Neon City (1991)

Man, you never hear anyone talk about the depletion of the Ozone Layer anymore, do you?  Back in the late Seventies through the mid-Eighties, all you heard about was how humans were accelerating its destruction through our love of chlorofluorocarbons (I remember fast food joints like McDonald’s being particularly lambasted for their use of Styrofoam containers for their delicious burgers; And why have they not brought back the McDLT?  That’s right, because it was useless).  Everyone was petrified that the holes in the Ozone Layer were going to kill us all like the Eye of God opening wide to annihilate us and our evil ways.  But these days, almost no one ever brings it up.  Maybe this is because the erosion has slowed because we changed our ecological policies (though someone please tell me how mandating that all lightbulbs be replaced with ones that contain mercury gas was a good idea [yes, I know that some of them don’t have it, but how many people do you know who actually read the packaging before buying them?]).  Maybe it’s because we’re all caught up with Global Warming as the eco-disaster du jour, and the Ozone Layer just gets swept into this bin.  Or maybe it’s because Monte Markham’s Neon City has already shown us what the Ozone’s obliteration would actually be like, and we’re mostly okay with that.

Harry Stark (Michael Ironside) is an ex-Ranger-turned-bounty-hunter who scours the Outlands picking up and picking off perps.  Capturing super-wanted criminal Reno (Vanity), Stark is forced to escort her up North to the titular metropolis aboard Bulk’s (Lyle Alzado) camper-turned-transport.  Alongside a microcosm of characters, Stark weathers the travails of the post-apocalyptic world, but what’s waiting for them in Neon City may not be what they expected (but it mostly is).

As the film opens, it feels like a typical post-apocalyptic movie.  The land is barren.  Everyone dresses like a Tusken Raider auditioning for Duran Duran’s “Union of the Snake” video.  People have been reduced to their basest needs for survival.  Once Stark and Reno get to Jericho Station, however, Neon City becomes a remake of John Ford’s Stagecoach.  This is no real surprise.  Stagecoach has been remade and stolen from a nigh-infinite amount of times.  I know that Neon City is compared to the Mad Max films, but that’s a tenuous connection in my mind and the default comparison for post-apocalyptic movies.  No, this is Stagecoach.  Granted, the characters don’t fit one-to-one between the two films, but they’re certainly similar enough.  So, Stark and Reno, together, are the Ringo Kid character.  Stark is the antihero, and Reno is the outlaw being taken to face justice in Lordsburg.  Further, Stark has a grudge he needs to settle once he reaches his destination.  Sandy (Valerie Wildman) is the hooker with the heart of gold a la Dallas, though she isn’t ostracized.  She also has a past with Stark that illuminates how she got where she is.  Twink (Juliet Landau) is the Lucy character, and if anyone is treated rather coolly in the group it is her, due to her moneyed status (she has a book [by Agatha Christie], a rarity in this world).  Bulk is, naturally, Buck, and Alzado plays it with almost enough charm to at least get his feet inside of Andy Devine’s shoes.  The other three characters, Dickie (Richard Sanders), Dr. Tom (Nick Klar), and Wing (Sonny Trinidad) have aspects of the remaining Stagecoach characters in them.  Markham gives them all some distinction and adds in original touches of back story and motivation, though they don’t feel nearly as solid as in Ford’s film.  Instead, they feel like characters.  Oddly, it’s enough for this film.

One could ask the question, “why neon?”  Cinema depicting the future is rife with the stuff, because it looks futuristic (never mind that neon signs were basically invented circa 1917).  More than this, however, is that it is bright, colorful.  In the context of this film, it is upbeat.  It symbolizes hope, and hope is something which the vast majority of post-apocalyptic films embrace.  After all, the worst has already supposedly happened, so the struggle for survival against the brutality of this new world has to lead to some kind of positive.  Even when the protagonists of such films can’t (or won’t) partake in this hope (Snake Plissken in Escape from New York or Max in the Mad Max films [who, more often than not, plays the role of Moses, leading a persecuted people to safety but is not allowed to enter the Promised Land himself]), even when they act aloof and self-serving, they will always do the right thing and protect others.  Stark does his damnedest to be disassociated, but the script keeps giving him feelings.  While he takes charge, he trusts in Reno enough to uncuff her.  His past with Sandy is an open wound about which he doesn’t mind playing passive-aggressive.  He strikes up a romantic relationship culminating in a gentle love scene.  The problem is that, for this kind of film and this kind of character, it works better for them not to say anything.  Ironside can certainly act well enough that he shouldn’t need to do and say the things he does, but the filmmakers either didn’t trust in their talent or their audience enough to take that risk.  

This goes across the board for the film.  It wants to give depth to its characters, but it wants to do it in nothing but broad, melodramatic strokes.  It wants to give us action, but it doesn’t know how to block, shoot, and edit it in a dynamic, organic fashion (this, more than anything else, really lets its budget show through).  Its pacing is uneven, with dramatic sequences stretching on far too long and action sequences stacked one on top of another, so they bleed into each other and feel contrived and forced.  It wants to show us that this world is fucked, but it wants to give its heroes a smiley ending.  I think that Neon City is better than its reputation would lead you to believe (assuming it has much of a reputation outside of IMDb user reviews), but I also think that its flaws keep it from being a diamond in the rough.  More like a seed in the fertilizer.

MVT:  The cast is solid, and they do what they can with the material.

Make or Break:  The scene where the transport passes through a Bright (see the movie, if you want to get the reference).  It is one of the few well-balanced beats in the whole movie and proof of what this could have been.

Score:  6/10        

They Call Me Macho Woman (1991)

Seeing the chintzy, but charming, cardboard city skyline accompanied by the words “A Troma Team Release” is something that can send paroxysms of anxiety through even the stoutest film lover’s heart.  Troma built their brand from the ground up, and they did it through the most blatant of hustling.  Lloyd Kaufman is a man who knows the value of getting something for nothing.  If Roger Corman is lauded for stretching every dollar he ever spent on his films, then Kaufman can pinch a penny into a piece of copper wire for his, and should be equally applauded.  I admire Kaufman’s particular brand of hucksterism.  He sells every film he puts out like it was “The Citizen Kane Of” whichever genre.  I’m quite certain he has no illusions about the level of quality in the movies he produces.  They are what they are, they are made (usually) with some heart, and they are typically exploitative as all hell.  Yes, the humor is normally not above the level of a twelve-year-old trying to light a fart.  Yes, the effects would make Ed Wood wince.  Yes, the acting lacks the subtlety of, well, it lacks subtlety entirely.  These are the things that attract their fans.  

Troma has also released films they had no role in producing, and this is where the nervousness about seeing their logo at the start of a movie arises.  For example, they were involved in the re-release of Dario Argento’s The Stendhal Syndrome as well as the distribution of Joel M Reed’s Bloodsucking Freaks.  While one could argue the merits of either of these films, one would have to agree that they are almost nothing like the stuff that Troma actually produces and distributes (although Bloodsucking Freaks comes close).  In other words, when you see the Troma logo, you know you’re in for a crap shoot.  This brings us to Sean P Donahue’s They Call Me Macho Woman (aka Savage Instinct), a movie Troma co-produced.  If the lack of resemblance between the woman on the box cover art and the film’s star (Debra Sweaney) doesn’t tell you you’ve entered Tromaville, nothing will (and maybe they’re both Sweaney, but I’ll be damned if they don’t look worlds apart to my eye).  And like the majority of Troma’s output, your mileage will most definitely vary in terms of enjoyment, depending on your threshold for uncut schlock.

Widow Susan Morris (Sweaney) and her realtor Cecil (Lory-Michael Ringuette) are en route to see an out-of-the-way property for Susan to purchase.  A chance auto mishap puts Susan in the crosshairs of Mongo (Brian Oldfield) and his kookie gang of drug dealers.  Now, she’ll have to man up if she wants to survive.

They Call Me Macho Woman (by the way, no one in the film ever calls Susan “Macho Woman”) falls into the category of movies that tell us, quite clearly, that, no matter where you go, trouble will find you.  Susan wants to get out of the city and fulfill the dream she and her husband had of moving to some place quiet and peaceful before a drunk driving accident took his life.  Solitude, however, is an impossibility.  The menace of city life expands to the countryside.  If it isn’t rapey, drug-addled thugs in the urban jungle, it’s rapey, moonshine-addled/inbred hicks in the woods (or, alternately, rapey, shitkicker cops).  In exploitation cinema, true peace is elusive, but it can be earned through violence.  The protagonist is broken down only to be built back up (by their own ingenuity) into a figure more frightening than those who threaten him/her.  To be at the top of the heap, to win the right to live as they want, they must sink to the level of savagery with which they are opposed.  And then top it.  Susan is handy from the start.  When their car gets a flat tire, Cecil proves worthless.  It’s Susan who has the know-how to change it, having been schooled by her brothers.  Eventually, she kits herself out with all manner of makeshift weaponry (while also taking the time to polish her mini-axes to a mirrorlike sheen; fashion and function).  Every situation in which Susan finds herself, she has to dig deeper and deeper into her primal core.  She has a cat fight with a predatory lesbian that ends with Susan tackling her opponent off a hay loft.  She seduces one of her attackers (I mean, he was going to rape her anyway, but still…) and impales his head on a nail.  She stabs a gang member in the ear with a stick (leading to a rather funny running joke for the rest of the film).  By the end of the movie, Susan can not only kill another human being, but she can do so brutally.  The question becomes, has Susan gained her freedom or lost her humanity?  Are the two the same?

Every person in this film is a shithead.  Mongo (who looks like a larger version of Nick Cassavetes) growls at everyone, and he isn’t above allowing his gang members to die in order to keep more of their illicit gains for himself.  He also kills people with a spiked bit of fetish headgear instead of, oh, say, shooting them.  With the exceptions of Mongo, Cecil, and Mr. Wilson (J. Brown), there is not a man or woman who doesn’t attempt to sexually assault Susan.  This even stretches to a trio of guys who could have been her saviors.  She flags down a car and is picked up by Geno (Paul Roder) and his mates.  They quickly pull off to the side to get some, cackling, drinking beer, and basically being assholes.  Things don’t go well for them.  Hand in hand with this omnipresent shitheadedness is the fact that every character says whatever is on their mind every moment of the film (typically consisting of calling their associates “idiots,” etcetera).  None of them has either ever heard the mantra that silence is golden, or they simply never paid it any mind (but mostly, let’s just blame Donahue, who is also the screenwriter).  This might not have been quite so bad if they didn’t all speak and relate on the level of eighth graders (one could imagine them trading spitballs with ease).  This is illustrated and/or compounded by the constant use of the term “bitch.”  In fact, its usage is so prevalent, you could easily make a drinking game out of it.  And that’s the territory in which They Call Me Macho Woman exists.  It is tiresome in its drudging repetitiveness.  It is not well-written, shot, or acted.  It is not even especially satisfying in its resolution.  Nonetheless, it is a singular cinematic experience that distinguishes itself by its insistence on trying to be as generic as possible.  A sort of failing upward, I suppose.

MVT:  The premise is solid enough.  That’s why it’s so well-worn.

Make or Break:  The fate of Geno and his crew is nicely executed.

Score:  6.5/10

Blowback 2: Love and Death

Joe (Riki Takeuchi) and Baku (Takashi Matsuyama) are on a bus riding through the Philippines countryside with a briefcase of money (which has no backstory to it at all) when they’re set upon by a band of guerillas led by the villainous Yamaneko (Mike Monty).  Baku is killed, and Joe is left for dead, but he crawls back, and, with the aid of local bar owner Rei (Mie Yoshida) and local bounty hunter Ratts (Shun Suguta), he takes his revenge.

This is the plot for Atsushi Muroga’s Blowback 2: Love and Death (aka Blowback: Love and Death), which I assume was labeled as a sequel for two reasons: one, so as it not be confused legally with Marc Levin’s Blowback released the same year, and two, to ride the coattails of Marc Levin’s Blowback, for whatever that may be worth (I’m thinking very little), but probably more the former than the latter.  This film was produced by Japan Home Video, and it appears to have been produced specifically for the home video market, not that this alone makes it an inferior effort.  In fact, it has all the elements it could possibly need to be an entertaining, successful revenge/action film.  And, ironically, that’s its main fault.  It has a personal motive for vengeance (aren’t they all, though?).  It has a MacGuffin in the form of the money that was taken from Joe (which seemed to me was completely forgotten about after the opening shoot out).  It has a broken angel archetype in Rei, who, of course, will become the great love of Joe’s life.  It has a dark stranger who helps out for mercenary reasons of his own.  It has an army of faceless (but still colorful) henchmen.  It has a reptilian bad guy with a distinguishing feature for Joe to focus on as he tracks him down (here a wildcat tattoo that, honest to God, looks like it was drawn in three seconds with a ballpoint pen [and likely was]).  It has a metric ton of gunplay and things exploding left, right, and center.  

If John Woo showed us anything, it’s that these basic components can be combined in intriguing, stylish ways to give us action films with flair and a modicum of emotional resonance (no matter how contrived), and Blowback 2 uses all of them.  There is slow motion out the wazoo (sometimes motivated, sometimes not).  There are freeze frame dissolves galore to the point that they simply stand out (notice how I’m making note of them?).  The characters are all emotionally walled-in by the bad ass roles they inhabit (the exception being Rei, who gets a few moments to shine, but otherwise does a thankless job in service of Takeuchi’s character arc).  There are double handguns being fired at the same time.  Sergio Leone and Spaghetti Westerns in general also get a lot of play in the film.  The opening credits and music harken back to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  Baku carries a pocket watch that chimes, and this chime will, invariably, come into play in the film’s climactic showdown, a la For a Few Dollars More.  There’s a chaotic character who likes to toss TNT around as a first resort, as in Duck, You Sucker!.  There is the coffin toted around that hides a nasty surprise, like in the original Django.  The initial glimpse we get of Joe, he’s wearing a cowboy hat.   

Nevertheless, Muroga just slaps these ingredients together and throws the plate on the table.  Blowback 2 is too by-the-numbers.  Oh, it makes a valiant effort, to be sure.  It’s jam-packed with violence and action and mayhem, and it even goes for the throat in its gonzo moments, like when Ratts saves Joe and Rei by hurling dynamite at them, or when Joe picks up an M-60 and mows down the baddies, or when Joe whips out a Vulcan cannon and mows down the baddies.  But none of it is attached to anything else in the film aside from the tangential needs of the wafer thin plot.  This is all sound and fury, and you can guess what it signifies.  You would get the same fulfillment by watching Youtube clips of the same actions/things/events being depicted, because you would have the same level of involvement with them (read: none).  It’s all so detached and constantly happening, it quickly descends into numbed overkill.  This is what Martin Scorsese described as a modern film where there’s a climax every two minutes, and it was produced twenty-five years ago.  The more things change…

There are a few attempts at themes outside of the revenge facet.  For example, the main characters are all foreigners in a foreign land, and this land is hostile to them.  As Joe and Baku travel along, Joe comments that you could be murdered for your shirt here.  Rei is a Japanese bar owner in the Philippines, but we’re never told why she moved.  Slums and the living conditions of the common folks are shown throughout, but it’s all just background, as the protagonists plow through anything and everything in pursuit of their goals.  In addition is the idea that money is freedom.  Joe and Baku talk about what they’re going to do with their case of money (turns out, not much).  Ratts is out for the bounty on Yamaneko’s head.  Rei thinks that money will mend her soul (“money can heal most heartaches”).  That said, this is all just tinsel on a Christmas tree made up entirely of ornaments.  Make of that what you will.

I realize that I’m slagging off on Blowback 2 pretty hard, and perhaps that’s because it gave me exactly what I wanted, just in the wrong proportions.  I wanted some ambitious action setpieces, and I got far too many.  I wanted some reason to compel me to follow these characters through their journey, and I got just about none.  This is the definition of mindless action, and for some that may be the exact balm they require.  Hell, had I been drunk enough while watching this (I was stone cold sober, incidentally) or been in a different frame of mind, I may have loved it for what it is.  That’s the trick.  This film needs to be accepted at face value, because that’s all it really is.  Consequently, I kept finding myself distracted by what was happening in the real world of my life while watching, and that’s simply no good for watching a film.  For folding laundry, though?  Sure.

MVT:  Funny enough, the action is the sum and substance of Blowback 2.

Make or Break:  The finale takes everything the film has built up to, and it pays it off the only way it can.

Score:  5.5/10