Past Misdeeds: Avenging Force (1986)

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only  basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.

Former intelligence agent Matt Hunter (Michael Dudikoff) packs in his family - consisting of his grandfather (Rick Boyle) and his little sister Sarah (Allison Gereighty) - to visit his old secret ops partner Larry Richards (Steve James) and his family in New Orleans. Larry’s retired too, but apart from being a family man, he’s also running for senate, clearly on the sort of humanist platform that’ll get you labelled as a communist by quite a few people, particularly when the politician in question is a gentleman of colour like Larry.

So, despite being rather awesome, Larry has made enemies, in particular a secret society of rich fascists around Professor (who knows of what, though further proceedings suggest it has something to do with being evil) Elliott “Hitler was right” (actual quote) Glastenbury (John P. Ryan), who add to their evilness by having stolen their name from the seminal British folk rock band (The) Pentangle. Because Nazis are assholes, some of the groups’ henchmen attack a Mardi Gras parade Larry, Matt and their families take part in, murdering one of Larry’s children in the process.

Things don’t become more pleasant from there on in, and various attacks on our heroes eventually leave only Matt and Sarah alive. The Pentangle’s leaders have a hobby quite befitting their politics, and love to hunt The Most Dangerous Game™, so they “invite” Matt to take part in one of these hunts as their chosen victim. Which must have seemed like a good idea at the time; one suspects the Professor ignored the decidedly un-Aryan subject of hubris in his studies.

Quite surprising for the generally exploitative way Cannon and Golan-Globus chose their movies, they didn’t immediately follow up the success of American Ninja with a direct sequel. Instead, they put American Ninja’s leads Steve James and Michael Dudikoff and its director Sam Firstenberg to work on a film that does not contain any ninjas at all, but which otherwise does include pretty much everything else you’d expect from a low budget (though not that low budget) action film, except exploding huts. For reasons I don’t even want to ponder, this seems also to be meant as some sort of sequel to the Chuck Norris vehicle Invasion U.S.A., despite the only connection I can make out without having to watch a Chuck Norris (tied with Seagal as my least favourite US action movie lead) film, being Dudikoff’s character name, his job, and dead parents. And since all action movie heroes from the 80s are basically the same guy anyway, that’s not really enough to think of this as a sequel at all.

Instead of the ninjas, you get a film that works very, very hard to establish its heroes as the most awesome thing since sliced bread and its villains as the scum of the Earth, people who aren’t just Nazis (and just listen to how exactly the film actually hits the complete idiocy of right-wing “intellectuals” in Glastenbury’s speeches, probably without even having to try terribly hard), people who hunt others for sport, child killers, and probably puppy eaters, but also the kinds of guys who plan to sell Matt’s twelve year old sister into prostitution. Speaking of Nazis, it’s always a particular joy to find an 80s US action movie that uses them as its big bads instead of the more typical “Asian enemy of the day”, or “the Russians”, and I really appreciate the extra miles the film goes to turn its Nazis into proper cartoon villains while still keeping them perfectly in the correct spirit.

Of course, it would have been rather nice when, with the film’s heart placed on the left as it is, it would have made another step and not killed off James in your typical “black best friend in an action movie” style, particular since Steve James really is more charismatic, a less stiff actor, and also nicer to look at than Dudikoff, but then, we really can’t ask everything of what is only meant as basic action fodder.

Speaking of action, Firstenberg  was one of Cannon’s more dependable directors, not flashy but often able to rise above mere basic competence into the realm of the highly entertaining. In Avenging Force’s case this means there’s hardly a boring second on screen. Whenever nobody gets shot, spiked, strangled or otherwise killed, there’s a car chase, or a scene between Dudikoff and his sister that turns the emotional hysteria up to eleven (see also the imaginary chapter in my imaginary book about the action film as melodrama even when it doesn’t come from Hong Kong), or Steve James losing his shirt, with little that happens on screen having anything much to do with that pesky reality business, and instead everything aiming for the same kind of awesome kids of all ages get out of Power Metal. Best of all is that Firstenberg’s not just aiming at but hitting the mark in every scene, sometimes through the varied style of the action sequences, sometimes through the addition of little silly bits and pieces (a chase scene becomes something different once the chased bad guy puts on a straw hat, it turns out), clever application of atmospheric New Orleans and bayou locations (some of which were of course situated in LA), or outright ridiculous cheese like the costumes the Pentangle like to don during their chases. My favourite among the last is of course the wrestler gimp outfit.

On a more direct level of craft, I’m quite impressed with Firstenberg’s handling of escalation here. Instead of ever louder, higher in body count, and explosive, the action in Avenging Force becomes increasingly up close and personal, with shoot-outs and car chases in the end making place for grimy and dirty hand to hand struggles in the mud and the (excellently used) rain.


It’s all pretty inspiring stuff, really, at least as far as dumb yet affectionate entertainment goes; which is pretty far with me.

In short: Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

After his very impressive killing spree in New York, serial vigilante Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) has retired from the business and is working as an architect in Los Angeles again. He has already acquired a new family in form of girlfriend and journalist Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz) and her daughter Erica (Dana Barron). But don’t worry, Kersey will soon enough find a reason to murder again, for Erica dies of a cocaine overdose. After Kersey kills the dealer responsible, he is contacted by a mysterious millionaire (John P. Ryan) who convinces him to think bigger and stop the drug problem once and for all. To that goal he provides Kersey with arms and information about the two major LA drug operations.

Kersey’s soon in his serial killing groove again, despite the usual incompetent (George Dickerson) and corrupt (Soon-Tek Oh) cops on his trail. He even has a plan he must have read in a Punisher comic: provoke the two drug groups into a gang war, because that sort of thing has never cost innocent lives, right?

After the sheer insanity of Death Wish 3, J. Lee Thompson’s The Crackdown is a bit of a let-down in its insistence on being only general action movie dumb instead of completely out of its mind, and of being mildly tasteless instead of a Michael Winner film. There’s just no way a competent little action film without all too much that’s memorable can look exciting compared to the force of nature that came before.

Of course, I don’t really see how the sequel ever could have topped what was going on in part 3, particularly that film’s final half hour. This goes even more so with someone like Thompson in the director’s chair who seems somewhat lost in the kind of explosion fest this tries to be, coming more from a classical thriller background as he does, and sometimes looking as if he struggles to get quite as unsubtle as the material needs him to be. Consequently, the best directed scenes here aren’t the large shoot-outs or the roller rink massacre in the end, but the smaller skirmishes when Bronson fights only a handful of guys, because then the rules of the thriller apply instead of those of the 80s action film, Cannon style.

The Crackdown is still decent entertainment, mind you, for while Thompson isn’t putting his best foot forward, there’s enough basic competence here to keep the film moving, and such a mass of explosions, dead bodies and general carnage (if you just pretend you haven’t seen the true meaning of these words in Death Wish 3), the worst thing I have to say about it is that it doesn’t feature particularly memorable explosions or carnage.

On ExB: Avenging Force (1986)

Is this the magnum opus of Michael-Dudikoff-and-Steve-James-featuring Cannon action despite the absence of ninjas? It sure might be from where I’m looking.

There may be no American ninjas involved this time, but Avenging Force makes up for that sad lack by its sheer power of awesomeness. My column at the venerable Exploder Button does get rather excited, so please click on through, unless you have a very weak heart.

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