We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
AVENGING FORCE (1986)
When James Booth wrote the initial draft of Avenging Force (which is also known as Night Hunter in some countries), the project was being developed by Cannon Films as a sequel to their Chuck Norris hit Invasion U.S.A. That's why the lead character in the film is Matt Hunter, the same name as Norris's Invasion U.S.A. character. But when Norris decided he didn't want to do the movie, Cannon turned to the stars of another one of their recent hits: Avenging Force became a reunion for American Ninja's Michael Dudikoff and Steve James. And why stop the reunion there? American Ninja director Sam Firstenberg was hired to direct the film as well.
Dudikoff's Matt Hunter is a former Secret Service agent who goes to New Orleans to visit his old military buddy Larry Richards (James), who is running for Senate - and the fact that he's an African American with political ambitions has him receiving death threats from a group of rich and powerful racists called the Pentangle. Despite that, Richards has been refusing Secret Service protection; which makes him and his family an easy target during a Mardi Gras parade. Richards makes it away from the parade alive, but one of his young sons is killed.
In addition to the homicidal actions they believe are keeping the country from being "handed over to the Commies", the Pentangle also runs a "survival of the fittest" hunting club where their prey are humans. A bit of the old "most dangerous game" story that we've seen in other action movies like Surviving the Game and Hard Target. People keep mentioning that Matt Hunter was the best, most promising agent the Secret Service ever had, so you can see where this is going: by the end of the movie, the Pentangle (whose leader is played by James P. Ryan, turning in a hell of a villain performance) is going to be hunting Hunter through the Louisiana bayou.
Avenging Force has a solid fan base and some cool action sequences, but James would later say that he hated this movie, and it's not difficult to understand why. The way Richards' family is treated in this film is shocking, especially when coupled with the racist lines we hear from the Pentangle members. We hear racial slurs, and then we see a Black family get picked off to serve as motivation for the White hero to kick ass in the climax. The situation definitely could have been handled better without having any impact on how good the action is.
A few years later, Firstenberg and James worked together on a film James could be more proud of, one called Riverbend, about Vietnam veterans who train the African American men in a small Southern town to fight so they can overthrow the violent, racist sheriff and take control of their town. Unfortunately, the inexperienced, indie writer/producer wouldn't let Firstenberg tweak the script, so Riverbend didn't reach the potential of the concept, but the film did give James a rare leading role before cancer took him way too early.
THE RETURN (2020)
Given that The Return marks the feature directorial debut of stuntman BJ Verot, it’s kind of surprising that the movie doesn’t have much in the way of flashy stuntwork. Instead of making an action-packed spectacle like other stuntmen-turned-directors have done, Verot has made a very economical sci-fi horror movie as his first feature. The Return is largely a one location movie that centers on just three characters, occasionally widening the scope for a handful of dialogue scenes. But plenty of crazy things happen to those three characters in that one location.
The three people we spend the most time with are college students Rodger Emmerlich (Richard Harmon), his best friend Jordan (Echo Andersson), and his girlfriend Beth (Sara Thompson), who are having a somber spring break because Rodger’s father has just died unexpectedly. Rodger takes Jordan and Beth to his childhood home, the place his father died in, where they stay while preparing to attend the funeral. During their time there, they also start digging into Rodger’s past, stirring up repressed memories about his parents’ troubled marriage, the death of his sister, the disappearance of his mother, and an “imaginary friend” that was such a serious issue that young Rodger was sent to see a psychiatrist.
The viewer is tipped off that there’s something strange going on in the Emmerlich house well before the characters catch on, because we’re shown a shadowy creature lurking around the place. This digitally-enhanced “naked murder ghost” (as a character will call it later in the film) is one of the least effective elements of the movie, because it’s meant to be terrifying and yet comes off as being pretty silly. Scenes where this creature attacks characters should be a highlight, but they’re more likely to elicit chuckles.
Aside from the execution of the naked murder ghost, The Return does tell an intriguing story that was crafted by Verot and co-writer Ken Janssens. The film is labeled sci-fi horror because the mystery of Rodger’s past involves not only ghostly creatures and disturbing imaginary friends, but also experiments conducted by his scientist parents Oswald (Erik Athavale) and Esme (Gwendolyn Collins). It’s clear that something the parents did has caused all the spookiness in their home, but Verot makes sure we don’t have all the answers until the movie is closing in on the end, unraveling the mystery in an interesting way over the course of the running time.
The banter between the characters is well-written, and Harmon, Andersson, and Thompson did a good job delivering it. Andersson (who has been credited as Echo Porisky on previous projects) especially shines as the irreverent-but-caring Jordan. She’s the most entertaining and likeable character in the movie, and I hope to see this lead to more prominent roles for Andersson in future projects.
The Return is a middle-of-the-road sort of movie for most of its 90 minutes. Not too bad, not great, but watchable if you invest in seeing the story through and finding out the answers to its mysteries. It has some issues along the way, but no deal breakers… unless you have a stronger negative reaction to the naked murder ghost than I did. Then we reach the climax, where The Return goes in directions I did not expect at all. Things get really nuts in the final minutes of this movie, and I think there will be a divided response from viewers. Some will love how crazy it gets, while others will be completely put off by it, shaking their heads in disbelief. Which is cool. I like that Verot decided to do something different with the “haunted house” scenario. My only problem with the last 30 minutes or so comes from what I felt was a misstep in the writing of the characters, when the fate of one is sort of just shrugged off by the others. That bothered me, but the craziness around it didn’t.
The review of The Return first appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
POLICE ACADEMY: MISSION TO MOSCOW (1994)
Five years after Police Academy 6: City Under Siege was a box office disappointment, producer Paul Maslansky decided to give the franchise one more try... and unfortunately, with this low budget, direct-to-video sequel, the series finally hit the bottom of the barrel that critics had been accusing it of hitting throughout its entire run. Anyone who thought a previous Police Academy movie was bad had no idea just how bad it could get.
Maslansky had wanted to make a Police Academy movie where the characters went to either London or Moscow, and when he couldn't get a London story off the ground for the seventh film he turned to Moscow and made it happen. Police Academy: Mission to Moscow was filmed in Russia right in the midst of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, which got so out of hand that tanks even opened fire on the Russian White House. This same event, which nearly pushed the country into civil war, also disrupted the filming of a thriller I wrote about earlier this year, Mute Witness. (I also wrote the script for a YouTube video about Mute Witness.)
On this budget level, Mission to Moscow was probably always going to be underwhelming, but I'm sure a better script could have been written than the one Randolph Davis and Michele S. Chodos turned in. Maslansky probably shouldn't have hired Alan Metter either, since Metter has openly said that the only Police Academy movie he ever liked was the first one. It's not really cool to be dismissive of the sequels when you're responsible for the worst of the bunch.
The ridiculous mess of a story involves Russian mobster Constantine Konali (Ron Perlman) distributing the most successful video game of all time, something known simply as The Game, available on both gaming system cartridges and floppy discs for PC. Although, apparently a cartridge isn't even necessary, because the first time we see someone playing The Game they're doing so on a Game Boy that the filmmakers couldn't even be bothered to insert a cartridge into. This thing is clearly empty. Of course, The Game is just a scam that allows Konali to gain access to any computer that has played it.
Russian Commandant Alexandrei Nikolaivich Rakov (Christopher Lee) needs help bringing Konali down, and it is decided that the man for the job is the bumbling Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes), who brings with him a few of the characters we know from the other movies: Michael Winslow as Jones, David Graf as Tackleberry, Leslie Easterbook as Callahan, and G.W. Bailey as Captain Harris. Everyone else had moved on from the franchise by this point. Bubba Smith had been asked to reprise the role of Hightower, but refused to participate in solidarity with Marion Ramsey, who wasn't asked to return as Hooks and was told her character couldn't be worked into the film. Charlie Schlatter plays new addition Cadet Kyle Connors, who wasn't actually supposed to be on this mission but conveniently happens to be a tech whiz. Connors gets a love interest in Claire Forlani of Mallrats as Katrina Sergeeva, the translator assigned to work with these visiting Americans.
It's cool to see Ron Perlman and Christopher Lee in a Police Academy movie, but it's a shame that this is the one they were cast in. This movie just doesn't work at all. The story is out of bounds for the franchise and the humor falls flat. The returning cast members make a valiant attempt to live up to what they've done before and what fans are hoping to see again, but the movie around them lets them down. I get some entertainment out of all six of the other Police Academy movies, I enjoy most of them a lot, but Mission to Moscow is difficult to sit through. This movie was released when I was 10 years old, and I was very lenient and easy to please when it came to movies at that time. Mission to Moscow didn't work for me even then.
With a running time of 129 minutes and a cast packed with highly respected actors like Robert Vaughn, Martin Balsam, Shelley Winters, Joey Bishop, and George Kennedy, the 1986 Cannon Films release The Delta Force comes off like its attempting to be a prestige picture a lot of the time, and maybe that's why I've always had trouble getting into it. It's a Chuck Norris movie! I don't want to see a Chuck Norris movie that's all serious and slow, I want to see him kick his way through something nuts like Silent Rage or Lone Wolf McQuade.
Directed by Cannon head Menahem Golan from a screenplay Golan wrote with James Bruner, the film was inspired by the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which resulted in the death of one hostage and led to many of the hostages being held in captivity for two weeks. The film uses some of the real world facts, but imagines, "What would have happened if a Delta Force military unit had been set loose on the hijackers?"
This film was originally intended to be a Chuck Norris / Charles Bronson team-up film, but Bronson dropped out before filming began and was replaced by a different cinematic badass, Lee Marvin. Marvin's Colonel Nick Alexander is the leader of the Delta Force unit, while Norris is the extremely capable Major Scott McCoy. Also in the unit are Steve James from the American Ninja movies and uncredited extras Liam Neeson and Mykelti Williamson. The hijackers who take control of a plane piloted by Bo Svenson are led by Robert Forster. So this is all building up to a Norris vs. Forster final confrontation, a cool idea, but the movie sure takes its take getting there. A large percentage is focused on the tension of the hijacking and hostage situation. The Delta Force isn't even called in to handle things until 31 minutes in - before that, the only action is McCoy saving someone from a crashed helicopter in the opening sequence. It's not very exciting.
Don't expect the action to kick in at that 31 minute point, either. There's still another 20 minutes to wait before the Delta Force unit knows exactly where to go to intercept the hijackers, and more minutes to wait before that interception happens. We're talking about a Chuck Norris movie where there isn't any exciting action until an hour into the thing! Even that scene gets cut short. And yet this movie is still one of the most popular entries in his filmography. I don't get it. Maybe it's because of the cast. Or maybe it's because you get rewarded with the sight of a motorcycle equipped with rocket launchers if you stick with the movie for 90 minutes or so.
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