2020: il grande inganno

My review was written in May 1989 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Alternating at will between futuristic satire and hard action sequences, "Rising Storm" (a/k/a "Rebel Waves") is an entertaining hybrid in the "Mad Max" genre, likely to scare up a video following.

Lensed in South Africa (spotlighting scenic views of the now over-familia Namib desert), pic is set in the U. S. in the year 2009, when what' left of the country is ruled by a totalitarian theocracy headed by oily televangelist Jimmy Joe II.

Spoof elements get underway with a bang as Richard Strauss' "Thus Sprach Zarathustra" plays during the opening credits sequence, in which a huge Big Boy hamburger statue is excavated like some rare artifact.

On-the-run plot has brothers Wayne Crawford and Zach Galligan (former just sprung from stir) thrown in with blonde sisters June Chadwick and Elizabeth Keifer, the gals being chased by various heavies headed by John Rhys-Davies (whose penchant for sadistic torture is film's roughest element).

Femmes turn out to be freedom fighters, who with the heroes' unwitting acceptance uncover the ancient radio station of a militant deejay. They use cassettes he left behind to broadcast the truth to brainwashed populace and bring about a revolution.

Helmer Francis (a/k/a Franky) Schaeffer overlays the usual post-apocalypse shenanigans with high style, including some smooth Steadicam wok and solid action scenes. Exaggerated tongue-in-cheek nature of the script skews the film's potential audience toward cultists, however.

Crawford, better known as producer (though he previously starred in his own pic "Jake Speed"), does very well as the mercenary hero. Newcome Keifer complements spunky Chadwick as heroines willing to muss up their hair a bit. William Katt, who previously starred for Crewqrfod and his producing partner Andrew Lane in "White Ghost", is effective in an unbilled cameo as the dee-jay.