Night of the Juggler

Columbia went far over the top with NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER! This has got to be the biggest raunchiest production ever released by them! Late-night junkies who saw this on TBS, listen hard! Go out and find the REAL uncut video release starring James Brolin. You'll see what I mean because all the explicitness of its violent subject matter were heavily cut on TV, making it mediocre by comparison. Brolin is an ex-cop searching for his kidnapped daughter (and some answers!), but he faces both urban gangs and the cops at the same time. This may have been his most ambitious role yet as an actor, as he roughs up almost anybody he encounters! Plenty of mean, dirty, and exciting action keeps boredom away. Its urbanized setting and mystery elements make up for a too simple plot. Surprisingly, it's worth a look....if you can find it!

It's quite funny, really… I live in Brussels; the city recently referred to as a "hellhole" by the newly elected (at the time I'm writing this) US President Donald Trump. Judging by this grim & gritty early eighties movie, however, the only genuine hellhole in the world is New York … and that's where Trump lives!

No, seriously, apart from being a fast-paced and darkly entertaining action/thriller, "Night of the Juggler" is primarily an anti-tourist campaign for the city of New York! Nothing you see here will ever make you want to go city-tripping in the Big Apple! We're talking pauperized ghettos, Puerto Rican gang-wars, filthy rancid sex clubs and maniacal, shotgun-wielding and corrupt policemen. Add to this a cast full of unlikable characters, brutal violence, raw editing & camera-work, perverted undertones and genuine adult actresses, and you seemingly have the perfect recipe of a typical '70s exploitation cocktail. But the odd thing is that "Night of the Juggler" isn't just some sleazy and Z-grade drive-in flick, but an actually well- budgeted production from the distinguished Columbia Pictures studios!

The teen daughter of ex-cop turned truck driver Sean Boyd gets kidnapped in broad daylight and in the middle of a crowded Central Park, but nobody reacts or even seems to care. Yes, THAT is the New York City as illustrated in "Night of the Juggler". The kidnapper is a racist pervert named Gus Soltic, but he mistook Boyd's daughter for the daughter of a wealthy real estate contractor that he wants to extort and blame for the downfall of his childhood neighborhood. Whilst Soltic never properly realizes that he took the wrong girl, her father literally races – on foot and by car – through the city. He searches for clues and witnesses, but he also flees for the police because many of his former colleagues hate his guts.

"Night of the Juggler" is a film full of flaws, imbecilities and shortcomings. For example, and like several other reviewers already righteously pointed out, the relationship between the teenage girl and her kidnapper is bizarre and implausible. She doesn't fight back or scream hysterically! She doesn't grab one of the numerous opportunities to escape or call for help! In fact, she doesn't resist at all. Her father doesn't make his own life any easier, neither, since he never properly makes the effort of explaining to the police or potential witnesses what has happened to his daughter. The dialogues are often underdeveloped and the film is overall too long. Particularly the whole climax is too tedious and fairly useless, because it takes place in the sewers and half of the footage is too dark to follow. And yet, I really liked the hefty atmosphere as well as many other things; like the wild taxi ride at the beginning and the gloriously insane character played by Dan Hedaya. He plays a cop who used to be very corrupt and got degraded due to Boyd's testimony, when he sees Boyd popping up in his precinct again he literally goes bonkers! Lead actors James Brolin, Cliff Gorman and Richard Castellano give away more than adequate performances, but they honestly can't match the psychopathic facial expressions linked to Hedaya's acting! Steady direction also, by Robert Butler, who's mainly known for his Disney live-action classics "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" and "The Barefoot Executive". Rather than Disney guff, "Night of the Juggler" more fits into the category with other vile NYC thrillers like "Maniac", "Ms. 45" and "The Exterminator".

A great yet undeservedly obscure entry in the New York as Urban Wasteland cinema genre of the 70's and 80's. Put this one in there along with "Fort Apache: The Bronx," "Taxi Driver," the "Death Wish" series, "Escape From New York," Roberta Findlay's "Tenement," and "The Warriors." Recognizing that from the perspective of 2010, our collective image of New York City is no longer like this, after over two decades of sprucing the place up, you young'uns who don't have any memory of that period can get a good snapshot of the rampant fear and paranoia of those days in this film. It gives that same added emotional frisson you would get watching a fictional World War II movie that was made during the War itself, realizing how seriously both the filmmakers and the audiences at that time would have looked upon this fictional presentation as a representation of reality, knowing that lives were still on the line and the whole crappy situation was very much in full effect.

The film's intentions are made clear as within five minutes into the movie, we get terrorism, a woman trying to kill maurading rats with a broom handle, and a hot dog vendor telling the hero, Jim Brolin, "Did you know that 10,000 people left New York last month?" The Psycho of the Hour, the "Juggler" of the title, a racist and a scumbag, kidnaps a little girl and holds her for ransom. Her father is a rich real-estate developer, who Psycho Pants blames for destroying his South Bronx neighborhood by "letting the N*****s and the S****s move in" and destroy all the buildings. Or, so he thinks.

But dummy has kidnapped the wrong girl: she's really the daughter of James Brolin, an ex-cop with an anger management problem and a total lack of fear. Now in order to track down the Psycho, Brolin is unleashed on an apocalyptic Manhattan landscape, where he careens around like a pinball in a pinball machine (contemporary reference there), crashing trucks, stealing police cars, getting in fights with peep show booth bouncers and Puerto Rican gang members, and beating the tar out of all of them. Brolin also gets hold of a psycho cop on his tail, played with eye-bulging glee by Dan "Noon O Clock Shadow" Hedaya, and pushes Hedaya into a pen of vicious, snarling attack dogs, who then proceed to bite him a new one! Yowch!

Meanwhile, character actor great Richard S. Castellano is the lead cop on the case(s), who doesn't have contact with Brolin's character, but is sort of watching him from afar. It's all building up to the final conflict between Brolin and the psychotic kidnapper in an underground bunker full of steam pipes. Yeah, just like every other movie ever made (Terminator 2, Commando, Robocop...I could go on, but I won't).

This is REALLY sleazy and action-packed for a major studio release and I loved it! Plus you get to see some great footage of Manhattan in its grimy prime and the devastated South Bronx landscape.

Sure, the plot is over-the-top and ridiculous; Brolin attacks almost everyone he comes into contact with, including his ex-wife, and he's supposed to be the Good Guy; his daughter is not the most appealing character; and the Police are all portrayed as barely competent idiots. I didn't care. I still enjoyed this movie immensely.

That title does bite the big one, though.

UPDATE: It is my understanding that the rights holder for this movie, who is a small production company, not a major studio, is not interested in releasing this on DVD of Blu-Ray anytime soon. So your only chance at seeing this is digging up an old VHS release and hitting up Goodwill for a working VHS machine.

Brolin stars as an ex-cop turned trucker driver who has to track down a psycho extortionist after the guy mistakenly kidnaps Brolin's daughter. Along the way he encounters pimps, prostitutes, crooked cops, youth gangs and, worst of all, his ex-wife. Ouch! Despite the horrible title (exactly what is that supposed to mean?), this is a great little thriller that captures NYC at its sleazy best. There are two great car/foot chases courtesy of stunt coordinator Chris Howell (who even had his preteen son C. Thomas Howell doing stunts on this!). Unfortunately the Media VHS I have is so dark during the last 15 minutes that it is hard to make out exactly what is happening (it is a chase through the sewers). Also featuring Julie Carmen, Dan Hedaya, Mandy Patinkin and porn star Sharon Mitchell (who also appeared in William Lustig's MANIAC).

This movie has it all if you love raw b-movie action. Brolin plays an ex-cop turned trucker who's on a personal manhunt to catch the maniac that kidnapped his daughter on her birthday. This sets Brolin's character on a chase across NYC from the subways to strip clubs to dog pounds and beyond.

This movie was a legend back in the day for my friends and I. We caught it on late night cable, but never managed to grab the full name of the film or the stars. What we did catch was the INCREDIBLE chase scene that takes the characters from cars to buses to trains to on foot as they crisscross Manhattan. Yeah, Bullitt and The French Connection are good and all, but the Night of the Juggler chase scene makes the action in those films seem average, if not unambitious.

This movie is sort of like the pinnacle of 70s/80s street-style film making. It has the intense, raw camera work of Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris flicks, paired with a vision of New York City akin to Wild Style (and maybe even just a hint of the Warriors). The characters here are a bizarre amalgam of clichés that still excite despite being retreads in many ways.

The bottom line - score this movie if you can! Far as I know, VHS was the final destination for this film in terms of home video. I bought my copy off of the Internet years ago and the tape was so old that it was broken. But I was determined to watch this flick (because it's so good!), so I cracked the case opened and and spent hours repairing the tape myself. It's just that awesome.