TheFearmakers
Joined Nov 2016
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Executive Producer Dick Wolfe's 1987 crime-thriller NO MAN'S LAND is said to have influenced the likes of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS and before that POINT BREAK... and yet the inside-man-befriending-a-dangerous-kingpin-he's-out-to-bust device has been around since WHITE HEAT, THE STREET WITH NO NAME and countless others...
Herein the central character's second-billed D. B. Sweeney (working for timid chief-detective Randy Quaid), a lowly cop with the specific skills to go undercover as a mechanic at a stolen-car-ring garage... soon meeting young rich owner Charlie Sheen in the Hollywood Hills, starting up his broken-down dream-car and setting the bond between poor vs rich boy in rip-roaring camaraderie...
Sheen and Sweeney have good chemistry, and the best scenes involve both stealing Porsches from super-mall parking lots... providing the most nail-biting suspense for both the characters and the audience (not much different than Sheen's brother's edgy gig in REPO MAN)...
Narrowed into an inevitable battle between two dangerous gangs, from fast-paced car chases to slow-burn nighttime car-stalking sequences between neon-nightclub parties while two plots merge: a polar opposite friendship within a tense undercover neo-noir-style operation (as the cop gets more crooked and the criminal gets more human)... without a single dull moment in-between.
Herein the central character's second-billed D. B. Sweeney (working for timid chief-detective Randy Quaid), a lowly cop with the specific skills to go undercover as a mechanic at a stolen-car-ring garage... soon meeting young rich owner Charlie Sheen in the Hollywood Hills, starting up his broken-down dream-car and setting the bond between poor vs rich boy in rip-roaring camaraderie...
Sheen and Sweeney have good chemistry, and the best scenes involve both stealing Porsches from super-mall parking lots... providing the most nail-biting suspense for both the characters and the audience (not much different than Sheen's brother's edgy gig in REPO MAN)...
Narrowed into an inevitable battle between two dangerous gangs, from fast-paced car chases to slow-burn nighttime car-stalking sequences between neon-nightclub parties while two plots merge: a polar opposite friendship within a tense undercover neo-noir-style operation (as the cop gets more crooked and the criminal gets more human)... without a single dull moment in-between.
Right before Oliver Stone flew overseas to begin filming his game-changing PLATOON, he had heard about the kind of b-movie he probably grew up watching... a small town gang of ruffians race cars along winding desert roads...
All for pink slips to own the losing vehicle, but there's a twist since one black car seems to have come from outer space... and Stone's Vietnam-opus leading man, Charlie Sheen, could have possibly ruined his potential star-power...
Only thing is, Sheen has surprisingly little screen time as the titular WRAITH, otherwise a handsome young stranger-in-town, sporadically flirting with a vulnerable burger-joint carhop at a placid river hangout...
Enter Sherilyn Fenn, with an enigmatic backstory of being attacked and marauded by the epitome of town bullies... formidably led by the true leading character in coveting gang leader Nick Cassavetes, upon who Sheen's random protagonist seems a tacked-on afterthought, and, in real life, both he and Charlie have famous actor dads...
As does the first victim Griffin O'Neal, going up against a slick KNIGHT RIDER style black Dodge, thus beginning a string of vengeful daytime death races (while token investigating cop Randy Quaid, and geeky mechanic Clint Howard, also have famous siblings)...
Combining REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, THE TERMINATOR and THE ROAD WARRIOR... with coolly-nefarious Cassavetes' horribly overacting cohorts resembling bizarre cyberpunk nomads.... writer/director Mike Marvin's THE WRAITH is a science-fiction car flick that would have been more effective without a black-armored, laser-gun blasting space-soldier staking the bullies in-between the road rage...
A kind of slick sci-fi cyborg who cannot be seen facially, and, with even the black car not revealing the driver, the daytime sequence Charlie Sheen could have been played by anyone...
And yet the revved-up action sequences are fairly cool, seeming part of the high-octane hot-rod-racing flick the director really wanted to make beyond the glossily tacked-on, basic-cable-looking science-fiction underline.
All for pink slips to own the losing vehicle, but there's a twist since one black car seems to have come from outer space... and Stone's Vietnam-opus leading man, Charlie Sheen, could have possibly ruined his potential star-power...
Only thing is, Sheen has surprisingly little screen time as the titular WRAITH, otherwise a handsome young stranger-in-town, sporadically flirting with a vulnerable burger-joint carhop at a placid river hangout...
Enter Sherilyn Fenn, with an enigmatic backstory of being attacked and marauded by the epitome of town bullies... formidably led by the true leading character in coveting gang leader Nick Cassavetes, upon who Sheen's random protagonist seems a tacked-on afterthought, and, in real life, both he and Charlie have famous actor dads...
As does the first victim Griffin O'Neal, going up against a slick KNIGHT RIDER style black Dodge, thus beginning a string of vengeful daytime death races (while token investigating cop Randy Quaid, and geeky mechanic Clint Howard, also have famous siblings)...
Combining REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, THE TERMINATOR and THE ROAD WARRIOR... with coolly-nefarious Cassavetes' horribly overacting cohorts resembling bizarre cyberpunk nomads.... writer/director Mike Marvin's THE WRAITH is a science-fiction car flick that would have been more effective without a black-armored, laser-gun blasting space-soldier staking the bullies in-between the road rage...
A kind of slick sci-fi cyborg who cannot be seen facially, and, with even the black car not revealing the driver, the daytime sequence Charlie Sheen could have been played by anyone...
And yet the revved-up action sequences are fairly cool, seeming part of the high-octane hot-rod-racing flick the director really wanted to make beyond the glossily tacked-on, basic-cable-looking science-fiction underline.
Penelope Spheeris, cult film director who has depicted the legendary Hollywood nightlife in both fictional and non-fictional vehicles, has an opening credit montage of various statewide serial killers, which is misleading for THE BOYS NEXT DOOR, more of a 1970's-stlye violent exploitation semi road movie made during the mid-80's...
Beginning with two friends who are not only far too old for high school, but way too perfect-looking to be ostracized outsiders: as Maxwell Caulfield and Charlie Sheen are older and younger Roy and Bo, who crash a post-graduation party, steal a rich kids' poodle, and take off to Los Angeles...
Where the more viciously/violently-prone Maxwell Caulfield begins killing... but hardly in the fashion of the serial/spree killers the movie's prelude's based on...
Ranging from disagreeing with a gas station worker, coveting perfect looking couples that always includes a gorgeous blonde, or in the most intense scene involving a gay bar pickup leading to a high class swing pad, making Caulfield's character the most formidably morose and enigmatic...
Meanwhile Charlie, in-between his father spree-killing in BADLANDS and his brother in WISDOM, was on the edge of his very own brooding sex-symbol stardom, looking like his FERRIS BUELLER white-shirt rebel... not entirely with or against his murderous cohort throughout the L. A. nightlife, in what are intriguingly voyeuresque street scenes where DECLINE OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION Spheeris feels right at home...
Yet her handsome pair needed more obstacles to make this randomly violent exploitation more of the intense crime thriller that, with token trailing cops, these BOYS could have been far more intensely driven through.
Beginning with two friends who are not only far too old for high school, but way too perfect-looking to be ostracized outsiders: as Maxwell Caulfield and Charlie Sheen are older and younger Roy and Bo, who crash a post-graduation party, steal a rich kids' poodle, and take off to Los Angeles...
Where the more viciously/violently-prone Maxwell Caulfield begins killing... but hardly in the fashion of the serial/spree killers the movie's prelude's based on...
Ranging from disagreeing with a gas station worker, coveting perfect looking couples that always includes a gorgeous blonde, or in the most intense scene involving a gay bar pickup leading to a high class swing pad, making Caulfield's character the most formidably morose and enigmatic...
Meanwhile Charlie, in-between his father spree-killing in BADLANDS and his brother in WISDOM, was on the edge of his very own brooding sex-symbol stardom, looking like his FERRIS BUELLER white-shirt rebel... not entirely with or against his murderous cohort throughout the L. A. nightlife, in what are intriguingly voyeuresque street scenes where DECLINE OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION Spheeris feels right at home...
Yet her handsome pair needed more obstacles to make this randomly violent exploitation more of the intense crime thriller that, with token trailing cops, these BOYS could have been far more intensely driven through.
