The Last Of The Finest

In the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal came this cops-and-robbers thriller that attempted to draw the audience’s attention to the corruption and double-dealing that infects our national government. Directed by Scotsman John Mackenzie, whose THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY is one of the great political crime dramas, THE LAST OF THE FINEST is enjoyable as a typical bang-bang action movie, but the extra subtext and social commentary give the film zest for more discerning audiences to mull over.

Tough Brian Dennehy (FIRST BLOOD) leads an elite unit of Los Angeles cops on the edge who don’t always go by the book, but get results. You know the type: goofy Bill Paxton (ALIENS), sensitive Jeff Fahey (THE LAWNMOWER MAN), and egghead Joe Pantoliano (MIDNIGHT RUN). The night of a big drug bust, Dennehy’s boss (HARRY O’s old foil Henry Darrow, an expert in projecting both malevolence and benevolence) orders the team to wait for backup, warrants, and probable cause, but that’s for pantywaists. The bust goes bad — drug lord Michael C. Gwynne (THE TERMINAL MAN) torches the evidence during the shootout — and a later clash with Gwynne’s hired killer results in the death of one of Dennehy’s cops. Before the LAPD brass can suspend Dennehy, he quits the force and his loyal colleagues follow suit.

Only pantywaists stop investigating when they lose their badges, so Dennehy and his boys go after Gwynne and his “legitimate businessman” boss Guy Boyd (BODY DOUBLE) on their own time. Not only do they have to keep a major drug investigation hidden from the LAPD, FBI, and DEA, they also become targets after ripping off $22 million of Boyd’s blood money.

Though Fahey is miscast as a Latino, he, Pantoliano, and Paxton share a good chemistry and work well under Dennehy’s leadership. Mackenzie and his writers, including Roger Corman alumnus George Armitage (DARKTOWN STRUTTERS), hammer the political angle too sharply, but the actors sell it. The action scenes and stunts are also sharply portrayed. Originally titled STREET LEGAL and POINT OF IMPACT, THE LAST OF THE FINEST received a halfassed release from Orion in March 1990, when it opened in 14th place.

Crime Zone

Luis Llosa is perhaps Roger Corman’s least talked-about “find.” The Peruvian filmmaker followed this Concorde theatrical release to Hollywood, where he directed SNIPER, THE SPECIALIST, and ANACONDA with major stars.

Corman produced this cheap sci-fi action movie in Lima with top-billed David Carradine, who appears to have put more thought into his performance than he usually did at this point in his exploitation-movie career. The real stars, though, are Peter Nelson, formerly on THE PAPER CHASE, and Sherilyn Fenn (TWO MOON JUNCTION), who landed the role of Audrey Horne on TWIN PEAKS not long after CRIME ZONE opened in theaters. I’m guessing David Lynch wasn’t there opening night.

In the oppressive future, martial law has made major crimes almost extinct. It goes without saying that the government’s totalitarian reign has also mostly wiped out freedom and joy for the 99%. So much so that ex-cop Bone (Nelson) and hooker Helen (Fenn) want to escape to a legendary city where rule is more democratic. Shady Jason (Carradine) offers them the chance to join the 1%, but only if they perform a series of robberies for him first. Jason turns out to have a hidden motive for his recruitment of the two lovers, but it’s doubtful you’ll wait around long enough to discover what it is. It’s dumb anyway.

Murkily lensed by Cusi Barrio (HEROES STAND ALONE), CRIME ZONE is hard to see and hard to sit through, jammed with limited actors emoting on cheap sets. Corman produced it in Peru to take advantage of favorable exchange rates, not the exotic locations. Even the exterior scenes are shot on dark soundstages blandly decorated in smoke and neon. Scripter Daryl Haney (LORDS OF THE DEEP), who was both starring in and writing films for Concorde, created a dystopian world with few consistent rules, which makes it hard to care about what happens to the people who live in it.

On that note, the actors also make it difficult to care about their characters. Carradine is cagey and interesting, but Nelson is a boring dunce, Fenn is fiery but unlikable (though striking as a blonde), and Michael Shaner as Bone’s best pal is the same obnoxious dolt he was in other Corman features. Llosa directed three films for Corman and produced several others before getting his big break on SNIPER. He later returned to producing television shows in Peru.

CRIME ZONE stinks, but anyone who is drawn to see it because of its amazing poster gets a free pass from me.

John Wick: Chapter 2

If the business plan was to deliver something longer, louder, and more violent than JOHN WICK, mission accomplished. And — surprise of surprises — CHAPTER 2 is better than JOHN WICK too.

After a stylishly violent prologue of retired assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves, so immobile he makes Bruce Willis look like Danny Kaye) retrieving his stolen muscle car from cartoonish Russian mobster Tarasov (cartoonish Swedish character actor Peter Stormare), director Chad Stahelski and screenwriter Derek Kolstad — both returning from JOHN WICK — get down to business.

Wick is drawn back into the assassination game by an old acquaintance, Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), who needs John to whack his sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini). After initially refusing — and seeing his house destroyed — Wick takes the assignment, which leads to an Italian version of the assassin-friendly Continental hotel (run by Franco Nero!), a double cross, and a Dick Tracy rogue’s gallery of colorful killers riding Wick’s rear end.

Among the assassins seeking a $7 million bounty on Wick are a blond street musician with a pistol hidden in her violin, a huge Samoan, sexy mute Ares (Australian VJ Ruby Rose), and Gianna’s right hand Cassian (Common), whose casual shootout with silencers in a crowded subway station is a witty highlight. You would be amazed how many freelance hitmen are hanging around New York City.

CHAPTER 2 expands the fascinating universe created in the first film, one in which assassins live by a strict code, trade in their own special currency, and receive assignments via switchboard operators and 1940s typewriters. The world of John Wick is also beautifully photographed in rainbow hues like a four-color comic book. The fact of the matter is that JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 is a better comic book movie than anything released by Marvel Films or DC to date, because Stahelski and Kolstad aren’t afraid to wallow in the genre’s inherent absurdities. John Wick is as much a superhero as Batman is, just with slightly less expensive tools.

Dead Bang

One of the most underrated thrillers in the great director John Frankenheimer’s filmography casts Don Johnson, then hot off MIAMI VICE, as a real-life Los Angeles homicide cop named Jerry Beck. I highly doubt the real Beck, who retired from the LAPD in 1999, was much like the cop depicted in the DEAD BANG screenplay by Robert Foster (KNIGHT RIDER). Johnson’s Beck is a burnout, estranged from his family and co-workers, a poor dresser, lives in a crappy apartment, a drunk who is so hungover Christmas morning that he pukes on a suspect after an exhausting foot chase expertly staged by Frankenheimer and scored by Gary Chang (THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU). He also gets into a lot of fights and shootouts — unquestionably more than the real Jerry Beck did.

On the other hand, cliche Beck may be, but Johnson brings much sympathy and charisma to the role. Adding to his very good star performance is veteran Frankenheimer (THE TRAIN), who breaks no new ground in the crime drama genre, but expertly enhances the tropes in successful pursuit of an above average action picture. Ticket buyers didn’t agree, ignoring DEAD BANG when it opened during a lazy March weekend in 1989 (it opened in fifth place and vanished from theaters in a hurry).

Investigating the murder of a policeman after an L.A. liquor store holdup, Beck chases his prey all the way to Arizona, Oklahoma, and Colorado (all resembling Alberta) when it’s revealed his chief suspect is a member of a white supremacist group based there. Teaming up with a black police chief (WKRP IN CINCINNATI DJ Tim Reid) and a so-straight-he-squeaks FBI agent (a cast-against-type William Forsythe), Beck lays down a series of wisecracks (“You don’t need a gun, Chief, just tell ‘em who you are!”) and shootouts to break up the deranged right-wingers before they can mount a violent defense.

Penelope Ann Miller (THE RELIC) stops by for a one-night stand with Johnson. Her appearance is enigmatically brief, though Miller’s unconvincing performance dissuades you from being disappointed. Bob Balaban (GOSFORD PARK) is rightfully officious as a parole officer pestered by Beck on Christmas morning, and Reid (also in Frankenheimer’s THE FOURTH WAR) brings warmth to a typical sidekick role. Everyone involved, particularly Johnson, Chang and Frankenheimer, works hard to elevate a routine cop meller to a crime thriller with humor, color, and excitement.

To The Limit

PM Entertainment produced very few sequels, but writer/director Raymond Martino brought back actor Joey Travolta (HOLLYWOOD VICE SQUAD) to reprise his role of ‘Nam vet turned vigilante Frank DaVinci from DAVINCI’S WAR. Sharing star billing with John’s less talented brother is an even less talented actor: Anna Nicole Smith, who bears the indignity of failing miserably in two direct-to-video action movies. In SKYSCRAPER, which reunited Smith and Martino with PM a year later, the former Playmate delivered what I believe to be the worst acting performance by a name actress in a professional Hollywood film ever. Now imagine that times two.

Smith’s acting is as natural as her breasts, which are the first part of her body we see in TO THE LIMIT, enjoying herself in a hot tub instead of getting dressed for DaVinci’s wedding. The only things she pushes to the limit in this movie are her bra and our patience. She never makes it to the wedding, as her boyfriend China Smith (Michael Nouri in a one-day cameo) is blown up in his car at the same time a hit team massacres DaVinci’s new wife (Rebecca Ferratti) on the church steps.

Three months later, DaVinci has mostly recovered from his wounds while hiding out from his attackers in Las Vegas. His support system is a bunch of stereotypical Italian goombah mobsters. Collette (Smith) is also hiding out from China’s killers, and she teams up with Frank in Vegas. LOU GRANT’s Jack Bannon plays the bad guy, a tattooed CIA spook named Jameson who giggles a lot, smokes opium, makes hot women whip him during sex, and shoots out his computer monitor.

Travolta, who was also the producer and co-writer, which explains his sex scenes with Smith, wears a New York Giants jacket, though I doubt he bothered to clear the NFL logos. Give Martino the lion’s share of the blame for TO THE LIMIT’s incompetence. The story is complicated and uninvolving, and direction and editing are sloppy (Aprea tells his boys, “I gotta job for you. You’re goin’ to L.A. right now,” and they walk off without knowing what the job is). Of course, being a PM production, the stuntwork is impressive, and so are Smith’s nude scenes. Which are, after all, the reason TO THE LIMIT exists at all.

If He Hollers, Let Him Go!

The fine black actor Raymond St. Jacques, strong as cop Coffin Ed opposite Godfrey Cambridge in COTTON COMES TO HARLEM, stars in another Chester Himes adaptation. The screenplay, however, written by producer/director Charles Martin (THE ONE MAN JURY), has nothing to do with Himes’ book, and the author is uncredited.

In this obscure Cinerama release, St. Jacques stars as a wrongfully escaped convict who is picked up by crafty Southerner Kevin McCarthy and taken to the mansion that McCarthy shares with his wealthy wife and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS co-star Dana Wynter. McCarthy blackmails St. Jacques into murdering Wynter in exchange for $10,000 and safe passage to Mexico. An honorable, erudite man who knows classical music, St. Jacques refuses, but is propelled by Martin’s overheated screenplay into a series of absurd plot twists and lurid complications good only for providing its cast reasons to overact.

Plainly shot by regular Quinn Martin cinematographer William Spencer (137 episodes of BARNABY JONES, 162 episodes of THE FBI, and an Emmy for TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH), IF HE HOLLERS, LET HIM GO! plays like a particularly warped KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATRE episode with mild swearing and nudity. Indeed, singer Barbara McNair (CHANGE OF HABIT) makes a startling feature debut, performing on camera (and the opening theme song) and stripping down for a love scene with St. Jacques.

Aside from St. Jacques, who is his usual authoritative self, the acting is grade-A hambone all around. McCarthy is particularly crazed, but so is John Russell (LAWMAN) as the local sheriff, Arthur O’Connell (ANATOMY OF A MURDER) as a grandstanding prosecutor, Ann Prentiss (CAPTAIN NICE) as a farm girl who tries to capture St. Jacques, and Royal Dano (TEACHERS) as the father of a dead girl. The film’s biggest drawback is Martin’s flashbacks to St. Jacques’ arrest, trial, and conviction that fill in blanks we don’t really need filled. Martin claimed to have invested $1 million in the picture and chosen the provocative title for maximum exploitation.

Dark Breed

Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that director/producer Richard Donner and/or credited writers Jonathan Lemkin, Miles Millar, Alfred Gough, and Channing Gibson saw DARK BREED before beginning production on LETHAL WEAPON 4. Two of this PM Entertainment action picture’s eye-popping setpieces — one with two actors punching each other out in a house being transported on a flatbed truck along a busy highway and another that features the leading man being dragged on, again, a busy highway in a satellite dish by a van — were lifted verbatim for LW4, except Donner combined the two chases into one. One wonders whether DARK BREED director Richard Pepin and stunt coordinator Cole McKay should be flattered or furious.

For that matter, DARK BREED is probably about as good or better than the notoriously rushed LW4 on probably 1/70th of the budget. It isn’t quite on PM Entertainment’s A-list, but it’s a good B. Directed at a rapid clip, DARK BREED is a cheaply made monster movie that emphasizes action over logic, but when the action is this good, who cares about logic? Most of producers Pepin and Joseph Merhi’s money went to McKay’s stunt team for as many car stunts, candy glass, and fire gags as could be squeezed into the 92-minute running time.

Air Force captain Nick Saxon (Jack Scalia) is called to the scene when an American space shuttle crashlands off the Long Beach waterfront. Its six astronauts, including Saxon’s ex-wife Debbie (Donna W. Scott) and his best pal Joe (BREAKING BAD’s Jonathan Banks), have been invaded by alien parasites — purposely, as it turns out. Evil government honcho Cutter (Lance LeGault) sent the oblivious crew into space specifically to be invaded, so they could return to Earth, lay eggs, and be used by Cutter as unstoppable killing machines. And in less than two days, the slimy creatures will have matured enough to burst free of their puny human shells and begin destroying Earth.

Ignore the holes in Richard Preston Jr.’s (HOLOGRAM MAN) screenplay and dig the stylish stunts. Scalia carries the non-action scenes just as well, handling the obligatory character quirks, such as his attachment to an antique pocket watch, in a manner that lends a human touch to the gun battles and explosions, including PM’s signature vehicle-flipping-upside-down-through-a-fireball gag. Michael Taylor’s visual effects are okay, considering the budget, though it’s probably a smart move on Pepin’s part not to allow more than a glimpse of the man-in-a-suit title creature.

I, the Jury

Though based on the most famous of Mickey Spillane’s many best-sellers, I, THE JURY is in no way a faithful adaptation. It is, however, a terrific action movie with great stunts, creative use of New York locations, and a fun Bill Conti (FOR YOUR EYES ONLY) score. It was a troubled production — director Richard T. Heffron (FUTUREWORLD) replaced screenwriter Larry Cohen (BLACK CAESAR) a week into shooting — but I, THE JURY shows little sign of confusion. Except for its plot, which nobody has ever been able to understand.

One thing is for sure: the Mike Hammer played here by Armand Assante (PROPHECY) isn’t the Hammer of Spillane’s books. This Hammer doesn’t wear a hat or drink alcohol, but he does drive a Camaro and may be Italian. Jack Williams, a private detective who lost an arm saving Hammer’s life in Vietnam, is shot to death in a squalid hotel room. Despite an admonishment by his policeman friend Pat Chambers (Paul Sorvino) to “stay out of it,” Hammer begins tracking the killer.

Hammer’s investigation leads to a shady sex therapy clinic where men and women participate in orgies while doctors in lab coats stand around making notes on clipboards, a dilapidated summer camp where Hammer and his sexy and loyal secretary Velda (MANIAC COP’s Laurene Landon) are beset upon by machine gun-wielding government agents, a “Mama’s boy” psycho killer (Judson Scott, who was in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and his own television series, THE PHOENIX, that year) who dresses his female victims as redheads before stripping and mutilating them, a gunrunning New York mobster (comic Alan King), and a CIA plot to brainwash men into murdering suspected terrorists under the guise of a sex crime. Whew.

Needless to say, almost none of this overly complex story is faithful to Spillane’s text (Spillane’s infamous final scene does make the transition to film, however). Loaded to the brim with tawdry sex, ample amounts of female nudity (including twin Playmates Leigh and Lynette Harris), and explosive action sequences, I, THE JURY makes for a complicated if exciting ride, culminating in a country chase, shootout, and fist fight. Assante handles the action very well and possesses a nifty panache with a bon mot. Landon is an appropriately plucky and lovely Velda, and Barbara Carrera (NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN) is unforgettable. Other actors who have portrayed Mike Hammer on film include Ralph Meeker, Darren McGavin, Biff Elliot, Stacy Keach, Kevin Dobson, Rob Estes, and even Spillane himself.

Menace From Outer Space

ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER was one of many science fiction shows made for children in the early days of television. Not among the most popular — it was cancelled after just 39 episodes — ROCKY JONES has endured longer than many of its competitors because it was filmed, rather than broadcast live. Also helping it live on was the decision to edit many of its half-hour episodes into movies that could be syndicated in 90-minute timeslots. Although this practice often led to incomprehensible stories (as fans of GEMINI MAN, THE GREEN HORNET, and KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER can tell you), it worked for ROCKY JONES, because many of its episodes were three-parters, as was “Bobby’s Comet,” the shows that became MENACE FROM OUTER SPACE.

Directed by the prolific Hollingsworth Morse (LASSIE) from teleplays by Warren Wilson (THE CISCO KID), the dull MENACE FROM OUTER SPACE stars serial hero Richard Crane (MYSTERIOUS ISLAND) as Rocky, a 22nd century cop who flew around space in a rocketship fighting crime and preventing Earth invasions alongside his sidekick Winky (Scotty Beckett) and his pretty, platonic girl companion Vena (Sally Mansfield). They and little Bobby (Robert Lyden) lift off for one of Jupiter’s moons to find out who is firing deadly missiles at Earth. Turns out it’s evil expatriate Cardos (Nestor Paiva), who has convinced moon leader Zoravac (Walter Coy) that Earthlings are mean and rotten and pass gas in elevators.

Cheap and talky (“The acceleration thrust will be G4 + 6.”), each ROCKY JONES was probably shot in a couple of days. Criticizing the sets and special effects are moot — all the sci-fi series from this era were created on accelerated schedules and paltry budgets — but the script is fair game. Actually, aside from the technobabble, it’s not awful for what it is, which is juvenile space opera made to keep the kiddies quiet for awhile. Crane is good-looking, knows how to throw a punch, and is friendly to kids (and probably pets), making him the perfect face for lunch boxes and decoder rings.