people I knew who wore Yankese hats in the late 90s and suddenly hate them like the plague because the Red Sox win now. What made that win all the more special was seeing the two-faced owner up there talking out of both sides of his mouth about how great New Orleans is, when we all knew if he'd had his way that would've been the San Antonio Saints or Los Angeles Saints winning last night. Probably what I liked the most about that game, was it reminded me of what it was like when the Patriots won their first one, when losing one game wasn't the end of the world to Pats fans like it is now. It reminded me of what it was like when my team loyalty was finally rewarded.

Okay, huge rant there that had nothing to do with the movie. Anyway, this is a great one, and though it could've been one of the greatest of all time, it was still great, and I don't want to scare you off from watching it if you see it on a shelves somewhere. I put about six images up in addition to the three you see here, and if you click on any images it'll take you to all of them-- some of them a pretty funny. Unfortunately the movie is only available on VHS right now, which is too bad. You never know, though-- if the old Ain'ts can win the Super Bowl, anything can happen, right?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090678/

The Delta Force (1986)

Looking only at the Golan-Globus films we're covering this week, this was probably the biggest of the six. It has a pretty star studded cast, with Norris, Martin Balsam, Lee Marvin, Bo Svenson, Shelly Winters, Robert Vaughn, and the late Steve James. What's fascinating is how it starts off as essentially a TV drama, and turns into a Norris beatdown.

The Delta Force is based on the real life hijacking of TWA flight 847 in June of 1985. A flight full of Americans leaving Athens is hijacked by two gunmen, and taken first to Beirut, then to Algeria, then back to Beirut, all the while the hostages are threatened, harassed, and the Jewish passengers are singled out. Lee Marvin heads the Delta Force, a special forces unit sent in to retrieve the hostages and take down the hijackers. Right below him on the chain of command is Chuck Norris, and when he finally gets a chance to sink his teeth into the terrorists, it bad news for them.



This is a hard one to deal with because the first hour and a half plays out like a TV movie drama about a plane hijacking. It's not bad, and does a great job keeping things black and white and letting us know that no matter what, no matter what cause someone is fighting for, violence and hostage taking, especially against innocent people, is unacceptable. Then, the last half hour plays out like some of the best action I've ever seen. Norris drives around in this motorcycle equipped with missile launchers machine guns, then finds the head terrorist, and beats the crap out of him in one of the greatest applause scenes in movie history. It's really a question of, do you like your TV drama topped with a half hour of amazing action?

It is very important to discuss the political implications of Golan and Globus making a film like this. They are Israelis, and the Lebanese terrorists who committed this act at the time were fighting to get Israel out of their country, of which they occupied the southern section of it. I don't think comparing the way the Muslim terrorists treated the Jewish passengers to the way Nazis treated Jews was right, because Palestinians and the Muslims of southern Lebanon have legitimate grievances against the way Israel has treated them; but the rest of the film in my mind was totally above board. If an aggrieved segment of the population decides they need to resort to violence against noncombatants, they should expect their violence to be depicted as despicable, as it was here, and it's no less despicable if the people depicting it have a personal stake in the telling.



After 9/11, watching a movie where hijackers take over a plane full of Americans is hard to take, which meant watching Chuck Norris beat the crap out of them at the end was all the more enjoyable. That brings up an interesting issue, though. In school, we looked at two main goals that terrorists have when they carry out their crimes. The first is to hurt a small percentage of the population in order to scare the rest to do what they want. The other is to anger the rest of the population to the point they overreact, which in some cases can be worse. The US spent all of its goodwill it garnered after 9/11 with the Guantanamo prisons and the war in Iraq, but after seeing this movie, I can see better why Americans supported those measures. Because the terrorists who committed the 9/11 atrocities died with their victims, we didn't have anyone for Chuck Norris to kick the crap out of, so to speak, and we needed that.

I must point out again, though, that this wasn't all seriousness. That last half hour was amazing action, and we wanted it more because we had the first hour and a half of these bastard terrorists that we wanted to get their comeuppance. When the head baddie sneaks into that abandoned house, and Chuck Norris jumps through the window with his motorcycle, I have to believe the whole theater cheered. This was the problem for me with Walker: Texas Ranger, the bad guys were often way cooler than he was, so I couldn't root for him. I was rooting for him here, though, and it was great. As fine an example of pre-Walker Norris as there is out there. I wonder, too, looking at the paragraph above, if maybe we could convince Norris to get back into his pre-Walker days and do movies like this again, just so we could all feel better as a nation.



Before I wrap this up, I have to give a shout out again to DTVC favorite Steve James. It was good to see him in a film that didn't involve ninjas, though it would've been nice to see more of his martial arts. I thought this might have been the most successful film he's ever been in, but he had an uncredited role in Weird Science. Let's say this was the most successful film he had a major role in. A great actor who left us before his time.

It's hard to figure out what the right conclusion is for this movie. As an action fan, really the only last half hour is important, but it's vitally important. As an anthropology major who focused on Middle Eastern studies and problems of violence and terrorism, I appreciated the way the hijacking was depicted, even if the story was told by two Israelis. I guess it would've been better if the film had a clearer identity-- either TV drama or low-budget actioner-- but on some levels it still works. Just know that of the total running time of two hours, only the last thirty minutes is action packed. (But it's really action packed!)

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090927/

American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987) (Revisited)

I rented American Ninja 3 from Netflix, and it came packaged with American Ninja 2. I realized then that it had been almost 15 years since I last saw it, so I watched it again. I came to the conclusion that my original post, on May 6, 2007, though a good one, should be revisited. I hate the idea of Lucasing the older ones with new information, so I'm letting that one stand, unaltered, and just adding this one to the archive.

American Ninja 2 takes place a few years after the first one. Marines working for the US Embassy on a small Caribbean island are disappearing, and the Pentagon suspects foul play, but instead of sending more Marines, they send two Army Rangers: Dudikoff and Steve James. What they find is a small neighboring island that is cloning a new race of super ninjas, and Dudikoff and James are the only ones who can stop them.



Is it possible that the 30 year-old me appreciates this more than the 16-year-old me? Also, there were many reasons why I dug this back then that I had forgotten about over all this time. Steve James yelling "I want fresh meat!" at a group of thugs chasing after them. We rewound that scene over and over at the time, and I have no idea how I didn't remember that when I wrote the first blog. The tongue and cheek factor was completely lost on me then. As far as I could tell, they were dead serious about everything they were doing, and now I see that that's impossible. They had to be kidding about a lot of it, especially James' scenes. My overall opinion hasn't changed though, this is must watch material.

In May of 2007, I had just started this blog, and I wanted to get as many reviews up as possible. Then, more so than now, my goal at the DTVC was to have an archive of as many DTV films as I could get my hands on. I didn't have the structure I have now of 8 paragraphs and three pictures, and I didn't have any software to capture images from the movies, so I was often at the mercy of the Internet. I didn't even have a Netflix account. Just the same, in looking at some of these old posts, I see some ways in which they were better. They were often funnier than they are now, because I was pulling them from memory, so there was always some funny anecdote that made me want to cover them. I do think I did myself a disservice, though, by posting reviews about films I hadn't seen, in some cases, in more than a decade, so no matter how funny they might have been, my new policy of watching a movie right before I review it is probably the best improvement I've made over the last two and a half years.



I'm going to announce my new Hall of Fame inductees next week. Michael Dudikoff is part of the inaugural class, and when I wrote the original post, there was some concern about his inclusion. I can see it in my conclusion when I say he's a bona fide Hall of Famer. I think now, with 14 films reviewed, and so many more to go before we're done, any questions surrounding him are answered. And having explored (and in some cases re-explored) his filmography over the past two-plus years, I'm still convinced that the three American Ninja films that he's starred in are his best, and the perfect starting place for anyone wanting to delve into his oeuvre.

Maybe the biggest difference between 1995 and 2009 is my appreciation for Steve James. He's amazing here, and I'd say less Dudikoff's sidekick, and more his partner. He's not mailing it in like he did in American Ninja 3, he's actually in full glory. He has some of the best fight scenes in the film, and I can't imagine anyone not enjoying watching him. There was a reason why we replayed the "I want fresh meat!" over and over again: because it was so awesome!



Another big thing I forgot over fourteen years was the use of Guns N' Roses' "Move to the City", off the Lies EP. We seldom see songs we recognize, let alone bought the CD (tape) for at the time. 1987 was a different time for Guns. They were ushering in a new movement in rock, pushing out the old guard of hairbands, and had it not been for Nirvana and grunge, the rest of the hairbands may have had an opportunity to evolve. Instead, Guns were able to survive the post grunge purge, only to be felled by the megalomania of their lead singer. I bet Axel looks back on their song being in American Ninja 2 as being a bad thing, but the bad thing was how thoroughly he killed something so good.

Next week we'll go back to the box office bomb segment of the blog, but it was cool to return and look at a film I covered a while ago and hadn't seen in some time. If I learned anything, it's that these films, no matter how silly, deserve a rewatch, especially when they were so awesome! If you haven't seen American Ninja 2 in a while, I urge to to give it another look. You'll be happy.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092548/

American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)

I probably would've reviewed this sooner, but David Bradley's been in my dog house since the fanny pack incident in Cyborg Cop. It still just boggles my mind that a so-called action hero would allow himself to be made to wear a fanny pack. If it hadn't been for Hard Justice, he night have been banned from the DTVC for life.

American Ninja 3 takes place after the first two, but DTVC Hall of Famer Michael Dudikoff is conspicuously absent. Very conspicuously. Anyway, Bradley, Steve James as Curtis Jackson, and some other dudes come to this island for a martial arts tournament, unbeknownst to them so a pharmaceutical mogul can find the strongest one so he can carry a biological weapon in his system. For whatever reason, they ignore the obviously stronger Jackson, and go for Bradley instead, and Jackson and another competitor, whom Jackson affectionately refers to as "Junior", must go in and rescue him. Oh yeah, and an Asian chick who was working for the mogul is actually a ninja too, and she wants to help save Bradley too.



The first, and most important question here is: why? Why was this made? Cash grab, maybe. This was too much to put on Bradley right away. For his first major role, he had no chance of filling Dudikoff's impressive shoes. I know I shouldn't throw terms like racism around lightly, but what other explanation was there to cast Bradley as the main hero over James, who obviously fit the part better. And you could tell James didn't like playing second fiddle to Bradley, and it only made the film that much worse.

One thing you notice about the first, second, and fourth films, is there's a sense of tongue in cheekness that adds to the entertainment value. This film tried that too, but fell on its face. It really was an MST3K quality film, and on that score, it was plenty worthy of making fun of. It was like a YouTube high school project video, where you almost expected the actors to look at their friend behind the camera for the signal that he pushed the stop button to end the scene.



I was asked a couple weeks ago what my top ten films of the 1990s are, and it made me think what a DTV top 10 of the 1990s would be, and somewhere around 7 or 8, I would have to have Hard Justice. Now, to be fair, Bradley had nine films between that one and American Ninja 3, which was his first, so I can't be too hard on him here. The fanny pack is still more unforgivable. In that case, he had four films under his belt (no pun intended), though three of those were American Ninja films, so maybe he didn't know what he was doing by rocking the fanny pack, but I don't know. I haven't made any movies, and I know I wouldn't rock a fanny pack unless I wanted to look ridiculous.

Someone who never looked ridiculous was the late Steve James. Though imdb didn't say it explicitly, I have to believe he was the inspiration for Jax in Mortal Kombat. He did kind of mail it in here, which may have been as much lack of interest as it was his illness. Like Swayze and Ron O'neal, James was killed by pancreatic cancer four years later. I don't want to get too somber here, though. He wasn't as good as he was in American Ninja 2, but he was still good enough to be one of the film's few bright spots. Just check out the too sweet "Shalom, y'all" T-shirt.



There was a dude in here who looked a lot like Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, which was pretty cool. My three-year-old nephew watches a show called Yo Gabba Gabba!, and Mark Mothersbaugh has a segment on there where he draws a picture on the board and it comes to life, a la Bill Cosby's Picture Pages. I wonder if they really wanted Mark Mothersbaugh, and he was like "What, no Dudikoff? Then no Mothersbaugh either."

There are two reasons to see this: if you're an American Ninja completist, or if you need a really bad movie to make fun of. You probably should see it for the latter instead of the former. What's great is it usually comes packaged with part 2, so it's like you're buying part 2, and you get part 3 for free, so you don't have to feel like you're ripped off when it sucks.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096804/

Bloodfist V: Human Target (1994)

The Bloodfist series is rough for the uninitiated. Don "The Dragon" did 8 of them, all produced by Roger Corman, and there isn't much variation between them. You get some guy framed for something and he's got everyone against him, except usually a woman who gives him a hand. But paper-thin plots aside, the martial arts in these are usually way better than their pay-grade. You gotta respect Don, at the very least, for his expertise as a martial artist.

Bloodfist V, like it's predecessors, doesn't pick up where the previous installment left off. In this one, we see Donny with a mullet getting shot by people. He wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and a haircut. A woman shows up, saying she's his wife, and they escape the hospital and the Asian mafioso trying to kill them. Turns out the woman's a prostitute hired to pretend to be her hubby, and when they go back to her pimp, we find out the pimp, played by American Ninja's Steve James (the guy who played Jackson), is in on the set up. The next 45 minutes has D. "The D" Dubs trying to figure out who he is. He thinks he's a special agent. Then he thinks he's a criminal. We find out he was a criminal, but he's good, and the prostitute was working for the government to set him up, but she loves him now, so she saves him from Steve James, who it turns out isn't her pimp, but her boss in the NSA, who also wants to kill Donny. Who cares if it's convoluted, it's Bloodfist.

Don is pretty decent in this. It's not like 4, where he fights an equally solid fighter in Gary Daniels. That's kind of disappointing, in that I'd like to see Don flex his martial arts muscles, and we don't get as much as we'd want here. Still, he's ever the survivalist.

Denice Duff is Don's love interest, and she does all right. She's actually hotter later when she dresses in her NSA business suit attire. There's also a gross scene where she's being interrogated by the Asian baddie, and he sticks an acupuncture needle right under her eye. Many of you that are fans of bad horror and sci-fi are no doubt familiar with her other work. For me personally, I remember her vividly in a Matlock episode my mom was watching once where she played the girlfriend of an older guy married to Matlock's cousin.

This film also had the distinction being the last movie that wasn't a TV movie for bad action great Steve James, who unfortunately died of pancreatic cancer in 1993, before this film was released. He was probably best known as Jackson in American Ninja 1 and 2. He had a very prolific career, despite dying young. I'd have liked to see him as the star in a movie, but unfortunately that will never happen.

With the lack of great martial arts, we're left with very little here. The action is all right in the bad action film sense, but is that enough? We can get that re-watching a great Dolph Lundgren film. Also, since the Bloodfists don't have any kind of impact on the other films in the series, you can get away with skipping one or another. I'd say skip this one. At best, watch it at 2am if you're suffering from insomnia or writing a paper.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106434/

American Ninja (1985)

I don't really remember when I first saw this amazing classic. I wasn't that old, I know that. It was one of those movies we really weren't supposed to watch, but did anyway, sneaking over to a friend's house before his parents got back from work and catching it on HBO. Either that, or we'd rent it during a big sleep over night. It's the perfect movie for a ten year old, even if it is a little violent.

The first installment of the American Ninja series introduces us to Joe, the American Ninja, played by DTVC Hall of Famer Michael Dudikoff. Here, he's a mysterious amnesiac with amazing martial arts skills. During a hijacking of a military convoy, he rescues the Colonel's daughter, played by Judie Aronson from Weird Science. She's very upset by his rough treatment of her, until she sees his ripped abs, and then she falls in love with him. No one's happy with his heroics when he gets back to base, except for her, and a dude named Jackson tries to kick his ass. He fails miserably, and as a result, he and Dudikoff become fast friends.



As you can imagine, the hijacking was planned by the Colonel and his sergeant in order to funnel weapons to an arms dealer, who is supported in his endeavor by a master ninja and his myriad trained underlings. Only the master ninja and Jackson understand how good Dudikoff is, and so Jackson helps him while the master ninja tries unsuccessfully to kill him. Finally a mysterious bald Japanese man who looks like Gabe Kaplan gives Dudikoff his memory back and a whole bunch of ninja equipment, so he can beat the baddies, save the girl, and win the day.

Dudikoff's American Ninja is what we in the biz call a five tool hero: he's a great warrior, great driver of trucks and crotch rockets, has a genius level IQ, has amazing power over women, and practices magic. The magic part may not be clear, but it simply means he can make bullets miss, cause cars that hit trees head on to explode... that kind of stuff. Today, film makers try to make us take their movies more seriously, so they may remove one or more of those tools. It's kind of too bad really.

This film was made in 1985, and nothing in the film reflects the times more than the Colonel's daughter. Played by Judie Aronson from Weird Science, she's a throwback to a time when women wore baggy tops, skirts and dresses that went below their knees, and overly feathered hair. I'm not saying I like the way women dressed then better than now or vice-versa, but I am saying it doesn't matter what women wear, men will still find them hot. I think that's an important point: women and gay men decide what women wear, not straight dudes.

Ninjas were everywhere in the 80s. As a kid, ninja was behind fireman and baseball player on my list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. If I wasn't watching a movie with the Coreys in it, I was watching something ninja, or playing ninja video games. This movie just added to the ninja mystique. In the opening scene, the army dudes are easily beating the armed hijackers, but when the ninjas show up, with their no guns and prehensile chains, the American military was no match. It was like the ninja could do anything.



As an adult, this film is pure silliness, and I think that makes it all the more enjoyable. Dudikoff as the guy with no past who has amnesia and doesn't know why he has such great skills; the master ninja shooting lasers out of something on his hand; how quickly the female lead changed her attitude toward our hero once she saw the abs; and more than anything else, the sheer volume of explosions and gun shots, most of which Dudikoff avoids. The plot is simple, doesn't get in the way, and is sufficiently stupid.

I'm not sure it gets much better than this classic. If you're a fan of bad action, you need to have this in your collection. It's like being a fan of Fellini, and not having La Strada. You shouldn't have to pay more than $10 for it, and I think it may be boxed with part 2. Renting it isn't enough, you have to own this bad boy.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088708/

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/

American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987)

I saw this Dudikoff classic back in high school, when a buddy and I rented it after a long night of playing Killer Instinct at the local bowling alley. It's amazing to think that it celebrated its 20th anniversary on May 1st of this year. Maybe the DVD people will release a 20th anniversary edition, but I doubt it.

American Ninja 2: The Confrontation continues the saga of Dudikoff as an army guy/American Ninja, and in this case he must go to a Caribbean island to track a kidnapped scientist who's working for The Lion to mass produce an army clone ninjas (the Caribbean island probably was a huge selling point to get Dudikoff to sign off on this one). I've read in an interview that Lucas had this film in mind when he developed Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. Either that, or he was mailing it in to such a degree he needed to steal from DTV Dudikoff classics. Man, Dudikoff would've made a better pre-Dark Side Darth Vader than that silly, whining Hayden Christensen, right?

One really memorable moment for me in this film came when The Lion's henchman or something launched an eleven hit combo on some dude. I think in Killer Instinct parlance, that would be a "King Combo," but my memory's a tad off on details like that.

As we all know, Michael Dudikoff is the American Ninja, and there ain't none higher, sucker American Ninjas (like Timothy Van Patten and David Bradley) call him sire. The film is the classic Dudikoff Ninja vehicle, where we the viewer are simply waiting for him to kick major ass at the end, and we get small amuse bouches of ass kicking to whet our appetites before it happens. The inclusion of a mass of cloned ninjas just makes it that much better.

I'm not sure exactly what the drawbacks are in this one. It is pretty dumb, even for a DTV actioner, which may turn some people off. I think there might be a message about the ills of playing God, but I don't think so. As far as movies with cloning in them go, this is way better than Schwarzenegger's The 6th Day, Michael Keaton's Multiplicity, and the aforementioned Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. Just cloning a whole bunch of dudes in generic black ninja suits is such an amazing idea, and would've saved Multplicity from the throes of sentimentality.

I'm almost certain you can purchase this in the American Ninjas 1 and 2 two-pack for like $10 to $15. It's worth it. You may even want to rent them both in the same night, which I would recommend as well. Stay away from part 3, because of the four, for some reason that's the only one sans Dudikoff. Again, I must stress that you're watching a true DTVC Hall of Famer in one of his best known roles: you really can't go wrong with that.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092548/

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/