Action Jackson (1988)

Detroit cop Jericho “Action” Jackson (Carl Weathers) has been having a rather quiet two years. After a bit of police brutality towards the – rapist – son of a very rich man, he was demoted from Lieutenant to Sergeant, lost the right to wear a gun, and consequently landed himself a desk job. Jackson’s life is going to become rather more interesting again in the next few days, because a series of men working in the same worker’s union all happen to die rather explosive deaths. Jackson’s colleagues don’t seem to bother much about this sort of thing. The script doesn’t make clear if they actually believe a guy who had a grenade shot into his chest and exploded died in an accident, though they will later pretend a different guy getting shot into his chest from a few feet distance with a gun that didn’t belong to him committed suicide. At least, nobody does much investigating or other nonsense. The audience does of course already know there’s a group of supposedly sneaky and competent, but actually loud and silly, assassins making the union rounds.

Fortunately, an old college buddy of Jackson, one Tony (Robert Davi in a short but sweaty appearance), asks our hero for help because he’s convinced he’s the next on the list of the killers; and he’s absolutely right. Tony can even point Jackson to the man he is pretty sure to be responsible – rich asshole Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson). Dellaplane just happens to be exactly the same rich asshole whose son Jackson beat up (or mutilated, the dialogue’s a bit vague here) and got into prison, and who then did his best to ruin Jackson’s career. One might believe that’s a bit of an additional motivating factor, so it won’t come as too much of a surprise that Jackson soon finds himself sniffing around Dellaplane’s (evil) business, perhaps finding allies in Dellaplane’s wife Patrice (Sharon Stone before she was famous) and his junkie singer mistress Sydney Ash (Vanity when she was sort of famous). Explosions are soon too follow, as are absurd attempts at framing Jackson for murder that of course cut it with his brain dead colleagues.

Action Jackson is a rather likeable attempt to turn Carl Weathers into a black American action hero, kinda like a Schwarzenegger who can act and doesn’t look horrifying. In an interesting turn of events, the film doesn’t nod in the direction of classic blaxploitation flicks at all, and focuses on late 80s style US action movie tropes, treating its hero’s blackness with casualness. Given the comparative lack of other action vehicles starring Weathers, it can’t have been terribly successful at the box office, though it’s a rather entertaining film if you’re willing and able to at least ignore the typical flaws of US action cinema of this point in time. So please don’t think about the cartoonish incompetence of a movie police force that makes even the worst real world one (and boy, they do get pretty terrible, don’t they?) look like a band of geniuses and heroes; ignore the fact that the bad guy’s plan – he apparently murders lots of people to control the union so he can then use its influence to some time in the vague future become the power behind the throne of an as of now imaginary president – makes not a lick of sense; and please, don’t even try to find connections between anything in the film’s world and the real one.

Ideally, in an action movie of this style, these flaws shouldn’t just be things to be tolerated. As a matter of fact, they are supposed to be enjoyed, and boy, is Action Jackson enjoyable. Craig T. Nelson is awesome as the ultra-violent rich slime ball, his plan is pretty damn funny, his goons are clearly supposed to be cool but are very desperately not, so they are ideally positioned to be shouted at, be-one-linered and murdered by a hero who really needs to get creative with his own violence because he has to survive much of the film without a gun (he’s obviously taking the bit where he’s not allowed to be armed seriously even once people start and try to murder him). Weathers is very fun to watch as Jackson, giving the typical US macho hero some human traits, even making him pretty likeable. It helps that the man’s dignity seems undisturbed by even the cheesiest and most nonsensical one-liner (my personal favourite is “Chill out!”, before he burns a guy to death), nor by the film’s sudden bursts of what I surmise is humour. And if you’re interested in the baser things, Stone and Vanity both have a bit of nudity in here; though we actually see much more of shirtless Weathers, so there’s hopefully something for everyone here.

The whole bag of lovable nonsense was directed by Craig R. Baxley. Baxley has an extensive list of credits in stunt teams for film and TV, is credited just as extensively with various second unit directing jobs, directed a few episodes of The A-Team, and then – starting with the film at hand – made three well liked – well, by people like me who enjoy this sort of thing – action movies before he trotted off to become a dependable and solid TV director. His stunt background certainly shows in the quality of the stunt work here, with every bit of carnage and violence shot to full effect, Baxley clearly operating on the directorial basis that the audience wants to get as good a look at possible at what he has to offer here. In other words, there’s not boring action scene here. Even better, Baxley does know how to stage an entertaining dialogue sequence too, providing his actors with many an opportunity to chew the scenery or to have fun with the general absurdity of things.


As a matter of fact, I think Action Jackson is much better – and definitely more entertainingly – directed than most of the more mainstream US action movies of its era that for my tastes tend to be not terribly well paced – the works of Harlin and McTiernan obviously excluded. I certainly prefer Weathers to Schwarzenegger, too, so clearly, I judge this film “better than Commando”.

Some Thoughts About Poltergeist (1982)

Well, I think I can spare us any words about the plot here. After all, if you’re reading this, you’ve most certainly seen the film.

For quite some time, I’ve never really given Poltergeist much of a chance. Sure I’ve enjoyed it when I was a kid, but afterwards, a degree of dislike for its approach to horror as a carnivalesque special effects spectacular and a whole dollop of grumpy prejudice left me with a very cynical view of it, or of what it turned into in my mind. As is rather too often the case with me for comfort, I was wrong and unfair about Poltergeist. Fortunately, a recent rewatch of the painfully bland remake did make me curious about trying the original again, and watching it rather changed my mind.

Sure, I was right about Poltergeist in so far that it is indeed a film very much rooted in spooking its audience with its special effects – some of which still look brilliant to my eyes, some of which have dated as badly as CGI from the year 2001 – but it goes about it the honest way, certainly throwing something cool to look at on the screen every five minutes but also realizing special effects – even great ones – are not the only thing you need to catch an audience, and if you want to spook it for more than a few minutes, you’ll need to build an emotional connection.

The Hooper/Spielberg (how much of this is actually directed by Hooper and how much by the nominal producer Spielberg depends on whom you ask – at least some of the lighting and the sense of humour feel very much like a product of Hooper to me) film goes about creating this connection rather more subtly and rather less saccharine than Spielberg of this era is generally given credit for. The Freeling family is of course meant as an ideal identification foil for the film’s presumed white upper middle-class 80s audience, but the filmmakers are intelligent enough to realize that audiences might ask for representation but when it comes down to it, they’ll actually empathize with specific characters that are more than pure stand-ins for abstract notions quite a bit more. Consequently, the film puts a heavy emphasis on the way particularly the parents interact with one another, an - often quite funny – natural closeness that, together with fine and highly sympathetic performances by Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams, presents the couple as the proverbial Good Parents, but also as people with flaws and difficulties who bicker sometimes, roll up a joint (or read up on Ronald Reagan) or make bad jokes in front of a mirror. In other words, characters whose troubles an audience can be interested in not because they are exactly like them (whatever that’d look), but because they feel like actual people. Compare that to the remake that doesn’t even manage to get any kind of personality out of Sam Rockwell.

Thusly prepared, the horrors of losing a child, encountering the supernatural and losing quite a few of the outer determinants of the Freeling’s as members of the upper middle-class during the course of the film, take on a much more affecting face, what could be an empty special effects extravaganza turning into a film that can actually touch you emotionally. Poltergeist’s considerable impact is further strengthened by some fine supporting performances. The child actors are merely okay (but they’re not horrible, with is the only thing I really demand of acting children, because they are children), but Beatrice Straight as parapsychologist Dr. Lesh sells some of the more problematic exposition with a great impression of human warmth and dignity, and Zelda Rubinstein is just perfect as Tangina, a character that’s a genuine weirdo the film still – or even because of that - portrays with great warmth and without any irony, leaving sceptical me very okay with a character I should hate with all the energy of a hundred burning suns (compare with the insufferable holier than thou Warrens in the similar in approach but to me completely ineffective The Conjuring films).

That the film looks fantastic (the lighting often is just outright beautiful), and that Hooper/Spielberg (Hooperberg? Spieler?) know how to pace a movie perfectly hardly needs a mention.