Fist FIghter (1988)

Our third 2022 DTVC Hall of Fame inductee is the one and only Matthias Hues. Last year when Fred Olen Ray got in, we reviewed Droid Gunner aka Cyberzone, which had a great Hues part, and I think between that and the Hues podcast I did with the guys from Comeuppance back in April, it felt like it was time for him to get in. In addition to us, it's the guys at Comeuppance who have covered this as well.

Fist Fighter has Jorge Rivero as CJ, a bare knuckles fighter who travels to South America to seek revenge for the death of his friend. He finds his way into the under ground boxing circuit, where Mike Connors, aka Mannix, is running the show, with his star fighter Rhino (Hues). After it looks like Rivero is going to beat him, Connors cuts the lights in the bar, the fight is suspended, and then Connors has Rivero sent to prison on trumped up charges. It's not a fun prison, but Rivero, ever shirtless and denim pantsed, fights through, eventually taking down the Beast, a massive fellow prisoner. This earns the respect of the warden, who has a score to settle with Connors, setting up an epic finale.

The Hues as a character named Rhino is what makes this for a Hues induction film. I don't think it's his best, and I think the prison bit in the middle really slogs things up, but it has a lot of fun aspects, including Hues. Rivero as a hero is good too, the problem is, the construct they used had him beating Hues in their first fight, which left no suspense for the end, and also I guess forced them to include that prison slog construct to pad out the film. As someone who watched Mannix when I was younger, and whose wife watches it on MeTV now, the novelty of seeing Connors in this in a track suit attacking a woman in a Jacuzzi, or just wearing shades and saying sinister things, was fantastic. Unfortunately, with his advanced age at that time, he couldn't dive on someone from off a balcony. Anyway, for what this is, a late 80s DTV actioner with some good names, it delivers enough that if you're a fan of this kind of thing, you'll enjoy it.

When we did the podcast episode on Hues, we talked about how this period of action, mid-80s to mid-90s, was the Golden Age, and how someone like Hues as a supporting character in a lot of these movies was a big part of that. He just added an extra umph that movies like these didn't even know they needed, but the fact that he was so sui generis at that time meant that as he's gotten older, it's impossible to replace what he brought with someone new. Beyond the mullet and the muscles, he's a supreme athlete, which made him that much more imposing as a baddie; plus his ability to chew scenery turned what would've been a one-note baddie's main hatchet man role into something so much more fun. This is his 18th movie on the site, and while he's still making stuff now that we'll probably get to, he also has a lot of stuff in that late 80s/early 90s window that we haven't covered yet either, and I think his Hall of Fame induction will be the impetus for us to get more of those done--assuming their available, because this one was only on YouTube.

I thought this was the third Jorge Rivero film we've covered here, the others being Death Match, which he did with Hues, and Werewolf, which we did as part of our MSTK films, but in looking at his IMDb bio, it looks like he was in Guns and Lipstick too. In Death Match he had a very small part, and in Werewolf he played a violent jerk, so at least here he got to play a good guy. There aren't a lot of other films of his that we'd cover here, because most of his damage was done pre-video era, but I think seeing him in something like this, taking on Hues and Mike Connors, was a lot of fun. The problem was, when the film hit the prison slog, Rivero didn't have much to give us. That may have been the film's fault as much as anything, so I can't blame him. Also, he was 50 when this film came out, which I think was a harbinger for what we would get in the 2010s and now 2020s with guys not only in their 50s, but 60s and even into their 70s maintaining their status as an action lead.

Mannix: extra large. I can hear the theme song in my head as we speak, one of the best themes in American television history, as Mannix is running on the bridge. When I watch that show now, I see Mannix as one of the first action heroes, played by Mike Connors, an inspiration for a lot of the hard-nosed cops we got later on, leading eventually to the cop on the edge that blew up tons of shit and flipped a bunch of cars in PM flicks. I was going through his bio to see how many other opportunities we might have to get him on the site, and there aren't many, though one was a Jess Franco film called Downtown Heat. I haven't gotten into his films at all, so this might be a reason for me to start. Either way, here's to you Mike Connors, you were one of the greats.

Finally, in the recent Willis solo podcast episode I did, I talked about how part of what we're seeing with these Willis movies is the law of diminishing returns, that they've flooded the market with too many, and people have hit their saturation point; the other thing I mentioned is that there are more options nowadays, especially with companies like Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow, Severin, and even Cinema Epoch putting out films from this late 80s era, making them more available than they were 6 or 7 years ago when Willis started on this run of bad DTV. Even something like this, which is only available on a low-quality VHS rip on YouTube is often a better bet on a Saturday night than one of those new Willis joints that are ubiquitous on all the streaming services. The question is, does that end up having any kind of significant effect on the quality of new DTV films overall? Looking at this movie, I don't know if it makes a top 100 list for 80s DTV action, but if we put it against 2010s DTV actioners, it might be top 20. If more of us turn to watching these instead of those Willis flicks, will the makers be more thoughtful and less assembly line in how they make them? We can only hope.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As I said above, YouTube is the only way to go on this one. It's a fun time though, so I think it's worth it. And congratulations to Matthias Hues on his induction to the DTVC Hall of Fame, it's much deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094599

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