Striker

"Striker" may very well be the most generic and clichéd title you can use for a hard-boiled 80s action movie, but it does spontaneously remind me of the magnificent powerhouse & up-tempo thrash-metal song by the formidable band "Annihilator". Look it up! You'll love it if you're into aggressive guitars, and the lyrics are fitting too! "Waking the fury, the power, the beast! You challenged the best in the land. I'll show you no mercy, prepare for a fight! The ultimate force is at hand." Etc.

Anyways, "Striker" is the type of cheap exploitation B-movie cinema that simply remains irresistible to me. Even after seeing hundreds of lousy and incredibly cheap action flicks like these, I still look forward to the next. What makes them so addictive? They're Italian, produced during the late 80s, exaggeratedly anti-communist, copycatting all the glorious one-man-army classics starring Sylvester Stallone or Chuck Norris, Enzo G. Castellari directing, cast full of familiar sleazy faces, body count easily surpassing 200, misplaced drama & romance, ...

This one becomes extra hilarious if you think of it as an exploitation version of "Dennis the Menace". John Slade, the lead hero played by terrible actor Frank Zagarino, undeniably looks like Dennis the Menace with his boyishly cute face and blond hair. Moreover, Slade takes a slingshot on his mission into the Nicaraguan jungle with him and fires off bullets into his opponents' foreheads with it! Go Dennis. Slade's actual mission is to liberate leftwing journalist and former fighting buddy Frank Morris, but there are communist betrayers and double-crossers everywhere. "Striker" is lots of fun and insanely violent. Zagarino is a worthless action hero, but the supportive cast is great, with John Steiner hilariously overacting as the Russian baddie, Werner Pochath as the unreliable Dutch helicopter pilot, and the always charismatic John Philip Law. The unthankful but obligatory female lead is for Melonee Rodgers. She's unbelievably beautiful and not even that bad an actress. She only appeared in a handful of movies, which is quite a shame.

Judging by the period of release, the filming locations, the similar cast lists, and the cool cameo appearance of beefcake Daniel Greene in the last shot, I'm guessing "Striker" was made back-to-back with "Hammerhead". That's how I know Enzo G. Castellari: quick, dirty, and cost-efficient!

My Co-workers and I were watching this movie while we were on we were working on Mid-shift. And yes, at times our line of work is boring since we were resorted to watching of this caliber. It was the worst movie I have ever seen. The acting in the movie had the same quality as an average porn flick. The cinematography was similar to an early 70's late 60 TV movie. Did they use 8mm film? We never even finished watching the movie. And the music wasn't music at all. Did the director hired a 6 year old kid to push buttons on a keyboard? The reason I ask that is is that that's what is sounded like. My co-worker commented that he could play the same notes on his keyboard when he was a kid on an early 80's keyboard you can buy at Toy's R Us. Frank Zagarino needs to take acting classes or find another line of work. If the other actors in the move were smart, I'm sure they would not have given up there day jobs. No stars deserved.

Fans of Frank Zagarino will get what they expect here. The plot involves a one-man-army who wreaks havoc on a band of evil-doers. There's plenty of action with little time wasted on romance, humor, or characterization. Jaws are punched, stomachs are kicked, and various kinds of vehicles get blown up. Zagarino finds several opportunities to take his shirt off and flex his muscles and, as usual, he must undergo lots of suffering -- mostly notably in a scene which has him shocked with jolts of electricity while he's hanging by his wrists. If all this sounds like an appealing way to spend an evening, then belly up to the trough and suck it up.

Comic-book-level action yarn, with plenty of then-trendy anti-Communist propaganda, and Enzo Castellari's trademark crazy camera angles and energetic editing, which, however, are not much help here. Frank Zagarino kills about 200 people in this one, but the film is less exciting than even Bruno Mattei's "Strike Commando", and I think that should tell you something. (*1/2)

By the mid to late 80s the once unique Italian genre film became harder to identify from the pack of American post-Nam post-nuke films they started to ape. This is not to say however that these films weren't entertaining, they just aren't necessarily as memorable as the best Spaghetti Westerns, Gialli, and Poliziotteschi. Then there's Enzo G. Castellari's STRIKER, a Rambo rip off so big it will blow you to pieces (just like the film's countless Sandinista baddies). Full of slow motion and squibs, the film centers around the one man army that is reluctant mercenary John Slade (Frank Zagarino). Slade is sent on a mission to Nicaragua to save a kidnapped journalist (John Phillip Law) from the clutches of the evil Russian villain Kariasin played by John Steiner (sporting a hideous rat tail like haircut). From there the action rarely lets up as as throughout the film Slade slingshots, stabs, and machineguns whole platoons with an Uzi. Plot is pretty standard merc film fair complete with countless twists and double crosses. While clearly a very cheap, cheesy film, STRIKER is highly entertaining and has become one of my favorite 80s Italian Rambo ripoffs.

Fun fact: the film's screenplay was written by Eurocrime veteran Umberto Lenzi. It also features one of the most intense electric shock torture scenes I've seen outside of THE MINSTREL KILLER.