Joe Bomposa (Rod Steiger) may wear oversized glasses, speak with a stutter, and spend his time watching old romantic movies but don’t mistake him for being one of the good guys. Bomposa is a ruthless mobster who has destroyed communities by pumping them full of drugs. Charlie Congers (Charles Bronson) is a tough cop who is determined to take Bomposa down. When the FBI learns that Bomposa has sent his girlfriend, Jackie Pruit (Jill Ireland), to Switzerland, they assume that Jackie must have information that Bomposa doesn’t want them to discover. They send Congers over to Europe to bring her back. Congers discovers that Jackie does not have any useful information but Bomposa decides that he wants her dead anyway.
Love and Bullets is an uneasy mix of action and comedy, with Bronson supplying the former and Ireland trying to help out with the latter. Not surprisingly, the action works better than the comedy. Because Charlie is an American in Switzerland, he is not allowed to carry a gun and he is forced to resort to some creative ways to take out Bomposa’s assassins. Unfortunately, the scenes where Charlie and Jackie fall in love are less interesting, despite Bronson and Ireland being a real-life couple. Ireland occasionally did good work when she was cast opposite of Bronson but here, she’s insufferable as a ditzy gangster moll with a strange accent. While everyone else is trying to make an action movie, she’s trying too hard to be Judy Holliday. Steiger’s peformance starts out as interesting but soon devolves into the usual bellowing and tics.
Love and Bullets does have a good supporting cast, though. Bradford Dillman, Michael V. Gazzo, Val Avery, Albert Salmi, and Strother Martin all pop up. The two main hit men are played by Paul Koslo and Henry Silva. Silva’s almost as dangerous here as he was in Sharky’s Machine.
Mike Gable (Lee Majors) is the angriest cop in Galveston, famous for tossing people out of windows. Jake (Don Rickles!) is Gable’s partner, who seems to be too old to still be on the force. Gable’s best friend is Keaton (Abe Vigoda), a retired mobster who now lives in a nursery home. When it becomes apparent that someone has put a hit out on Keaton, Gable and Jake are sent to investigate. A shoot out at the nursery home leads to Jake’s death. Another shoot out at a hotel leads to the death of several other cops. Gable can either toss Keaton out a window or he can team up with him to solve the murders. Imagine 48 Hours with Lee Majors replacing Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy stepping aside for Abe Vigoda.
In a fictional Middle Eastern country, tough-as-nails Col. Halloran (Brian Keith) has been kidnapped by terrorists. The leader of the terrorists is named Jihad and he is played by the No Mercy Man himself, Rockne Tarkington. The American ambassador (Paul Winfield) is a weak-willed Carter appointee who says, “We have to go through proper channels.” Gunnery Sgt. Burns (Fred Dryer) ain’t got no time for the proper channels. All of his men have been killed. His mentor has been kidnapped and is being tortured with a power drill. Even if it means breaking all the rules, Sgt. Burns is going to rescue Halloran, defeat Jihad, and kill anyone who has ever chanted “Death to the U.S.A.”
When I was growing up in Baltimore, I used to go down to this independent video story every weekend and check out movies. Every time that I stepped into the store, the first thing I saw was the poster for Blame It On Rio hanging over the front register. The store did not actually have any copies of Blame It On Rio in stock and I don’t think anyone working there had ever seen it but it only takes one look at the poster to guess what they were thinking when they hung it at the front of the store.
In Chicago, three men all live in the same house and try to avoid growing up. Rick (John C. McGinley) and Mike (Jon C. Tenney) are old friends while Danny (Tom Sizemore) works on stolen cars. When Mike’s estranged cousin, John (Peter Gallagher), moves in with them, John is drawn into a steadily escalating game of pranks. The game is called “Watch It” and the rules are simple. No one can take anything personally and each prank must be followed by another, bigger prank. While the four men takes turns trying to one up each other, they also deal with women who wish that they would all just grow up. When John starts to date Mike’s ex-girlfriend, Anne (Suzy Amis), the men are forced to come to terms with their extended adolescence.
Tommy Morrison. He came from Oklahoma and he was briefly one of the best-known heavyweights in the country. He may be best remembered for playing Tommy “Machine” Gunn in Rocky V but he also fought everyone from Lennox Lewis to Ray Mercer to George Foreman. He had the raw talent to be a contender but lacked the discipline to win his biggest fights. They called him “The Duke” because Tommy claimed to be related to John Wayne.
Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of my favorite films.
Zombie Island Massacre has got a massacre but it ain’t got no zombies.
Through the Shattered Lens 