Carpocalypse Now: THE LAST CHASE (1981)

In 1975 Roger Corman saw the America’s obsession with cars and its ultimate future in an adaption of Ib Melchior’s story DEATH RACE 2000 (1975). Essentially about a cross country Gumball Rally/Cannonball Run, except that it is a massively popular, televised bloodsport where the divers score points for killing pedestrians. Flash-forward six years and a single boarder later and Canadian director Martyn Burke gives us an adaptation of the only screenplay written by C.R. O'Christopher, who’s only other credits include single episodes of "B.J. and the Bear" and "Airwolf". Are you buckling up? This is going to be a bumpy ride!

Set in the super-futuristic year of 2000-ish, 20 years after a plague has wiped out most of humanity, the world is being rebuilt though liberal utopian ideals mixed with the conservative ideal of subjugating the masses to the will of an elite few. It’s almost like Jerry Brown got elected to public office again. Ha! Like that would happen. Somehow this still mysterious epidemic has translated to a governmental ban on fossil-fuels and the machines that run on them. Never mind that the police have electric golf-carts to carry out their raids on uncooperative members of society, nobody gets to own a car, regardless of fuel source. Because of this, our downtrodden masses are forced to do the unthinkable – use public transportation! (cue gasp from audience)

The government is watching you...
walk to work!

In this vision of a world gone to heck, former racecar driver Franklyn Hart (Lee Majors) has lost his family and his pollution-prone profession and has been given the job as a spokesperson for the government run public transportation agency. He lectures on the evils of oil barons and provides rote rational as to why the public cannot be allowed to own their own vehicles. Of course he thinks this is all hogwash being pushed by the government and in the wee hours of the night breaks into “Confiscation Yards”, stealing parts from cars to help repair his fire engine red 1972 Porsche 917/10 race car. At the same time a hacker is hijacking government computers and television with videos for “Radio Free California”, promising a life free from government persecution. Hmmmm… where could this be headed?

After having a Glenn Beck-esque breakdown in the middle of a lecture on a college campus and ranting about how the government is depriving them of the awesomeness of German engineered reciprocating oil burning machinery, he lands smack on the government radar as a radical who is going to need a hearing and subsequent rehabilitation. Meanwhile, a bullied boarding school kid, Ring (Chris Makepeace essentially continuing his role from the previous year’s MY BODYGUARD), is on the lam from the cops (as he is our subversive hacker), hunting down Hart to hook up with him since they are both rebelling against The System. Hart has invented a special pump that can get the last bit of gas out of any gas station reservoirs in the country, so conceivably he can never run out of gas. With the cops beating down the door, this leaves them no option but to jump in Hart’s Porche and make a bee-line to California, land of the free! But wait, it’s not as easy as that. A specialist from Washington (George Touliatos) has the master plan to fix Hart’s little red wagon; recruit ace veteran Vietnam and Korean war fighter pilot Captain J.G. Williams (Burgess Meredith and whiskey bottle) out of retirement to chase him down! Of course this means pulling his old Korean war fighter out of mothballs, fixing her all up and giving her a spiffy new paintjob in a matter of mere hours. Rick Dale would be green with envy. While the plane is being fixed up, Williams stomps around shouting things like “Let’s go! Whaddaya think this is, a chicken party?!” Ummmm... is it too late to reconsider the options?

In one of the film’s many disturbing scenes, Williams talks dirty to his jet as soon as they are off the ground giving whole new meaning to the term “cockpit”. Burgess Meredith cooing “oh baby, oh yeah, give it to me baby, right there” is awkward enough, but this flick starts heading into some really weird territory when the film settles into its groove. Instead of being a tense and exciting, futuristic updating of the gritty classic VANISHING POINT (1971), it sort of aims more for “amiable road picture” territory descending into some seriously sappy melodrama and several scenes between Hart and Ring that are verging on… uhhh... well, for example; the scene in which Hart and the very emotional and somewhat effeminate Ring argue about whether Ring should even be going with Hart as it is unsafe leads to a tussle with the man and boy rolling around on the ground in a weepy embrace. Should I even point out that Ring sent Hart video messages saying things like “you are not alone” and that they are heading to San Francisco where they can live free from persecution? Later Hart gazes at Ring and says “I’ve done a lot of losin’ the past 20 years, I just don’t want to lose you too.” Not enough? After they run across a small commune out in the middle of nowhere and Majors has a fling with one of the female locals, Makepeace has a total emotional meltdown demanding to know if he loves her. The screenwriter is obviously working on some very personal issues in this script turning it into sort of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST 2 of car chase movies.

Canadians are so… different. It’s like they are from another country or something. Their perception of futuristic America is almost a random pastiche of various political issues that don’t seem to be separated into the partisan lines that we seem to embrace as a country. For instance, you can still own a gun apparently as people roam the roads with rifles, even though they’ve been deprived of their cars. On the other hand, the whole fuel crisis scenario and the fact that the world was devastated by a plague that may have been a terrorist germ-warfare attack, is almost prophetic. Seriously, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Half of the film is the set-up for the chase sequence and by the time we finally get to it, it ends up being rather unexciting due to the fact that the filmmakers are more interested in telling the stories of these quirky, but genuinely uninteresting characters. The amiable competitiveness and eventual camaraderie between Hart and the loony Cap’n Williams is a poor substitute for a proper villain. If this were made a few years later by American filmmakers, the government would have recruited an ace Russian pilot (then you would really know that the government was evil!) with a super-mega-high-tech plane and it would be non-stop explosions and one-liners. I’m not really saying it would be totally better, since you’d probably lose all that contemplative anti-establishment stuff, but then again, we probably wouldn’t have the creepy NAMBLA sub-plot either.

The fact that this movie has a great premise and gets its fair share of things right, makes it all the more of a bummer than they squander all their potential by shunning exploitation value. I realize the filmmaker are trying to be a cerebral antidote to “The Dukes of Hazzard” (1979-1985), but is it too much to ask for a few car stunts?  What little action there is feels like it was made in the editing room with a close-up of Makepeace’s hair blowing in the wind and a quick cut of the car cornering at about 12 miles an hour while the government employee monitoring their progress shouts stuff like “he’s going 125 miles an hour!” Uh huh, you Canadians think you are clever. You can’t fool us. If only Hal Needham or H.B. Halicki had been involved. Man, now that would be something. Or... dare I even say it? In the right hands, this could be turned into an amazing remake.

Read More

Life in Poster Art: Dino De Laurentiis (1919-2010)

Read More

Prison Prescription: LOCKED DOWN (2010)

Movies about martial arts are kind of like a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western – you get the good, the bad and the ugly.  The last two categories have been booming as of late thanks to the rise in popularity of mixed martial arts (MMA) and, more specifically, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Unfortunately, like the pro-wrestling boon in the 1990s, this means lots of fighters with all the range of a remote control heading to the silver screen in the hopes of parlaying their public recognition into a second career. While some have broken into the big-time (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in THE A-TEAM redux, for example), most fighters have languished in direct-to-video hell.

One of the current purveyors of the DTV MMA onslaught is director Daniel Zirilli.  He got his start directing rap videos and produced BLACK SPRING BREAK: THE MOVIE (1998), which I remember angering customers back when I worked at a video store.  Zirilli spent a decade producing crap that clogged video store arteries; “urban” films with titles featuring a Z in it like LATIN KINGZ (2003) done in a thug life font.  He latched onto MMA’s popularity and gave the world CIRCLE OF PAIN earlier this year.  You remember that one right?  It is the movie that gave the world the infamous Frank Mir vs. Heath Herring parking lot fight that my friend Dave said unfolded like the opening of a gay porn scene (how he knew that I don’t know).  Well, he is back with a vengeance with the MMA fighter laced LOCKED DOWN.

The film centers on undercover cop Danny Bolan (Tony Schiena, the lead of CIRCLE) and opens with him doing a drug deal with a guy named Mule (Forrest Griffin).  You can tell Mule is a badass because he has not one, not two, but THREE Tapout logos on his jacket!  Naturally, it all goes horribly wrong with an innocent rookie getting blown away and Bolan accidentally dropping Mule as he tries to save his life. Undercover cop cliché #1 taken care of, now let’s get onto #2. Bolan cleans up (shaving montage!) and gets it on with his girlfriend, who then proceeds to give him the post-coital “I don’t even know who you are” speech.  He wakes up to a Dear John letter, but that is the least of his worries as a S.W.A.T. team busts into his house and find drugs and money hidden in his mattress.  “This is a set up,” he screams.  Cliché #3 is in the books.

Bolan is quickly found guilty (no trial footage) and finds himself sent off to Blackwater prison.  And – wouldn’t you know it – it is overflowing with criminals he locked up.  What are the odds?  At the top of the list is Anton Vargas (the slumming Vinnie Jones, looking bloated as hell), a big time crime lord.  Now hold onto your hats because this might blow your mind.  Vargas runs this prison and has the warden wrapped around his little finger (thanks to young hookers). Also – make sure you are seated for this one – he runs an illegal underground fight circuit where prisoners fight to the death!  Whoa, where did they come up with such an original plot?  This barbaric bloodsport is showcased in the film’s opening when UFC fighter Cheick Kongo (as Silas) is punched in the balls (oh sweet, sweet justice) and killed by prison pound-for-pound champ Axl (Lance “The Snake” Cartwright). 

Bolan is taken to his new home (one cheap set cell block of 5 cells) and meets Irving (Dave Fennoy), his old black roommate who used to be a fighter.  Damn, I wonder if he will become his trainer and offer sage advice.  Leaving no cliché left unturned, Irving tells Bolan that when it comes to respect, “you got to earn it.”  Amazing! Of course, Bolan gets in trouble right away with thug Colton (Rashad Evans) as Bolan put away his cousin King (Kimbo Slice) down in Florida.  I’ll let Rashad’s fine acting skills explain:

Colton attacks Bolan in the lunch room and ends up with a face full of creamed spinach for his trouble.  This is the least of our cop hero’s worries though.  He meets with Internal Affairs agent Gwen (Sarah Ann Schultz), who promises to prove his innocence.  And time is of the essence for Bolan as Vargas, who is the one who framed him, wants his revenge via the underground fight league (“the cage is an institution” Vargas inexplicably says) and hopes to profit off it with his gambling operation that he runs out of his cell.  Bolan is resistant at first but a shiv from my main man Colton to the gut makes him change his mind.  Soon he is in that rusty cage and beating Colton into the land of living death (with Rashad suffering a similar fate as the Lyoto Machida match):

Naturally, this is all building to a final showdown with Axl, with Bolan beating up UFCer Joe Doerksen (as Slick!) in the process.  There is also a bit of SHAWSHANK in here as Irving plans his big escape during the final showdown.  Cue the loud guitar music!

Here it is, the film's highlight!

Wow.  Words can’t describe how bad this movie is.  Terrible action flicks are nothing new, but how are people still doing this crap in 2010?  I’m not joking – there is one guy in the opening credits who gets a “story by” credit.  Did he just say, “Hey, we should make a martial arts movie set in prison.”  Zirilli and co-screenwriter D. Glase Lomond leave no cliché unturned.  Now I’m not necessarily saying adhering to a blueprint is a bad thing (the UNDISPUTED flicks are a great example of how to do it right), but you have to have the talent to pull it off and Zirilli is no Isaac Florentine.  The direction is completely flat and – worst of all – the fight scenes adhere to the old Hollywood standard of letting editing do all the work.  Amazingly, this features better production values than the earlier CIRCLE OF PAIN.

Not gonna happen!

Of course, I didn’t watch this expecting it to be good.  I was more curious to see how the MMA fighters came off and, hopefully, find someone who is worse than BJ Penn in terms of acting.  Sadly, I didn’t get anything that bad, but we came close. I like Rashad as a fighter, but his adopting a tough guy persona was laughable. He actually sounds like a white guy doing a black street thug impersonation. Perhaps not wanting to spend money on dubbing, Frenchman Kongo is given no real dialog and Joe Doerksen only gets to scream as his leg is broken. Surprisingly, the best actors are Forrest and Kimbo.  Unfortunately, Forrest’s sarcastic delivery is totally out of place when you realize he is playing a drug dealer (whose gang likes watching strippers in the middle of a cold warehouse). Kimbo acquits himself well (he is a better actor than fighter), but his scenes of about 5 minutes are shoehorned in and don’t mix with the main plot.  With his mug on the cover twice, I haven’t seen Kimbo that exploited since Dana White put him on THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER season 10.  If I had to credit the film with anything, it would be the round about ways they worked in some nudity.  On the downside of that, you get to see helmet-haircut sporting Bai Ling lay on a naked Vinnie Jones.  **shivers** You also have to love how the MMA clothing craze apparently extends into prison life as Vargas has Hitman Fight Gear and Tapout (who “presented” this film) logos on his wall and fighter.  Really.

Read More