A Time to Die (1991)

With the unfortunate passing of Richard Roundtree, I wanted to do a post in honor of him, and saw that this PM flick he was in is available on YouTube, so I figured I'd make it happen. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, and Simon at Explosive action have all covered this--and in addition to them, IMDb says Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide have also covered this, but the links on the critic reviews page are no good.

A Time to Die has Traci Lords as a fashion photographer who was set up in a drug bust and now has to take pictures for the LAPD for her community service. She also has a son living with her estranged husband that she wants to gain custody of again. One night, on a date with detective Jeff Conaway, she sees the guy who busted her, Robert Miano, and decides to follow him after he leaves. She ends up catching him killing a pimp, and she has all the juicy pictures of it. She has no idea how high in the department this conspiracy goes, so she keeps it to herself, and hopes to use it to blackmail Miano into clearing her name. That should work out well.

This is another fun PM flick. It's right around the time Ring of Fire comes out, so has more of that less action early period PM feel than the full-on exploding car flips every ten minutes feel we're used to with them, but we still do get our exploding car flip, so there's that. Traci Lords also puts in a great performance, which really anchors things; plus Roundtree, despite being relegated to angry police chief--full mustache and all--elevates that part to something more, which adds to the proceedings. On top of that, you have Miano as a great baddie, and the novelty of Jeff Conaway is as good as you'd want--even if he seems a bit handsy with Lords, more on that later; not to mention we have the classic PM quirks, like an angry lesbian couple that seem to always be in trouble with the law, Lords's son who wears business suits to school, and a fashion shoot Lords does with two models who do some choreographed dance routine while she takes their pictures. If you're looking for a fun 90s thriller, this is worth checking out.

While Roundtree's part wasn't big here, it was pure Roundtree, total leading man, commanding every scene he's in, so much so that I thought he was going to end up having a bigger role in this than he did. And I think that's the biggest travesty of his career, is that he didn't get more of those major leading roles, and while Hollywood's loss was our gain with films like this, it was also our loss too, because it would've been great for us to see him in those major leading roles too. Roles that his contemporaries got, like Harrison Ford or Michael Douglas, but that weren't made available to African American actors at the time like they would be later for Denzel Washington or Will Smith. And as great as those actors are, Roundtree was another level of leading man above them. Still, his iconic turn as Shaft to me is up there with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, or Christopher Reeve as Superman--imagine if Marvel had been more on top of their film adaptations in the 70s and made a Black Panther film then with Roundtree in the lead? And that's the legacy Roundtree leaves behind, perhaps he didn't get the roles a star with his screen presence deserved, but the roles he did get, he hit out of the park, especially Shaft, and with it he influenced a generation of action film fans like myself, because I don't think I'd be here writing this blog if it weren't for TNT showing all the Shaft films in the early 90s.

The star of the film is Traci Lords, with this being the first of three films she did for PM in the early 90s. It's crazy to think she was only 23 here, as she's playing someone older, maybe like late 20s/early 30s with an established career, ex-husband, and a child. She's already holding her own at this age in scenes with Roundtree and Miano, let alone someone like Conaway. We all know Traci Lords's story with her start in the Gentleman's Cinema industry, but she wouldn't have been able to successfully pivot her career after the way she has if she didn't have the talent to pull it off, which she shows here. This is only her fourth film on the site, which seems low because she's done a lot of direct to video stuff, but in looking at her bio, a lot of it is stuff like this, where she's the lead, or if she isn't there aren't the kinds of names in it that get us to post, like Dolph or Rothrock. Considering she has two more PM flicks we'll have to do, that'll give us a start to get more of her stuff on here for sure, and I think with Shannon Tweed getting into the Hall of Fame this year, she's a candidate for a future induction herself.

In addition to her, we had Jeff Conaway and Robert Miano. Conaway played this drippy detective who's always trying to hook up with Lords, and eventually she does hook up with him. As I mentioned above, he's very handsy with her, which seems off given the disparity in their ages, but I'm sure he passed it off as "I'm just getting into character baby!" A total 70s icon who's star had pretty much faded by this point, but that's why we come to films like this, to see our favorite 70s icons make a go of it, especially after those Taxi royalty checks have been blown that month and they need a little extra bread. With Miano, I realized that I hadn't gone back and updated his tag, so he went from three films to 13, with now this movie being his 14th. He's great in this role as the creepy, villainous dirty cop, walking around with his rubber gloves on and his gun with the silencer ready to cause trouble. With now 14 on the site, I don't know if the Hall of Fame is coming, since he doesn't have a lot of starring roles, but with the amount of work he still does, I could see us doing another 16 that just happen to have him in them and him getting in on The Asylum Rule.

Usually we discuss the film's on Hall of Famer in the first post, but it worked out better that we finish with them. We're now at 43 PM flicks on the site, which puts them in a tie with Cannon for most from a studio. Between what I have in the hopper for each, PM will pass them soon, and after that it's onto the 50 Club. According to IMDb, this is the 20th film from PM, but as I mentioned above, it looks like it came out right after Ring of Fire, which to me signaled a start in the shift from thrillers like this with some action elements in it, to full on actioners, and when that shift happens, that's when we start getting those PM flicks that are some of the best actioners of the 90s, which makes PM that proper replacement to Cannon in the world of low-budget action. But even being something that wasn't a full on actioner, there's still a lot of fun to be had, which is what I love about PM flicks, chances are I'm going to get 90 minutes of fun, something that's not always a given nowadays.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can catch this on YouTube. The version isn't horrible, so I think it's worth it--and it's one I have added to my PM playlist on my DTV Connoisseur YouTube channel. As far as Richard Roundtree, he truly was one of the best to do it, and will be greatly missed. Here's to you Mr. Roundtree.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103090

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

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

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Big Score (1983)

This movie was further down on my to review list, but when I did Blood Street with Stack Pierce, who's also in this, I realized it had been a while since I'd done a Fred Williamson flick, and I'm always saying I need to do more Williamson, so why not bump it up the list and make it happen? In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this, as has the great Roger Ebert, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

The Big Score is a Williamson Po' Boy Production where Williamson plays, you guessed it, a hard-nosed Chicago cop. In trying to take down a coke kingpin with fellow detectives John Saxon and Richard Roundtree, the baddie gets let loose through the work of his slick lawyer, and Williamson is under fire when the drug dealer's money goes missing. Now the baddies want their money back, and while the cops sort out what happen to it, boss Ed Lauter takes Williamson off the force, but for a cop like him, getting taken off the force is only a minor impediment. He's going to use all his resources, and stop at nothing to take down this baddie and get those drugs off the Chicago streets.

 

As you can tell from the synopsis, this is a pretty paint-by-numbers Williamson cop action thriller, but between the cast, and the story and direction, this worked for me. Williamson is a bit grittier here, I think he's going for more of a Chicago gritty cop story, and while I love cool as the other side of the pillow Williamson, this gritty Williamson works as a change of pace. John Saxon and Richard Roundtree are no strangers to this kind of movie either, and help fill out the vibe Williamson was going for, which makes it more authentic. At the same time, this is still fun Williamson, maybe not to the level of fun of his Dakota "Dak" Smith or Black Cobra movies, but I also think this might be a better quality of movie than those are. Either way, this is worth it for a nice Williamson night.

With this film, Williamson is now in a very exclusive club here at the DTVC, the 20-10 Club for people who have starred in 20+ films and directed 10+ films. How exclusive? Williamson is the only member. (If you're wondering, I think Dolph is the next closest, with his 60+ acting credits on the site, and 7 so far directed.) According to IMDb, Williamson has 20 films he's directed (plus one more that's been announced), and I think I've seen 13 or 14 of them--it would be more, but the version of Adios Amigos on Tubi is horrible, Vinegar Syndrome or a similar outlet needs to do a boxed set of his Westerns to correct that--but I'm digressing here, the point is, I think after Mean Johnny Barrows, which was his directorial debut, this might be my second favorite of his directed films that I've seen, which makes it a fitting one to make him the inaugural member of the 20-10 Club. The other big milestone for him is the 30 Club, and with this review he's now 5 away from that. I think for someone of his stature in the DTV world, that's a milestone that's long overdue, so hopefully we'll get there soon for him.

One of the biggest selling points in a Williamson film is the names he's managed to corral for it, and this one is no exception. Of those names, Richard Roundtree is one I always enjoy seeing. In the 80s he was pigeonholed by Hollywood into a "blaxploitation star," which gave Hollywood an excuse to not cast him as a leading man, despite the fact that he had the screen presence to rival any of the white leading men who were popular at that time. I think there's a sense when Williamson casts him in one of his lower-budget films that he also thinks "I shouldn't be able to get this guy in my movies, he should be too big for them." In 1983, we were a good ten to fifteen years out from names like Denzel Washington and Will Smith finally getting the kinds of roles Roundtree should've gotten. While we had him here though, one scene I really liked was where he acted opposite Stack Pierce. It was great to see those two in a scene together.

Among the other names, there were a bunch. I mentioned John Saxon, Stack Pierce, and Ed Lauter above. We also had Nancy Wilson, D'Urville Martin, Frank Pesce, Michael Dante, and Joe Spinell. Those kinds of names get us by when the Williamson film is lacking due to budgetary constraints, etc., so when the film is more solid like this one is, it just enhances it that much more. John Saxon in particular was great here, as he was made for grittier police films, usually as a baddie, but in this case a good guy as one of Williamson's fellow detectives. This is only his fifth film on the site, which sounds low, but as I was looking over his IMDb bio, that's actually about right based on the movies he's done. I don't know that I'll specifically look to get more of his films on here, but seeing his name on the tin always helps in picking out a movie to watch.

 

As I mentioned above, Roger Ebert also reviewed this, and while he only gave it 2 and a 1/2 stars, he actually enjoyed it. One mistake he made in his write-up is he confused Three the Hard Way with its sequel, One Down, Two to Go, but I got what he was saying when he compared this with that movie. I think we have this idea that the more mainstream critics don't get the stuff we watch, and for some that may be true, but Ebert showed in his review of this one that, at least for him, he can enjoy anything that's good and give it a fair shake. For me personally, I don't consider myself to be a film critic, but rather a movie blogger, whose only training was the writing courses I took in college--which themselves don't always show through when I'm pumping out a review with only one read through before I publish it--so I don't see myself as trying to swim in the same pond as an Ebert; but it is interesting how blogging, and now social media and podcasting, have democratized the film critique and discussion space to such an extent that I'm on IMDb and I'm seeing Roger Ebert's reviews mixed in with mine and fellow bloggers/reviewers that I've become friends with through this process. When I was a kid watching him with Gene Siskel, I never could've imagined that there would be things like blogs or an IMDb that could have allowed for that possibility.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, this is only available on YouTube and DVD, which is good enough, but hopefully it'll get the higher quality release it deserves. This is a solid Williamson outing, and worth checking out, especially if you're looking for more Williamson to watch.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085245

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

One Down, Two to Go (1982)

Back in February I had made a pledge to get more Williamson on the site. That was back in February, and now it's May, so it's hard to say how well I'm doing. One thing about this film is it was also featured in a podcast episode that I did with Jon Cross of the After Movie Diner, Miscellaneous Plumbing Fixtures, and Cross Talk, so you can listen to that episode for more insight; also if you go through his archive AMDs, he's actually interviewed Williamson, which is a great listen as well.

One Down, Two to Go is the de facto sequel to Three the Hard Way, and in it, Jim Kelly gets caught up in a mob boss who's trying to fix a karate tournament at New Jersey's Brendan Byrne Arena. Richard Roundtree tries to help, but he's taken out of commission too. That leaves their friends, Jim Brown and Fred Williamson, to come in and save the day. The New Jersey mobsters won't know what hit them.

If you compare this to Three the Hard Way, that one feels more like a Hollywood film; while this one, directed by Fred Williamson, feels like he took everything he learned in Italy and made the best film he could make despite his budgetary restrictions. Part of the reason he made this was the fact that Brown, Kelly, and Roundtree weren't getting the work they should have in Hollywood, and I think you can feel that in this, that Williamson is almost like "you guys shouldn't have to be in one of my movies, you should be with all those other stars." For us, of course, we reap the benefits, because we get them all in this flick, but we also know that Williamson is right. Kelly should have been Chuck Norris; Brown should have been getting more dramatic roles that showed off his talents; and Roundtree was every bit the leading man that his white male counter parts who were getting the biggest roles at that time were. This is as much an indictment on Hollywood, as it is a fun action romp, which I think is part of genius of Williamson as a filmmaker that never gets recognized like it should.


Williamson is one of four directors in the Hall of Fame (we don't count Dolph because he hasn't directed as many), but I think out of the four, I've done the fewest of his directed pieces here, which is bad of me. His films were ahead of the curve in a lot of ways, but in particular something like this predates what ends up happening on a much bigger scale about 5 years later, and that's having action-heavy films that do their damage primarily in the home viewing market. In a sense this is like a proto-DTV film. The reality is, we don't have the action genre as we know it, especially the DTV action genre, if it wasn't for Williamson and his innovative approaches to filmmaking--born out of necessity more than anything, but still innovative--which is a main reason why he's in the Hall of Fame.

The term "blaxploitation" is a loaded concept, and as Jon Cross explained when he was on the pod, any kind of " 'sploitation" is generally meant as a group of people, whether a nationality or ethnicity, in films that have exploitation elements like violence and sexuality. What we discussed further though, was that Hollywood took the term strictly as it was used with blaxploitation, and made that an excuse to dismiss a large pool of African American actors and actresses. Look at Pam Grier for example. Whenever a click-baity online magazine does their top ten lists of female action leads, it's full of Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson, but not only is Grier not at the top, she often doesn't make the lists. There is no ability to even have a list like that without Pam Grier's contributions, yet she doesn't get that credit because her contributions are written off by some as just "blaxploitation." It was because of that that Jon stressed, and I was in agreement, that a film like this shouldn't be watched with derision or ironically; but also these are contributions to the film industry that we need to celebrate more. And hopefully I can make that happen with more posts.

That being said, this movie has some really fun moments, which is ultimately what we're here for. Brown and Williamson have the chemistry that you want in a buddy flick, and the rural Jersey mobsters are plenty bad enough for us to want to watch them getting beat up by these two. They also do some call-backs to Three the Hard Way, like when they shoot without needing to reload. That's the thing, in having his messages and trying to make sure he was depicting African Americans in a positive light compared to what Hollywood usually did, he still knew how to make an enjoyable movie on a limited budget, which ultimately is what keeps people coming back.

Finally, the opening scene takes place at Brenden Byrne Arena, which is now the Izod Center. I never had a chance to see the Devils play there--in fact, I've only seen NHL games in two arenas, the old Boston Garden, and the new TD Bank Garden in Boston--but watching the Devils in their 90s-2000s heyday, it definitely looked like a fun place to see a game. Now they play at the Prudential Center in Newark, which you can see from the Newark train station as you pull in, so it's a little easier for someone like me without a car in Philly to get to--of course, I live a mile from where the Flyers play and haven't caught one of their games yet, so maybe I should start there.

And with that NHL digression it's time to wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi, and I think it's very necessary, if only for the fact that it's a really fun time with some real greats on-screen getting after it. In fact, there's a good amount of Williamson's 80s stuff on Tubi, so I'll be taking my own advice and getting more of them myself.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086051

Crack House (1989)

I saw the trailer for this on the VHS of another Cannon film. I don't remember which one that was, and I'm not sure it matters either, just that I have it now-- or rather, Netflix Watch Instantly has it now, though I didn't know that and found it on my own.

Crack House has Soultaker's Gregg Thomsen as Rick, a Mexican-American trying to get out of the crime-ridden streets of LA and the gang he was once a part of. He doesn't quite make it though, after he gets busted shooting up an African-American gang's hideout to avenge his cousin's murder. He ends up in the clink, leaving his innocent white girlfriend as easy prey for a whole host of unsavory characters, and when she ends up strung-out on drugs and the sex slave property of drug lord Jim Brown, Rick decides to cut a deal with police detective Richard Roundtree in order to bring Brown down.



This is a hardcore exploitation flick, not the kind of thing you want to fire up with your buddies for a bad movie night. A lot of the brutality is kept off camera, outside of some fight scenes, though those are nothing you haven't seen from a good Cannon flick before. The girlfriend's descent into the world of drugs through unscrupulous character to more unscrupulous character is the most troubling to witness, because they don't really pull punches, even if they use the jump-cut to keep us from some of the tougher scenes, like her being taken advantage of when she's too intoxicated to say no, or Brown beating her with his belt while he has his way with her. Now, Cannon does get all Cannon with it towards the end, with a big shootout at the crack house, including the use by the cops of a tank-style battering ram, so it's not all serious hardcore exploitation, but enough of it is, and if that ain't your bag, I'd stay away.

For me personally, this worked. The story was potent, the sets and locations stood out, and it really felt like a 60s or 70s exploitation flick set in 1989. Not only that, but Jim Brown was an amazing baddie-- I mean, the guy scared me-- and Roundtree was great in limited minutes as the detective. Not only that, you had Anthony Geary, Luke of "Luke and Laura" fame as the creepy teacher, and Clyde Jones as BT, the predator who first gets the girlfriend strung out on drugs. It starts a little slow, plus there's the fact that I didn't want to see the predator get his prey in the girlfriend after her boyfriend goes to jail, but overall I enjoyed this-- if enjoyed is the right word considering the subject matter.



Enjoy is always the word for Richard Roundtree. How do you not love him? I wish he had more screen-time as the police chief though. He's splashed all over the cover, so you'd think he would be. He has one great interrogation scene with Rick, where he asks Rick about his disabled brother, and Rick tells him he's "all right." Roundtree lets out this sweet laugh, shakes his head, and says "your brother was paralyzed by a stray bullet from a drive-by. Where I come from that's not all right." I couldn't agree more.

The show was stolen though by Jim Brown. He walks into the film with about 40 minutes or so to go, and that's it, it's his movie. When the girlfriend walks out of the shower and he decides she'll do for collateral until BT can get him the money he's owed, she turns to go away, and he says "hey, you don't do anything until I tell you." I'm much more used to Brown being a good guy, so this threw me for a loop, but he was so good I got used to it quick-- and I imagine if I hadn't he'd make sure I was. He just turned 75 last February. Are you kidding me? Jim Brown, three-quarters of a century old? That's just difficult to fathom, and I wasn't even born when he played football.



One thing I liked about this movie that other movies I've seen could do a better job of, is showing people getting hit after guns are shot. It sounds simple, but I don't know how many times I've watched low-budget films where two sets of people are at point-blank range, firing weapons at one another, and barely anyone is taking hits. It's annoying, and is usually one of the first things that will turn me off to a low-budget picture, so kudos to the film makers for not turning me off here.

This is available on DVD and through Netflix either as an at home rental, or on Watch Instantly as of this printing. For people outside the US, I know at least that a Region 2 DVD exists in the UK. If the description I gave is something you might be into, then I say go for it. It has some fun bad movie elements, but overall there's not much to laugh at or joke about, which in some ways is a good thing. Just a good exploitation flick.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097119/

Steel (1997)

This is a film that my box office bomb wild card review was made for. The only problem was, it wasn't out on DVD, so I put off getting it. When I decided to do this series of comic book movies, I had actually forgotten this was based on one, and didn't consider it, until a few readers suggested it. That's when I realized it was time to stop procrastinating and make this sack-of-asscrack happen.

Steel has Shaq as a dude who makes weapons for the Army, along with Judd Nelson and Annabeth Gish. While trying to impress a visiting senator, Nelson gets overzealous with one of the weapons, things go bad, and in the process Gish ends up paralyzed, Nelson is dishonorably discharged, and O'Neal quits the service. When he gets home, though, he starts seeing his weapons pop up in the hands of the local street gangs. He calls in Gish and an old buddy in Richard Roundtree, and together they take down Nelson before he can sell his guns to anyone bad.



There are days when I absolutely love what I do here, when I find some great gems, or someone sends me the funniest bad movie ever. Then there are times when I wonder if it's worth it to put myself through the ringer-- and this was one of those times. I knew I was in for it it when I hit the display button to see how far in I was, thinking it must've been like 45 minutes, only to discover to my horror that that 45 minutes was merely 18 minutes of real movie time. They should've had Mr. T in the very beginning, warning us "My prediction for this movie: Pain!" It's almost traumatizing to relive it again so soon, considering I only saw it a few hours ago.

I don't know what was worse, the script or Shaq's acting. It's amazing that a guy that's so naturally charismatic could be so bad at reciting lines in a manner that sounds like something more than just a guy reciting lines. At times I wondered if he was on SNL reading from cue cards off set because the writers just got done with it with no time to rehearse. And maybe that's how this whole thing was done, because the script at times sounded like something Ed Wood would've thrown together, especially at the end. It seemed like it wasn't even proofread. It was hard for me to reconcile that this was a feature film that played at my local movie theater, as opposed to one long sketch on Mad TV.



There was one very bright spot, though, and that was Judd Nelson as the head baddie. If he didn't make such a great villain, I would've been rooting for him over Steel, but because he did such a great job being evil I wanted Steel, no matter how ridiculous he looked, to win. My friend at Movies in the Attic has been on me to get more Judd Nelson on my site, especially since this is the first film of his I've reviewed (I think). I couldn't agree with him more. Not only that, but Nelson is from Portland, ME. Who knew?

I have very little exposure to the comics that this character is based on, so I went on Wikipedia and gave myself a crash course. One striking thing about him is he's the exact opposite of Superman. Superman's has so many superpowers, the writers had to invent Kryptonite to make him vulnerable to something; while Steel has no superpowers whatsoever, he's just a human who's very smart. Also, Steel fits your classic hero paradigm-- he's John Henry Irons naturally, and dons his costume to become Steel. Superman is the opposite-- he's Superman naturally, and he dresses up to be Clark Kent. It's almost like Steel is Batman more than he's Superman.



I had always considered that Shaq, between his charisma and athleticism, would make a good action hero. One could teach him martial arts pretty easily, and he'd be a natural on screen. Obviously, after watching this, I can see that the natural on screen part is out, but I also saw why he wouldn't really make it as an action star: he's too tall. In one scene with A-List That Guy Charles Napier, it was just really awkward as the two walked down the road together. I still think he'd make a great baddie or baddie's hatchet man if he learned to fight, but leading man would be too much. Dolph or Dennis Rodman is probably the ceiling on height.

I used to complain that this wasn't out on DVD yet, but some movies just don't need to be transferred. You could even say some movies don't need to be made when you're talking about something like this, let alone released on DVD. If you're a sadist, or maybe you did something bad and want to repent in a way that won't leave any visible marks, by all means, check out Steel. Just remember, though there may be no visible scars, the ones on the inside might be even worse.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120207/

Maniac Cop (1988)

I've had this one in my Instant queue for a while now, and just never got around to it. Then Netflix held my feet to the fire, because they pulled it from Watch Instantly on December 1st, so I had to make sure I watched it before then, and I did.

Maniac Cop takes place in NYC, and is about an evil cop that is going around killing people, which causes citywide panic as people feel they can't trust the police. First, it looks like Bruce Campbell is the guy, because his wife is one of the victims, but then it looks like he was framed. That's when signs point to a cop (Robert Z'Dar) who was thought to be dead-- one who was sent to jail and attacked by his fellow prisoners, getting cut up really bad. The only problem is, how can Campbell A. prove his innocence in jail, and B. prove that a dead cop is the real killer.



What were these people thinking?!?!? They had Robert Z'Dar, one of the greatest and most enormous faces in cinematic history, and they carved it up! Are you fucking kidding me? Who thinks of this crap? What moron said "Hey, let's get the make-up guy in and make his face look like shit"? Seriously, I'm at a loss for words. Here we have this amazing cast, with Bruce Campbell, William Smith, Tom Atkins, Richard Roundtree, and I thought Robert Z'Dar. I guess I was wrong, huh? Is it too much to ask that when I see Robert Z'Dar listed in the cast, I expect his gigantic mug filling my TV? Apparently it is, because some people who make movies are morons.

And that's too bad, because this was good. A solid late 80s slasher with some good action in spots, and great performances by Campbell, Atkins, Roundtree, and Smith. How hard would it have been to just not carve up Z'Dar's face. Just say "hey, I know the script calls for a carved up face, but we've got Robert Z'Dar here, let's make some changes. This is perhaps the greatest face in cinematic history, it's our obligation as decent, compassionate Americans to give people the face they expect to see." I've just lost my faith in humanity a little more after this.



This is only our third Bruce Campbell movie, and only the second where he actually has more than one scene. Campbell is a straight up professional actor. You can see it in a scene with someone like William Smith, who's great, but is a gruff big guy who plays gruff big guy roles. Campbell is a throwback. In the 30s and 40s, all movies were cast with Bruce Campbells in all the supporting roles. Now we tend to have rappers and tough guys take more of those parts. Some of those tough guys, like William Smith or Danny Trejo, are great, but they're the exception in my mind, not the rule, and it's a shame that we don't have more Campbells out there. Another great Campbell is John C. McGinley, who is great in Scrubs.

This is also only the third Richard Roundtree movie at the DTVC, but unlike Campbell, that's more of a disappointment, because he has a greater DTV oeuvre. I will try to correct that in the future. One thing that makes me mad (not as mad as I was about Z'Dar's face, of course) is how the Shaft TV movies haven't been released on DVD yet, and TNT with their stupid New Classics and Without a Trace reruns never show them anymore either. Okay Matt, breathe deep. This Z'Dar thing is getting out of control.



The truth is, I only have myself to blame here. Robert Z'Dar has tons of DTV films out there, more than Richard Roundtree, and he should have more than just the two films I have of him, though I feel like he has more, and I just haven't tagged him enough. Who knows, we'll see. Anyway, 2010 will be the year of Robert Z'Dar, as I will do my best to get another ten or so movies up by next year's induction. Let's be clear here, I won't be inducting Robert Z'Dar, I'll be inducting his enormous face. A grievous cinematic wrong has been committed here, more grievous than Pearl Harbor. Okay, maybe as grievous as Pearl Harbor, but that's still pretty bad, and it's up to me, as the DTV Connoisseur to do something about that.

Do I need a conclusion? Do you need me to tell you whether or not I think you should watch this? Go ahead, watch it. Maybe you'll kick some puppies or tell kids there's no Santa Claus after, how does that sound? I, for one, will not be watching this travesty of everything good and right in the world ever again. Robert Z'Dar's face should be a national monument, not carved up in some silly 80s slasher flick.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095583/

Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon (2004)

This was strictly a Pyun pick. Well, and the fact that it had Richard Roundtree. And Vincent Klyn didn't hurt either. I'll pretty much watch anything if Vincent Klyn's in it for five minutes. "Back off, Warchild..." Back off indeed. Oh yeah, and in case you're wondering, Max Havoc kills a guy he's fighting in a kickboxing match.

Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon is about the eponymous hero (just the Max Havoc part, not the rest of the title-- he's Swiss, not a Kiwi!) who has to eke out a living as a photographer because he can't fight anymore after the trauma of accidentally killing an opponent in the ring. His old trainer, Richard Roundtree, is living in Guam, and Max is sent out there to do shots for the local hotel. He meets some extremely hot chick and her extremely hot sister, and ends up getting into a mess when the hot chick buys a dragon off Roundtree that some Japanese crime bosses want. By the way, the chick is an art historian, and she sounds like it too. Oh yeah, and Max Havoc accidentally killed an opponent in the ring.



This was a pretty fun deal, but I'm not sure that was enough. I mean, the movie mostly sucked, but the martial arts were pretty solid, the chicks were hot, and it had Vincent Klyn. I'm not sure what else I was looking for in an Albert Pyun film. It was definitely ridiculous. I laughed out loud when told the female lead was an art historian. It wasn't her looks that made this implausible, it was the stilted, overly rehearsed way she delivered her lines. It was like telling me Paris Hilton was an expert on elite politics in Cote d'Ivoire. I'll take that. But there wasn't much there to make this worth while, you know? As an aside, Max Havoc accidentally kills someone in the ring during a kickboxing match. Richard Roundtree was there.

The hero was played by Mickey Hardt, a Swiss dude whose only acting credits other than the two Max Havocs are German films. I'm not sure what we were supposed to make of him. He's funny, I guess. I imagine the chicks dig him. His English ain't bad. His martial arts were pretty sweet. I don't know, he just didn't do it for me. He wasn't Dolph, or Seagal, or even Jerry Trimble. I guess that's why he isn't in more films over here. Also, Max Havoc accidentally killed a guy in the ring during a kickboxing match. David Carradine was there.



As far as the women element goes, this film did not disappoint. Havoc's love interest, this amazing blond art historian, is so hot, when Carmen Electra has a cameo and hits on Havoc, we're actually like "dude, don't screw it up with the art historian." And that's not a knock on Electra, because she's hot too. Then you factor in the art historian's sister who's going to med school. Also amazing. Now, usually these films counter the eye candy for the guys with something for the ladies, like Dolph's abs, or Van Damme's buttcheeks, or Seagal in a sweatshirt. It wasn't that Mickey Hardt wasn't great, but compared to what us straight guys and gay ladies were given, it was obvious who made out better in that deal. Oh yeah, and Max Havoc accidentally killed a guy in the ring during a kickboxing match.

Vincent Klyn. What can you say? "Back off, Warchild..." Is there anyone else in the history of cinema who could be a Warchild better than Klyn? In this film he plays a dude named Moko who's an athlete in a sport that's the Guam equivalent to crew. He's kind of an asshole that Havoc beats up from time to time, but in the end they become friends because they aren't bad guys. Not what I want from Vincent Klyn. You can't list Warchild on the menu, and give me dog meat. Very disappointed. And in case you're wondering, Max Havoc killed a guy accidentally in the ring. He's pretty broken up about it.



I'll bite: here's the deal with me bringing up the Max Havoc killing someone thing: there's a flashback to it every five minutes in the fricken movie. I'm serious. It gets ridiculous. With all the hot chicks and solid martial arts potential, not to mention Vincent Klyn, you're going to muddle the film with hella flashbacks? And the same one every time? It just started to hurt my soul, you know. Sometimes I ask myself: why does it always have to hurt? And I know the answer: because you wanted it to. In the immortal words of Evander Holyfield: "Time to get your whuppin', Charlie."

I just can't see it. Kinda fun film, but there's so much out there that's also fun and has more action and better acting and less flashbacks. Considering Pyun's had some great ones, he's on a two-game losing streak right now, with his last reviewed film, Crazy Six, also proving to be a stinker. As a Hall of Famer, he's gotta do better than that, and let's hope the next one we do I can recommend. Please.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404225/

Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight (1992)

I caught this recently during a Bloodfist marathon on ShowtimeXtreme. I have friends with the channel, but unfortunately, they will probably be dumping it soon. I know when I had the channel myself it provided hours of enjoyment; but it is expensive, and I can totally understand them not keeping it. Perhaps we can get the channel as a tax write-off at the DTVC head offices.

Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight is the first of the series to feature Don "The Dragon" Wilson as someone other than the guy he was in the first two. In fact, all of them after III do that. Anyway, here he's in prison, and he sees his buddy raped and murdered, so he kills the guy that did it. That garners him bad attention from the cats that dug the dead guy, so he's forced to fight to survive. Richard Roundtree is his cell mate, and he's close to parole. He also represents the inmates at their parole and appeal hearings. The question is: will his supporting Donny kill him before his release date? We know it won't kill Donny Dawg.

Almost every action hero has to do the perfunctory prison flick. Don got his out of the way very early in his career, and I must say that was a good move. Though this movie is atrocious, we can forgive him for it, because he didn't have a lot under his belt. That being said, he better not do anymore, like Van Damme did, because the results could be disastrous. I think Crooked was a far better movie choice than In Hell.



One thing I dug about this was the sheer volume of fighting in it. There could've been more if they'd just removed the plot completely, and I can't say I would've been upset with that, but I think the amount they had was enough. In one scene, Dragon fights this big dude in the laundry room. He kicks the guy backward through who knows how many hanging sheets. I'm not sure exactly what they were going for, whether that was a scene played for laughs gone wrong, or if they really thought it would be a cool effect and just got carried away, but it looked like something out of the Three Stooges.

Richard Roundtree's in this, unfortunately not reprising his role as Shaft. As a kid, the Shaft movies were to my mind the most amazing things I'd ever laid eyes on, and as an adult, my opinion hasn't changed much. We get flashes of what made Shaft great here, like when Roundtree goes upside a dude's head with a bat, but nothing like the scene in Shaft in Africa when he killed a bunch of dudes with a car; and none of the great lines like the classic "Close it yourself... Shitty!" from the first one. I think the film makers were a little over their head when they cast Roundtree, and as such, weren't able to use him to his full potential.



This film had all the depraved hallmarks of the routine prison film, which I assume is meant to show us how gritty the prison environment is, but in the end just look whacked. This is especially true in the beginning when D "The D" Dubs' friend gets raped. Eww. Just the same, the film does a solid job in tempering this depravity, especially with how Don is able to get justice against both the warden (played by the assassin in Hard to Kill, an interesting connection between Don and Seagal) and the baddies in prison; and with the way they wrapped up Roundtree's story. I left this movie without the icky feeling I'm usually left with after other prison flicks, and I guess in that respect this film is a nice slice of all right.

If you see this again on ShowtimeXtreme or something, and you're up late typing or paper or battling insomnia, a fella or a lady could do a lot worse than watch this bad boy. On the other hand, if you spend any money, or set aside any time to watch this, you will feel sorely cheated. It's what we in The Biz call nondescript, and in my mind, nondescript is no good.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101481/