Film Review: THE PROTECTOR (1985, James Glickenhaus)

Stars: 3 of 5.

Running Time: 91 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Jackie Chan (RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER), Danny Aiello (THE STUFF, DO THE RIGHT THING), Roy Chiao (BLOODSPORT, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM), John Spencer (THE ROCK, THE WEST WING), Mike Starr (GOODFELLAS, ED WOOD), Moon Lee (MR. VAMPIRE, FIGHTING MADAM, FIGHTING MADAM 2).  Cinematography by Mark Irwin (VIDEODROME, SCANNERS).

Tag-line:  "Now, New York has a new weapon––a cop with his own way of fighting crime!"

Best one-liner:  "I never go anywhere in southeast Asia without an Uzi!"

In a familiar, darkened alleyway:
"Whaddya got for me today?"
-"Jackie Chan."
"Brilliant––he's one of my all-time favorite action stars, what with his gleeful comic timing, death-defying stunts, and penchant for Cannon Films-style wacky-action!"
-"What would you call that?  'Wacktion?'"
"Oh, stop.  So which one is it?  RUMBLE IN THE BRONX?  THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER? WHO AM I?"
-"THE PROTECTOR."
"THE PROTECTOR?!  You've never reviewed a Jackie Chan movie before, and you're starting with this one?"
-"This ain't my first Jackie-rodeo.  I can start wherever I want.  Though the truth is, I'm starting here because something like RUMBLE IN THE BRONX fills me with so much joy that I find myself unable to do something so pedestrian as taking notes for a review."
"But THE PROTECTOR?!  Jackie disavowed this film––the Americans didn't know what to do with him, despite the fact it's a Golden Harvest co-production.  It's filled with toothless action, devoid of humor, and clearly choreographed by frightened insurance adjusters.  It's like they checked Jackie's charm at the door and stuck him in the middle of a straight-to-video Chuck Norris vehicle."
-"I take offense to that."
"But you'll admit that this is a little more 'HERO AND THE TERROR' than 'SUPERCOP,' will you not?"
-"So it's not his best work.  So what?  There's plenty to enjoy here, and on a number of levels.  For starters, it's from director James Glickenhaus, a sleazy-NYC scion who brought us MCBAIN and THE EXTERMINATOR, and who is thus indirectly responsible for EXTERMINATOR 2, one of Cannon Films' greatest achievements."
"Go on..."
-"It depicts a New York hellscape, like out of DEATH WISH 3 or CYBORG, gangs with gaudy skull earrings and leather jackets with oversized shoulderpads roaming around a burned-out urban husk, populated only by man-sized rats and trash can fires.  They take out truckin' buddy semi-trailers like bandits going after covered wagons. "

"I can appreciate that."
-"Then we have Jackie Chan and his partner."

"Who's his partner?"
-"It really doesn't matter, because in his very first scene he shows off a stuffed animal he bought for his kid.  This small, sympathetic touch clearly telegraphs that he's not long for this world.  Saying it was his last week before retirement would have worked just as well, too."
"As far as buddy cop flicks go, that is an indisputable truth."
-"Indeed.  And as I predicted, he is fated to die before even nine minutes of movie have elapsed.  Gunned down by a gang of dudes with machine guns who accidentally rob a dive bar at 10:00 A.M. instead of the grocery store from COBRA, which they clearly intended."

"What a tragic scene."
-"Don't worry--Jackie puts it right, blasting the bad dudes with a handgun and only occasionally using flourishes of physicality and martial art.


The last guy escapes, but Jackie aims a speedboat at his speedboat and blows him up real good, all the while making his escape with a very conveniently timed helicopter rope."



"Is that the Statue of Liberty, under renovation?"
-"Hell yes it is.  That's the kind of moxie this movie's got.  Glickenhaus loves his New York, warts and all.  Where another filmmaker might have chosen not to show the scaffolding to preserve the aesthetic fairy tale, Glickenhaus revels in it.  He probably shows it to us five or six times."
"Nice."
-"And curiously, the caliber of cinematography is much higher than you'd expect for this sort of film.  I soon discovered it was vividly photographed by Cronenberg's own Mark Irwin!"

"That man sure knows how to do a glassy, glossy cityscape."
 -"Indeed he does.  So with the plot officially underway, THE PROTECTOR makes sure it hits every buddy cop trope, down the line.  Jackie's stick-up-his-ass boss disciplines him with the old "that's no excuse for blowing up half the goddamn harbor" and threatens to have his "badge and gun on my desk!"

We've all been there.

which is followed up by a slow clap scene whereupon his colleagues dramatically submit their approval of his maverick, hot-doggin', action-luvin' ways.




This is one of the best-ever 'contagious slow-clap' scenes in cinema, right up there with ROCKY IV.  The dead-eyed stare from the cop who starts it is well worth the price of admission.

Soon thereafter, there's a fashion show (prefiguring DEATH WISH 5),

Not quite ALL THAT JAZZ.

and Jackie is paired with Danny Aiello, and pretty much the remainder of the film takes place in Hong Kong––"
"Hold on one gosh-gadoodlin' minute.  Did you say Danny Aiello?"
-"Yes."

"You mean to tell me that there exists an 80s buddy cop movie with Jackie Chan and Danny Aiello."
-"Correct."
"Talk about burying the lede!  What the hell are you doing?"
-"Come on.  Let me do this at my own pace."
"So what does this turn into, a fish-out-of-water story, with Aiello at sea in Hong Kong?"

-"No, and they were clearly resisting that idea.  They say he 'spent a lot of time there during Vietnam.'  You can tell he knows the city very well because they have him say things like 'I never go anywhere in southeast Asia without an Uzi!'"
"Oh."
-"Yeah.  Once we get to Hong Kong, the proceedings slow down a little bit.  I think Glickenhaus is a bit out of his element. Eventually, there's an assassin wearing Marianne Faithfull's outfit from GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE, some head butts, some homoerotic splashing,


an action scene at a massage parlor/brothel, and a guy who attacks Jackie Chan with a handheld buzzsaw."

"Is that buzzsaw spraying neon-colored liquids?"
-"They're in a paint factory or something.  I don't know.  So later, Roy Chiao––the 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' of BLOODSPORT and the gangster at the Club Obi Wan in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM shows up to portray the villain of the piece."
"I see what you did there, and I'm not particularly impressed."

-"Anyway, Chiao doesn't have a whole lot to do beyond 'look menacing.'  Eventually, Danny Aiello––and not Jackie Chan, like the movie poster promises––wields that Duke Nukem style hand cannon and makes some stuff explode.

Jackie Chan drops a load of bricks on a helicopter and that's about it.  The stunts never take center stage and Jackie is never is allowed to do anything too endearing.  The whole thing is kinda not as good as it should be."
"That's what I figured.  Next time I'm picking the movie."
-"Yeah, yeah.  Three stars."

––Sean Gill

Film Review: THE STUFF (1985, Larry Cohen)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.
Running Time: 87 minutes.
Tag-line: "It's smooth and creamy. It's low calorie and delicious. And it kills. It's The Stuff!"
Notable Cast or Crew: Michael Moriarty (TROLL, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY), Andrea Marcovicci (THE HAND, THE FRONT), Garrett Morris (SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, MARTIN), Paul Sorvino (GOODFELLAS, ROMEO + JULIET), Danny Aiello (DO THE RIGHT THING, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA), Patrick O'Neal (UNDER SIEGE, THE WAY WE WERE), Abe Vigoda (THE GODFATHER, LOOK WHO'S TALKING), Brooke Adams (THE DEAD ZONE, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS '78), Eric Bogosian (TALK RADIO, SUBURBIA), Patrick Dempsey (CAN'T BUY ME LOVE, GREY'S ANATOMY).
Best One-liner: "Ever'body has to eat shavin' cream once in a while."

Behold... THE STUFF.  (Or IL GELATO CHE UCCIDE––"the gelato that kills," according to the Italian poster.  You know, I think we should just go with that title instead!)  Technically, I already reviewed THE STUFF over six years ago, but a film as deliciously delirious as THE STUFF deserves more than a simple capsule-review.

THE STUFF is essentially THE BLOB for the 1980s, which is to say it's a "corporate" Blob, fully deregulated, and ready for the voracious consumers of the THEY LIVE generation.



Note the EYES OF LAURA MARS-chic: fur coats n' bathing suits!

The premise is simple: a taste sensation is sweeping the nation––it's called "The Stuff," and it's low in calories and high on tastee flavor.  The only problem is, eating it might transform you into an alien monster, equal parts THE BLOB, THE THING, and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.


It's tough to get people to care about side effects, though, cause The Stuff is so goddamned delicious and low in calories and did I mention how inexpensive it is?

Sure, the commentary is a little heavy-handed, but writer/director Larry Cohen was butting heads with Reagan-era consumerism, an age of such colorful greed that it's no stretch of the imagination whatsoever to have Abe Vigoda and the "Where's the Beef?" lady hawking The Stuff from the comfort of a yuppie eatery.

"Where's... the STUFF?"

Indeed, that is actually a scene from the film.  And that's why I love Larry Cohen––he's never afraid to take a Grand Guignol or MAD Magazine-style gag way too far.  My only complaint is that there was (so far as I know) no movie tie-in with a marshmallow fluff manufacturer.  Though obviously it would have clashed with the film's philosophical sensibilities, that has to be one of the major missed opportunities of our times.

In any event, here's some of my favorite stuff from THE STUFF:


#1. THE STUFF wastes no time.  In the first fifteen seconds of the film, we have an unlucky nightwatchman discover The Stuff and seal his fate by eating its fluffy goodness.


If this were actually a remake of THE BLOB, the run-time would probably be less than five minutes.  In short, I really appreciate a horror movie (see also: SLUGS) that really cuts to the chase. 


#2.  Michael Moriarty, playing an industrial spy named Mo ("The name's Mo Rutherford. They call me that 'cause when people give me money, I always want mo'."), delivering yet another one of his multifaceted method performances in the context of a B-movie.

He plays Mo as a likeable, easygoing Southern politician who puts a great deal of effort into making his extremely calculated, "aw shucks" persona feel spontaneous.  He's sort of a proto-Kevin Spacey from HOUSE OF CARDS, and it's the kind of work that might have garnered an Oscar nod if it didn't happen to be in a movie about killer marshmallows.


#3. SNL's Garrett Morris as "Chocolate Chip Charlie."

For about twenty-five minutes, THE STUFF becomes a buddy movie as Moriarty's industrial spy teams up with Garrett Morris' "Famous Amos"-inspired cookie man in order to battle The Stuff.  I swear Morris is improvising everything he does, from his dialogue to his karate moves.  I wholeheartedly approve.


#4. The Kiddie Element.  There's a reason THE STUFF is remembered fondly by so many thirty and fortysomethings, and it's because it enabled so many childhood fantasies––namely, that evil food is crawling around in your refrigerator unattended,

and that all the things your parents want you to eat are actually part of a BODY SNATCHERS-style alien conspiracy.

Hell, I'm pretty sure this was the basis for most of CALVIN & HOBBES.  And then there's the catharsis of mounting a kiddie assault on a grocery store with a rake handle:


Note: Playwright Eric Bogosian is one of the stock boys!

It's all pretty fantastic, creepy escapism.


#5.  Patrick Dempsey (later known as "McDreamy" or "McSteamy" or something, on the basis of his faux-Clooney/Anthony Edwards levels of popularity on GREY'S ANATOMY) as a New Wave-y "Stuff Junkie."

Obviously, I get a kick out of this sort of thing.

#6. A pre-respectability Danny Aiello as a spooked FDA official.

He only has about five minutes of screen-time, but he delivers a labyrinthine, layered performance as a public official who is being manipulated by his evil pet dog.  It sounds silly, but I'm not kidding––he infuses the role with a true and existential menace; it's like we're watching ROSEMARY'S BABY or a Harold Pinter play or something.


#7. The commercials.  I've alluded to these already, but THE STUFF is filled with wonderful fake commercials for the titular product, and they run the gamut from the ridiculous (the aforementioned Abe Vigoda/Where's the Beef crossover) to the sublime:



which includes Cannon Films-style "urban" dance choreography, absurd pop jingles, and celebrity cameos (such as Brooke Adams, Tammy Grimes, Laurene Landon, etc.).


#8.  The absolutely vicious corporate digs.  I really don't think Larry Cohen could get away with this stuff today.  For starters, he delves into the particulars of FDA regulation and directly compares the killer secret formula of The Stuff to that of... Coca-Cola.

Later, top executives are force-fed insane quantities of their own toxic product.  I have to imagine every time somebody watches THE STUFF, the CEOs from Burger King and McDonald's and Taco Bell shudder in their mansions somewhere and don't know why.

THE STUFF has balls!


#9. Is it a James Bond movie?

Most of the film's latter half takes place at a factory for The Stuff, and the machine-gun-toting employees all wear yellow jumpsuits, like they're henchmen from YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE or MOONRAKER or the like.  I can dig it.

#10. Paul Sorvino.  As a right-wing military man in the "General Jack D. Ripper" mold, Sorvino is frighteningly hilarious.

Whether he's screaming lines like "The Commie bastards took their own lives!" or commandeering a fleet of taxis (and commanding his soldiers to issue a ten-percent tip),

he's doing his best to steal the movie from Michael Moriarty.  He doesn't quite succeed, but it's a good showing.

In the end, THE STUFF is an irreverent, absurdist work of horror-comedy which frequently rings prophetic.  "Are you eatin' it or is it eatin' you?"  Four and a half stars.

–Sean Gill

2015 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  SCANNERS (1981, David Cronenberg)

2.  MICHAEL IRONSIDE: MENTAL SABOTEUR (2014, Karen Stetler)

3.  NOMADS (1986, John McTiernan)

4. ...

Film Review: HUDSON HAWK (1991, Michael Lehmann)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 100 minutes.
Tag-line: "Catch the excitement. Catch the laughter. Catch the Hawk." Interesting that even in the tag-line, they compare to a disease.
Notable Cast or Crew: Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, Richard E. Grant (WITHNAIL AND I, HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING), Sandra Bernhard (THE KING OF COMEDY), James Coburn, David Caruso (THE KING OF NEW YORK), Frank Stallone, William Conrad (THE FUGITIVE series, THE RACKET), Andie MacDowell.
Best one-liner: "How am I driving? 1-800-I'm-gonna-fuckin'-die!" Yehh.

You know when you got a toothache, and you keep touching that sensitive spot with your tongue, and hot damn it hurts, but you kinda like it, and then you're grinding your teeth and the pain is excruciating, it's stinging, it's pure agony, but you LIKE it somehow, on some level, and you keep on pressing, but why o why are you doing this to yourself?! In a nutshell, that's my relationship with Bruce Willis' singing voice, and, by extension, HUDSON HAWK. Yeh, I own THE RETURN OF BRUNO.

Note the shoes.

I'm big enough to admit that. But there are things so excruciating in this film that any sane person would just walk away, just get up and walk away: Andie MacDowell as a secret agent nun doing a dolphin impersonation ("What does the color blue taste like? Bobo knows? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I must speak with the dolphins now. Eee-eeee-eee-eee!").

James Coburn wearing purple camo and doing kung fu. A preponderance of Looney Tunes sound effects. An ill-conceived Leonardo da Vinci flashback. Not one, but two, hang glider sequences (always the hallmark of a great film- see: MAC AND ME, MONKEY TROUBLE, etc.). Willis trying to turn "Slurp my butt" into a catchphrase. A slew of groan-mustering Nintendo references. Frank Stallone as one of the 'Mario Brothers.'

Richard E. Grant acquits himself, kind of, through sheer flamboyance.

Danny Aiello and Bruce bobbing and undulating in unison, singing show tunes as they pull off heists.

Hudson Hawk's only unique character trait is that he really enjoys cappuccinos.

Have you had enough yet?

Some have theorized that Willis' career has bounced back from so many nadirs (BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, BRUNO THE KID, THE SIEGE, et al.) due to his ability to stoop to the material, yet simultaneously wink and half grin to the audience, as if to say, as he does in BLIND DATE, "Anybody got ten grand for bail?" And, quite literally, that's what he's asking:

"Is there anyone out there kind enough to bear with me till I can crank out a LAST BOY SCOUT or a PLANET TERROR?"

And "Yes," we reply with a hang-dog look. "We are." But how are we willing to forgive THIS? Have we no taste? No values systems?

Three stars, and God help me.

-Sean Gill