Mercenary Fighters (1988)

I was having a conversation with a buddy recently, and he asked me if I'd seen this film.  He saw it on YouTube.  He had no idea who Reb Brown is, but I could tell he appreciated the movie anyway, which made me all the more excited to check it out.

Mercenary Fighters is a Golan-Globus production of a Cannon film that takes place in a fictitious African country that sounds suspiciously like what was then Zaire (and now the Congo)-- Shinkasa was the capital, as opposed to Kinshasa, though how many action movie fans would know of Kinshasa anyway?  Peter Fonda is a mercenary hired by the government to wipe out a local rebel tribe that stands in the way of a huge development project.  In recruiting his team, he gets Ron O'Neal, a crack pilot, and his buddy, Reb Brown.  Once there though, Brown and O'Neal see that these rebels are more freedom fighters, and that maybe they're on the wrong side.  This feeling is only exacerbated by Brown falling for a pretty young nurse who treats the people in the surrounding villages.  The problem is: siding with the rebels puts Brown directly in the way of Fonda getting his money, which is not a good idea.



This is pretty fun.  There's one scene near the beginning between Brown and O'Neal, where Brown is shirtless and O'Neal is in a button-up shirt with the top five buttons un-buttoned.  It might be the best scene in movie history, it's that fantastic.  I did realize that Brown and O'Neal carry this film though, especially in one scene where the guys are in a helicopter shooting at a few rebels below that are running away.  It's drawn out and not much happens, but the constant cuts to Brown and O'Neal reacting are more than enough to keep me interested.  Then you've got the exploding huts, which I'll get to below; the fantastic Reb Brown screaming; and plenty of Cannon/Golan-Globus everything-but-the-kitchen-sink action.  It's the movie you want when you see it listed on YouTube.

This might not be the best Reb Brown, but it's still pretty solid.  There's one scene near the end where he gets on the back of a jeep and fires off this big gun while giving his trademark scream and trademark Cannon explosions are going off behind him.  He also has plenty of other good screams, including this great one near the beginning when he and O'Neal are riding on a bus, and a guy lands a plane on the roof and climbs in through the window.  O'Neal is laughing, and Brown screams at him "You knew man!"  It's such a great fist pumping moment.  I already mentioned that fantastic shirtless scene with O'Neal, and I don't think it's hyperbole at all to call it one of the best in movie history.  Maybe best part of all: his character is constantly referred to as "The Kid", even though he was about 40 when this was made.



The late Ron O'Neal is here again, with his great, classically trained acting pedigree used for a Cannon flick doing scenes opposite Brown.  This January will mark 10 years since he left us, taken too soon by pancreatic cancer.  He was so good in this though, and he and Brown had great chemistry-- or perhaps he was great at carrying Brown, either way it was great to see.  This isn't the first time these two worked together either.  They did a 70s TV movie adaptation of Aldus Huxley's Brave New World.  (I've never seen it though.)

Among the other names, there was Peter Fonda who I already mentioned.  He seemed like he was mailing it in, which, in a movie like this, isn't such a bad thing.  All we care about is seeing Fonda with long hair looking like Thomas Ian Griffith's older brother, speaking in smooth, aging hippie tones.  The country's military leader was played by Robert DoQui, who's been in all kinds of things, most notable RoboCop and the sequels.  Finally, another Space Mutiny alum, this guy, who was Santa's Number One.  I have no idea what his name is, and I don't think he was credited on imdb with being in the film, and of course he doesn't have an image for his imdb page, and of course I can't remember his character name either.



Okay, so this was not 'Namsploitation, but it had a lot of hut explosions.  In fact, on a lot of levels it hit the same beats of the 'Namsploitation, even though it took place in Africa.  On the other hand, this wasn't an Italian directed/produced shot in the Philippines deal, this was pure Cannon Golan-Globus, which made for an interesting mix of action subgenres.  On that score, this film is very fascinating for the low-budget action fan.  On the other score, it's Reb Brown screaming and exploding huts.

And what more do you really need after that?  With it still available on YouTube, that's the best way to go.  You can also buy it on DVD from Amazon.  Again, not the best Reb Brown, not the best Cannon or Golan-Globus either, but for fans of those things, a fun time and worth checking out.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093525/

American Bandits: Frank and Jesse James (2010)

Here we have another member of the Stars Play 11. What made this one a must-see before it was dumped? Fred Olen Ray directed, starring Peter Fonda and Jeffrey Combs. Is that not a must-see for you too? (A little warning: I'm about to kill this movie. My review is in no way intended to be an indictment of the entire Southern United States, merely the misguided notion that the South was wronged in the Civil War and post-War reconstruction, while not once mentioning the evil practice of slavery.) American Bandits: Frank and Jesse James takes place in the South after the Civil War. Upset that the North told them they couldn't own other human beings, and bitter about the fact that all their "honor and glory" in defending such an abhorrent practice couldn't save them when the North came down on their asses with a vengeance (including Mainer Joshua Chamberlain), a few have decided that guerrilla attacks on American governmental convoys is the honorable way to accept the war's outcome. Foremost among them: two real American heroes in Frank and Jesse James (Frank played by Tim Abell and Jesse played by a mix of a Poor Man's Brad Pitt, a Poor Man's Karl Urban, and the mysterious guest star on a CW teen drama-type). The dishonorable Northerner marshal (Peter Fonda) wants these two honorable bandits brought in at any cost, but the man chasing them is a Southerner too, and kind of likes the James brothers. Will they escape alive? Wow, I didn't know people still made movies like this. It's one thing to get something like Gone With the Wind in the 1930s, when people still wore black face-- not that that was okay then, but we like to think we've come a long way since then, that that kind of thing is no longer acceptable; and at least in Gone With the Wind, one could make the argument that it was their inability to cut loose the more abhorrent aspects of their way of life, like slavery, that overshadowed their more admirable traits. We don't get any of that here though, all we get is "the South is great, and they were so wronged in the Civil War". On top of that, we're now rooting for two villains that want to preserve the Southern way of life, including slavery. Why not just go full DW Griffith and have the Klan race in on horseback and save Frank and Jesse as Jeffrey Combs has them at gunpoint. Oh yeah, and it's also a Peter Fonda bait-and-switch. Don't wanna forget that. Jeffrey Combs is only in this at the beginning and the end, and is something of a baddie because he tries to double cross Frank and Jesse-- though they tried to double cross him first by walking off with his portion of the money and making him meet them later on at a ghost town. Did Combs not read the script in advance? Did his agent suggest this one without letting him know what he was in for? Maybe he thought by being a bad guy, the racially insensitive element staining the film wouldn't rub off on him. Well, he's right, because I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here. According to his imdb bio, Fred Olen Ray was born in Wellston, Ohio, which is in the southern part of the state, east of Cincinnati. With that knowledge, it's not inconceivable that he'd have grown up with a "South will rise again" mentality, and people like Frank and Jesse James depicted as heroes. Is this his true belief, that the US would be a much better place if the South had won? Man, I hope not. Besides, if you know anything about American history, you'd know that a depression hit not long after the Civil War, forcing the North to abandon its reconstruction efforts, which allowed the South to go about their business, only replacing slavery with de facto slavery in the form of an apartheid that lasted unchallenged until the 50s and 60s. As a straight male, when I see a beautiful woman, there's very little that she can do that will make her unattractive. Defending a way of life that included the dehumanizing practice of owning other human beings though is a major turn off. In this case, Lauren Eckstrom plays Jesse James's love interest, and she's a very stunning woman; but the moment she starts talking about how much better the South was before the North came down and sorted them out, she might as well be Cpl. Klinger in drag. Racism is never a good look. The imdb page said this movie was filmed in Canyon Country, CA, but that picture looks like the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Either way, that's not the point, the point is, if the South had had their way, the only African Americans visiting the Grand Canyon would be slaves carrying their master's bags in lieu of donkeys. There's your "honor and glory", defended by a horde in white sheets, burning crosses and stringing up human beings off of trees. Every time this movie sanctimoniously brought up the South's "honor and glory" it made me sick to my stomach. It's actually ironic that this film would choose an image of the US National Parks system though, because one of the best representatives of freedom and equality in this country are our parks and monuments, whether it's the Buffalo Soldiers administering Yosemite, or Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That's true honor and glory, something worth defending. I'm still stunned that this movie exists, and that Fred Olen Ray of all people would make something like this. Maybe he just didn't know what he was doing, or what his film was saying. I don't know, I heard a lot of mentions of the South's "honor and glory", and no mention of the dehumanizing practice of slavery that they were so honorable in defending. It's bad enough in 1939, but in 2010, it's unacceptable. I understand that there was a bunker mentality after the war that made the North villains to Southerners, whether they agreed with slavery or not, but none of that nuance was on display here; I also know the North was far from perfect, but this movie isn't about the North, it's about the South and some myth of "honor and glory" that's total BS in this context. Oh yeah, and did I mention it's a Peter Fonda bait-and-switch to boot? For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446675/

South Beach (1993)

This was another I picked up from my local record store, along with Undercurrent, and like Undercurrent, it was only $.49. How do you not love that, especially for a flick with DTVC Hall of Famers Gary Busey and Fred Williamson? It's because it stars the latter that I decided to post on it this week, because this is our Super Bowl XLVI week, and Mr. Williamson was in the very first Super Bowl, where his Chiefs lost to the Packers.

South Beach has Williamson as former NFL great and former cop Mack Derringer. He and his former NFL buddies Gary Busey and Peter Fonda run a private detective agency-- or maybe just Williamson is the PI, and Fonda runs a bar, and Busey does whatever, I'm not sure. Anyway, someone is out to get his ex-wife (Vanity), and someone else has set him up for murder, which gets him in hot water with the law, including old college buddy and Miami police detective Robert Forster, and with mob boss Henry Silva. Will Williamson put the pieces of this deadly puzzle together before his time's up?



For the most part this is a yawner that's saved by the great cast, which includes all the people I mentioned above, plus Frank Pesce and Isabel Sanford (Louise Jefferson). The end though is a bit much, all over the place and not sure where it wants to wrap up. We're talking about a classic Kafka-esque Noir-ish actioner, where Williamson is getting all kinds of screwed over, and has no idea who is doing it or why. Plus, a lot of it is Williamson loving him some Williamson, which is kind of fun in spots, but also gets a bit much in others. Overall, it's a matter of how much you like these guys and how much you want to see them-- and how cheap you can find this, because fifty cents makes a movie much more palatable.

We might as well start with The Hammer, since this is Super Bowl week, and he did play in the first one. If you don't know the story surrounding that, he bragged about how he'd crush the Packers wide-outs with his patented Hammer, only to be knocked out himself in the fourth quarter of the game by a knee from the Packers running back. In this movie, he makes himself younger, and a better player than he was-- at least that's what it seems like. The one thing we do know is, he's had a much longer and more prolific career as an actor, and for that we're thankful, because he's given us a lot of great performances.



After I did Peacemaker, I found out just how many readers loved them some Robert Forster, so I figured I'd devote an entire paragraph to him. He unfortunately doesn't have a big role in this, appearing more at the beginning, then a little bit at the end. I think for Forster fans that'll be disappointing, because he's in it enough early to make you think he has a bigger part. Anyway, hopefully this'll just whet your appetite, because I plan to have more Forster up this year. I'm a big fan too.

Busey is pretty solid here, but as you can imagine, with him not mentioned until the sixth paragraph, that this isn't totally Abusive. Though he's on the cover, and this starts off like it's going to be a Williamson/Busey buddy picture, he disappears for a chunk of the middle. In a way, Peter Fonda steps in as Busey's surrogate, because the two seldom appear together on-screen. What I love most about Peter Fonda's part: the mustache and ponytail. Then we have the always hot Vanity as Williamson's ex. She plays a phone sex operator who is harassed by killer. Finally, how do you not love Louis Jefferson? She plays Williamson's mother. What a coup it was for him to pull that off.



Wanna know the one thing I dislike most about the Super Bowl? The commercials. I dislike commercials in general, but this time of year, when something so uncelebrate-able is celebrated, it makes me nauseous. The worst of the bunch are definitely the beer commercials. Other than a few exceptions-- Dos Equis, Keystone Light, Sam Adams-- most national chains have the most disturbing abominations ever created. That's why I drink PBR. Have you ever seen a PBR ad talking about your "man card"? Ever seen a can of PBR that changes color when it's cold? Ever heard PBR tell you that you aren't a real football fan unless you drink their beer? Not a chance. PBR doesn't have any commercials, and for that reason alone, I'll be drinking them while watching my Pats this Sunday.

All right, done with that rant. At fifty cents, this isn't a bad deal, but even then it's a stretch. Cool cast, which makes this a better time than it otherwise would've been, but not quite good enough in my book. Save this for your thrift store/bargain bin find.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104997/

Ghost Rider (2007)

One of the films I'd forgotten about when I first decided to do this look at bad comic book movies was Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage. I remember watching At the Movies with Richard Roeper and whatever co-host he had on at the time saying that this was just one in a line of recent Cage films that weren't screened for reviewers. That struck me as odd, as it did them, because usually the films that avoid screening are the obvious stinkers like White Chicks, so for Cage's people to do that with a big budget movie based on a popular comic book that co-starred some big names, was a little suspicious.

Ghost Rider has Cage as Johnny Blaze, a young man who makes a deal with Mephisto, played by Peter Fonda, to save his dad from cancer, only to have the Devil kill said father in an accident during their bike show. Anyway, however many years later, and Cage is a famous stunt rider, trying to put the deal he made with Fonda out of his mind. Then Blackheart, played by Wes Bentley, shows up, and Fonda knows the only way he can stop his evil son is by calling in his deal with Cage, making Cage become the Ghost Rider.



This is yet another one that could've been so good, and so wasn't. There was this sense at the beginning that they'd go with this small scale, Southwestern-style, noir-ish, supernatural legend type deal, something like "Devil Went Down to Georgia", or U-Turn. Then they hit us with the bad clichés. Oh no, Cage makes a date with his old sweetheart Eva Mendes, what's gonna happen? No Cage, don't stand her up and leave her sitting alone at the restaurant while you turn into Ghost Rider! It was hard to watch. And then every time Ghost Rider drove around, he caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage. It felt like a bad light beer commercial, where absurd doughy guys break things just to get their hands on a bottle of some. It's been a long time since I've read Ghost Rider comics, but I don't remember him turning the area around him into a disaster just by driving through. I would say, based on those issues, the critics probably would've killed it, but some, like me, might have extolled it's virtues as well, so it really should've been screened, and not screening it just tells me that the people making it really did want to amp up the mindless action aspects, and rub out the cooler Southwestern style legend aspects.

The thing is, Cage was really good. Okay, the Texas accent was bad, but everything else was good. I also think he would've preferred taking the big budget action aspect out and making it the Southwestern style urban legend. He lent a sense of quirkiness to the role the way he did with his assassin in Bangkok Dangerous, a sort of off-beat tone in the way he delivered his lines and reacted to the actors and situations around him that was different from every other comic book movie, even Robert Downey jr. in Iron Man. I read somewhere that he's really into comics, seeing them as our mythology, but Ben Affleck was really into comics too, and he didn't do anywhere near as well with Daredevil as Cage did with Ghost Rider. It's funny, because for all the times I kill Cage on here for his National Treasures and The Family Mans, the two films I've reviewed so far I both liked.



I always liked Ghost Rider like I liked Daredevil, but for some reason, I guess the way it was marketed and with it having Nicolas Cage, I wasn't anywhere near as excited to see this as I was that. One thing I think though is Daredevil, like Ghost Rider, lends itself less to the big budget actioner approach than say a Spiderman or Iron Man. I'm not saying they don't need hi-tech special effects and green screens and whatnot to make them work, but their stories work better on a smaller scale. Less is more, I guess I'm saying. The effect of the Southwest, the carnival, the Peter Fonda as the Devil, or Sam Elliott as the former Texas Ranger, are all betrayed by the excessive destruction just because it's blockbustery, and all the cinematic clichés. I listened to some of the director's commentary, and he made some comment about how he wanted to add elements of the Southwest in it. Don't add elements, just go for it. And then he described the use of the cinematic cliché of Eve Mendes being stood up in this way to suggest it was something he wanted to incorporate without curbing the momentum of the movie. Dude, by making us suffer through such overworn territory, you killed any momentum you had for the rest of the film regardless.

One thing we discussed in our look at Hulk was how Jennifer Connelly might have been the hottest female lead in a comic book movie, but I'd have to say Eva Mendes is very close. Of course she's hot in a very different way. It's interesting too to see how the Hulk and Ghost Rider are very similar as super heroes, in how their alter egos change into them in a Jekyll and Hyde sort of way. What made Ghost Rider, and Eva Mendes in her role as the leading lady, better than Hulk and what Connelly had to work with, was how drab the latter's material was. Mendes and Cage seemed to have more fun with things, and it made for a better film, and probably made Mendes even hotter on the whole. On top of Mendes being hot, the girl that played the young Mendes, Raquel Alessi, was really hot as well. According to imdb, she was in the horror classic Uncle Sam. She would've been in her early teens at the time, which is probably why I don't remember her.



Finally, this film employed a great supporting cast. First, Peter Fonda as Mephisto was great. I think he would've been better in a scaled down version of the movie-- this big budget thing would've worked more with a big haired Mephisto-- but he was still great. Wes Bentley as Blackheart was also cool. Again, he would've fit even better in an indie style Southwestern deal. Same can be said about Sam Elliott as the older Ghost Rider. Unlike in Hulk, where he was annoying, here he fit. Yes, everything that came out of his mouth still sounded like "Beef: it's what's for dinner" to me, but I liked it more with a cowboy hat. Finally, Donal Logue played Cage's buddy. He's usually much better doing commentary on VH-1 for their I Love the 70s series, but with Cage the two had great chemistry and he was funny in spots.

In the final analysis, this movie was killed by the need to make it a big budget Hollywood actioner. There's quality material in there worth mining, and it was pushed aside for superfluous special effects and well-worn cinematic blah. That's too bad, because the cast was good, and the film's many bright spots were overshadowed by the need to make this as much like its other big budget brethren, and in the end, none of it worked. I am curious to see if Ghost Rider 2 is better, though. Tweak it, don't reboot it. More U-Turn, less Spiderman 3.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259324/