My review was written in June 1984 after a Times Square screening.
"The Executioner Part II" is an incompetent, cheaply made action picture, dating from 1982. Its title seems intentionally designed to cause confusion, since the film has no relationship to several earlier pics called "The Executioner" ()including a 1970 Columbia British-made spy effort), but is imitative of the 1980 Rober Ginty vehicle "The Exterminator". Soon to add further confusion are two more Ginty vehicles yet to be released: "Exterminator II" and "The Executioner: The Mission".
Chris Mitchum toplines as L. A. Homicide Lt. Roger O'Malley, tracking down a vigilante killer who is blowing up street criminals with hand grenades (each explosion is an insert of grainy old stock footage). Sans suspense, the killer turns out to be Mike (Antoine John Mottet), O'Malley's old army buddy who saved O'Malley's life in Vietnam, as shown in prolog footage. Boh men are a war with a local gangster kingpin Antonio Casals, known as the Tattoo Man, who kidnaps O'Malley's daughter Laura and tortures her until a last minute rescue. Asinine ending has O'Malley letting his guilty buddy go, leaving town to set up a (shudder!) sequel.
Filmed silently on L. A. locations with a wobbly,k ofen out-of-focus handheld camera technique and seemingly 1:1 shooting ratio, "Part II" is way below current technical standards of wathaility. Dubbins is awful, with a maddening failure to put back footfalls or other appropriate background sound. Acting is generally below the level of a hardcore porn film. Mitchum fils is miscast, and his daughter looks old enough to be his elder sister. Aldo Ray is on screen for under a minute as Mitchum's blowhard boss, and producer Renee Harmon has herself written into the script as a most unlikely, matronly L. A. tv newscaster boasting a thick French accent. Her closeups ae lensed though a horse blanket.
