Fast Gun (1988)

 

Tagline:

Blink and you’re dead!

Movie Review:

A multiple string of well orchestrated armed robberies on military armoires in the state has got the press fired up. Colonel Harper dismisses the idea of a conspiracy on camera, but as we learn he and everybody else is part of the plan to sell stolen weapons. What is not part of the plan is Nelson, the lead of each attack who has gone rogue and taken the weapons for his own gain. One of the gun runners is caught by local sheriff, Jack Steiger (Rick Hill, Deathstalker, Inferno) and his deputy Cowboy (yes - Cowboy) when they try to cross into his little town of Granite Lake. We get to see how he is known as Fast Gun here when he blows up an assault rifle defended helicopter with three shots from his pistol! It’s overlaid with music that sounds like it’s from The A-Team. This is pretty boss already.

There’s a few directors where I will watch anything they have made: Bruno Mattei, Teddy Page, David A. Prior (Deadly Prey is a masterpiece). Last but not at all least, there’s Cirio H. Santiago. Most well known for his Roger Corman post apocalyptic Mad Max clones (Equalizer 2000, Stryker, Raiders of the Sun, Wheels of Fire, Bloodfist 2050) and 70’s classic TNT Jackson, Cirio has quite a number of traditional action films under his belt as well. When I was offered this rare New Horizon’s picture Fast Gun on local Australian VHS that I didn’t even know existed, I jumped at it. The usual Santiago bit-part cohorts are here on display too, such as Henry Strzalkowski playing Coburn, Ken Metcalfe as Rupert Jessup and Nick Nicholson as a hired goon.

Jack’s past as a former Sergeant haunts him in his dreams, a classic plot device that shows him killing his partner in the line of duty - something he agin must face in the final act, of course. He looks out over the lake of the cabin he owns, shirtless, with his girlfriend draped over him. This thing is so 80’s. His girlfriend runs the local bar by the way. That bar and every other building in town are hilarious; clearly 2D set pieces erected the day before shoot, the buildings all look like they come from a Universal Studios western backlot - though the movie theatre has a poster for The Barbarians on display! Jack defends his girlfriend’s honour in her bar beating up a motorbike gang member who responds to him “I’ll come back for you, gringo!”

“People are getting killed, what am I supposed to do?”
“Stay outta my way." 

I had a load of fun with this. Rick Hill is pretty badass as the sheriff Jack and he really lets loose at the end of the film in an impressive, explosive display for a low budget film. He uses his fists a lot and punches like a boxer, hard and mean. Fast Gun is obviously a take on the likes of Walking Tall where the small town sheriff has to clean up the invading riffraff. Unlike the Walking Tall paradigm, the riffraff are already in his town and they are less riff and more rich arms dealers running guns out of a farm. There is one traditional scene where a motorbike gang try to cause chaos in the town, but Jack dispenses with them quickly through a display of badassery.

Deputy Cowboy stops a truck in the town centre for a misdemeanour, a fact which the Mayor (who is in on this gun-running game as well - seriously everybody in this film besides the Sherriff, the deputy and the girlfriend are getting a piece of this action) demands he let slide. Sheriff Jack notices but keeps to himself that the truck is riddled with bullet holes and has a fake number plate. He follows the truck to Rattner’s, a local rich farm owner wannabe Senator or something. Rattner is a slimy guy. The first time we meet him he’s being serenaded for his birthday by the local shit school band (seriously, they are so shit). Jack accuses Rattner of being involved in the gun running and in response, Jack is attacked at night (by the guy that called him Gringo, plus many others) who pour a bottle of vodka down his throat and beat him up. The next morning the town is messed up and Rattner and the Mayor blame the forcefully-hungover Jack in front of the whole town in the hopes of having his respect lost. Jack throws down his badge and resigns. This can mean only one thing - VIGILANTE RAMBO TIME!

So it’s nothing original - which from the guy that ripped off Mad Max at least six times, even using footage from his own ripoffs more than once - I came to accept, and in fact applaud. I’ve said it before, sometimes you want the fancy steak and mushroom pie with red wine jus, but other times you just want a plain meat pie with some tomato sauce on the side and a thumping 80’s soundtrack. Fast Gun is that sort of pie. As mentioned in the highlight below, the ending is beautiful set-piece action. Worth the price of entry alone. Jack the Fast Gun on the highest building in town taking out gun runners with his assault rifle is fantastic. They fire back at him with missile launchers, only managing to destroy more of the flimsy set. Full Commando styles, with Rick Hill doing a wonderful Ted Prior in Deadly Prey impression. Fast Gun is another fun film in Cirio Santiago’s long repertoire of action films. Get it!

Highlight:

The ending by far (spoilers, obviously). We’ve established that Jack is in fact a Fast Gun but he is also has a crack-shot aim. As the bad guy’s flee to the airport and their Cessna is taking off the runway, Jack positions himself and takes three pot shots at the craft with his handgun. The final shot is enough to blow the whole damn thing up in THE most disappointing fake explosion of the whole movie! But the idea that his pistol could blow up a jet aircraft is enough to make it the highlight for me.

Trailer:

Ultimate Protector aka Animal Protector (1989)

Movie Review:

Mats Helge is like the Swedish counterpart to Indonesia’s Arizal (Final Score, Lethal Hunter, The Stabilizer). He pumped out z-grade actioner after actioner, giving the audience hyper violent gun battles, badly choreographed fights and terrible (often overdubbed) dialogue. Years ago I reviewed his most well thought of film, Ninja Mission, a completely over the top, violent action fest with copious gore. I didn’t even realise what I had my hands on initially when I scored this VHS.

“The Devil’s Room”, a military base slash prison on a secluded island (actually it’s a Scottish castle, but I digress..), run by Colonel Whitlock (David Carradine), a ruthless and somewhat slimy leader who is never without a drink in his hand (more on that later). Suddenly an alarm sounds; there’s been a breakout and guards are dead. Whitlock is pissed. Meanwhile on the mainland, three lovely ladies hire a boat to go to the same island to rescue a lost dog (yes). Even more meanwhile, John Santino (played by amusingly named A. R Hellquist, himself doing a great Kurt Russell impression) and Rick Lomax of the CIA also want to hire a boat and get to the island. Why is everyone trying to get to this island?

So the girls arrive and we learn they are basically the Swedish version of PETA, here to free caged animals used for experiments in Whitlock’s base. Lomax and Santino make their way there and it immediately get’s a bit Rambo as the boys stealthily kill their way through guards protecting The Devil’s Room. Lomax is caught and tortured. Some Captain called Hicks arrives to question Whitlock about his practices, Whitlock has another drink. The PETA-girls infiltrate the base and rescue a handful of dogs and rabbits and then find captured scientists. An alarm is triggered and it’s world war three with everybody involved on the battlefield. Whitlock puts his whiskey down for long enough to join in on the fun. Satino gets shirtless, looks at the camera and snarls “Whitlock… it’s time for you to die!"

“He enjoys killing… so, kill him."

So that plot above may seem like it makes little sense. It is a pretty convoluted set-up, that’s for sure, but it is just so absurd to be highly entertaining. So many players involved, so little shits given by Carradine. But the reason you watch a Mats Helge film is for the extreme violence, and that is here in droves. We get a classic bar fight with added brutal nightclub gunplay, and just like Ninja Mission the guns with silencers sound like lasers! Pew pew pew! A boss looking guy in a leather jacket and sunglasses has a rifle with, apparently, a silencer too. Pew pew pew! It never ceases to make me laugh.

Later on we get mines exploding and plenty - and I mean plenty - of shots of soldiers flying in slow motion away from an explosion. Santino has a hilarious fight in slow motion with a plank of wood as his weapon but even MORE hilarious (and sure, spoiler warning) the end fight sees the two good guys fight against each other with one of the PETA girls telling them to stop. It’s the end level when playing Double Dragon when you fight your own brother? Hysterical. OH and an obligatory bomb disarming sequence! This film has everything. Don’t expect even B-grade cinema here though; go in with ultra-violent Z-grade expectations and you will have a good time.

The cover, and the usual good guy vs bad guy routine may make you think that A. R. Hellquist is the lead role here - well, not really (despite some awesome grimaces to the camera). I think we see Carradine on screen more than him. But truthfully it’s never really as black and white as who is the lead in Ultimate Protector. It would be better to suggest that nobody truly is. The direction focuses on everybody in short bursts and in a cycle. I’m glad it was done this way, as the re-dubbed voices of everybody and the quality of most people’s acting I couldn’t take for extended periods anyway.

Let’s talk about David Carradine. I’ve seen him in everything from Kung Fu to Kill Bill and he’s always a class act. I can’t mince words here - Carradine is clearly drunk in this film. He is off his chops. All the lines are delivered painfully slow like he is trying not to pass out, he shuffles around his desk a lot and when the scene calls for him to have a drink.. buddy, that ain’t apple juice. You can’t even simply accuse him of phoning this one in from home; he’s phoning it in from the bar while eating beer nuts and eyeing off the waitress. He does get out from behind his desk a few times and does show off a couple of slower than usual kicks to the head, but man… this is rough. That is not to say his performance isn’t entertaining! I got a good laugh out of Drunk Carradine here. His best moments come towards the end (spoiler warning again) when he engages Plan B and kills every single one of his own men - in the back, mostly! This guy just could not give a damn.

A side note: the Australian VHS I reviewed is curious. The title Ultimate Protector is not what the film is usually known as; it’s more frequently known as Animal Protector (making a lot more sense). Even more confusingly, IMDB (at least presently, though I have submitted a request to change it) incorrectly attributes Ultimate Protector to ANOTHER Mats Helge / David Carradine film - The Mad Bunch! The other interesting thing is our VHS cover pits Hellquist as the starring role and pushes the film more as a traditional action film. The rear text reads “He’s trained to think like a computer. He strikes faster than a cobra. He has the muscle to meet any challenge.” It gets worse however as it attributes “star” Lomax to Tim Earle, with a picture of A. R. Hellquist! Then it goes on to call him “The new Van Damme Dolf Lungren” (sic). And not a picture of Carradine anywhere! Amazing.

Highlight:

Spoilers. In an otherwise civilised disagreement in his office with Henderson, the two - whiskeys each - exchange schoolyard insults. “Whitlock, you’re dog meat” says Henderson. “Henderson, you’re chicken shit.” says Whitlock. Whitlock then kicks Henderson in the face whilst the glass is up to his mouth, shattering it and knocking him to the ground. If that’s not enough, Whitlock stomps on his throat, twists his foot and breaks his neck!

Trailer:

       

Blazing Guns (1988)

 

Movie Review:

Talk about rare! What we have here is a vintage 1988 slab of Filipino (I am presuming here, but read on) jungle action from fantastic director Teddy Page (aka Teddy Chiu, Teddy Chu, Teddy Chui and in the credits of this film - Irvin Johnson!) of Phantom Soldiers fame - a film I truly love. Go have a look on iMDB for this film - it’s not there! (UPDATE: I added it!) There’s nothing about the film on Google. I know from the credits that it is a Pacific Media Film Group movie, as are other Teddy Page films such as Jungle Rats, so there’s a good chance it was shot on location in the Philippines. A lost and forgotten Teddy Page film! I’m very happy to have been able to watch and review this one, that’s for sure.

The people of Costa Brava have had enough of the leadership of President Mendoza. A rebel contingent fight his army, the general populace protest his actions and the Americans all think he’s doing a great job. That is except for Max Draven, special advisor to the US Ambassador. He has a hunch that not is all it seems and upon arriving in Costa Brava, begins investigating the President and his men. This lands him in various degrees of hot water as he is shot at, beaten up in his hotel room, chased and attempted abducted. He meets and rescues from a firefight American journalist Sheila who is of the belief that the President is faking rebel attacks with his own men and women to gain sympathy and support (and money and weapons) from the Americans. Max’s own informant and colleague Kevin is gunned down just as he reveals he has proof of what the President is doing and has mailed an expose secretly to arrrrghhhhhhhhh-dead. Eventually a package containing a key to a locker shows up to Max’s hotel room, and every force in Costa Brava is trying to get it from Max!

“You’ve been reading too many James Bond books lately!"

This thing was completely awesome. Every ten minutes there is a gunfight. This is no exaggeration, it is every ten minutes. It’s rebels vs. military, military vs. rebels, everyone vs. Americans - and it just gets more and more explosive until the credits roll. Machine gun destruction, mortars into buildings (and people), pistols firing with slow motion head shots, and the always championed Exploding Huts! Each hut that explodes makes my smile just that little bit bigger. Teddy Page certainly knew how to blow up a jungle. The mini-gun scene in Predator ain’t got nothing on Page’s final battle in Blazing Guns. 

And if you think it’s just all jungle battles, you’d be wrong. Page throws in a plane hijacking, a fire-fight at the airport customs, a prison breakout of the rebel leader Carla (that again, gets quite explosive). The amount of extras turned into corpses in Blazing Guns is in the hundreds. And finally the Americans get involved and go ballistic with their mini-gun mounted in a helicopter, ploughing the field over and over. 

The natives of Costa Brava have hysterically over-the-top accents, especially the top bad guy President Mendoza. This guy is in super-villain territory here. He plans his campaign movements on a chessboard, striking over pieces and gleefully laughing. When peaceful protestors are demanding to speak with him? Him army blows them all up outside his gate; completely mows them down. 

Corwin Sperry’s Max Draven is a joy to watch. I don’t know if it’s his voice we hear as everything is dubbed, but damn he made me laugh. His delivery is always inappropriate; too pedestrian when he should be emotive, too emotive when he should be playing it straight. And those lines he drops (“This is the land of rapid fire.”) We are in Reb Brown territory here folks.

Then there’s this Japanese guy, Akiro. His role seems to boil down to saving Max’s life at the last possible moment and look cool doing so. In a massive firefight Akiro picks off an enemy directly threatening Max by sniping them out a car window, then flashing his sunglasses at us. Akiro thwarts Max’s kidnapping by flying a remote control plane into the kidnappers car, then winking surreptitiously to the camera. When he and Max escape to the hills, Akiro flings frisbees around the cottage that are actually landmines. He’s awesome.

And for absolutely no reason that I can think of, about halfway into the film a black female impersonator slash informant, when trying to talk with Max, gets caught up in drive-by with a bunch of rogue militia guys in balaclavas on dirt bikes! You can’t make this stuff up. And how do you end a film like Blazing Guns? Have our two heroes Max and Akiro fly a freaking hang-glider whilst blasting at the army from up high with their automatic machine guns. Sure I basically just told you the story end-to-end, but trust me - see this film for yourself. It’s an absolute blast.

“If they want war, I’ll give them war!"

There’s a lot of familiar ex-pats and recurring faces in this film. Max Draven is played by Corwin Sperry (Phantom Soldiers, Battle Geese, Battle Rats). The awesome Akiro is played by Richard King (Phantom Soldiers, Final Reprisal, War Without End). Sisters Ingrid (Tough Cops) and Kristine (Black Cobra 2) Erlandsson (billed here as Ellis) play Rebel leader Carla and American Journalist Sheila respectively. Miguel Faustmann (Delta Force 2, Silk 2) gives us the spectacular Mendoza. The technical credits give us an idea into when and how the film was made; Teddy Page’s usual editor Edgar Vincent and cinematographer Vittorio Anders put this one together, with the story written by Rod Davis and the soundtrack handled similarly by Page’s regular music guy Patrick Wales. I don’t often get into the technical artists on my reviews but given the rarity, I figured fans of Teddy Page’s other films would like to know that they are in for a familiar time with Blazing Guns.

I’ve seen quite a few Page films now and Blazing Guns rates right at the top. This is a rip-roaring time; its runtime is actually quite long at 1:45 but it feels like 70 minutes it moves so fast. I’d put it a close second behind the legendary Phantom Soldiers. I watched this on an impossible to find Japanese VHS from the 80’s. It was a nice sharp fullscreen print with English dialogue and burned-in Japanese subtitles. I don’t know how you’ll see this, but do try to. I’d say with some degree of certainty that CINEMA has a way of surviving armaGEDDON, so search and you shall find!

Finally a massive thanks to Trash cinema expert Andrew Leavold for loaning me his Japanese VHS of the film. Be sure to check out his documentary The Search for Weng Weng, and the upcoming The Last Pinoy Action Film!

Highlight:

As usual with Teddy Page films, the action quotient is beyond high and the dialogue at times is laughable. Pretty much any time Max Draven is on screen I burst out laughing at his delivery. But the final laugh was reserved for the credits when I could not believe my eyes - the Doctor in the opening credits is played by.. Tom Baker! Tom Baker is the Doctor! Okay so it’s not THE Tom Baker, there was no scarf, jelly babys or Daleks but I still had to rewind those credits for a second look...

Photo gallery:

Paying Mr. McGetty (2016)

 

Tagline:

Tyrrell can’t remember last night… but today is a day he won’t forget!

Movie Review:

Tyrrell (R. Marcos Taylor, Steven Seagal’s Code of Honor) is about to have a bad day. Waking up hungover from a night of gambling to a call from his girlfriend about overdue rent when he is in the bed of another woman is not the ideal start. It escalates quickly when he leaves the motel with said woman and is photographed by - what turns out to be - a mob informant, who then dobs Tyrrell in for having an unauthorised night out with the mob bosses’ daughter! And the obvious and sensible reaction to this state of affairs is to of course send not one but two hitmen out after him; the second being none other than Don “The Dragon” Wilson playing hitman Shota Kabu. All this combined with the fact he is now running late for his delivery day job makes for Tyrrell’s bad day becoming worse.

I’m not entirely sure what I think of this one. It’s a bit disjointed and at times, plain weird. Scenes change constantly and quickly like we are in a 90’s Tarantino film. However when you distill it down, the film’s plot is a basic “a day in the life of Tyrrell” device, or more accurately “Tyrrell tries to avoid getting his arse handed to him over and over”. The first hitman, Rocco, I took an instant dislike to as he beat up a barista for serving the wrong milk in his coffee. This is when I saw how the comedy in the film was going to play out which for me, mostly didn’t work. I’m a very hard guy to please with comedies so don’t take my opinion as gospel here, but only one real scene got a laugh from me.

The action quotient is unfortunately pretty low and entirely hand-to-hand. There’s a couple of ten second brawls here and there but nothing to write home about. Tyrrell starts off being pretty bad and/or lucky with his fights, but after a (very weird) epiphany with a strange hippie dude in an unconscious dream, the subsequent fights gets a little more interesting. An entirely random scene where he thwarts a convenience store robbery is the best display of Tyrrell’s skills in the whole film. He later has another fight in a women’s hairdresser that shows how he pales in comparison to Shota, but he certainly gives his all.

Don’s Shota is the badass here of course, and his fights are those of a well trained professional - though again, quite short. Even the final fight is so short that Shota comments “twenty seconds - that’s longer than I thought it would take”. The film doesn’t just focus on Tyrrell’s bad day, we also get to see how Shota goes about his hits and the underworld he lives in on a daily basis, which I appreciated. 

I usually don’t comment on such things, but I really disliked the music in this film. Rap and autotuned-to-death R&B are not my thing and not only does it feature predominantly in the soundtrack (and doesn’t always fit the scene it’s used in, either) but Tyrrell has side gig managing rappers or something that is shoe-horned into the main plot. We visit a recording studio multiple times where Tyrrell gets pissed at the lack of progress on a recording. I think these scenes were trying to demonstrate that Tyrrell is a passionate man, but they seemed out of place to me.

One thing I have got to elaborate on: the very weird hippie epiphany scene. After a Terminator style chase with Shota, Tyrrell passes out on the ground and has some sort of vision involving himself and a hippie Jedi master who reinvigorates through magic (?!) Tyrrell’s forgotten powers of martial arts. This was such a strange scene and I really couldn’t work out why they went down this path. We already have Tyrrell as a delivery man come record producer, throwing  former martial artist in there was a bit odd. I’d have preferred he just Bruce Campbell’d his way through the fights, making it up as he went along. The ‘revelation’ didn’t help him in the fight with Shota, anyway.

This is the second Michael Baumgarten directed film we have reviewed here in recent times, and not coincidentally the second Don Wilson film as well. Baumgarten and Don were both involved in The Martial Arts Kid, a film I gave a positive review to recently. I have to say I far preferred The Martial Arts Kid to Paying Mr. McGetty, probably because it was played straight. As I mentioned above, comedy is something that only works for me when the stars are truly in alignment and in this film they weren’t for me. Most of the actors in the film outside the leads are relative newcomers, but everybody acquitted themselves just fine - no complaints in that regard.

The first act of the film I wasn’t really digging, but it picked up a bit in the second act when things started making a bit more sense. I was able to start relating to Tyrrell and his crappy day that got worse and worse and I was able to respect Shota and his choices that resulted in making the third act of the film more interesting. However, overall when looked as a whole the film didn’t completely work for me. The action is very short and too infrequent to really call this an action film (the final fight is over with in twenty seconds). It’s a quirky comedy cross drama story. Thankfully the drama part was decent and improved as the story progressed, and the last scene between Tyrrell and his girlfriend is quite touching and feels well-deserved after the terrible day that Tyrrell just had!

Highlight:

The very opening scene shows us early on that Don is boss. Sneaking up behind a man shaving, who then pleads for his life and the safety of his child, gets destroyed by Don when he pulls the rug out from under him that knock him dead into the bathtub. Ruthless Don then quips “You don’t have a kid”.

Trailer: