Diplomatic Immunity

It's true that there's really not much here. A very run-of-the-mill revenge story. The acting of the star, Bruce Boxleitner, who I have never heard of, wasn't bad, nor that of Billy Drago. The script is fourth-rate. And yes, since this film's raison d'etre is the topless scene by Fabiana Udenio, let's discuss that. I first saw her in guest roles on '80's sitcoms, like "Wings". She was soooo gorgeous. Still is. She seems to be an acceptable actress. Those boobs, though. They really grab one's attention when she is clothed, but they are just too big to be very attractive bare. They definitely seem to be real, though, and give credit for that. Big, giant fake ones are really ugly. So, unless you want to see Fabiana's charms, there is simply no other reason to see this movie. Grade: F

Bruce Boxleitner, remember him. He was a cool action hero in this 80's show called Bring Em' Back Alive. Well, he's another kind of hero here, in a not too bad action yarn, as a revenge seeking marine, out to take down a young sicko photographer boyfriend, of his beautiful daughter, responsible for her accidental murder. Boxleitner pretty much took a disliking to him, straight off the bat. Now seething, as the killer is granted diplomatic immunity, Boxleitner, must become someone else and enter Paraquay, where he bumps heads with an old work rival (Robert Forster) and why am I not surprised to see him in this, while also making him out for a bad guy. Intuition. Now with a fake id, and needing hard armour, who should be selling it, good guy Drago, who teams up to take down twisted loverboy, and twisted family. Not a bad action fare, a little patchy, and there is better out there, but give this one a view, with a different cast hero, who carries the film, so cool and deadly. Creepy smiling Drago is a another asset. Meg Foster as loverboy's twisted stepmother, is also a curiosity.

My review was written in March 1991 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.

"Diplomatic Immunity" is a superior B actioner. Its crowd-pleasing, ingenious trick ending will ratify urban audiences in theatrical play this spring while video sales loom strong.

In his best feature since the minor classic "Viper" (starring Linda Purl), made three years earlier, filmmaker Peter Maris is blessed with a clever script and topnotch cast.

Bruce Boxleitner, fitting a mature role comfortably, toplines as a Marine training sergeant what goes over the top when his beautiful young daughter (Sharon L. Kane) is rap;ed and mudered b her foreign boyfriend (Tom Bresnahan). Pic's title comes into play early when Bresnahan and his evil henchman Christophe Neame are returned to their home turf, Paraguay, since both hold diplomatic passports.

His old Vietnam War teammate Robert Forster, now a CIA bigwig controlling Latin American operations, tells Boxleitner to cool it, but the gung-ho leatherneck takes matters in his own hands and heads to Paraguay. His contact there is cynical Billy Drago, offering him arms and information.

The picture gains momentum when Boxleitner teams up with Bresnahan's dominatrix mistress, Fabiana Udenio, and later Drago to mount an assault on the villain's island fortress. Good stunt work and frequent action scenes are a plus.

Supporting Boxleitner in solid turns are Drago, who invests a stock role with terrific "juice", Bresnahan, the all-American boy who starred recently in "Ski School" but is perfect here as a sadistic villain. Udenio, a statuesque beauty who confirms the good impression she made in "Bride of Re-Animator"; and Meg Foster, delightfully heinous as Bresnahan' incestuous mother. Most of the cast gets tgo ham it up in final reel death scenes.

The tiger in the tail at film's fadeout (two delicious twists) is the kind of clever scripting that would benefit a high-priced recent superstar actioner.

(1991) Diplomatic Immunity ACTION/ ADVENTURE

Straight-to-rental and adapted from the novel "The Stalker" written by Theodore Taylor starring Bruce Boxleitner as Army Sargent Cole Hickel seeking retribution after finding out that his young teenage daughter had been killed by the son of a Paraguay Consulate and have some diplomatic immunity citizenship where they were residing which is in LA California. Cole then decides to sneak in to Paraguay after some gov't bureaucracy wouldn't do anything about it, even though he's been blacklisted from even entering there. Robert Forster and frequent bad guy Billy Drago also stars in a rare good guy role as an arms dealer, Cowboy.

This movie is nothing special. Although it has it's moments (e.g. Billy Drago as a good guy, LOL, have we ever seen that before??), it loses out to lots of other similar movies which are better. The plot is pretty standard. Bad guy commits heinous crime, flees to another country where he thinks he's safe, our hero follows him to settle things straight. A plot like that always has potential, but this movie wasn't able to deliver to my standards. The action scenes weren't that good, and most of time the movie is boring. Even Matthias Hues wasn't able to add anything here. It could have been worse, though, it's not terrible either. 4 out of 10