Hit List (1989)

If you’re a child of the 80’s and had an obsession with movies, you know what a wondrous place the video store was at the peak of the video rental boom.  Walking through aisles of VHS covers and having those lurid covers tantalizing your preadolescent mind was quite an experience.  It almost gave you a feeling that you were somewhere you shouldn’t be.  The VHS sleeves for movies like Zombie, I Spit on Your Grave, and Driller Killer will forever be imprinted on my brain.  Then there were the odd or curious looking box art.  The ones that had you guessing what they were about and what type of movies they were.  Films like Happy Birthday to Me or The Exterminator had interesting but somewhat ambiguous covers.  If it weren’t for them being shelved in a specific section of the store, you weren’t sure what you were in for.  One such film, for me anyway, was Hit List.  The image of the car running over a man always piqued my curiosity.  Was this a horror film?  An action film?  What was it?  Once I discovered it was directed by William Lustig and involved a psychotic hitman played by Lance Henriksen, I had to track it down.  And the fact that this movie remains available only on VHS makes it that much more curious.

Essentially, Hit List is a crime-thriller with flourishes of action and horror.  After a gangster is arrested for drug trafficking, he’s forced to turn state’s evidence and testify against his criminal boss.  The mob boss, worried that his lieutenant will rat him out, decides to put a hit out and ensure that no testimony is made; except that the hitman makes a vital error and goes to the wrong house during his assassination attempt.  After disposing of a man and woman he assumes are federal agents providing witness protection, he kidnaps a boy he believes to be the son of his target, whom he can’t find anywhere in the house.  This sequence of events sets in motion the revenge / rescue angle of the film and will make up the majority of the runtime going forward.

Jan-Michael Vincent plays Jack Collins, the family man whose son has been kidnapped, wife attacked, and friend murdered during the home invasion.  Collins is hell-bent on rescuing his son and finding the person responsible for turning his life upside down.  In order to make this happen, he’ll have to recruit the help of the gangster turned informant and intended target, Frank DeSalvo, played by Leo Rossi.  DeSalvo has his own vendetta to settle, now that he knows his boss (Rip Torn) tried to have him whacked.  Together, Collins and DeSalvo will have to fight off mafia thugs, elude the police, and battle a highly trained killer in order to save the kid and win the day.

Just like his prior films, Lustig’s cast for Hit List is made up of recognizable character actors.  Lance Henriksen, Leo Rossi, Rip Torn, and Charles Napier, who plays the lead FBI agent, are all familiar faces to movie fans and they all do a solid job in their respective roles.  Henriksen and Torn, in particular, are a lot of fun in their over-the-top performances as villainous characters.  The only issue with the cast is the leading man role, played by Jan-Michael Vincent.  Most will probably know Vincent from the TV show, Airwolf.  According to a 2008 interview, Lustig states that Vincent was drunk during the shooting of the film and it’s pretty apparent from the moment he steps onscreen.  He seems to struggle delivering his lines and I think you can even see him have trouble staying upright in some scenes.  In addition to this, he just simply can’t emote the grief that is necessary for his character.  When it’s explained to him that his wife is in a coma and that she has lost their unborn child, Vincent’s reaction to this soul-crushing news seems more appropriate for someone who has just been told that their favorite flavor of ice cream has been discontinued.   Lustig does his best to limit Vincent’s dialogue and shoot around his embarrassing performance, but there’s only so much you can do when your leading man is a disaster.  Jan-Michael Vincent almost sinks this entire film.  Fortunately, the rest of the cast brings it and a strong third act saves this movie from being a dud.

In that same interview, Lustig admits that he needed work and that this project was a director for hire job.  It definitely has that feel when compared to his earlier efforts, such as Maniac and Vigilante.  Hit List doesn’t have the same grit or nihilism that those films had.  Also, this film was shot in sunny Los Angeles instead of the rough streets of a pre-Giuliani New York City, where Lustig filmed his previous movies. This gives Hit List a more polished aesthetic, overall.  Still, Lustig delivers on the violence and action set-pieces, especially in the finale of the film.  There are a few memorable sequences that occur within the film.  There is a scene where Henriksen slips into a prison like a ninja and assassinates a potential witness after he takes out the prison guards.  There’s a fun shootout that takes place in a laser tag arena.  And there’s the standout car chase that eventually leads to a crazy sequence where Henriksen’s character is hanging from a truck as he tries to kill the driver.  I don’t want to spoil the end of this wild scene, but let’s just say that there is truth in advertising in regards to the VHS box art for this movie.

Nobody would claim that Hit List is one of Bill Lustig’s best films; including the director himself.  It doesn’t have that grindhouse feel of his earlier films and it doesn’t have a screenwriter like a Larry Cohen to inject some social commentary into the film, as he did for Maniac Cop.  And it certainly doesn’t help that your leading man is blotto through the film’s entirety.  Lustig and the supporting cast manage to somehow save this movie from being a complete disaster.  It’s a testament to Lustig’s skills as a director that he was able to salvage this film from what must have been a difficult shoot and turn in a decent action-thriller.  It may not be a cult classic, but Hit List deserves better than to linger in VHS obscurity.

MVT: The supporting cast of Lance Henriksen, Leo Rossi, Rip Torn, & Charles Napier

Make or Break Scene: The action packed finale!

Score: 6/10

The Last Match (1991)

Cliff (surly Oliver Tobias) is the super-terrific quarterback of some unnamed football team, and as Fabrizio DeAngelis’ (under the super-terrific nom de guerre Larry Ludman) The Last Match (aka L’ultima Meta) opens, he somehow manages to pull a super-terrific win against another unnamed team out of his ass (not that any of this is shown in any coherent fashion), all while super-terrific Coach Keith (the ever-enthusiastic Ernest Borgnine) cheers him on from the sidelines.  Shortly thereafter, and for absolutely no discernible reason, some anonymous guy slips drugs into the handbag of Cliff’s daughter Suzy (the super-terrifically cute Melissa Palmisano), who has been vacationing in the Dominican Republic with her super-terrifically overstimulated boyfriend George (Robert Floyd).  Suzy is taken to the not-so-super-terrific prison governed by Warden Yachin (Henry Silva), and after Cliff kind of/sort of runs into nothing but red tape, he decides that his only option is to bust his little girl out.  In his football uniform.

Sports films are typically about the triumph of the human spirit.  It is less important that the protagonist emerges victorious in whatever athletic field in which they are engaged than it is that he/she overcomes his/her inner demons and character flaws to become a stronger person in the process (Exhibit A: Rocky).  Audiences love to cheer on the underdog, because they identify with the archetype.  Everyone feels like they’re up against seemingly insurmountable odds at some point or another.  Not being a sports fan, you would think that sports films wouldn’t appeal to me, but the plain fact is that they do, and this is because of what I mentioned above.  The best in this genre play to a broad audience that transcend the sports aspects.  

If anything, the actual sports in a sports film usually play like the fights in an action film or the finale of a horror film.  In the good ones, they are the delicious gravy on the meat of character development and thematic exploration.  In the bad ones, they are filler designed to distract you from the film’s innate shortcomings.  It’s kind of rare that we get a sports film where the athletes are on top and stay on top from beginning to end.  After all, where’s the excitement in that?  What’s the point if the protagonist(s) never have to rise above mighty hardships?  This, then, is the primary reason why The Last Match is a dud.  We’re told (but not until the film’s end) that Cliff’s team starts off poorly in every game, but they always manage to turn it around and win.  As previously hinted, the football games are edited in such a random manner (by Adriano Tagliavia, under the super-terrifically-on-the-nose pseudonym Adrian Cut; get it?), we never see Cliff’s team go through this supposed struggle, because we’re never one hundred percent certain what the hell is going on at all.  In fact, I would go so far as stating that the only shots that make any sense in these sequences are those of Coach Keith doing his coaching thing and those of the cheerleaders doing their cheerleading thing.  We have to take it as writ that Cliff’s team are all winners all the time, which is great if you bet on their games, but it doesn’t work for a film, even one that’s not strictly about football (despite the inordinate amount of time devoted to showing football games onscreen).

Football players are often likened to modern day gladiators; warriors who do battle on a field of honor (we’re talking theoretically here).  Consequently, they tend to be depicted in fictive works as large, scowling thugs (sometimes with a heart of gold, if the classic “Mean” Joe Green Coca-Cola commercial has taught us anything at all).  Nevertheless, this doesn’t really work on film, unless their purpose is as either henchmen or cannon fodder (and make no mistake, the majority of Cliff’s team are exactly that, though I don’t recall any of them getting so much as grazed by a bullet with one exception).  The sports film protagonist needs to have something with which viewers can connect, even if they’re not very nice people (Exhibit B: Raging Bull).  This is the secondary reason why The Last Match is a clunker.  Cliff, as essayed by Tobias, is one of the most miserable pricks I’ve seen as the protagonist in a film in quite a while.  He mildly tolerates everyone with whom he comes into contact.  He is aloof to the point of apathy, even when talking with his daughter, who we have to take it on faith that he loves since he goes through all this hassle to help her out (watch his non-reaction to the injury of one of his pals which is discovered, predictably, on the plane ride home, if the rest of the mountain of evidence in the film up to that point doesn’t convince you).  He is condescending, even to the people who are on his side (including, but not limited to, a perfectly wasted Martin Balsam).  When a character who previously gave Cliff shit (justifiably or not) suddenly pops up and says he wants to talk, Cliff instantly whoops the man’s ass (justifiably or not) rather than hear even one word he has to say.  While we certainly feel for Suzy to some extent or another, Cliff is nothing but a curmudgeon, the blunt, dull instrument this film uses to bang square pegs into round holes.

The film is also adamant in its depiction of the local populace.  The Dominicans in The Last Match HATE Americans (I don’t think any Dominican ever refers to any non-Dominican characters by their actual names; it’s always as “American”).  One of Suzy’s jailers states “nothing is denied you people in my country.”  Yachin basically tells Cliff point blank that he’s banging Cliff’s daughter and throwing it in his face simply because Cliff and Suzy are Americans.  Whether or not this enmity is warranted, the filmmakers waste even less time jumping to portray Dominicans as base creatures and their nation as a corrupt hellhole (though I don’t think it has to be Dominicans; I’m sure just about any non-white country/populace would suffice for the filmmakers).  Suzy is stripped and searched after her arrest, and we get reaction shots of the male guards ogling her like wolves eyeing up a lame deer.  Balsam’s character states, “Nobody of any importance ever comes to this godforsaken part of the world.”   A character wants Cliff and his pals to take his son out of the country with them, because he knows just how horrible it is living there.  We’ve definitely seen these sorts of attitudes before in genre films, but ordinarily they aren’t so pointed, so mean, as they are here.  

Finally, the film’s climax seems to miss its own point.  Even while we look forward to the assault on the prison, it doesn’t play out satisfyingly.  The only standout to the affair is that the good guys all wear their uniforms (which boggles the mind if they weren’t looking to be recognized and/or cause an international incident).  After all of the relentless dourness that comes before it, the film needed a win in this regard, but it’s as joyless as everything and everyone else in the film, and it robs it of what appeal it may have had.

MVT:  Borgnine gives it a lot of gusto, but he’s the one brightly over-ebullient spot in an otherwise moribund picture. 

Make or Break:  When Yachin receives his comeuppance, it’s anticlimactic in just about every respect.  Silva (and the audience) deserve better.

Score:  4.5/10

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)

Since my good friend Thor called into the latest feedback episode, I decided it was only fitting to review a movie he was involved in. It’s neither the 2011 adaptation of “Thor” or 2012’s “The Avengers”. It’s not a film where he’s the main star (or even one of the main selling points). He plays the sidekick role. His partner is The Incredible Hulk.

The two superhero heavyweights team up for the Hulk’s big return to television. It acted as a backdoor for a “Thor” television series that never got off the ground. This version of Thor differed drastically from that of the comics. He’s sent to Earth for the same reason, that being a lesson in humility. Outside of the costume design, that’s where the comparisons stop.

In this incarnation, he is controlled by Donald Blake (Steve Levitt), a scientist who discovered Thor’s hammer in a cave. When he hoisted it in the air, he awakened the God of Thunder. To summon him at will, he wields the hammer and shouts, “Odin!”. Despite his smaller stature, he can rule Thor by making him cave to his demands. He’s respectable about this, but still lets it get to his head.



The two join Dr. Bruce Banner (Bill Bixby), who has faked his own death and taken up the identity of Bruce Banyan. You think he could have came up with a better handle for the sake of secrecy. He’s just finished work on a machine that can reverse the gamma rays from his body. Therefore, no more Hulk and no more Lou Ferrigno.

Nobody came to see Bruce Banner officially eliminate the Hulk from within himself. Bixby does an excellent job of almost wanting that to happen, as you feel sorrow for his plight. He’s a man with a monster living inside of him that he can never get rid of. This prevents him from having a serious relationship, which he’s trying to establish with Maggie Shaw (Lee Purcell).

Donald Blake interrupts him before he can finish the task and introduces him to Thor. Thor gets a little testy with Banner, accidentally shoving him into an electrical outlet. This sparks a rage in Banner (pun intended), unleashing the Incredible Hulk. A battle between the two giants ensues in a medical lab. They toss each other around, knocking over tables and high-tech equipment. They eventually crash out of a window, where Blake decides it’s a good time to send Thor back into hibernation.



The two eventually team up to wage war with a crime organization whose sole purpose is steal the gamma ray machine and… you know, it’s never quite clear what their goal is. I would assume to make money off of it. I’m just not sure where they could sell this piece of equipment. Do pawn shops deal in the arts of scientific technology?

This aspect of the story doesn’t really matter. The bad guys (one of which is played by Charles Napier) are simply there to be clobbered and demolished by Hulk and Thor. They’re as underdeveloped as a Bonnie Tyler music video. Director Nicholas Corea doesn’t care about them, so why should the audience?

It’s not a major slight against the film. The majority of the television series was that way. Since this is a television movie meant to not only revive the series, yet also start a new one in “Thor”, you come to expect this type of mishmash directing. The story, characters and villains are never truly developed. The only one that is would be Bruce Banner’s plight as The Incredible Hulk. When not focusing on that, it’s smashy smashy time. For that, it serves it’s purpose.



MVT: Bill Bixby as Bruce Banner. Just like in the television series, he gives the character raw emotion and a reason for the audience to care. The fact that I almost didn’t want to see Lou Ferrigno dipped in green paint because of Bruce’s emotional angst is a true testament to Bixby’s skills.

Make or Break: The fight between Hulk and Thor in the laboratory. Up until then, we only got fleeting glimpses of the action. It was here where Nicholas Corea set the tone of the film and assured we were in for some lighthearted superhero fare.

Final Rating: 6.25/10

Alien From The Deep (1989)

Eco-warriors Jane (Marina Giulia Cavalli) and Lee (Robert Marius) infiltrate a jungle island with the aim of blowing the lid off evil corporation E-Chem's dumping-nuclear-waste-into-a-volcano scam. Bob (Daniel Bosch), the quasi-mercenary snake farmer, joins in the fun after his slick moves fail to charm Jane ("Don't touch me, you snake squeezer!") into his bed. They inevitably butt heads with Colonel Kovacks (Charles Napier), the head of the waste-dumping plant, as well as a giant alien who is attracted by the raw power of the radioactive material and can infect humans with its touch. Got all that? Good.

As you're probably aware, Antonio Margheriti (credited here under his "Anthony Dawson" pseudonym) has long been a mainstay of Italian exploitation cinema. And, if you're a fan of exploitation cinema, you know that no one does rip-offs like the Italians. Here, the cash-in is focused on James Cameron's Aliens, but I'm not so sure the film knows that. The whole extra-terrestrial aspect of the story feels tacked on (pretty much beginning and ending in the film's third act), almost as if Margheriti spotted the movie's poster one morning about three quarters of the way through production and realized, "Oh yeah, there's supposed to be an alien in Alien From The Deep. Up until this point, the film has been a decent little jungle adventure, complete with smoldering, papier mache volcano (but more on that in a moment).

The characters are stock for this type of affair. The hero is stoic but not uncaring. The heroine is independent and idealistic but still needs a man to lean on. Her companion is a placeholder for the hero. The villain is cruel and single-minded. And the nutsy-cuckoo nuclear physicist (Luciano Pigozzi) is always right, even when postulating the most outrageous theories. Plus, the henchmen are uniformly incompetent. All the actors ACT with all their might, even in the quietest scenes. And, while it's always fun to watch him growl his way through a performance, even Napier takes it one step beyond.

Naturally, one doesn't watch a movie like this for its thespian excellence. No, movies like this exist for pure entertainment purposes, and, on that score, Alien From The Deep delivers. Margheriti is a skilled craftsman at pacing, and the film never lags enough to bore the viewer. In fact, I would argue that the only time you'll look at your watch while seeing this film is when you start wondering where the hell the alien is. As an aside, the editing in this film tends to favor the non-disclosure of events. By that I mean, something will happen directly offscreen, but we're shown a character's closeup or somesuch. We then cut to the effect of the unseen action, say a tree falling after being hit by something. Whether this technique is due to budgetary constraints or lazy coverage is debatable, but my suspicion lies with the former.

There's a lot of miniature effects work in the movie, and it rarely, if ever, comes off as convincing. Thank God, because it just adds another layer of fun to be had. The island's volcano looks like it's ready for some sixth grader to pour vinegar down the top and take third place at the science fair. The most entertaining miniature use, however, involves intrepid guard Rodney, a boat, and a dock loaded with high explosives. You'll think you're watching something from Sid & Marty Krofft. Additionally, there's at least one nice mannequin death, and there are some okay gore effects, too.

Finally, let's look at the Aliens aspect of the film (I figure, if Margheriti doesn't have to bring it up until the end, neither do I). The creature's first (and second, and third) appearance will leave you thinking it's a giant mollusk with a stiff neck. However, we find out in the sidesplitting finale that there's much more (and much less) to it. The design will not have H.R. Giger fearing for his livelihood. It consists of "stuff" glued onto a stiff understructure with tubing wrapped around it, and it performs like a Punchinello marionette. I mean, it's not as hilarious on first view as Luigi Cozzi's Cyclops from Contamination, but it makes Carlo Rambaldi's Kong robot look like an Olympic gymnast.

Just about every beat from the end of Cameron's film is copied, or at least the ones Margheriti felt were most exploitable. The giant alien is attacked with heavy machinery. It has a version of the pharyngeal jaws of Giger's creation (sort of). There's even flamethrower action and a gut-busting climax involving a long fall. But I can see why James Cameron and Fox never bothered to sue, and you will, too.

There's more, of course, but I wouldn't want to ruin any more of this film for you than I already have. Sure, it's a rip-off flick, but it's so joyfully threadbare, you never really care. Plus, it does what it says it will do: Entertain you for 85 minutes with an adventure which is (eventually) about a giant alien from the deep. Maybe Bob the snake farmer sums it up best at the film's conclusion: "But if it was just a warning, who would want to believe it?" Who, indeed?

MVT: Charles Napier. The man's a consummate professional who plays it totally straight, and your interest automatically picks up when he's onscreen, ready to scowl and growl.

Make or Break: The alien, while not as well-done as Stan Winston's Queen Alien, really is the big draw, and it's a ton of fun watching it act like the star of Warhol's Empire.

Score: 7/10