Cage (1989, directed by Lang Elliott)

Posted on February 1, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

As with so many stories, it all starts with Vietnam.

In 1969, soldier Billy Thomas (Lou Ferrigno) heroically saves the life of his captain, Scott Monroe (Reb Brown). Unfortunately, while their helicopter is taking off, Billy takes a bullet to the head. While he survives the wound, he is left with the mind of a child. Scott dedicates his life to taking care of Billy and, after the war, they open a bar together. However, mobster Tony Baccola (Michael Dante) feels that Billy would be the perfect contestant for a series of fight-to-death cage matches that have been set up by Chinese gangster Tin Lum Yin (James Shigeta). In desperate need of money, Tony kidnaps Billy and forces him to fight, telling him that it’s what Scott needs him to do. Billy doesn’t want to fight and, when he first enters the cage, he says, “Hi, how are you?” and tries to shake his opponent’s hand. But when his opponents try to hit Billy, he has no choice but to defend himself. It’s up to Scott to rescue his friend.

The plot of this movie is pretty dumb but I’m not embarrassed to say that the film itself won me over. The fights were decent but the main reason why the movie works is because of Lou Ferrigno and Reb Brown, who made their friendship and their bond feel very real. Ferrigno was especially good in this film. How can you not root for a guy who just wants to be everyone’s friend and who, even after his twelfth cage match, still gets upset over having to hit people?

A pure B-movie all the way, Cage also features familiar faces like Branscombe Richmond, Al Leong, and Danny Trejo. Most of the critics may not have liked it but Ferrigno has described Cage as being his his favorite film performance and I agree.

Bronson’s Rich: Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987, directed by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

To quote The Main With No Name, “When a man’s got money in his pocket, he begins to appreciate peace.”

Two years have passed since Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) last visited and cleaned up New York. He is back in Los Angeles, the president of his own successful architectural firm. Now a rich man, he has retired from killing criminals, though he still has dreams where he shoots muggers in parking garages. Paul has a new girlfriend, journalist Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz). When Karen’s teenage daughter, Erica (Dana Barron), dies of a cocaine overdose, it’s time for Paul to get his gun out of storage and blow away a drug dealer.

Shortly after shooting that drug dealer, Paul finds a note on his front porch. “I know who you are,” it reads. Paul then gets a call from a mysterious man (John P. Ryan) who identifies himself as being a reclusive millionaire named Nathan White. Nathan explains that his daughter also died of a cocaine overdose. He wants to hire Paul to take out not just the drug dealers but also the men behind the dealers, the bosses. Using his vast resources, Nathan has prepared a file on every major drug operation in Los Angeles. He offers to share the information with Paul.

“I’ll need a few days to think about it,” Paul says but we all know he’s going to accept Nathan’s offer just as surely as we know that Nathan White has an ulterior motive that won’t be revealed until the movie’s final twenty minutes.

For the first time, Paul is no longer just targeting muggers and other street criminals. This time, Paul is going after the guys in charge and trying to bring an end to drug trade once and for all. (The idea that the best way to win the war on drugs was just to kill anyone involved in the drug trade was a very popular one in the late 80s.) L.A.’s two major drug cartels are led by Ed Zacharias (Perry Lopez) and the Romero Brothers (Mike Moroff and Dan Ferro). Along with their own activities, Paul and Young work the turn the two cartels against each other.

It’s not just the criminals that have changed in Death Wish 4. Paul has changed, too. Paul used to just shoot criminals and run away. In Death Wish 4, he gets more creative. He sneaks into Zacharias’s mansion and bugs the phone so that he can keep track of what’s going down. When it comes time to kill a table full of drug dealers (one of whom is played by Danny Trejo), Paul doesn’t shoot them up. Instead, he sends them a bottle of champagne that explodes when they open it. By the end of the movie, Paul is blowing away the bad guys with a grenade launcher! How many former conscientious objectors can brag about that?

The biggest difference between Death Wish 4 and the films that came before it is the absence of director Michael Winner. Winner and Bronson had a falling out following Death Wish 3 and, as a result, Winner had little interest in returning to the franchise. Instead, Winner was replaced by J. Lee Thompson, who had already directed Bronson in several other Cannon films. As a result, Death Wish 4 is less “heavy” than the previous Death Wish films. Whereas Winner’s direction often felt mean-spirited and exploitive, Thompson plays up the film’s sense of airy adventure.

Though it barely made a profit at the box office and has been dismissed by critics, Death Wish 4 is an enjoyable chapter in Paul’s story. If you’re looking for mindless 80s mayhem, Death Wish 4 gets the job done with admirable efficiency. It would have made a great ending for the franchise but Bronson would return to the role one last time.

Tomorrow: Death Wish V: The Face of Death!

Back to School #51: Trojan War (dir by George Huang)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1997 film Trojan War may be a bit obscure (and, in fact, I had never heard of it until I came across it On Demand two weeks ago) but it has earned a place in the Hollywood record books as one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. Made on a $15,000,000 budget, Trojan War was released into one theater, played for one week, and made a total of $309.

But, as far as simple-minded teen sex comedies, are concerned, it’s not that bad.

Brad Kimble (Will Friedle) is a nice but dorky high school student who, for years, has had a crush on an unattainable cheerleader, Brooke (Marley Shelton). When Brad is invited over to Brooke’s house to tutor her in biology, he arrives just after Brooke has had a fight with her jock boyfriend, Kyle (Eric Balfour sans facial hair). Soon, Brooke and Brad are making out. Brooke asks Brad if he has a condom. Of course, if Brad did have a condom, there wouldn’t be a movie. The rest of the movie deals with Brad’s attempt to not only find a condom in California and but to also get back to Brooke.

(Apparently, in the 1990s, there was some sort of sudden condom shortage in California. That’s all that I can guess after having seen Trojan War.)

Of course, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Brad’s car (actually, it’s his dad’s car) gets stolen. Brad ends up having a run in with a crazy homeless man (David Patrick Kelly) who — in a rather obvious shout out to Better Off Dead — wants two dollars. Brad gets chased by a crazy dog. Brad has to deal with a cameo appearance by a crazy Kathy Griffin. Brad runs into a crazy bus driver (played by Anthony Michael Hall). Brad ends up being pursued by a crazy police officer (Lee Majors). And since the film itself is a bit of an unacknowledged remake of Some Kind of Wonderful, Brad is also pursued by his not crazy best friend, Leah (Jennifer Love Hewitt, who I’ve always liked because we’re both Texas girls and I share her struggle). Leah is in love with Brad and Brad is in love with Leah. He’s just not smart enough to realize it.

And indeed, that’s the key to understanding the plot of Trojan War. Brad is just not that smart. This is one of those films where the great majority of Brad’s problems could have been avoided if Brad just wasn’t a moron. Fortunately, Brad is played by Will Friedle who was always the best part of Boy Meets World and who displays the unique ability to make stupidity cute. Friedle is so likable as Brad that you’re willing to forgive the film for a lot.

That doesn’t mean that Trojan War is necessarily a good movie. It’s likable but it’s never really good. For every joke that works, there’s one that doesn’t. I could have really done without the extended sequence where Brad gets lost over on the bad side of town and the movie suddenly trots out every negative Latino stereotype imaginable. But, when the movie just concentrates on Will Friedle and Jennifer Love Hewitt, it’s likable enough to waste 90 minutes on.

If nothing else, it’s certainly more entertaining than most movies that made less than 400 dollars at the box office.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 3 (dir. by Brian Yuzna)

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Arleigh

In 1993 horror fans were greeted with the release of Return of the Living Dead 3. This third film in the Return of the Living Dead series produced by John Russo ends up being a very good zombie movie and actually has genuine horror that the second film lacked. What ROTLDIII, its writers and directors seem to have left behind was the comedy side of the series which made them cult-classics to begin with.

Taking up directing duty this time around was genre-veteran Brian Yuzna (Beyond Re-Animator) who films this third entry purely on a horror standpoint. This film is serious horror from start to finish. This time around the military is still trying to find a way to use 2-4-5 Trioxin as a way to create zombie soldiers, but ones that could be easily controlled by them. To say that this project hasn’t met with success is an understatement. But it’s the story of the son of the military project director and his girlfriend who dominate the film’s plot. As portrayed by J. Trevor Edmond and Melinda Clarke, these two star-crossed lovers find themselves enmeshed with the dark secret of the project being held in secret. Son soon uses the Trioxin gas to try and ressurect his girlfriend who gets killed early on during an accident. What he gets instead is an undead girlfriend whose hunger for live brains (for some reason the zombies in this ROTLD sequel also feed on other bodily parts) can only be controlled when she causes herself bodily pain through extreme forms of piercing. The rest of the film deals with the father trying to save his son not just from himself and his undead girlfriend but from the hordes of escaped zombies in the facility.

The horror in the film was actually pretty good and this was helped a lot by the gore effects work which surpasses anything the first two films in the series had. The acting was decent enough with Melinda Clarke as the zombified girlfriend putting on a sexy, albeit creepy performance. If it wasn’t for the brain and flesh-eating she sure would’ve made for quite a poster girl for teenage boys.

In the end, Return of the Living Dead 3 continues the series admirably. Despite not having much humor and comedy in the film, this third film in the series more than makes up for it with high levels of gore and a definite sense of horror the first two didn’t much have not to mention a bit of romance which seemed to work.