Down 'n Dirty (2000)

In my continuing efforts to get more Fred Williamson on the site, I across this one on Tubi and figured I'd give it a go. It has an extremely prodigious cast, which always helps, including 3 Hall of Famers, with Busey and Carradine joining the Hammer. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance have reviewed this, so you can see what they said (in fact, as I write this, they are one of only two critic reviews on IMDb). So, without any further ado.

Down 'n Dirty has Williamson reprising his role as Dakota "Dak" Smith, LAPD detective who knows how to get the job done and get the girl. When his partner is killed on a bust, something about it doesn't smell right. His boss, Charles Napier, thinks he needs to let it go, so he does, the credits roll, and we all live happily ever after--or Dak doesn't listen and he keeps digging, and when he digs, he ruffles feathers. But the heat he gets isn't anything he can't handle. When the corruption goes all the way to the top, it just means they have that much further to fall when Dak takes them down.

 

There are a lot of ways to go with this one, but for me, I'm looking at it as a Fred Williamson fan. On that score, this really delivers the goods. Williamson is in most scenes, and he delivers almost every time he's onscreen. When I see Williamson on the cover, that's all I need. From there, we do have a lot of smaller parts by bigger names: I think Busey and Carradine don't show until after the hour mark, Andrew Divoff comes in a bit after that, and Sam Jones only has one scene. Beverly Johnson, Bubba Smith, and Charles Napier have a little more time than that, but not much. Again, I'm okay with all of that if the Williamson delivers, and it does here. On the other hand, if Williamson alone doesn't make a movie for you, there's a lot in this to take issue with. It's pretty standard fare, not a huge amount of action, and the plot doesn't have a lot of suspense or intrigue in it. With that in mind, this is probably for Williamson fans only, and maybe a bit further down the list after you've seen some others first--but it does deliver for Williamson fans, that's for sure.

Our plan to get more Williamson on the site was derailed a bit by me having trouble getting posts by anyone on, and now I'm down to only 1 a week. Maybe a plan to do one Williamson every other month while I'm at this lower output is the way to go, but at the very least, I need to keep making him a priority. This is one of his own productions and he directs it, so a lot of times I'm not as tough on those because I appreciate what he's trying to do overall when he makes his own films. On top of that, his screen presence is so fantastic, I always love watching him get after it. We're now at 19 Williamson films on the site, and when I look at his IMDb bio, I'm seeing anywhere from 30-40 more that we could do, so we have a long way to go to exhaust his filmography. With me close to finishing up guys like Dolph and Seagal, there will be more room to get more Williamson on here, which I think we'll all be a lot better for.

 

Movies like this with a big cast are often gold for the DTVC, because one post can get a bunch of tags for people. It can be fool's gold though, because if the film doesn't deliver on those names, I'm left with a bad post on a film no one cares about. I think for a lot of years that's what plagued guys like Busey, Carradine, and Williamson, is they often did these kinds of movies where they had small cameos and got to have their names splashed across the cover, and I got to say I did a Busey film or a Carradine film. This was one of the rare occasions where the gamble paid off, because at least there was plenty of Williamson in the film, so the smaller Busey and Carradine roles were mitigated by that. I'll talk a bit more about the Busey, but the Carradine is a total sit-down role with him in (I think) two scenes in a limo barking out orders as the main baddie. Nice work if you can get it, right?

Now for the film's Abusive rating. This is a unique one, because we're rating based on quality over quantity--which is odd, because often the quality of the Busey is determined by the quantity. Anyway, I'm giving this a 5 on the Abusive Scale, because there isn't a lot of Busey, but what we got was a lot of fun. Look at that picture below: a woman at his place is about to go down on him, but while she's undoing his robe, he makes that face. What was that? Did she suddenly reveal she has spiked, metal teeth? Did Busey just remember he left the iron on? Did he realize forgot to tape Reba? Whatever the reason, it was pure Abusiveness, and that alone almost earned the entire 5 I gave this. Gary Busey is perhaps our greatest national treasure.

 

Finally, this movie has a pretty nice Williamson soundtrack, but I didn't realize how nice until I saw that The Dells were one it, as in "Stay in My Corner", "Oh What a Night", and "The Love We Had Stays on My Mind" The Dells. I looked into it some, and they actually performed on the Original Gangsters soundtrack as well, so Williamson had already worked with them. It's a very rare thing on our site that we get a group of that caliber performing on the soundtrack--it's rare that we do movies that even have soundtracks--so I wanted to spotlight it. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can stream this free on Tubi here in the States, and I think it's also available on Prime. For Williamson fans, I think it's a fun time; for people who aren't as big a fan of his, there may not be enough there--but seriously, who isn't a big fan of Williamson?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253056

Hooded Angels aka Glory Glory (2002)

This one has come up a couple times on Instant as a suggestion.  I also come across it on there when I'm looking for more Gary Busey, so I finally decided to give it a chance.  I guess too that there's a chance that there isn't a lot of Busey in it either.  Let's see what happens.

Hooded Angels is about a town in Texas that is the victim of a massacre by Union soldiers during the Civil War.  The women who survive decide to go out on their own as renegades, robbing and killing any men who get in their way.  Paul Johansson is a cowboy whose father was killed by one of the women, and he wants his revenge-- not knowing though that it was a band of women who are responsible.  He and every other lawman in the area-- including sheriff Gary Busey-- think they're after a group of men.  Will they find out before the women get them too?



So I wasn't sure how this one was going to play out, but for the most part it worked.  It looked like it might be a horrible Men's Right's Activist/Feminists want to kill all men problematic crapfest, but fortunately that didn't happen.  On the other hand, while there was a female empowerment angle, it took on many faces, which I thought made it work better.  It wasn't simply the novelty of women as the renegades that it could've been.  We also had good performances from Johansson, Steven Bauer (who was in Johansson's posse), Amanda Donohoe, and Chantell Stander, the latter two playing the lead women renegades.  All of this played out as a nicely worked Western, complete with some solid shootouts to boot.  While it did have some slow parts, I think overall it was good.

Busey wasn't in this much as the town sheriff, but when he was there he was great.  It was a more subdued Busey, like the old, wise sheriff, but still had it's Abusive moments.  He starts off giving a bounty hunter money for a fugitive, and he's lecturing the guy on how he needs to learn to write.  Then he's talking with Steve Bauer about the goings-on of the town, in pure Busey style.  The outfit is great too.  I think if this movie were bad, the lack of Busey would've upset me, but because it was solid, the Busey we got was a fun addition.



I must say, if you were to tell me Paul Johansson was going to be a long-haired Western gunslinger, I'd be skeptical.  He's still John Sears from 90210 to me, so the idea of that guy doing this would've been tough to wrap my head around.  In fact, when I first saw him on-screen I didn't recognize him.  The hair is almost more Hair Band-ish than Western, but he has the rest of it down, and was a very good lead.  He and Bauer worked well together too.  I think maybe it was good to bring in someone like him who you wouldn't think would do a Western to a film like this that isn't your run of the mill film from the genre.  It all worked.

This film was shot in South Africa, but it had all the feel you'd want in a Western.  The landscapes were perfect and shot really well.  That's big, a Western needs that to create the atmosphere as much as anything.  Think of John Ford's for instance.  I didn't once think we weren't in the US in Reconstructionist Texas.  One thing it did though was give us a bunch of women with different accents, very few of which were Southern.  I don't know if that's an issue for you, but I was fine with it.



Then there's this guy.  Graham Clarke, aka Capt. Scott Devers in Space Mutiny.  I love seeing this guy in anything.  He doesn't last long though, which is too bad.  I think any Space Mutiny alums are cool to see in anything.  If you're wondering, yes, this movie could've used a little Reb Brown.  And maybe John Phillip Law.  And Cameron Mitchell.  And his grandma-daughter.

All right, so this is pretty good, and worth checking out.  An interesting take on the Western, with some good performances, plus the great Gary Busey.  While it's on Instant, it's a good bet.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0225865/

Steel Sharks (1997)

He we are with the second of the Stars Play 11, and I believe the only one with a DTVC Hall of Famer in it. Good old Gary Busey, and we know we always need to get some Busey up here anyway, so why not put him in now. This one also has Billy Dee Williams and Tim Abell, so it's got a pretty promising start--on the other hand, it's a movie about subs, which usually doesn't work on the DTV level. Let's see how it went.

Steel Sharks is about a chemical weapons expert who's been kidnapped by the Iranians so they can tap into his know-how and bump up their WMD game. Billy Dee Williams, a high ranking naval officer, sends in his best SEAL team, but they run into problems and are taken captive and held on a submarine in the gulf. Luckily, sub captain Gary Busey is out there too, manning the USS Oakland. Combine that with the SEALs looking to make an escape, and it all spells bad news for the baddies.

I liked this one on a late 90s DTV bad actioner level. It has enough going on to keep me interested, and, while it's not outstanding, it gets me to to the church on time. It's a weird combination of styles, where we have the over-the-top (Stallone style) PM Entertainment-esque shoot out, with massive amounts of ammunition unloaded and explosions aplenty; then it transitions into Die Hard on a sub, as our SEALs look to make their escape. You'd think all of that would spell a low level of Abusiveness, but that's not the case either. He makes tons of great Busey faces, and has tons of great Busey lines, as he leads his sub through the film's conflicts. Even better is watching him play off of character actor and major That Guy Larry Poindexter. Throw in Billy Dee Williams, who's great in anything; and Tim Abell who's solid as a member of the SEAL team, and you've got a good, late 90s bad actioner.

As I said above, this film is fairly Abusive. I was worried, because he's introduced around the 25-minute mark as the SEAL team embarks on its mission from his sub, and then, I figured he'd be pretty much done once they left and went on their way. Not at all. Once they get into the sticky situation, he's right there, and he has tons of funny anecdotes and goofy faces, everything you'd want from a Busey flick.

People often ask me, "who's your favorite Star Wars character?" That's right, Lando Calrissian, played by one Mr. William December Williams. He's going to be 75 this year. 75! To put it in perspective, five days before he turns 75, I'll be 33, which was the same age he was when The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980. Even in this he was closing in of fifty--and fifty after it was released--and he was still as cool as the other side of the pillow. As a fellow Aries, I should've been making a better attempt to review more of his stuff, especially since my buddies and I have watched so many of them back when I was in high school.

This movie did a great job mitigating the issues inherent in a submarine flick, especially of the DTV variety. Instead of trying to make stock footage of subs cut with actors yelling out random coordinates, other actors yelling back that they can't do it, shots of blips on radars, ending with an explosion superimposed over the stock footage, then some Star Trek-style bridge shaking; this film only went to that well a little bit, and did it with Busey anchoring the on set scenes. For the most part, instead, it was solid action with guys shooting, fighting, and setting each other on fire, which is what we come to an action film to see, not stock footage of subs.

I wanted to take this last paragraph to spotlight Larry Poindexter. He's usually a bit player verging on a character actor, who has around 125 IMDb credits in his CV. The guy is just solid, whether he's a police detective, some teen's off-beat dad, or a junior officer working under Busey like he is here. In a way, his character attempting to make sense of Busey is like us, the viewer, trying to make sense of Busey too--he's a metaphor for our viewing experience. Here's to you Larry Poindexter, you're one of the good ones.

You can get this on DVD relatively cheap, so that's what I'd do. Not something you want to go out of your way for, but if you see it in a bargain bin or used for under $5, don't hesitate to pull the trigger. This is the Busey-helmed bad actioner you came for.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117738/

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/

South Beach (1993)

This was another I picked up from my local record store, along with Undercurrent, and like Undercurrent, it was only $.49. How do you not love that, especially for a flick with DTVC Hall of Famers Gary Busey and Fred Williamson? It's because it stars the latter that I decided to post on it this week, because this is our Super Bowl XLVI week, and Mr. Williamson was in the very first Super Bowl, where his Chiefs lost to the Packers.

South Beach has Williamson as former NFL great and former cop Mack Derringer. He and his former NFL buddies Gary Busey and Peter Fonda run a private detective agency-- or maybe just Williamson is the PI, and Fonda runs a bar, and Busey does whatever, I'm not sure. Anyway, someone is out to get his ex-wife (Vanity), and someone else has set him up for murder, which gets him in hot water with the law, including old college buddy and Miami police detective Robert Forster, and with mob boss Henry Silva. Will Williamson put the pieces of this deadly puzzle together before his time's up?



For the most part this is a yawner that's saved by the great cast, which includes all the people I mentioned above, plus Frank Pesce and Isabel Sanford (Louise Jefferson). The end though is a bit much, all over the place and not sure where it wants to wrap up. We're talking about a classic Kafka-esque Noir-ish actioner, where Williamson is getting all kinds of screwed over, and has no idea who is doing it or why. Plus, a lot of it is Williamson loving him some Williamson, which is kind of fun in spots, but also gets a bit much in others. Overall, it's a matter of how much you like these guys and how much you want to see them-- and how cheap you can find this, because fifty cents makes a movie much more palatable.

We might as well start with The Hammer, since this is Super Bowl week, and he did play in the first one. If you don't know the story surrounding that, he bragged about how he'd crush the Packers wide-outs with his patented Hammer, only to be knocked out himself in the fourth quarter of the game by a knee from the Packers running back. In this movie, he makes himself younger, and a better player than he was-- at least that's what it seems like. The one thing we do know is, he's had a much longer and more prolific career as an actor, and for that we're thankful, because he's given us a lot of great performances.



After I did Peacemaker, I found out just how many readers loved them some Robert Forster, so I figured I'd devote an entire paragraph to him. He unfortunately doesn't have a big role in this, appearing more at the beginning, then a little bit at the end. I think for Forster fans that'll be disappointing, because he's in it enough early to make you think he has a bigger part. Anyway, hopefully this'll just whet your appetite, because I plan to have more Forster up this year. I'm a big fan too.

Busey is pretty solid here, but as you can imagine, with him not mentioned until the sixth paragraph, that this isn't totally Abusive. Though he's on the cover, and this starts off like it's going to be a Williamson/Busey buddy picture, he disappears for a chunk of the middle. In a way, Peter Fonda steps in as Busey's surrogate, because the two seldom appear together on-screen. What I love most about Peter Fonda's part: the mustache and ponytail. Then we have the always hot Vanity as Williamson's ex. She plays a phone sex operator who is harassed by killer. Finally, how do you not love Louis Jefferson? She plays Williamson's mother. What a coup it was for him to pull that off.



Wanna know the one thing I dislike most about the Super Bowl? The commercials. I dislike commercials in general, but this time of year, when something so uncelebrate-able is celebrated, it makes me nauseous. The worst of the bunch are definitely the beer commercials. Other than a few exceptions-- Dos Equis, Keystone Light, Sam Adams-- most national chains have the most disturbing abominations ever created. That's why I drink PBR. Have you ever seen a PBR ad talking about your "man card"? Ever seen a can of PBR that changes color when it's cold? Ever heard PBR tell you that you aren't a real football fan unless you drink their beer? Not a chance. PBR doesn't have any commercials, and for that reason alone, I'll be drinking them while watching my Pats this Sunday.

All right, done with that rant. At fifty cents, this isn't a bad deal, but even then it's a stretch. Cool cast, which makes this a better time than it otherwise would've been, but not quite good enough in my book. Save this for your thrift store/bargain bin find.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104997/

Warriors (1995)

I don't remember where I first encountered this, how it first appeared on my radar. I think I was looking up something else, and this was suggested in addition, you know, the ol' "people who looked for this, also liked this" kind of thing. Anyway, all I needed to see was Gary Busey and Michael Paré, and I was sold.

Warriors has Busey as a dude in a double-secret black ops group where all the guys are highly skilled and all of them have had their deaths faked by the government so no one can prove they were working for the US. When his father, another high up military officer, sneaks a message to him that he wants to see him, Busey breaks out and goes AWOL, which makes the military less than stoked. They call in his old student and not so secret black ops dude Michael Paré to bring him in-- dead or alive. Now it's a deadly game of cat and mouse played out in the mountains between two highly trained killing machines.



This one wasn't bad, but the only reason it wasn't was that it had Busey and Paré. There were a lot of dead spots, a lot of points of lame plot exposition, but our two leads carry it so well it's worth watching, especially Busey. I think that's a good thing though. We watch these movies less for how good we expect them to be and more to see these guys work, and this film delivers that. I could watch a movie that was 90 minutes of Busey and Paré running errands, and if it had enough of them in it, I'd enjoy it.

The Busey was stellar. I daresay this is pretty Abusive. The line delivery, the facial expressions, it's all there, everything you want. My favorite was when he went to this hotel room to talk to the hooker that slipped him the message from his dad, and she's being attacked by her pimp (Chris Heyerdahl). He attacks Busey too, and Busey knocks him out. The hooker asks Busey "is he dead?", and Busey says in a soft, measured tone "I wouldn't hang around here if I were you, I'd move fast." Great stuff.



According to the trailer (which I posted on the Facebook page), I've been mispronouncing Michael Paré's last name. It's not PAH-ray, it's pah-RAY-- or is the trailer wrong? Anyway, pah-Ray or PAH-ray, he's pretty sweet too. The movie's plot is a little fluid, so we're not sure if Busey or Paré is supposed to be carrying the film, but both are so solid it works; and while Busey is just Busey, Paré has this cool ability to carry scenes or take a step back and let Busey have it, which adds to the time they're on screen together. It's January of 2012, and like most Januarys here at the DTVC, our New Year's Resolution is to get more Paré up, but unlike those years in the past, I'm going to try and hold myself to that. Let's see.

Recognize that young fella below? That's right, Chris Hayerdahl, he who was beaten up next to a nasty toilet by Dolph in Silent Trigger, and he who sported the dildo ponytail in The Peacekeeper. He has a very small part here as the pimp of a girl who has a much bigger part. Here's what happens after he gives Paré a hard time. Not a pretty sight, huh?



Finally, I wanted to finish with something a friend told me recently about white birch trees. He was playing some online video game, and the people who created it added some white birches to the game environment, and I guess people who hadn't seen them before referred to them as "zebra trees". "Zebra trees"? I want to go into a rant about how people need to get out more or something, but part of me thinks "zebra trees" is pretty awesome.

Okay, VHS is the only way to go here, but you can either get it new or used from Amazon. I wouldn't do that, I'd just keep an eye out for it. It's a good bargain bin find, as opposed to something you need to go out of your way and order special.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111670/

Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)

I'm not sure why, but these two Universal Soldier made for The Movie Channel sequels are some of the most requested at the DTVC. I'd always kind of just stuck them aside, figuring I'd get to them eventually. Unfortunately, Netflix decided they were going to put my feet to the fire by letting me know that they were taking both movies off of Watch Instantly, and I knew I'd never bother getting them any other way if I didn't see them on Watch Instantly, so here we are, finally making them happen, starting with part 2.

Universal Soldier 2 picks up where part 1 left off, with Matt Bataglia as Luc Devereaux and Chandra West as Veronica the reporter. Gary Busey, who runs the UniSol program, is taking it private, hoping to sell the soldiers to the highest bidder. He's able to get Bataglia back by some homing device, but when Chandra West goes in after him, she saves his brother, played by Jeff Wincott, instead. Now the two brothers have to take Busey down before the UniSol technology winds up in the wrong hands.



I guess this was like a couple of episodes for a proposed TV show mushed together, a case of someone trying to make lemonade out of some lemons. Unfortunately we all ended up with burning eyes from the citric acid squirted into them that was this movie. There is virtually no action until the end. Even if it's two episodes of a TV show, episode one would've sucked for that alone. There's only so much "Luc Devereaux trying to be human" we can endure before we need it broken up with something else. Then you have a totally wasted Jeff Wincott, a sick martial artist who spends most of the movie strapped to a chair. Then you have to buy Matt Bataglia as the hero, which maybe you can do with more action, but the way this went like a human interest piece-- let's just say the whole thing was sautéed in wrong sauce.

I've read somewhere that Van Damme joked about how all his movies spawned sequels that starred actors other than him. Bloodsport had Daniel Bernhardt, Kickboxer had Sasha Mitchell; but what makes these two TV sequels to Universal Soldier different is that Matt Bataglia plays the actual character Van Damme played in the original. Something about that had to have upset Van Damme, because he felt the need to right the wrongs of these movies by rebooting them the same year the second one came out. Also, Van Damme was losing his box office relevance, so maybe he thought he could recapture that by reclaiming one of his more notable characters. Either way, all three movies turned out bad, and it was probably good that Van Damme took ten years before he revisited it. It would've been cool though to see what, if done well, a Universal Soldier syndicated TV show would've looked like. Put it on the Action Pack with Hercules.



Gary Busey as the main baddie is pretty sweet, but we expect that going in. Are there better ways to get your Busey fix? No doubt. But how many times have we seen Busey's name on the marquee only to find it's a bait-and-switch? Exactly, so at least here we know he's holding it down. I also really liked Chandra West as Ally Walker's character from the first one. Had this been turned into a TV show, it would've been her more than anyone else that people would've tuned into on a weekly basis, because she anchored any scene she was in with her wit and assertiveness-- let's just say Matt Bataglia would've looked a lot worse without her guiding him through their scenes.

I can only imagine Jeff Wincott signed on for this hoping he'd have regular work on a TV show, because this wasn't a good look for him. That's too bad, considering his character covered some uncharted Universal Soldier territory-- a UniSol that hadn't had his memory wiped, and was just dropped into the modern world after having been frozen since the late 50s. Why they didn't explore that more is beyond me. That would've made for much more effective padding. Also, Wincott could carry that kind of thing better. How can you not see Wincott as a hard-nosed soldier from the 50s interacting with late-90s America? Apparently the people who made it couldn't see that.



Finally, I want to talk about something that really irked me. (And no, I'm not talking about that tiny dude they tried to throw on us as Dolph Lundgren.) Near the end, West and Battaglia need to get their hands on transportation, so they steal the camper from a honeymooning couple while they're at a rest stop. Of course, the thing gets shot up and destroyed. What a shitty thing to do. Those are our heroes? Ruining a couple's honeymoon? Who writes crap like that? The bad guys are supposed to steal a honeymooning couple's camper, not the good guys.

I could go on, but I better wrap this up here. This is a painfest, mostly because nothing happens. We see too much of Battaglia riding on a train or Wincott strapped to a chair than we do good solid action. And as a story, this didn't cut it to be able to manage that long with nothing happening. Maybe I should've held out longer on these.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186654/

Lethal Tender (1997)

As I'm sure you know, many movies come across my radar, and more often than not, I totally forget about them. That's what happened here, because a few months ago, I read the review of this by our buddy Ty at Comeuppance Reviews, and thought, man I need more Gary Busey on here, I'll have to check that out. Then I totally forgot about it, and few weeks ago I'm looking for some Gary Busey, see this on IMDb, and think it looks like a good deal. Fast forward to today, after I've seen the movie, and I'm looking online for a cover shot. There's Comeuppance Reviews in the results, and there's Direct to Video Connoisseur in the comments of his post. Oh yeah, that's right... (As an aside, Ty, I hotlinked your cover shot. Hope that's not an issue, thanks in advance.)

Lethal Tender is Die Hard in a water treatment facility. I'm not kidding. DTVC favorite Kim Coates and a gang of terrorists have taken it over, and they're threatening to contaminate the water supply. At the same time, Gary Busey is somewhere else with a pile of government issue bonds. The two must be related, right? The fly in the ointment: detective Jeff Fahey, who was outside hitting on treatment plant worker Carrie-Anne Moss when the takeover happened. Now those two are the people of Chicago's drinking water's only hope.

What do I always say is my number one rule for great bad action? That's right, never let the plot get in the way of the action. And what does this do? You guessed it, and it's not even a good plot, it's well-worn territory done worse. Which makes it all the crazier that I'm about to say this: I enjoyed Lethal Tender. Two reasons, Kim Coates and Gary Busey. Very little of the film has Jeff Fahey making his way through the plant. It's mostly Coates and Busey as bad guys chewing up scenery, and I loved it. There's something to be said for a couple guys that just know how to bring it, and a movie that just lets them do it. Not only did they not let the action get in the way, they didn't let the plot either, they just fired up the cameras and let them have at it. What that means though, is this is strictly for Coates and Busey fans, otherwise you probably won't enjoy yourself.

This movie is pretty Abusive. Not extremely Abusive, but Abusive enough for someone looking for a little Abuse. The film starts with a Busey monologue--which was awesome but made almost no sense--, then he kind of disappears for a bit, gradually making his way back into it, almost in a tug of war, trying to take control of the film from Coates. He's at his best insulting this guy named Pogo that's helping him transport the stolen bonds. He's just constantly berating the guy with fun new ways to call him stupid. This is solid Busey, which is all you can ask for.

I'm thinking I might come up with a new word for the blog: Coates-tastic, because that's what this was. When a movie knows what they're getting when they cast him as their baddie, and they let him do his thing, it's just so much fun to watch. You can tell he's having fun with it, and that translates to us. The question is, what is Kim short for? With a woman it would be Kimberly, but that's probably not the case here. Kimjamin? Kames? Kimmothy?

Jeff Fahey is our hero, and he pretty much just does his thing. He lets Coates and Busey do all the heavy lifting, and while they're carrying the couch down three flights of stairs, he's making sure the door is held open so they can get out onto the street. As I told my buddy's 7-year-old son who kept getting in the way because he wanted to help as we were moving "believe me, holding the door is a very important job." While his son couldn't understand that, Fahey did, and did his part as a supporting character-style lead very well.

Toward the middle of the film, Kim Coates and the plant manager have a conversation that goes something like this: Coates says, "What is the only thing we have to do?" to which the plant manager replies "What you say." I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with him though. To quote my 6th grade teacher: "The only thing we have to do is die." Think about it, Kim Coates is holding you at gun point. You technically don't have to do what he says, but if you don't, he kills you, and you die. See, the only thing we have to do is die.

And with that, let's wrap this bad boy up. As far as I know, this is used VHS here in region 1, and used DVD or VHS in Region 2. I liked it, but that's because Busey and Coates were stellar. If they aren't enough for you, then this won't be enough for you. Let them be enough for you.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119520/

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/

Bulletproof (1988)

"Matt, say it ain't so! An Adam Sandler buddy pic on the DTVC? It's not April 1st, is it? Did someone hack your Blogger account?" Nope, it's me here, you just have the wrong Bulletproof. This is one that features DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Busey and DTVC fave baddie William Smith. We're gonna be okay, I have no plan to sell you out for the short end cash reviewing bad Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider comedies. Also, our buddy Ty at Comeuppance Reviews has covered this one-- not the Sandler one either.

Bulletproof stars Busey as McBain, a crazy, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants police officer that makes his partner guzzle Pepto and his chief swear up a storm. Anyway, for some convoluted reason, the US military has purposefully sent a high-tech tank to Mexico to be captured by insurgents, along with the troops guarding it, one of whom is Busey's old flame-- Darlanne Fluegel, not LQ Jones, though the latter would've been awesome--, and it's with her capture that Army intelligence recruits Busey back out of non-active duty to be a "one-man suicide squad" (his words, not mine) to get them and the tank out, and destroy the insurgents.



This started off like it might be the best Busey film this side of Point Break, and then it did something unfathomable: it went away from Busey and stuck us with some boring developing story surrounding the prisoners. What? But I thought this was a too sweet Busey flick, how could you do that to me? On top of that, as the action got rolling again in the last 20 minutes or so, a good chunk of that was wasted by some crummy rigmarole about how Busey and his woman don't know how to use the tank. Come on guys, cut that shit out. It's Busey, he should just be able to drive it. Get on with things. It felt like watching a soccer game between Barcelona and Real Madrid, where I'm like "stop diving and pretending you're dead and play the damn game, you're annoying me!" This was annoying me too.

And that's a damn shame, because this had some too sweet Busey moments. First you have the opening scene. Busey up on a scaffolding telling Danny Trejo "I'm your worst nightmare butthorn!", and everything immediately after lives up to that line! The shootout, the chase, Danny Trejo throwing grenades out the back of an ice cream truck, then the explosion, and the angry police chief lecturing Busey. I was hooked. I wasn't expecting to get more LQ Jones and Darlanne Fluegel shackled in a dirty bombed out church plotting escapes and being defiant to baddie Henry Silva than I was more Gary Busey kicking ass. Then I thought we might be back in business around the hour mark, when Busey is roped to an enormous wooden cable spool, which Fluegel detonates a grenade next to, sending him rolling off into the sunset. Amazing! But then we're back to more silliness with the captured troops, followed by the annoying "we don't know how to run this thing!" when we know full well you're going to know how to run that thing. I'm sorry, but you can't give me that first scene and then mail it in for the rest. Come on Butthorn, let's get real here.



They kind of snuck William Smith in here on us. He's listed in the opening credits as "Bill Smith". Sneaky bastards. Not only that, but in his first scene he plays a Mannix villain whose partner is none other than Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. It was so fantastic. Then, to make it more fantastic, he shows up in the end as a Russian military officer. Yes! How does someone make a movie with this level of awesome combined with such an enormous level of suck? I blame you, story writer Fred Olen Ray, I blame you.

I liked Henry Silva as the baddie, but they went too far and made his character too dark and realistic. I didn't get it. Load him up as a big time DTV baddie and let 'er rip. He was too obsessed with Darlanne Fluegel. He needed to be obsessed winning, like Charlie Sheen. I don't know what his ethnicity was supposed to be either. Arab? Italian? Korean? That part was good. Him raping Darlanne Fluegel, not so much.



I had to wrap up with "I'm your worst nightmare Butthorn!" Utterly fantastic, but when a film maker tosses something like that in, that's a lot to live up to, especially when it's at the very beginning. They spent that nickel too soon, but because they spent it so freely, we thought they had all kinds of cash, only to find that that was it, and we were stuck paying the bill. But that should in no way diminish how great a scene that was-- if only they could've built on it, as opposed to forgotten about it completely.

If you can get this cheap-- and that's very cheap, like almost free--, I'd do it for the great opening scene, and a few other great Busey moments. Overall though, it's more blah than butthorn, which is a shame, because it could've been fantastic. You decide how much it's worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094813/

Border Blues (2004)

I don't really know what I was thinking about with this one. I was blinded by the great names, Gary Busey, Eric Roberts, and Erik Estrada. Those are nice names to be blinded by though, right? But a film made up of a couple episodes of a Russian TV show, that's a warning sign, and in this business, warning signs should always be heeded.

Border Blues follows the story of a Moscow detective who emigrates to LA, only to discover he can't get a job with the LAPD and has to work in the kitchen of a Russian restaurant. When his boss sends him to Tijuana to get some tile with a coyote on it, and his broken English gets him mixed up with an actual coyote (the kind who smuggle people across the border, though the animal would've been great), he finds his chance to be a hero when he's put in contact with Eric Roberts, a man who at the time has been given the task of getting a Russian woman and her child across the border, but is instead holding the pair hostage because he's a nutjob. All of this is happening while Roberts is the main suspect back in the US for a series of letter bombs sent to drug companies, which has him in police lieutenant Gary Busey's sights, and Mexican Federale Erik Estrada's sights.



This actually could've been really good, but they mismanaged the whole story with Eric Roberts's character. He was a total weirdo, obsessed with the Russian woman's daughter, insinuating himself into her life and acting like some father figure, to the point that he tied the mom to a chair in the basement so she wouldn't take the child with her when he went to run an errand. With all that psycho weirdness, the film tried to do an about face and make the guy redeemable. It muddled the whole thing and made it much messier than it needed to be. There were some other weird things, like how the Russian detective knows these LAPD detectives for like 20 minutes, and suddenly they're offering to watch his dog for him while he goes to Tijuana. I know us Americans come off as really informal and overly friendly, but it's really a superficial thing. When we ask at the check-out line "How are you doing?", we really don't want the truth; and when we seem nice after talking to you for 20 minutes, that doesn't mean we're interested in watching your dog for you. I feel like a lot of these issues came up in making the TV show into a movie, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

One area that this film really excelled though was in Gary Busey. His character was kind of ambiguous. We couldn't tell if he was sarcastically telling people he saw visions of the future, or if he really believed he could, but that ambiguity helped make the character. The rest was Busey simply being Busey, with great lines, great scenes that almost made no sense, and great facial expressions. Because he was a higher up on the police force, it made sense that he wasn't on-screen much, but when he was there, he was vintage.



Eric Roberts was great too, it was the writing that let him down more than anything. Why they didn't just let him be a weird psycho is beyond me, because that was working; but when they tried to walk him back from the ledge and make him redeemable, it fell apart. Every time he took the child away from her mother, every time he walked in on them and leered at the mom with these creepy eyes, it made my skin crawl. Not only that, but he fired at the Russian detective when the guy tried to rescue the woman and her child. Then the Russian guy is acting like Roberts isn't such a bad guy at the end when Erik Estrada is coming to take him down. Just let him be a nutjob, is that so hard?

I thought this was our first ever Erik Estrada flick at the DTVC, but I am mistaken. He had a special appearance in King Cobra (remember that post back in August of 2007?). Unlike Busey, who had a great supporting part, Estrada doesn't show up until near the end, and his part is so scant that it's disappointing. Making that disappointment stronger, was how good Estrada was as the corrupt Federale. Where was this earlier in the film? I even had trouble finding a nice enough pic of him to screencap, because he doesn't have any good closeups. An interesting side note: according to imdb, he doesn't speak Spanish, which I guess explains why he plays a Spanish speaking character who relapses into English.



As an anthropology nerd, I did like the mix of Russian, American, and Mexican cultures, especially with a Russian mother and daughter trying to sneak into the US. It seems like it would be easier to go the other way if you're Russian, though, through Canada. It's a border that's not policed as heavily. Of course, you'd have to get into Canada first. I don't know why I'm talking as if I know anything about any of this stuff, considering the only time I've left the US is to fly to England.

This is available on DVD through Netflix, which is a bonus. If you're a Busey or a Roberts fan, this might have some value, but it's rather minute, and I'd only put it in your queue if you've seen the bulk of their better films first. It's not God awful, but it's not great either, and anything that might have worked about it fell apart with the muddled ending.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461471/

Hallettsville (2009)

I've had this film in my Netflix Instant Queue for I don't know how long. It's always been pushed aside for something else-- even in some cases other Gary Busey films-- with the mindset that I'd get to it some other time. When I knew I was going to review Dead Tone, with another DTVC Hall of Famer, Rutger Hauer, I figured this was as good a time as any to finally watch this one too. It ended up being a perfect juxtaposition to that other film.

Hallettsville is about a kid who wants to check out his family's ranch in the Texas town of the same name. He brings some of his friends with him, and his ex girlfriend who wants to reconcile their relationship. The problem is, the land is haunted, after a deranged man killed all the kids in a one-room school house that used to sit on the ranch house's property back in 1901. When his friends start dying, the only one he can turn to is the town's sheriff, one Mr. Gary Busey.



Quality wise, this is lacking compared to Dead Tone but soul wise, this has Dead Tone in spades. Sure, it's a lower budget indie style horror film, and the story and kills are a little iffy, but at the very least you had something made by someone who loves horror films and made something that exuded that love. You won't see the people involved writing bios of themselves on imdb letting us know that they "conquered the horror game" or the "rap game". It may not be great, but it was made for all the right reasons, and for that alone you got to respect them.

Unlike Hauer in Dead Tone, Busey in Hallettsville was used slightly more. He really only appears for a second in the beginning, when he pulls over the kids; but then at the end of the film he comes in and plays a big part, pretty much saving the day. More than anything, despite an overall low level of Abusiveness due to his small role, in the scenes he was in he maximized the Abusiveness to give us a final respectable Abusive Scale number of 6.5, making it fairly Abusive. Man, it's been too long since I pulled out the Abusive Scale.



One big problem this movie had was its ten-minute long epilogue. I'm not sure if maybe the two girls and Busey, who were all featured in the epilogue, had a certain amount of screen time written into their contracts that needed to be fulfilled, but it was just weird. Had this been a theatrical release and I had to take a leak, I'd want to kill someone. Luckily, on Netflix, I can just press pause. Still, even at 87 minutes, when the last ten is epilogue, you really gotta know when to wrap it up.

One girl in this, whose real name I think is Brooke Baker (it was hard to tell because on imdb she doesn't have a picture, and I couldn't remember her character's name, so I had to do a process of elimination) was a total hottie. According to imdb, she doesn't have any other credits, but this only came out a year ago, so we'll see what happens. Not to keep harping on Dead Tone and Deon Taylor Entertainment, but a mover and shaker like you with his hands in the rap game and the movie making game should've been able to come up with better talent than what you had, and to have this low-budget indie deal cast a girl much hotter than any of the women you could get was kind of interesting. I'm just saying...



Finally, this was shot in part in Hallettsville, and in part in Austin, TX, a city I've always wanted to visit. I've been to San Antonio, which is close, but no cigar. As a Mainer who grew up within an hour of Boston, Texas has the feel of a foreign country to me, as does a lot of the US. It's one of the things that makes the US so cool, that you can have a Boston, a Maine, and a Texas all within the same national borders. Also, though, I feel it makes for a great diversity of creepy places to set horror films, and underlies the importance of filming these things in something at least close to the location of where they're set. Replacing Texas for Vancouver might be cheaper, but had that been done in this case it would've made a bad horror film into a bad horror film with no charm or redeemability. One of the things that made Busey so great was you could see the Goose Creek, TX coursing in his veins, which you often don't see when he's working in another part of the country. The same could be said for shooting movies based on Steven King novels in Maine.

If you have Netflix Watch Instantly and are looking for a bad horror film, this is a great choice. 87 minutes and great Busey (even if it's in a smaller role), plus some fun but not-so-great low budget horror, and you have a recipe for success-- at least you do for me. In any case, it's more fun that Dead Tone.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0760169/

Point Break (1991)

When thinking of what four films to post for a Patrick Swayze week, first Road House came to mind, and then Point Break. It's just another Swayze classic. Plus, this one has a DTVC Hall of Famer in Gary Busey. I also think, and I'll have to check on this, that this is first film I've featured with a woman director-- not only that, but a director who was on the jury of the Berlin and Venice film festivals.

Point Break has Keanu Reeves as a former college football player, Johnny Utah, who is an FBI agent just out of the academy. He pairs up with Gary Busey to investigate a series of bank robberies by some dudes in US President masks. At the same time, while going undercover to catch them, Reeves meets Swayze and his gang of surfers. They become friends. But things are going on with Swayze, and Reeves gets suspicious. As the evidence points to Swayze, Reeves has to figure out if he's too far gone to arrest him.



All right, I'm going to come clean here. I don't just like this movie, I actually think it's good. Like good, good. I know, I know, Keanu Reeves goes to law school on a football scholarship. I know, I know, Vincent Klyn's character is named Warchild. I know, there's the overly dramatic scene when Reeves sees Swayze's eyes through the Reagan mask and discharges his gun in the air whilst yelling in pain. I know all this, and I'm not sure exactly what I can point to and say "that's quality"-- but for whatever reason, it just is to me. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Swayze's character is named Bodhi. He's pretty much full of shit, and you get the sense that if Swayze ever met Bodhi in real life, he'd see through his bullshit. So would legendary bouncer Dalton. I think it just speaks to Swayze's range. Bodi and Dalton are both Swayze, and he pulls them both off, but they're so different. Very few actors can be such convincing heroes and baddies, and I think the only reason why Swayze never received more credit for his ability to do so was that Road House and Point Break were considered such cheesefests.



I've never reviewed a Keanu Reeves film on here, so this gives me a unique opportunity to discuss an actor whose films are usually outside my pay grade. In 1991, Reeves was two years removed from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which made him one of the biggest things in Hollywood at that time. As the nineties moved on, he did more Johnny Mnemonics and Speeds and Chain Reactions, and that star faded. Now, ten years after the first Matrix, Reeves is again making big time box office blockbusters like The Day the Earth Stopped. I guess my question is, why was there ever an up and down? Do you see any difference in the Special Agent Johnny Utah now and then? I liked him in this, My Own Private Idaho, and Dangerous Liaisons. I didn't get him in the Matrix Trilogy. The whole Utah as Neo thing was weird. If anything, Paul Walker should be wondering why it didn't work as well for him.

Speaking of Walker, we all know The Fast and the Furious was a remake of Point Break. When I was in college in 2002, as a senior, some freshmen were watching The Fast and the Furious, and they didn't know what I was talking about when I told them it was a remake. "What's Point Break?" Amazing that in only ten years someone can repackage a basic paradigm and release it to a new group of kids who have no idea that it ripped off another movie that was made when they were 8. The one thing that The Fast and the Furious lacked that Point Break had (other than Swayze and Busey), was Kathryn Bigelow's artistic direction. The script of Point Break may have been cheesy, but it had the best foot chase in the history of film, among other great scenes. Also, I wonder if Bigelow, being a women, dialed down the tool factor considerably, which was a major sticking point in The Fast and the Furious.



In 1991, I never considered the ramifications of having Tom Seizemore and Gary Busey in the same film. The volume of drug use must have been astounding. Swayze doesn't have any scenes with Seizemore, which is a disappointment. I'd love to have seen Swayze as Bodhi trying to make sense of Seizemore (in a moment that was probably art imitating life) pouring beer over his cereal. I actually tried that myself once. Disgusting. Busey is pure Busey as Reeves' partner. This role is what the Abusive scale was made from-- it is the control, the basis upon which every other Busey role is measured.

Any Swayze fest should include this classic. With Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker gaining buzz in theaters, Point Break is being recognized again for entirely different reasons. Whether you like it for Swayze, Bigelow, or both, this is a must for any collection.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102685/

Plato's Run (1997)

I always like a good Gary Busey as a hero movie, so when I found this one while looking him up on Netflix, I went for it. It also had Roy Scheider, Steven Bauer from Scarface, and Jeff Speakman. But most of all, it had Gary Busey.

Plato's Run has Gary Busey as an ex-Navy SEAL living in Miami with his old Navy buddies Bauer and Speakman. He gets a job rescuing a political prisoner in Cuba which he takes because he needs the money. That's when things go bad. The guy he thinks he's saving isn't the guy, but an assassin hired by Scheider to kill the guy's father, a Cuban politician living in exile in Miami. The guy also frames the murder on Busey. Now he's gotta clear his name, and when he gets close, Scheider mucks up the works by kidnapping Busey's daughter. Scheider! Why do you always have to be a pain in the ass?



This was pretty good. The action wasn't bad, and Busey was believable as an aging ex-SEAL. I could've gone for more Speakman, because when he was there, he showed why he's so good. He's pretty much only there at the beginning and end. Again, Busey's great as an aging ex-SEAL, but for the real action I need a Speakman amping it up, and I didn't get that. Just the same, the Busey factor prevails over the diminished action quotient.

It's been a while here at the DTVC since we've been able to report a film was highly Abusive. More often than not Busey just does cameos. Not here baby. His name's front and center, and so is he. Looking back on past posts, the most recent one we did with him, No Tomorrow, I listed as a seven on the Abusive Scale. Here I'm thinking it's like a 9.5-9.7. That good, and that's good that we've had two back-to-back posts with Busey with an average of above an 8 on the Abusive Scale. As I said above, it's also cool to have him as a good guy. Eye of the Tiger is another you may want to check out where he plays an action hero. The review is here on this site.



Jeff Speakman is one I've been trying to review more of here at the DTVC for a while now. He's just kind of been lost in the shuffle. The other film I did with him in it was Hot Boyz, where he barely had a cameo, and the movie sucked anyway. What I didn't like here was how little they used him. And not only that, they bring him in in the end and kill him off like he was whatever. I've never liked this idea of someone helping the protagonist and dying for his or her trouble. It just makes the hero less heroic in my eyes. As far as the Speakman goes, we'll try and get some more up here soon.

I feel like I've posted more than just three (now four) Roy Scheider movies. He just seems like a guy who's been in more of the type of movies I watch. Looking at him on imdb, there's tons of stuff I could go to. Of the four posts I've done, all four have a DTVC Hall of Famer in them, so he's batting a thousand there. A guy of his quality should probably only have movies of his reviewed with Hall of Fame talent in it. He actually has a posthumous film coming out in 2010 called Iron Cross. Doesn't look like much, but who knows.



I'm sure it's no surprise that a dude with a blog like mine liked Scarface. Great film. Best one-liner ever: "Would you kiss me if I wore the hat?" Steven Bauer seems to have bounced around from film to film, with nothing of any real importance after Scarface. This is the third film of his up here, the others being Raptor Island and The Last Sentinel. I'm not sure if he's worth tagging yet. I guess what he can say is he's also batting a thousand with DTVC Hall of Famers, because Lamas is in Raptor and Don "The Dragon" Wilson is in Sentinel.

This is worth the rental if you're a Busey fan. Again, it's always great to have him be the hero for a change, and this film doesn't scimp on the Abusive level. We're talking near Point Break levels. If you're a Speakman fan, this probably isn't what you're looking for, and if you're just an action fan with no particular affinity for Busey, you may not be that impressed with this either.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119903/