Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)

I suppose it’s either serendipity, ineluctability, or simply a writer’s laziness that I choose to touch on Frog Baseball for this week’s introduction.  For those who don’t know, the premise is simple.  You get a frog and a baseball bat or a stick of some kind.  Then you basically play baseball with the animal for the ball.  It’s an unconscionably cruel act, even if you’re not a fan of amphibians.  I have been present when it was played, way back when, although I honestly don’t recall whether or not I participated (I’d like to think I didn’t, because even back then, I felt it was senseless and mean).  Where the idea for this came from, I have no idea, but I do know that it gained some popularity in the Nineties with Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butthead (not that I believe that Judge was condoning it at all) in the way that easily influenced people do dumb things they see in movies and on television.  I find it thought-provoking that psychologists point to animal cruelty as an early sign of sociopathy and serial killer development, things like pulling the wings off insects or vivisecting the neighborhood dogs and cats.  And yet, Frog Baseball is never brought up, to my knowledge.  Possibly this is because it requires more than one person (I suppose you could play it by yourself, and that would likely count as aberrant behavior), so, like anything a mob of people gets up to, it’s generally frowned upon but not necessarily viewed as deviant in terms of what it says about the psychological makeup of people who do it (often misguided, sure, but not deviant).  In other words, it’s not seen as a warning sign (though it probably should be).  I have to wonder if the frogmen in Donald G Jackson and R J Kizer’s Hell Comes to Frogtown have ever thought about playing Human Baseball.  More likely than not, they have, though, let’s be honest, it’s not too easy to toss a human into the air and smack them with a bat (no matter how much they deserve it).

Ten years on from full-blown nuclear war, the human population is in decline.  Fertile men are valued for their virility and not much else.  Enter Sam Hell (Roddy Piper), an ex-soldier and legendary sperm donor.  Sam is pressed into service for Med-Tech, the provisional government’s procreation unit, and he is sent on a mission to rescue and impregnate a coterie of young, fertile women from the harem of Frogtown’s Commander Toty (read: Toadie, played by Brian Frank).

I’m kind of surprised it took me so long to get around to watching Hell Comes to Frogtown, because, on its surface, this film has everything a young me (and even an old me) would love.  It’s set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  It has plentiful creature makeup effects courtesy of the great Steve Wang.  It has beautiful women in it, including Sandahl Bergman and Cec Verrell (and I never thought I would review two films featuring Verrell in less than a year, incidentally).  It has Rowdy Roddy Piper, one of my favorite wrestlers from back in the day.  Nevertheless, I passed on it for a long time, possibly because the title just sounded silly (this from a guy who loves silly things).  

But the film is deceptive in that it’s not a wall-to-wall Science Fiction/Action romp.  Yes, it has those elements, but at the end of the day, it’s actually about sex, and more than that, it’s about love and sex.  The world of the movie is one in which sex is functional, not something for enjoyment and certainly not something done with a person one cares about.  Spangle (Bergman) is all about the mission.  Her job is to get Sam to do his contractual duty, as it were.  She has been trained in the art of seduction, but this is in service to her job.  Stripping down and caressing her body is a means to an end, a functionality of her role in this people-centric arms race.  Hence, her movements are awkward, self-conscious.  It’s not until later that she comes into her own and discovers a little thing called passion.  Verrell’s Centinella is a soldier through and through.  She neither needs nor wants help from a man.  However, she is curious about the fabled Sam Hell, and gives in to this curiosity, if only briefly (and much to the viewer’s delight).  

Likewise, Piper is decidedly un-Piper-ian.  Sure, he eventually gets to throw down with a couple of beefy bad guys, including a somewhat underserved William Smith, but overall, he plays it light.  Sam wants nothing to do with Med-Tech’s plans.  In fact, as the film opens, he’s being beaten up for sexual assault (this odd bit of business is never confirmed entirely by anyone as far as Sam’s intent goes, so our initial impression is that he is, quite possibly, a humongous scumbag), and this will be mirrored later in a morally ambiguous scene when the group comes upon a frantic woman fleeing from her Frogtown captors.  From the men I know, the opportunity to have sex with as many women as you want, guilt- and consequence-free, would be a dream job.  The most perplexing thing in the film is that Sam has no desire for this.  He would rather flee than get his smooth on.  At first blush, this flies in the face of everything anyone knows about the male animal, but as the film develops, it becomes clear that Sam is a man who is deeper than he appears.  He has sincere feelings for his friends and loved ones, and part of why he has gone cold in the libido department is due to what he lost in the war.  He remains true to himself, and the relationship he develops with his guardians strengthens them all in this regard.

Hell Comes to Frogtown is a movie that defies its generic expectations (in fact, I would argue it is least interesting when it plays to those expectations, although even when it does, it does so slyly).  It looks great on a tiny budget, with Jackson and Kizer providing a lot of thoughtful compositions.  The script, while sometimes a trifle too on-the-nose, is also astoundingly funny in spots, and the characters are compelling.  The action is well-orchestrated, though nothing to really write home about.  And how many movies are there where you can watch Roddy Piper with nothing covering his sweaty torso aside from a short jean jacket and sporting an honest-to-God loincloth (I swear, I thought he was trying out for The Lost Boys)?  That’s what I thought.

MVT:  Piper provides the heart and the vast majority of the laughs, and he even underplays a lot of it, proving the man was more than a one-trick pony.

Make or Break:  The sequence with the chainsaw.  It’s simultaneously hilarious and tense.

Score:  8/10        

Tough and Deadly (1995)

Most people into genre cinema know and love James Karen for his role as Frank in Dan O’Bannon’s zombie masterpiece, Return of the Living Dead.  I first came to know him as the affable, always suited shill for Pathmark Supermarkets.  His commercials touting that week’s specials popped up on New York/New Jersey stations, and since I was watching those channels on Saturday afternoons for Kung Fu and Horror movies, he became a welcome sight.  He seemed like a nice guy.  When I finally saw Return, I had one of those “Hey, I know that guy!” moments.  It’s similar to how I used to see Zohra Lampert selling Goya beans (“Oh boy-a!”), and it wasn’t until I saw her on an episode of Law and Order that it occurred to me that she did other things (including working with John Cassavetes in Opening Night).  It’s ironic with Karen that I hadn’t heard of him before either the commercials or the movies, since he was born about twenty miles away from me.  Ah, well.  It was nice, then, to see him pop up in Steve Cohen’s Tough and Deadly (and it should be noted that Cohen directed an episode of Law and Order, though neither Karen nor Lampert appeared in it), doing what he does best: selling what he’s got. 

CIA agent Monk (Billy Blanks) drives all the way out to the middle of nowhere in “France” to talk to Austrian intel broker Reichtman (Ronald House) and be attacked by Richard Norton and his crack team.  After a car accident puts Monk in the hospital and makes him amnesiac, he attracts the attention of skip tracer Elmo Freech (Roddy Piper) as a possible bounty.  The two team up to take down crooks and figure out Monk’s past (but mostly the former), which also involves taking down more crooks, just not for money.

Tough and Deadly follows in the long tradition of action films that pair a couple of characters who are disparate on the surface but essentially the same underneath.  Also like so many action films down through the ages, the main characters are either lawmen or ex-lawmen.  Elmo was a cop who punched a superior officer out (for not the greatest reason in the world), and now he’s a bounty hunter/private dick.  He still hunts down bad guys, he just does it on his terms.  Like so many private eyes, Elmo also has issues with cash flow, always behind on bills and always hustling for a way to make a buck.  He has a sassy secretary/assistant, Moe (played by Lisa Stahl), who acts like she doesn’t care, but really, she does.  Monk works within the system.  In fact, he’s so deep in the system, he’s been removed from it.  He’s legally dead and doesn’t exist on paper.  Monk’s sole purpose in life is also to hunt down the bad guys, but there has to be something more personal in it for him.  That’s the only reason he would allow his identity to be wiped out.  By teaming up, the two experience law enforcement from a different perspective.  Elmo gets to feel like a real cop again.  Monk gets to do his job without the restraints the system placed on him.

This plays into the film’s issues of identity.  Monk loses his memory.  He becomes the more literal ghost (just not in the supernatural sense) he was while working for the CIA.  He needs to re-discover the man he was, and this leads him to the man he will become (a resurrection, if you will).  Elmo helps by bringing him into a world similar to the one he already knew.  Elmo also gives Monk a name (John Portland) in true Elmo Freech fashion (he throws a knife at a map).  Monk’s name doesn’t matter for his identity (he has three: Monk, John Portland, and Quicksilver), but the multiplicity of them points to the identity crisis through which he has to work.  The thing about the film is that Monk’s memory recovery doesn’t tie in with the film’s plot.  He just remembers things, and then they move on.  There’s no direct connection between the two story threads as they progress, which is surprising, as that’s the typical template for storylines like this one (and its lack proves why it’s the standard).  The story ties together by happenstance.  I can’t say that it’s a subversion of a trope in this case.  It simply feels like the filmmakers didn’t do it.  No reason.

It's with that in mind that I want to address the film’s story.  From the set up, the audience expects Elmo and Monk to embroil themselves in the case which robbed Monk of his memories.  Nope.  What we get instead is Monk and Elmo bounty hunting, rough housing, working out, and so on.  It’s purely coincidental that any of this leads back to Monk’s origin and the film’s inciting incident.  In fact, the film is loaded with coincidences to the point that the whole thing is just implausible (some scuzzy little jerk the guys pick up just so happens to be related to the drug kingpin who just so happens to be tied in with Monk’s and Elmo’s past).  Further, the story is a straight line with no twists, turns, or big reveals to any of it.  I would suspect that this (some would call it) simplicity is because the producers (this was one of the final efforts from the Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment gang) just wanted enough story to get us from one action scene to the next.  On that level, it works.  On just about every other, not so much.  We never really care whether Monk remembers anything, because there’s nothing to the character before, during, or after his amnesia.  We’re given a hint that Moe and Elmo may have unspoken feelings for each other, but the moment passes after about a second with no follow up.  The CIA, for all its hand wringing over what Monk’s up to, makes a half-assed effort to get him and then just kind of lets him go do his thing.  The action itself is okay.  Honestly, I expected it to be pulled off slicker and more clearly than it is.  The use of handheld camera and some sketchy editing truly detracts from the only thing that makes the film worthwhile.  Both Piper and Blanks do what they do well enough, but that’s pretty much the sum total of Tough and Deadly: well enough.

MVT:  Piper brings what charms he has to the film, and the man knew how to sell a fight for the camera.

Make or Break:  The training montage (aside from being difficult to swallow based on where in the movie it happens) gives the audience a glimpse at the chemistry that Blanks and Piper could have had onscreen but don’t quite.  

Score:  6.25/10               

Hard Time (1998)

Once I found out there was a film starring Burt Reynolds, Charles Durning, Robert Loggia, Billy Dee Williams and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, I knew I had to see it. I immediately started drooling when I heard the cast from a fellow gentlemen. When he told me it was streaming on Netflix, I hopped straight over and hurled the film to the top of my “to review for the GBtMC” list.

I almost backed out in trepidation, as I seen it was a made-for-TV movie (it aired on TNT). There’s a certain stigma surrounding made-for-TV films. One that plagues direct to DVD productions. One automatically thinks it’s of a lower quality. Why else wouldn’t it hit the big screen? Especially with such a cast behind it.

Fear not, gentlemen (and gentlewomen)! Despite being a made-for-TV production, “Hard Time” is an entertaining watch. And not in the “train wreck” sense. If anything, I believe it was aired on TNT in the hopes that it may start a new series (there are quite a few television pilots that are feature length). I could be completely wrong and just hoping that was the case, as I would have loved to see Logan McQueen (Burt Reynolds) some more!

The film (directed by and starring Burt Reynolds) is nothing new. Reynolds plays Logan McQueen, a detective who is classified as a loose cannon. Along with his partner and longtime friend, Charlie Duffy (Charles Durning), he bends the rules in order to get the job done. This has gotten him six spankings from the county, as Captain Adam Gunther (Buck Taylor) states. It’s also reduced him to graffiti duty, though Duffy makes us believe he hooked them up with the gig so they can relax.

When a chase and shootout occurs between Logan and Catarato Estevez (Paco Christian Prieto), McQueen is framed for killing the crook’s partner. He’s also believed to have stolen some money from the briefcase, which belonged to kingpin Connie Martin (Robert Loggia). Logan has to prove his innocence or face jail time (which he already spent some, making friends with a transvestite).

The plot itself is never so much convoluted as it is streamlined. There are twists and turns, but they’re not too hard to predict. It’s never overtly confusing, which makes sense considering it was playing to a broad audience on cable who were looking for a detective flick, but one that wouldn’t rack the brain. This is more along the lines of “Law & Order” with some gunplay thrown in. For that, it works well.

The shootouts in both the beginning and end are sufficient (though the opening is dragged out a bit). The hand to hand combat is a bit more juicy. There’s a brief, but satisfying fight sequence between Reynolds and Piper that quenched my thirst. Going into the film, I was hoping they’d duke it out. I wasn’t disappointed. I may have wanted more from the “Hot Rod”, but I understood his limited screen time. His sole task was to be one of Loggia’s henchmen and he fit the bill nicely.

The acting itself is above par for what one expects in a made-for-TV film. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, given the task. Reynolds and company do ham it up and shout loudly a lot (in this environment, you have to be macho), but there are moments where sentimentality comes through. One scene in particular has Logan talking to Leo Barker (Billy Dee Williams) and showing remorse for his actions. It’s in this scene that we discover his true passion for the business and that he’s nothing without his badge.

What holds the film together is the relationship between Logan and Duffy. Reynolds and Durning have terrific chemistry together! They’re given a back story on how Duffy rescued Logan at the age of sixteen, as he was bouncing from foster home to foster home at that point. You feel that bond from the start and, when they’re tasked with an emotional twist, I actually cared about them and felt sorrow. Durning also provides quite a few laughs, as he plays his role as a detective who’s a child at heart (the first time we see him he’s playing hopscotch).

“Hard Time” does have it’s fair share of flaws. Logan has a love interest with his lawyer (who is so unmemorable I kept thinking she was a new character every time she appeared) that goes nowhere and the lawyer trying to put him behind bars is too weasely and has no bite (and is also forgettable). Reynolds doesn’t utilize these characters well, using them solely as pawns on a chess board. He also doesn’t take the audience for much intelligence wise, as he’s constantly flashing back to previous scenes from the film. Even with commercial breaks, I have a feeling the audience wouldn’t have forgotten what’s occurred. The biggest detriment is the last half. It’s not that the twists and turns don’t work. It’s that the film simply runs out of steam. Maybe that’s why I felt this was a pilot for a television show. It would have been better suited at an hour instead of ninety minutes.

Nonetheless, “Hard Time” is an enjoyable film. It’s a light detective fable with a splendid cast that pleases the sweet tooth. It’s not necessarily high quality or a game changer, but it’s a decent production. Which, for a TV movie, is akin to calling it “Citizen Kane”. At the very least, you’ll probably have more “fun” with this than the Orson Welles classic.

MVT: The relationship between Logan and Duffy. Reynolds and Durning work off of each other well and are amusing to watch. The fact that I want to see a television series with these two in the lead is telling of how much I liked them.

Make or Break: The scene where Logan pours his heart out, so to speak, to Leo Barker. That proved that Reynold’s wasn’t simply going for a cheap buck. He put some heart into the film and characters and I appreciated that. From here on out, that shined through.

Final Score: 6.5/10