Ironheart isn't about a young college student who creates an Iron Man suit--though I would love if Disney+ made a series about this! It's about a highly decorated LAPD detective (Britton Lee) whose old partner takes a new gig in Portland, OR, and quickly finds himself dead after he tries to take down a criminal ring led by Milverstead (Norton) and his top henchman Ice (Bolo Yeung). Among the many criminal enterprises they're involved in, they kidnap young girls from a local nightclub, and it was while tracking one such kidnapping that Lee's partner was killed. So Lee hops in his Porsche and heads up to Portland to investigate. Will he be able to take them all down? And will he find love in the process?
I don't know if a movie has ever started with so much promise that it ultimately doesn't deliver on. The opening scene is at said club. We get this beautiful New Jack Swing song playing, performed by The U-Krew, complete with club goers doing all kinds of fantastic late 80s/early 90s dance moves in their late 80s/early 90s outfits. They follow that up with Bolo Yeung killing the cop while at the docks, but not before he takes off his coat to reveal his ripped tank top, showing off his too-sweet pecs, and not before affixing a bandana to his forehead. But then the thing grinds down. We get a training montage of Britton Lee showing his fellow officers how to throw people around and knee them in the back of the head. And then for whatever reason this LAPD detective is driving a Porsche around. Lee is a great martial artist, but his character isn't all that likeable, and when you compare that to Norton and Yeung chewing all kinds of scenery, we have ourselves a Destro Effect, and even if they were trafficking young women, I wanted to see both of them take Lee down. On the other hand, this has plenty of great moments that make it a fun time. Like when Lee's love interest (Karman Kruschke) shows up to help him, her car gets shot and stops running. Lee's like "you can't just leave it here," so he shoots it until it blows up. Later, a character named "Stevo" works as a pizza delivery driver for a company called "Hot Flash Pizza." Do they cater to menopausal women? So while it doesn't live up to the potential all-time promise of the opening scenes, it still does enough to be a fun, low-budget actioner from the early 90s.
Imperial gets into the Hall of Fame on their 34th film, so a bit of an Asylum Rule for them, but as I said in the first paragraph, that opening logo makes you feel like you're in for a fun time, which I think combined with that opening scene gave us a level of promise that maybe wasn't fair to the film overall. It should also be noted that that logo is one of many that was used for Imperial Entertainment, but it's the one that resonates most with me. As a distribution house, they were responsible for giving us a ton of classics, like Action USA and the China O'Brien films, among many others. This one doesn't reach those heights, but in 1992 it probably did sell well to video stores. Slap Bolo Yeung on the cover and any kids like me who loved him in Bloodsport and Double Impact would've been sold if we saw it on the shelves. Imperial was a big part of what made the Golden Age of DTV so great, and for that alone, they deserve entry into our Hall of Fame. We still have a lot of titles in their catalog to cover, so we'll be seeing them again soon!
Richard Norton is now on 29 movies, one away from the 30 Club, so that's something we'll try to make happen soon. His character doesn't do any martial arts, instead running in fear from our hero, which is too bad, because even if he ultimately was supposed to lose, I would've loved one good fight scene between the two. Like he always does, he gives the movie exactly what it needs, the only thing was Britton Lee isn't Cynthia Rothrock--or even Leo Fong--so while Norton is killing it as the baddie, he's going beyond propping up the film and moving into Destro Effect territory. Tack on the film's other Hall of Famer, Bolo Yeung, who is all pecs and tank tops, and Lee didn't stand a chance. But then that leaves us in a conundrum, because we want more Norton and Yeung, and instead we have Britton Lee driving around in his Porsche tracking down leads and finding love. (As an aside, I've realized that my concept of the Destro Effect isn't perfect, because Destro wasn't a full-on baddie on GI Joe. Many times though he was an antagonist to our heroes, and in that way he was so awesome that I always wanted him to beat them.)
I want to touch on the trafficking element in this. The victim is a young blond lady, played by Meagan Hughes (in her only role according to IMDb), and while I guess she wasn't held long enough for it to be a big story in the news, if there's one thing America is obsessed with, it's young, middle class white girls going missing or getting killed, especially blond ones. Any legitimate criminal enterprise, especially one as extensive as Milverstead's, would've known that and wouldn't have wanted that kind of heat. Within the first couple days it would've been a leading story on local Portland news, and by the end of the week it would've been picked up nationally. Forget Britton Lee driving around in his Porsche doing dogged detective work and finding love, the FBI would've been called in because the publicity would've been so huge. CNN probably would've been doing 24-hour news coverage too. Her boyfriend, poor Stevo (Rob Buckmaster), might have even been a suspect, until people started looking for the mysterious young man who took Cindy away from the club. You don't get to be where Milverstead is by attracting that kind of heat. I will say though that I liked the idea of the trafficking being a kind of nod to the practice of Shanghaiing that was huge in Portland in the 19th century; what I didn't like though was this idea that Cindy was partly to blame because she got into a car with someone she didn't know. Yes, we shouldn't be getting into cars with people we don't know, but that doesn't mean someone has the right to kidnap you and sell you into slavery. It's like the idea of someone leaving something in their car and it getting broken into. Yes, you maybe you shouldn't leave anything of value in your car, but that doesn't give people the right to break in and steal it.
Finally, look at that picture above. On his way to Portland Lee stopped at a bar, which also rented movies? Can you imagine? I've been to Portland one time, when I visited my sister in Seattle in 2009, we did a day trip down there. It was every bit the Portlandia depiction of it, which does make me wonder how MAGAs have been able to perpetuate this idea that it's this lawless wasteland that requires National Guard troops to bring it under control. Maybe Powell's Books is dangerous because it sells too many books at good prices, and Republicans don't like people to be learned? There's also the Eastern Oregon MAGA faction that wishes they could join Idaho, until they realize all the privilege's they get from Oregon's progressive government don't exist in Idaho's MAGA "utopia." Or maybe it's exactly as Fred Armisen said, "the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland," and for MAGA types the 90s was the worst time, because in their mind it was all playing the sax and dancing to Fleetwood Mac and hot chicks going to Lilith Fair that wouldn't give them the time of day--which is kind of crazy when you consider Clinton was just Reagan with a D after his name, he's the reason music sucks now, the reason why the Kimmel thing was able to happen, the reason the late 2000s economic crisis happened, the reason people in America who are struggling have a harder time getting assistance, and the reason marriage equality didn't happen sooner--plus he cheated on his wife with a much younger woman, and those MAGA-types love that kind of thing. But as much as Portland needs our support now, they're also attacking this situation as only they can, by protesting in inflatable animal suits, while "heroic" police officers spray mace into the ventilation holes--they don't give us that kind of Copaganda on Law and Order, do they? These are rough times here in America, but Portland staying Portland is just the kind of thing we need to maintain the fight. Here's to you Portland, keep being you!
And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this free on Fawesome here in the States, plus MVD has a Blu-ray, if you can believe that. I don't know that you need to buy the Blu-ray, but it might be a fun addition to your physical media collection. And congratulations to Imperial Entertainment on their induction into the Hall of Fame! It is much deserved.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104530
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