Command 5 (1985)

Tagline:

Four men and a woman of courage.. their mission: to combat violent crime! 

Quick Blast Review:

When recluse, action junkie ex-army Captain Blair Morgan (Stephen Parr) is ready to throw in the towel, he is persuaded to create a civilian task force to clean up violent crime. He agrees if only he can choose his team; a by-his-own-rules cop and demolition derby car driver, J. D. Smith (William Russ); female police psychologist and machine gun expert, Chris Winslow (Sonja Smits); alcoholic cop with a short fuse Jack Coburn (Wings Hauser) and demolition expert and general nutter, Nick Kowalski (John Matuszak). Together they are COMMAND 5! And as Command 5 under Captain Morgan's command, they get an awesome bullet-proof truck that make the Star Trek door sound when it opens its hatch,  and an arsenal of the latest weapons (and motorbikes in the back of the truck) to wreck havoc with.

After a relentless training montage, the team are called in for the first assignment - a group called The Brotherhood, let by Hawk (William Forsythe), have taken the Governer's daughter hostage and hold an entire town to ransom. They demand that their people be released from prison or the bodies will start piling up. Who else can save the day but COMMAND 5 - they have badges on their jackets and their own jumbo jet, too!

This is top shelf entertainment right here, folks! I had a whale of a time with this obvious A-Team clone. Everyone gives it their all to blow up as much stuff as possible. John Matuszak's Kowalski is the highlight for me, being the massive fan of One Man Force that I am. Kowalski grins insanely while playing classical music as background to his planned detonations, or just screaming at and pushing down walls instead of climbing over them. His best moment would be carving a statue of The Thinker out of explosive clay and blowing up a bridge with it, haha! J. D. Smith's constant "like my daddy always said" lines get a bit tiresome, but it's never tiresome seeing Chris Winslow with an automatic weapon in her hands!

Wiliam Forsythe is a baddy in everything he plays, and there is a reason for that - he does it so well! He's pretty slimy as Hawk and you just love to hate him. Stephen Parr's Morgan is a quality leader, showing restraint and good leadership skills, managing to group this band of misfits together without the colossal force of Wings and Matuszak causing the whole thing to explode. Wings is his usual great self, and his schtick of drinking scotch with milk is pretty amusing. He has a temper on him and is the cause of both bar fights in the film. That's right we get bar fights (one with hookers and a pimp!); we also get motorbike chases and countless rounds of ammunition used to blow up large set pieces.

Being a TV movie that is almost viewable by younger folk - I'd let a 12 year old watch this, for sure - only two guys are killed during the film, and there is no blood splatter. But a HELL of a lot of cars and buildings are decimated! That's more fun anyway, right? BOOM!

 

The Final Fifteen:

Just how you think it goes! Hawk won't release the hostages, the Governor won't release the prisoners, so how do we resolve this situation? Send in Command 5! The team go covertly in with the attitude of "secure the hostages first, nail the punks second!". Explosions abound as Command 5 battle their way through Hawk's brigade of scum and rescue the hostages, with Kowalski throwing guys out of windows and Coburn throwing grenades at everything else. After a quick bike chase to catch Hawk, the film ends in the TV-cheeseball kind of way that even gets a "Merry Christmas" thrown in for good measure.

Sourced From:

Japanese VHS I picked up from eBay. It was made for TV so 4:3 is the correct ratio to watch this in. Distributed by CIC worldwide from what I can see. 

Trailer:

Not a trailer, but it may as well be - the opening credits sequence that I recorded from my own tape. Sensational!

One Man Force (1989)

Tagline:

Jake Swan. Narcotics Detective. 6' 8" - 280 lbs. 21" biceps, 55" chest. No one enforces the law... like he does!

Back of DVD:

Detective Jake Swan does things by the book - his book. But when a drug bust he plans results in his partner's death, Jake goes on a rampage that ends in his suspension from the force and a quick slide into booze and guilty depression. Trying to hold himself and his partner's family together, Jake turns to private investigation, taking on the bizarre case of a kidnapped rock star. The trail descends into an underworld of drug smuggling, money laundering and international corruption, putting Jake against the same people responsible for his partner's murder. Only this time Jake uses maximum force to guarrantee that justice is served.

Movie Review:

Now this is Explosive Action! This movie is fantastic! John Matuszak is hilarious as the renegade cop that won't do things by the book, and that supporting cast: Sam J. Jones, Richard Lynch, Charles Napier, Ronny Cox! They even got an authentic, one-hit-wonder 80's pop tartlet to play.. an 80's pop tartlet (Stacey Q)! Amazing stuff indeed.

Pete (Sam J. Jones, Flash Gordon!) and Jack (John Matuszak, "Sloth" from The Goonies!) are buddy cops trying to bust an illegal Mexican drug operation. With tips provided by snitch drug dealer Chico, Pete and Jack go to their Lieutenant (Ronny Cox, Robocop) to get a search warrant but he denies it due to lack of hard evidence; the man wants FACTS! The two disregard Ronny Cox and go to the warehouse anyway, stopping by first to threaten Cico the snitch that if his intelligence was bad, Jack would "blow off your head and shit down your neck". They sneak into the warehouse and as the deal is about to proceed announce their presence, which of course results in a mass shoot-out.

Pete gets shot and in a fit of blind rage Jack absolutely loses his shit, picks up a GOD DAMN REFRIGERATOR and crushes the shooter into a pylon! See the animation to your right, it never gets old. The Mexican boss flees in his Rolls Royce and Jack carries Pete into the sunset. Action gold.

Some time later and Jake still pissed, he find Chico in his van and beats the crap out of him, smashing his van to pieces in the process. Jack gets arrested, chewed out by Ronny Cox and then suspended from duty to which he simply yells "Fuck you!" and pushes his stationary off his desk. It takes an angry man to yell at Ronny Cox. I saw what Cox did to the last guy that did that; sent Clarence Boddicker around to his house to kneecap him.

Meanwhile there is a new report on television about a pop singer (Stacey Q, lol's) who was kidnapped at gunpoint during a concert. That night a guy who says he is the girls manager comes to see Jack about some private investigation work in locating her and he agrees to help out. Getting a lead from the station evidence room Jack checks out a local nightclub which, like all 80's action movie nightclubs, is a hive of bad fashion and bad music. This one takes the cake though with some total freaks on display including a guy on a leash. The Mexican guys from the drug deal gone bad see him and attack which then turns into a total stacks on with transvestites piling on top of him! Jack breaks free and (this is awesome) grabs the guy on the leash and swings him around like a helicopter propeller, knocking everyone into the walls and the ground! This is the best movie ever.

The next day Jack goes to see his manager client at his house but finds him dead in his bath. Initially arrested for murder, good ol' Ronny Cox bails him out after Jack explains that he thinks the kidnappers are the same people that killed his partner Pete. Cox tells him to stay away but of course he doesn't listen, it wouldn't be a bad action movie if he did. This is when we finally see Charles Napier and Richard Lynch make their appearance as the men behind an investment firm who are dealing with the Mexican drug dealers on the side. It would seem the drug dealers are holding Stacey Q as in lieu of payment due by Lynch and co. The only real negative I have to say in this movie is that Charles Napier is sorely underused and Sam Jones dies too early. Napier only has a few lines and Lynch doesn't do much until the end, but he gets a good speech in at least.

There's just so much more gold in this movie. Jack has a car chase with Chino, shoots his windows out and drives him off a ramp and into a boat, which explodes. Jack gets captured, put into a packing crate and like the Hulk bursts out of it, on the back of a moving truck, strangles the driver and causes the car to drive off a cliff; all the while yelling "You killed my partner!" The car explodes and Jack cooly says: "Damn. I forgot to bring my marshmellows." Jack not content with throwing a fridge at a guy in the beginning throws a Pepsi machine at a guy at the end. And then there's the awesome final shootout that sees one of the bad guys (guess which one) hanging from a rope upside down swinging in and out of a blazing fire.

One Man Force is one damned fine bad-action movie. All the boxes are ticked. A loose cannon cop? A hard-arse captain? Car chases with explosions? Mexican drug dealers? Pick this one up and enjoy with friends; it's a riot.

The Video:

A nice, grainy 80's movie picture that fits the movie perfectly. The audio was a little treble-y and clipped occasionally when John Matuszak kept screaming but otherwise fine. IMDb lists the movie as originally being filmed widescreen and there are scenes that would agree with this statement, but all the DVDs released seem to be fullscreen. Runtime 87 minutes.

Thanks to McCabe for the screenshots (my computer wouldn't read the DVD) and animated fridge-throwing image!

Sourced From:

eBay UK seller for a pound.

Trailer:

More Screens: