Original Gangsters (1996)

This is one I originally saw in the theater when it came out, but based on the box office numbers, and the fact that it was starring and put together by DTVC Hall of Famer Fred Williamson, and it featured another, Wings Hauser, plus it made under the threshold in box office gate, I figured we'd give it a look. In addition to us, Chris at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, and Cool Target have covered this.

Original Gangsters has Fred Williamson as John Bookman, who, when a gang shoots his father, comes to his hometown and rounds up his old crew to take the gang down. Who is said old crew? Everyone you can imagine, like Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, and Ron O'Neal. He tries to get help from the mayor, Charles "Napes" Napier, but the guy working under him, Wings Hauser, gives them the run around. He tries to work with the police, but detectives Robert Forster and Frank Pesce are no help. Now it's time to take back their town from these gangsters, and they need to do it on their own. Those poor kids won't know what hit them when these Original Gangsters come for them.

This was a ton of fun, even coming back to it over 25 years later. First and foremost, the cast is fantastic, led by the great Fred Williamson. He calls in everyone he uses except for David Carradine and Bubba Smith--hell, we even get Frank Pesce! This cast then delivers in all the ways you'd want them to. If you heard that Larry Cohen was directing a Fred Williamson movie with all your greats from the 70s, this is the movie you'd want it to be. Not only was it a lot of fun, but also very powerful and sobering in its depiction of the crime and violence in parts of the US that have been abandoned by the rest of the world and left to the gangs to run. According to IMDb, Cohen said this was released the same week as Twister, which was your typical TNT New Classic that dominated the box office at the time, so that explains why this didn't do so well. That's a shame, because  this was every bit the new classic too. At least you can come back to it now and stream it.

27 movies now for Fred Williamson, but also because he directed some of the scenes in this, he gets a director credit, making that 11 for him, furthering his entry into the 20-10 Club--20+ acting credits and 10+ directing credits--a club that has only one member, him. We're also close to finally getting him into the 30 Club, an honor that is long overdue. What makes this film so great, is that it shows how beyond being an actor and director, Williamson is someone who puts films together. And had it not been for Twister, maybe this leads to other big projects for him; but unfortunately it was released the same weekend as Twister, which made this his last gasp at a big screen project. It's a shame he never did get bigger backing for any of his films, because it would've been cool to see what he could've done; on the other hand, he still gave us some classics despite that lack of backing, and I think this one can be placed among those.

In my recent Savage Beach post I talked about Dona Speir being among the greatest female action stars of all time. In this film we had Pam Grier, who I think is the greatest. She was fantastic here, in exactly the way she's always fantastic, as someone who's extremely strong, but not trying to be one of the guys strong, she's strong on her own terms. A year after this she was reunited with Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, where she does what I think is my favorite work of hers, and while Jackie Brown as a whole isn't my favorite Tarantino film, her work in it, especially the scenes with Forster, were my favorite scenes of his movies. One thing people wonder is why she isn't in the DTVC Hall of Fame, and the main reason has always been that she hasn't done that much DTV stuff. I think maybe with her there could be an exception just because of the impact she's had on DTV and low-budget film making--and really film making as a whole. I think after Williamson, out of all the other big names in this, Pam Grier is the one where I say "they couldn't have made this without her," and every scene she's in she reminds us why. This is now four films for her on the site, and the first since 2009's Wilder review. I don't know how many more times we'll see her, but every chance we get I'll try to grab it.

Usually we prioritize the film's Hall of Famers in our paragraphs, but we made an exception for the great Pam Grier, and I think if anyone would understand it would be Wings Hauser. We last saw him in 2021 with Wilding, and at that time I said we were creeping our way up to the 30 Club for him with 21 tags, so now 18 months later to only be at 22 means we're not really putting in much work toward that. In looking at his bio, we should be able to scrounge up another 8 films for him, it's just a matter of when we're able to do it. 90s Wings Hauser was prime Hauser, and he gives us that here in the short scenes he has. And acting opposite Napes makes it even better, Williamson just knew what he was doing with these guys, even if he only had them for a short time, and those guys take a film like this and make it that much better. How I lost Wings in the shuffle I don't know, but I'll do my best to get him back sooner next time.

Finally, in deciding whether or not a movie should be included on the site, for "DTV" one qualifier I use is if the film grossed under $10 million at the box office. I have made exceptions, like Rocky IV and the Expendables films, but what's interesting here is I'm making an exception for a film that I actually saw in the theater. My buddy that I saw it with and I were fans of Fred Williamson, Richard Roundtree, and Pam Grier's 70s Blaxploitation stuff, and the idea of this film felt perfect to us, the way The Expendables felt perfect to me and the people who enjoy this blog back in 2010. It wasn't until I was older that I understood how Hollywood in the 80s didn't give these great stars the big screen roles they should've gotten. I think the biggest legacy of that is when those click bait-y "movie" sites make their top female action stars lists, and leave off Pam Grier but have names like Angelina Jolie, Linda Hamilton, and Scarlett Johansson near the top. It's like an attempt to diminish this whole contribution to the world of cinema, which not only smacks as ignorant, but I also think is a travesty. Shaft, Mean Johnny Barrows, Boss [N-word], Foxy Brown, etc., to me at least, are extremely important in getting us to where we are today in the art of film making, but also played a key role in making me the kind of fan of film that I am. As much as this movie had a getting the bang back together feel, it also was a celebration of that legacy of these stars, and 25+ years later, the fact that I was able to experience it on the big screen I think is pretty cool.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi, Prime, or Pluto. Streaming it free is a great way to go. Queue this up for a Saturday night movie. You won't be disappointed.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117260

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Wilder (2000)

I found this on Netflix's Watch Instantly feature, and figured I'd give it a go because I wanted to get another Hauer flick up. I didn't have great expectations for this, and often my instincts are right.

Wilder has Pam Grier as a detective investigating a murder, and her prime suspect is an Ob-Gyn played by Rutger Hauer. But if Hauer was really the baddie, then the movie would be over in twenty minutes, and we still had another hour or so left, so things weren't as they seemed. Turns out more women are being murdered, and they all had sicknesses stemming from radiation poisoning that would've killed them anyway. Now Grier realizes she's up against it, as the DA looks like he's in on whatever fix there is, and all signs point to a pharmaceutical firm trying to cover it's ass. To make matters worse, Hauser's flirting with her, and she's starting to fall for him, even though he's still the prime suspect to everyone else.



This was Lifetime Movie Network at it's finest, and I can't figure out how they got Hauer and Grier to play their parts. This needed Meredith Baxter-Birney and Bruce Boxleitner. Or maybe Victoria Rowell and Gerald McRaney. The actors just didn't fit here. They had too much edge for a Lifetime drama. On the other hand, their being out of place was the only thing that made it interesting, as it was pretty much just a Lifetime Movie Network throwaway pic.

Rutger Hauer was funny. He wasn't a baddie, which was cool. I got a kick out of watching him flirt with Grier. I think it does get old seeing him be a bad guy all the time, and it wasn't like we never saw him here, he was one of the stars, so there was no Hauer bait-and-switch. All-in-all, I can't complain about him, it was just that the movie sucked. I have a few in mind for the next film of his: Mentor, an indie flick that showed at Tribeca; Mirror Wars, a Russian airplane film with Armand Assante and Malcolm McDowell; or Bleeders.



One of the actors in this also starred in Punisher: War Zone. That wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad, and interestingly enough, it only made $7 mill in the theater, so it's sorta kinda a possibility for inclusion. What was crazy was the sheer amount of ludicrous violence in it. In one scene the Punisher punches through a dude's face. Wow. Again, it was not the Lundgren Punisher, but what made this one better than the Travolta one was that it wasn't trying to replace the Lundgren one. They weren't saying the Lundgren one was bad, they were just doing their own thing.

So this is it. I'm out. I have nothing else for you. I just talked about pam Grier a few posts ago when she starred in the Busey hit No Tomorrow, so I won't tread over that territory again; and otherwise, the movie just didn't have anything else. It was a bad Lifetime movie, straight up. If you like that kind of thing, and I ain't mad atcha if you do, check LMN in your local listings. Otherwise it's not worth it, even for the Hauer factor.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246332/



But... since I have a paragraph, let me talk about another movie I just rented that came out last year and did pretty well: Wanted. That bastard was atrocious. I ain't lying. My roommate and I were trying to watch it, and at a few points we almost quit on it. First off, you can guess the whole thing almost from the beginning. Second, it was either really bloody or a bunch of CG special effects. Those were your options. It may have the biggest body count I've ever seen in a movie, in that a whole train full of people was sent plummeting into a ravine. Why would you do that? And it was the hero's fault it happened, and he didn't seem to care, and neither did anyone else. Just the same, the thing pulled in like over $130 million. This is why I almost never go to the movie theater anymore, because this is the crap they try to sell me, and it actually works with enough of the population that they can keep selling it. And the film had two Oscar winners in it in Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. All I can say is this new Star Trek film and X-Men film better be good.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493464/

No Tomorrow (1999)

I was looking for some Gary Daniels films to review here, and found this gem with DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Busey. I was skeptical, considering it was directed by Master P, who did the atrociously painful Hot Boyz, but I didn't see Silkk the Shocker's name anywhere near the top billing, so I figured it would be an okay bet.

No Tomorrow has Master P as a gangster out for revenge on Gary Busey, who's an arms dealer that shut Master P out of a lucrative arms deal. Daniels plays a computer programmer that just happens to be good in a fight, which makes some suspicious. He saves Busey's life, which puts him in his good graces. While all of this is going on, Pam Grier is a cop looking to take them all down, because Busey's trying to steal some chip that let's him set off nuclear bombs. What a mess.

This was pretty good. The beginning had the same problem Hot Boyz did, with a massive amount of repetition. In the other film, it was Silkk running around in an overly-looped chase scene that went on way too long. In this one, it's Master P setting the same stunt men on fire with a flamethrower for about ten minutes. Really, all the scenes that didn't have Master P were the good ones, with Daniels and Busey stealing the show. That's a shame, because Master P was one of the few good spots in Hot Boyz. Plenty of explosions and gunfire, not so much on the martial arts front, which sucked considering we had Daniels. Overall, not bad, but not good.

Busey was awesome. He had some great one liners, was hilarious when talking down to Magnum PI's Larry Manetti--just a solid performance. On the Abusive Scale, I'd give this a solid seven. It's been a while since we've had a film of that quality as far as Busey's concerned. Great pairing with him and Daniels. My only complaint is that I'd've liked more Busey.

There's been a push to get Daniels into the Hall of Fame this fall, and he's definitely up for discussion with the career he's had. This movie's not gonna quite get him there, especially since his martial arts skills weren't utilized at all. He was great in every scene he did with Busey, which is a huge plus. I've got six months before new HOF inductees are announced, so we'll work on getting a larger sample of films up.

Pam Grier is in this. It's the second film of hers we've covered (the other being the Lambert classic Fortress 2), and in both cases, she had to make a lot with nothing. She'll be 60 in late May, which is just crazy. I think her biggest problem isn't her problem at all, but Hollywood's. She came around at a time when African American leading men, let alone leading ladies, weren't in high demand. As such, she's been stuck with these stinkers. She deserves better, and it's too bad only Quentin Tarentino could see that.

Silkk the Shocker does make a cameo as a rapper, and that cameo reminded me just how badly he was cast in Hot Boyz as a lead in an action film. It was such a stretch, I just can't believe Master P thought he could sell that to us. Any complaints I had about this film faded when Master P reminded us of his other one. I just kept telling myself: "At least it's not Hot Boyz".

If you see this in the video store, and you like Gary Busey, and you want something to laugh at, you could give it a go. Don't spend too much money on it, though. I don't know what a good price is, but no more than a dollar to a buck-fifty. It has the ludicrous explosions, gunfire, and bad plot, but sometimes that's just not enough, and this film straddles that line.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0189810/

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Fortress 2 (1999)

After seeing the unfathomably hilarious and bad Fortress, we absolutely had to watch the sequel when we found out there was one. I can't see what in the first one would have warranted a sequel, but some people with money greenlighted it and it was made. I hope it turned a profit.

Fortress 2 takes place somewhere in the future after the first film. Lambert is hunted and recaptured by the evil Men-Tel corporation. Instead of the underground prison, which would be old hat for Lambs, they ship him to one in space. There they make him do menial tasks like donning a space suit and fixing things outside the ship (I thought people needed special training to work in space. What are we spending all that money on astronauts for?). Inside, he also meets a woman he used to chill with. With her help, he forms another teen gang like the one he had in the first movie, and they plot their escape. P.S. Pam Grier's in this too.

What can I say that I didn't say in reviewing the first movie? What can this film say that it didn't say in the first movie? Will they make a third and see how he escapes that? Underwater? Floating in the air? Maybe Lando's Cloud City? What if you shrink him and put the prison inside someone's colon? See how you get out of that, Lamby Baby.

I wonder what they offered Lambert to do this movie. I hope he asked for it all up front, as opposed to getting some on the back end, because this couldn't have sold much. There were some funny scenes. They made him work outside the space station, and of course, he almost dies. He tries to escape by hiding in a cargo box. It didn't work, which didn't make any sense--not that he got caught, but that he tried it. The final escape was rather implausible. The shipping guy just decided to let everyone on the ship. As they flew off, the prison exploded. I'm assuming that's one reason we don't have prisons in space: because they explode too often.

Lambert gives you a solid Lambert performance. His accent is funnier than usual. It might just be the movie, but it's good. They gave him some kind of punishment where he was stuck in a glass dome and exposed to the sun. I could see he drew upon some old acting school teachings to pull that off. Who knows if this film would've worked with Dolph or Van Damme, but I know it wouldn't have been as ridiculous... okay, maybe it would've.

P.S. Pam Grier was in this film.

Avoid this fucker. Only see it if you saw the first one, and managed all right. If you couldn't handle the first one, you'll be killed with this one, and out any money you invested. If you see it on TV, TiVo it if you dare. Don't erase anything to tape it, though. And don't wake up early on a Saturday to watch it either. It's just really bad.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0179183/

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/