The Big Sweat

My review was written in July 1991 after watching the film on AIP video cassette.

Car chases eat up most of the running time of "The Big Sweat", a crudely made action pic from transplanted German director Ulli Lommel.

Direct-to-video release tries to e different twitch a nonstop,k 3-minute chase sequence covering the middle reels. Theis footage of hero Steve Molone and his bandrob bing gang on the run from local police and FBI starts off well but becomes repetitious and impersonal. Ding to the generic quality of the footage is reliance upon actin scenes shot by the late car chase specialist H. B. Halicki.

Another switch here is casting of oversize movie villain Rober Z'dar as a most unconventional FBI agent. His characterization is goofy enough to be likeable at first , but by film's end the frivolous depiction of the modern FBI and its methods almost makes one long for the square o' Joe Friday prototypes.

Scripter Max Bolt's standard plt ha ex-con Molone plotting against his gangster nemesis Peter Sherayko. Z'dar wants Molone to testify against Sherayko, but our hero's no fink.

Lommel, a Fassbinder protege whose AMerican work includes the 1980 hit "The Boogey Man", seems content with grinding out style-less action pics these days. In common with several other recent direct-to-video releases, opening credits sequence violates the rules of theatrical films and lists the producer last, after the director.