After inducting Reb Brown into the Hall of Fame recently, I decided to do White Ghost for his induction post, but had considered this one too. Then, when I had Ty and Brett from Comeuppance Reviews on the podcast, they reaffirmed that this was a good one, so I knew I had to make it happen. Also, they've reviewed this one as well, so you can go to their site to check that one out.
Street Hunter has the late, great Steve James as Logan Blade, a former NYPD detective who left the force and now works as a PI. At the same time, John Leguizamo is taking over the drug trade by using a skilled mercenary, Reb Brown, to train his men to crush all of their enemies. After some cops are killed in one of their missions, James makes it his job to take them all down. Can he overcome this expert military tactician?
This is really fantastic. It's exactly what you want from a James-Brown actioner (no pun intended). In particular, I liked that they kept the two separate for most of the film, so when they had their final showdown there was a lot of anticipation, which the fight then lived up to. In between though, there was no shortage of great scenes, plus Steve James chewing up scenery, and Reb Brown as a crazy colonel quoting former military leaders and screaming things like "Fire at will!" Plus we had supporting roles by John Leguizamo, the great Richie Havens, and DTVC favorite Frank Vincent. This is the great late 80s/early 90s action you came for.
Usually we reserve this paragraph for the film's Hall of Famer, but I think it's more apt to use it for Steve James. I loved him as Curtis Jackson in the American Ninja movies--his "I want fresh meat!" line in part two is still one of my favorites in any movie--but it was great to see him here as the lead. He died in 1993 at only 41 (which is the age I'll be in 2020), and one of the great tragedies is that, not only did he die so young, but also, his potential as a lead was never fully realized, which was something this film showed he really deserved. The reality is, 30 years later, how much better is it for African American leading stars in either DTV or big screen action flicks? For DTV we have Michael Jai White, and then Wesley Snipes has dipped down to DTV from the big screen; from there there's Will Smith and Denzel Washington in some films, Chadwick Boseman leading the Black Panther franchise, and I really liked Mike Colter as Luke Cage on the Netflix series; but overall, it's still more supporting roles like Steve James had to settle for. I think at the very least, the DTV sphere needs to fill the gap better--and I as fan can do my part to support them more. There are Michael Jai White films in my Netflix queue that I haven't reviewed yet, and since I've been back from hiatus, most of my films have been big name white guys like Dolph, Seagal, and Daniels, so I can't blame the industry for not making more if I'm not supporting and reviewing what's out there.
This definitely would have been a better Hall of Fame post for Reb Brown than White Ghost. I think this was the first time I've seen him as a baddie, but he was great. He played the crazy military leader really well. At the end when he's fighting Steve James, he's lecturing him on military history, lauding the accomplishments of Benedict Arnold before he turned, and he's screaming "Saratoga!" at James while they're trading punches. In a modern setting, I would love to see Brown play a similar role where he's the military dictator of a small country, screaming at people and throwing things and firing up random places with a machine gun. The problem of course is you'd have a Destro Effect, because who would want to see a hero take him down?
The last time we saw one of my all time favorites, the late Frank Vincent, he was in the Lorenzo Lamas Noir-ish yarn Undercurrent. Here he had a cameo as a mob boss. Even when he was playing the despicable Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos, he was always great to watch. I think losing Vincent at 80 was such a blow, because we thought we'd always have him playing characters like these and making any film he was in that much better; I think I almost took for granted that he could be called on to do his thing whenever he was needed. Here's to you Frank Vincent, you were one of the great ones.
One thing I couldn't help noticing though, our hero Logan Blade drove around in a van that, for lack of a better term, seemed like something a predator would drive. Maybe not a child predator, but it would work just as well for a serial killer. Why not give him a slick sports car? Or even a truck? Something a little less "I could throw you in the back of this and no one would know you're here as I whisk you away to some unknown location and do God knows what." Or if it's going to be a van, make it like the A-Team van, something fancy with all kinds of bells and whistles.
But that was my only complaint with a film that overall was great. As I mentioned above, this was the late 80s/early 90s actioner you came for. They don't make 'em like this anymore, but there's no reason why they shouldn't.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100706
Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/
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