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Archive for October, 2010
>All the chicken you can eat!
October 29, 2010
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BLAST-OFF GIRLS (1967)
Written and Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring: Dan Conway, Ray Sager, Tom Tyrell etc.
w/music by ‘The New York Square Library,’ performances by ‘The Faded Blue’ & ‘Charlie’
A sleazy record promoter tries to make it big with a local Chicago garage band and plans to make them famous while keeping the profits for himself. (IMDB)
Fuck Almost Famous. There is a select few films that actually ‘get it’ when it comes to the experience of being in a rock band, and meeting Lester Bangs doesn’t immediately qualify you as a rock muse (though divorcing Nancy Wilson might.) Low-budget schlock-slinger H.G. Lewis’ 1966 ‘exploitation’ cheapie Blast- Off Girls joins this elite group, along with the untouchable This Is Spinal Tap (natch), that tell it like it is- summarizing the rise and fall of an ‘everyman’ American garage band in the 1960s as they are chewed up and spit out by ‘the biz.’ And yes- the ACTUAL COLONEL SANDERS makes a cameo!
The film follows real-life Chicago garage shlubs The Faded Blue, as they are ‘discovered’ by the slimy ‘Boojie’ Baker (Dan Conway), a slimy sandy-haired Svengali with a cane who’s always on the lookout for the ‘next big thing’ to rip off. In Brian Epstein-fashion, Boojie remolds the band’s image, dressing them in matching suits and rechristening them ‘The Big Blast.’ Boojie’s go-to promotional strategy is (of course) blackmail- in order to secure the recording of The Big Blast’s first single, he snaps photos of a recording engineer being seduced by one of his ‘Blast-Off Girls’ – loose ladies in his employ. The record sails up the charts with a bullet, but the group becomes disgruntled at Boojie not sharing the wealth. After giving the band his blessing to leave, he invites them to a hotel party, where he and his main flunkie (Ray Sager) set up the boys up to be busted for pot and liquor, complete with fake ‘police’ paid off by Boojie. The band must sign on with Boojie again to stay out of the clink.
Along their path to fame, we get some amazingly inept (but groovy) pop ‘60s montages, and the infamous promo performance outside a certain chicken chain restaurant, where the Colonel himself! pays them (lunch for a buck each) and the audience with fried chicken from a bucket and frugs with the crowd. (Bitchin’ organ solo!)
In addition to being an amazing coup, this scene captures the shallow rewards of a band on the road, not seeing any fruits of their talent as their rich manager gets richer. It all becomes too much for the boys, (this shit isn’t fun anymore!) as a second recording session breaks down. They decide to get back at Boojie just for the hell of it (see below), and show up soused to a TV promo appearance, where they play a goof song and flip him the bird repeatedly. They walk out on Boojie and rip up their contracts, willing to take their chances on their own, and leaving him to seek out the next bunch of saps in the circle of life.
Sometimes it takes a cheap drive-in flick to summarize the cheap truth – in this case the music business and its rigged roller-coaster of pop success. But I’m sure it’s much different now, with the internet and everything.
Blast-Off Girls is available in a 2-movie ‘Drive-In Double-Feature’ DVD w/Lewis’ awesome teen-delinquent film, Just For The Hell of It from Something Weird Video and our delicious sponsors below.
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Categories: B-Movie, bands, Dan Conway, drive-in, exploitation, garage rock, music, Obsolete Sheet, Ray Sager, video
>Revenge – a dish best served with a hook.
October 27, 2010
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Directed by: John Flynn*
Major Charles Rane comes back from the war and is given a number of gifts from his hometown because he is a war hero. Some greedy thugs decide that they want to steal a number of silver dollars from him. In the process they also manage to kill his wife and son and destroy his hand. The Major wants revenge so he enlists the help of his war buddy Johnny to meet the thugs in a final showdown. (IMDB)
A sweet, deliberate grind-house revenge movie legendary to worldwide film geeks (crown prince Tarantino named his production company after it), this is also an entertainingly moody and disturbing film, in which returning Vietnam POW Major Charles Rane’s (Devane) story seems eerily similar to good-ole maverick hero John McCain (keep bad-ass aviator shades – add bad-ass hook hand!)
Writers Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Blue Collar etc.) and Heywood Gould (Cocktail?) spin a tale of a hero USAF aviator and squadron commander returning to his Texas hometown after three years of sub-human captivity in a Vietnam POW camp, leaving him a numb shell of a man whose life has passed him by. His wife informs him nonchalantly on his first night home that she is planning to marry again, taking their son with her. Devane is excellent in showing his acquiescence to his non-life, going through the motions. He attends a ceremony in the small town square, in which a beauty pageant winner (Haynes) presents him with a box of silver dollars for each day he spent prisoner of the enemy, a hollow token paid for a life already spent.
That night, a small gang of local thugs enters the Ranes’ home, led by James Best (best known as deputy Roscoe P. Coltrane from “Dukes of Hazzard”). They want the silver dollars. Ranes won’t give in, so they force his hand into the kitchen sink garbage disposal, then shoot and kill his wife and son in their escape. Ranes is left with nothing but a hook and a need for vengeance, so he recruits the beauty queen waitress to drive him to Mexico. There, using her as bait, he penetrates the underworld to find and punish each thug, eventually pinpointing them to a whorehouse. He enlists his comrade Johnny (Tommy Lee Jones) in El Paso, arms to the teeth and they take bloody retribution. (NSFW – but but viewable here ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3doJ3jHQ01o.)
The movie works as a revenge flick, but watch out- (or drink more) because it could just make you think. Schrader’s hollow American hero is in full form here, driven by guilt, loss and regret on his mission to kill the bastards, the only mission left.
*Flynn ~ revenge auteur? (See also Out for Justice review, natch.)
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*Flynn ~ revenge auteur? (See also Out for Justice review, natch.)
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Categories: action, B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Heywood Gould, James Best, John Flynn, Linda Haynes, Paul Schrader, revenge, The Obsolete Sheet, Tommy Lee Jones, video, Vietnam, William Devane
>School is In! — High School USA
October 25, 2010
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High School USA
(TV – 1983)
Director: Rod Amateau
Writers: Alan Eisenstock, Larry Mintz
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Anthony Edwards, Nancy McKeon, Crispin Glover, Todd Bridges, Bob Denver, Dwayne Hickman, Tony Dow etc.
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Anthony Edwards, Nancy McKeon, Crispin Glover, Todd Bridges, Bob Denver, Dwayne Hickman, Tony Dow etc.
Set in a senior high school class, J.J. (Michael J. Fox) pursues the girlfriend of a rival from a higher clique which culminates in a race at the end of the movie between the two rivals in this light comedy. (IMDB)
The year is 2137 – a gaggle of alien archaeologists sorting through artifacts of the ‘human’ species that long ago eradicated itself on Earth come across a special find- a time capsule (or maybe some VHS tapes and socks). These aliens are also in the mood for a light-hearted teen coming-of-age romp- they heard it was what we did best. Would you hope they came across Grease, American Graffiti, maybe Animal House? Raunchy or family-friendly, you ask, say Fast Times, American Pie or as aliens tend to be Disney fans, High School Musical? In the worst-case scenario, they would wind up with a scratchy, taped from the tube copy of this crap – High School USA.
I had fond, hazy memories of this made-for-TV hoakum from my youth- a time when Mork rainbow suspenders and the Rubik’s cube swept the nation, and the turkey was called a ‘walkin’ bird.’ Turns out nostalgia blows major chunks. Canadian-born runt Michael J. Fox (then young Reaganite Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties) was being groomed as our next Mickey Rooney, soon to spring into big-screen stardom as Teen Wolf. And who but teen sex-pot? Nancy McKeon (Facts of Life) as his Judy Garland? (or at least Frankie and Annette) Throw in 2/3 of Different Strokes (Todd Bridges and the ill-fated Dana Plato) and a host of 1960s TV teen has-beens that had been cluttering agents’ desks for 20 years just hoping for a warm meal, and whisk vigorously.
It’s the age-old battle of geeks vs. preps, here led by ‘BMOC’ Anthony Edwards as Beau Middleton, the guy with the best hair, fastest car, highest collar and Nancy McKeon as Beth Franklin, his girlfriend. Fox’s indie senior J.J. Manners (nice) has had it with Beau and the unthinking clique mentality at ‘Excelsior Union High School,’ and is just looking to make a ‘statement’ to the prep cattle before he escapes to the real world.
The movie meanders for a while, letting us soak in all our favorites- Tony “Wally Cleaver” Dow as principal, Dwayne “Dobie Gillis” Hickman as the science teacher who sucks up to the preps for a prestigious award, Dawn “Mary Ann” Wells as the ditzy home-ec lady, and in an inspired choice- Bob “Gilligan” Denver as the drunk dad of Crispin Glover, the ultimate geek who would soon be reunited with Fox in Back to the Future. Glover, as always, is riveting in the role of supreme over-alls spazz Archie Feld, who is goaded by his pal, fat sweaty guy Chuckie Dipple, to ask girls out and miserably fail. When Beau asks Archie what they could possibly have in common, he responds “Do you like cheese?”
So, in his effort to best Beau and win over Beth, J.J. recruits the motley band of geeks, including the talents of best pal Otto (Bridges), a science geek who has built a shitty tin-can robot (midget in suit) that responds to his voice commands. Archie’s drunk dad, see, just bought this awesome Trans-Am, which J.J. wants to use to race Beau in a final showdown. Beau gets wise to this plan, and sends his two minion cheerleader whores (including Crystal “Wings” Bernard) in punk disguises to seduce Archie and Chuck with the promise of scoring in the Trans-Am, then total it. Oh no- what now?
Don’t worry- J.J. is the man with the plan. First – a little sleight-of-hand, as they drop passed-out drunk dad Gilligan behind the wheel, convincing him that he wrecked the car. Then J.J. allies the geek troops to soup up his old bucket-of-bolts for the big race, in a scene straight from Animal House or Meatballs, with “Why not? substituting for “It just doesn’t matter.” One of the geeks (Jon ‘Lazlo/ Uncle Rico’ Gries), in a nice touch, is the ‘older guy with a kid’ classmate. So they super-charge that jalopy up, even sacrificing Otto’s (useless) robot for insulating metal. On the big race day, Beau tries to cheat again, starting even before the final gun, but J.J. still whips him, using the ‘secret’ red turbo button that shoots him across the finish line and into Beth’s arms. Beth breaks up with Beau at the prom, and she and J.J. share a dance- but wait- is that a new robot on stage? Sure enough- that fucking robot (which looks just like the first one) pulls Beau’s pants down for the money shot and starts to dance as Bridges has the final word (Robot – dance!)
Wait – alien archaeologists come back! Where are you going? We can do better, really (some nudity at least). I don’t know what we were thinking. Have you seen Poison Ivy?
Categories: Uncategorized
>Worst Cop / Cyber-Dog buddy movie ever!
October 25, 2010
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(TV, 1991)
Director: Kim Manners
Writers: Michael Part, Steven E. de Souza
Starring: Chris Mulkey, Catherine Oxenberg, Dennis Haysbert, and Jerry Houser (as the voice of ‘Niner’)
The cop-dog buddy movie (Turner and Hooch, K-9, this dreck) is a much-maligned, underappreciated? genre of filmmaking magic that seems not to have made it into the new millennium. Perhaps there is a lost innocence in our willingness to believe our favorite stars (Hanks, Belushi etc.) and their quadrupedal best friends solving urban crimes in the era of suicide planes and biological warfare. But who better to sniff out dirty bombs than man’s best friend? Maybe we just need a gritty Bourne Identity-style techno-update. In the best cop-dog film, these canine pals become closer than a human partner, true confidantes that will take a bullet for ya and still hump your leg.
Director: Kim Manners
Writers: Michael Part, Steven E. de Souza
Starring: Chris Mulkey, Catherine Oxenberg, Dennis Haysbert, and Jerry Houser (as the voice of ‘Niner’)
A policeman and a female scientist team up to recover her latest creation, a cybernetic, crime-fighting dog. (IMDB)
The cop-dog buddy movie (Turner and Hooch, K-9, this dreck) is a much-maligned, underappreciated? genre of filmmaking magic that seems not to have made it into the new millennium. Perhaps there is a lost innocence in our willingness to believe our favorite stars (Hanks, Belushi etc.) and their quadrupedal best friends solving urban crimes in the era of suicide planes and biological warfare. But who better to sniff out dirty bombs than man’s best friend? Maybe we just need a gritty Bourne Identity-style techno-update. In the best cop-dog film, these canine pals become closer than a human partner, true confidantes that will take a bullet for ya and still hump your leg.
And then there’s this movie (speaking of dirty bombs, look out, ahem!). I didn’t have the good fortune to tune in from the very beginning. But when I did, I couldn’t look away. Mulkey (the abusive trucker husband of Shelley the waitress on ‘Twin Peaks’) plays a mulleted crude boozer LA cop in the Gibson/Russell vein (minus 75% personality) who is forced to partner with glamorous Euro cyber-scientist Catherine Oxenberg to get to the baddy weapons-smugglers that left his black human partner (Haysbert) in a coma.
When I tuned in, they were infiltrating a top-secret lab bunker in which the “K-9000” project sat in a mysterious box. Oxenberg explains it’s a special technology that involves microchip communication between specially-rigged ‘cyber-dogs’ and computer dispatchers. Only problem? During a shoot-out in the lab, the cyber-dog (a regular-looking German Shepherd) bursts out of his saran-wrap prematurely, and the cyberchip receiver somehow winds up in the loser cop’s head. (sorry-didn’t catch how).
http://www.u-tube.ru/upload/others/flvplayer.swf?20100927
So anyhoo, the cop wakes up holding a bottle of Jack in his beach cabana, with the dog staring at him inquisitively. He starts hearing voices – specifically a nebbishy Jewish voice-over asking him how he is feeling and if he would like help with his investigation. Holy shit! The dog is still talking to him, and his fucking mouth doesn’t move. (cyber-telepathy, natch) After the requisite throwing the bottle down and trying to sleep it off, the dog keeps hassling him (and won’t fetch balls, since it’s ‘canine’ brain area was removed for the chip.) Taking it in stride, it’s now a ‘Knight Rider’ deal and the cop reluctantly grows to rely on the dog’s techno-skills (like clearing an outside line on a payphone.)
It all winds up on Catalina Island (the fucking wine mixer!) where they track the baddy smugglers to the top of a tower and K-9000 pushes that Euro son-of-a-bitch right off to save Mulkey, dangling from the edge. Partner comes out of coma, Mulkey and Oxenberg recline on the beach, and K-9000 (in sunglasses) remembers how to fetch balls- and suck them. This film might have killed the cop-dog movie for good after all. Only time will tell?
Categories: B-Movie, Catherine Oxenberg, Chris Mulkey, cinema, Dennis Haysbert, DVD, exploitation, Jerry Houser, The Obsolete Sheet, video
>You Clowns Are on Dope!
October 22, 2010
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(1991) Rated ‘R’
Written and Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, Tom Kenny, Paul Dooley, Kathy Griffin, Adam Sandler etc.
Written and Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Bobcat Goldthwait, Julie Brown, Tom Kenny, Paul Dooley, Kathy Griffin, Adam Sandler etc.
Shakes plods about his duties as party clown, and uses all of his free time getting seriously drunk. Binky, another clown, wins the spot on a local kiddie show, which depresses Shakes even more, and his boss threatens him with unemployment if he can’t get his act under control. When someone murders Shakes’ boss and makes it look like Shakes did it, he goes undercover, posing as a hated mime, and tries to find information that will clear his name. (IMDB)
Has there ever been a cockier first-time testament to an artist’s cinematic vision? Sure, Citizen Kane makes all the lists, but Syracuse-born comedian Bobcat Goldthwait’s 1991 directorial debut still stands as a stunning achievement; or at least the best drunk clown-noir you’ll see this year.
From the opening; a record skipping as Shakes wakes up on the bathroom floor to a coyote date with desperate mom Florence Henderson (“You’re my first clown.”), It’s clear that we’re in for quite a ride. Shakes is a clown with a problem. He lives in Palukaville, a dead-end burg where clowns are clowns, all the time. They congregate in clown dive bars, still in suits and makeup, tossing back brews while complaining about the daily grind and the clown class system (and telling dirty jokes).
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Categories: Uncategorized
>January, February – Think I’ll see where they’re going with this…
October 19, 2010
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1984, TV
Director: William A. Graham
Millionaire Richard Trainor is celebrating the fact that his new calendar featuring twelve nude woman (sic) is a huge success. However the party is ruined when Miss January is pushed off a building and later on that night Miss February is knifed to death. Policeman Lieutenant Dan Stoner is assigned to the case and he immediately strikes a friendship with photographer Cassie Bascomb. While Dan investigates the case Cassie is attacked. What connection is she to the case and will the killer be caught before he/she reaches Miss December?
Yes, the suspense was killing me. It was Saturday night, I was broke and the trains were running for shit. Then this appeared like a vision before me. ‘Hmmm- Tom Skerritt, Sharon Stone, ‘80s models in leotards, January, February – Think I’ll see where they’re going with this.’*
<span style="color: maroon; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt;" *This-TV (11-3)- My new favorite non-cable channel and only real friend.
I’ve always found Skerritt (M*A*S*H, Alien, The Thing, Poison Ivy) an appealing screen presence, sort of a Bridges/Russell everyman with a bit more world-weary baggage in the ‘stache. This movie is basically a TV-cop vehicle (maybe a pilot?) in which his LA detective (Dan Stoner!) must unravel a troubling string of (yup) ‘Calendar Girl Murders.’ For Stone, it’s a dry-run for Basic Instinct, her model-turned-photographer playing for sympathy and protection from Stoner, as the deaths point ever-closer to the blonde herself.
Robert Culp is Richard Trainor, a billionaire Hef-like publisher whose girls are dying off right after their awesome ‘80s photo-shoot and party montages. Alan ‘Growing Pains’ Thicke is the seen-it-all fashion photographer who snaps the dream-girls. (including Babylon 5’s sexy Cmdr. Susan Ivanova Claudia Christian). There is no discernible nudity (at least when I watched), but the atmosphere is undeniably arousing, along the lines of Crichton’s fashion/slasher movie Looker on a shoestring TV-movie budget.
There’s a nailbiter pool-volleyball photo-shoot sequence, in which a black-gloved hand turns the pool temperature dial ever-higher while the deliciously clueless female models toss the ball around in haunting dreamy slo-mo. There’s also a ridiculous white guy breakdance duo sequence at a swank fashion party, where Stoner awkwardly intrudes in the LA party clique.
Stoner delves nonchalantly deeper into the mystery, encountering red herrings and fake-killer ‘gotchas’ like a creepy stalker photographer and drunk has-been lounge singer along the way. A few TV standard car-chases and squad-room scenes are good times to pee. Though he has a trusty homely wife, he allows Stone to flirt (Stone and Stoner!) and serve him hot toddies in her beach house, until one day he comes upon her revealing high-school yearbook. Turns out she was just a small-town girl (living in a lonely world), and the ILLEGITIMATE DAUGHTER of Richard Trainor. See- she was just jealous.
Categories: Alan Thicke, B-Movie, Calendar Girl Murders, cinema, Claudia Christian, DVD, exploitation, Robert Culp, Sharon Stone, The Obsolete Sheet, Tom Skerritt, video
>Cheesecake Corner: LINNEA QUIGLEY
October 18, 2010
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LINNEA QUIGLEY
1988 Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama Spider
1993 Beach Babes from Beyond Sally
1991 Virgin High Kathleen
1989 Assault of the Party Nerds Bambi
1988 Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers Samantha
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>"This sorta thing happened before!"
October 16, 2010
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1991, PG
Director: Stewart Raffill
Writers: Edward Rugoff , Michael Gottlieb
A young department store intern falls in love with a female store mannequin possessed by the ghost of a young 17th Century princess who comes to life whenever her necklace is removed by him only.
This is the kind of steaming turd of a movie that lulls the mind of the viewer into a Moebius strip of speculation on how it got made (and necrophilia) – anything rather than watch the painful events unfolding on-screen. It’s a Moebius turd.
“OK – so we got a green-light on another ‘Mannequin.’ No we don’t got that pussy McCarthy, but that douche from Herman’s Head is available. Fuck McCarthy- you know “Weekend at Bernie’s?” We got Bernie the stiff to play the heavy in this one, some count. And that effay Negro, Hollywood, is a lock. (He’d work for a sandwich.)”
The train-wreck opens with a bargain-basement unfunny Borscht-belt “Princess Bride” fairytale costume set-up in the enchanted land of ‘Hauptmann Koenig,’ and it’s all downhill from there. Even those admirers of Kristy Swanson’s ‘talents’ will be hard-pressed to endure the whole ordeal, and will marvel at how none of the mannequins used for her scenes actually resemble each other.
Cut to ‘modern times.’ Our hero (William Ragsdale) is a ‘likeable’- enough faceless nebbish whose doting Jewish mother runs her own dating service and just wants him to find a nice ‘goil.’ He takes a new job at a Philly department store run by a ruthless dictator (Stuart Pankin, the fat guy from ‘Not Necessarily the News’). After a few forgettable characters are introduced and discarded (security guy, perfume girl), the kid is quickly scuttled to be an apprentice to good-ole over-the-top Hollywood Montrose, in charge of staging the climactic store musical production.
Meanwhile, the evil sorcerer Count from H-K (Terry Kiser) is hatching a plot to steal the store’s jewelry by delivering a fake goodwill shipment of his country’s products to the store. (containing Swanson the enchanted princess mannequin with the magic necklace.) So there’s this truck mishap, where the enchanted mannequin fall out the back of the truck and into the river. Our hero quickly jumps in the water to rescue the ‘goods’ which underwater turns into a real woman. The confused kid brings her back to the store, and after removing her necklace discovers the stiff is his ‘dream-girl,’ who is destined for him. He tells Hollywood, who helpfully reassures him, “This sorta thing happened before.”
After a night of introducing Swanson to the ‘crazy world of today,’ and some nice leopard-print nightclub outfits, he must defend and protect her from the evil Count’s fiendish plot. (and much painful ‘comedy’ is made of the Count’s facial mole hair and his bumbling homo-erotic leotarded henchmen.) Yadda yadda- he is caught dry-humping his dream stiff by his mother, and eventually foils the plot at Hollywood’s big (terrible) show, in a ridiculous duel with the Count, who is himself turned into a mannequin that crumbles to pieces from a hot-air balloon. Aah- sweet justice.
Keep yer fingers crossed for a Hollywood ‘reboot!’
Categories: B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Kristy Swanson, Meshach Taylor, Stuart Pankin, Terry Kiser, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Ragsdale
>I’m making these woods a part of me! (son-of-a-bitch.)
October 15, 2010
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1976, PG
Director: William Girdler
A fifteen foot tall grizzly bear terrorizes a state park.
One of the best ‘Jaws’ knockoffs out there – Grizzly aka Claws aka Killer Grizzly (This time-he’s a bear!) Christopher George plays an increasingly frustrated Roy Scheider-like Park Ranger (go-to line: Son-of-a Bitch!) who must deal with a murderous 18′ monster Grizzly on the loose in his state park. From the maniac bear POV shots as it lops off heads and limbs of bathing beauties in spurts of glorious orange blood, to the priceless dialogue (“Well let me tell you something Kittridge, while you’ve been sitting around here on your fat ass, I’m out here making these woods a part of me -while you’re going back to your brown plastic office in Warshington!”). This is one to remember.
The ranger’s antagonistic relationship with a greasy local politician furthers the ‘Jaws’ dynamic, as does the Richard Dreyfuss flair of the resident eccentric bear expert (Richard Jaeckel) who lives among the forest creatures and can think like them. And then there’s the jaded local cokehead helicopter pilot, the last friend our ranger’s got. Together, this triumvirate must put a stop to the Grizzliness as only they know how. Two paws up, girlfriend.
Categories: B-Movie, Christopher George, cinema, David Sheldon, DVD, exploitation, Grizzly, Harvey Flaxman, Richard Jaeckel, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Girdler
>Steven Seagal is – Out For Richie.
October 14, 2010
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Brooklyn cop Gino Felino is about to go outside and play catch with his son Tony when he receives a phone call alerting him that his best friend Bobby Lupo has been shot dead in broad daylight on 18th Avenue in front of his wife Laurie Lupo and his two kids by drug kingpin Richie Madano, who has been Gino and Bobby’s enemy since childhood. As Gino is hunting Madano down, Gino discovers the motive behind Bobby’s murder. This is when Gino’s hunt for Madano leads to the showdown of a lifetime.
“I’m lookin’ for Richie.” This is Steven Seagal’s mantra in this largely entertaining Brooklyn-set cop out for vengeance vehicle. Richie (William Forsythe), ya see, was Seagal’s childhood buddy from the ‘old neighborhood’; only he turned into a bad egg; first with The Mob, then as a loose cannon druggie murderer on a bloody rampage. His most recent victim is Seagal’s partner. Only one man can take him down. As Seagal demands from his chief (Jerry Orbach), ‘give me a sawed-off and an unmarked and I’ll take care of it.’
Seagal’s cop must go deep into his Brooklyn (Toronto) roots, sorting the truth from the Mean Streets, and uncovering his partner’s less-than-saintly secret life (whores). Along the way, we get butcher-shop baddies, stereotypical Mob cronies, Brooklyn ‘goils’ Gina Gershon, Julianna Margulies and plenty of fake I-talian talk from the star. It all culminates when Seagal finally finds Richie (his White Whale) and engages in a mano-a-mano face-off in a house of ill-repute. Is there anybody who can do martial-arts above the waist ass-kicking any better?
The Obsolete Sheet 
