GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Comeuppance Reviews Christy Hansen (Udy) is a beautiful equestrian rider who seemingly has the perfect life: she's about to marry Bob Worthington (King), a member of the prestigious and wealthy Worthington family. (Don't they even sound rich?) - the only problem is, she's in love with Bob's rough-and-tumble brother Steve (Van Patten). She thinks this is the worst problem in her life, until she's kidnapped and held captive by the San Felipe Anarchist Army. They're a south of the border terrorist organization led by the sinister Estoban (Fisher) who doesn't at all resemble any Cuban dictators we might know, and his army of thugs. Getting the typical run-around and red tape from the government - which includes Christy's own father, Senator Adam Hansen (Mitchell) - Christy's friends decide to become a makeshift mercenary force and go and rescue her themselves. Despite having no experience in the violent arts, the aforementioned Steve, plus Henry (McQueen), Eddie (Miller), Mack (Marcel) and Carla (Blair) attempt the rescue mission nevertheless. Along their treacherous way, they meet the mysterious but extremely helpful Vietnam vet Bishop (Lynch). Will this ragtag band of amateur vigilantes rescue their friend? Dare you find out? A very impressive B-movie cast filled with fan favorites just kind of wade around in the mush of this colorless outing. It starts off in a very disjointed manner, and steadily becomes a more coherent, but more standard exploding hut/fruit cart chase actioner that doesn't really offer anything new for die-hard action fans. Sure, the opening bit has plenty of slow-motion mindless shooting set to the synthesized main theme and you think "this has promise". but then a certain blandness and repetition sets in. 80's staples such as the disco scene and aerobics help matters, but not enough to save the movie in its entirety. The movie needed more Cam Mitchell, who basically does a "sit-down" role. Chad McQueen brandishes a rocket launcher, and, after some initial fears, he does indeed maintain his trademark: no sleeves. McQueen's arms must always be unencumbered by any form of cloth.Richard Lynch puts in a likable performance, and he even plays the flute and has a pet monkey. Where else but here will you see the movie credit "Rambo the monkey as Pin"? Pin, or should we say Rambo, wears cameo pants like the rest of the cast. His performance really stands out. Van Patten also appeared in director Foldes' Young Warriors (1983), and seems like a young, confused Treat Williams. Linda Blair plays the "tough chick", playing against the more girly Christy. It could almost be said that her character here could be a continuation of Brenda from Savage Streets (1984). Carla could be like what Brenda would have turned out as later in life. Adding to the positives column is the end-credits song, "I Still Remember", sung by Linda herself.Despite its mediocrity, items like Night Force actually did their own little part to make the video stores of the 80's great. They added their own brick in the wall of mind-boggling choices the best video stores had. Not every movie ever made is going to be an awesome life-changer. Sometimes corraling some familiar names together and having them engage in some mindless shooting and blow-ups is enough. Clearly the filmmakers knew this, as indicated by its 79 minute running time. It was all good enough for Lightning Video to release it (it was produced by Vestron Pictures) - and as long as you don't expect too much, you might be able to wring some enjoyment out of the rag that is Night Force.

paskuniag If Leonard Pinth-Garnell, the Bad Cinema maven from SNL, ever compiled a list of ten examples of "Truly Bad Cinema," this epic would have to be on it. Now, I usually don't consider films like this one to be worthy of mention on a bad-movie list. Normally, I prefer the grand turkeys like "Conqueror" and "Exorcist II." Still, Linda Blair is Linda Blair, and it was her starring in it that got it made. So I guess we can blame her for this turkey. The fact that these college-age dudes and babes can suddenly shoot like Green Berets is a variation of Roger Ebert's "thirty-second genius" motif. That is where the lead hears the whole plot from somebody in 30 seconds, and immediately knows what to do. In this case, the kids practice shooting for a couple hours, then are ready to do battle with an entire army. My favorite bad moment is when the kidnapped girl is ravaged by one of the enemy soldiers. The Commandante comes along, shoots the soldier, then has HIS way with her. She must have had more Latinos land on her than the Bay of Pigs. My favorite character is the American soldier-of-fortune, played by Richard Lynch. They should have called him Pizza-Face Jones, since a) Lynch's face has more holes in it than the Van Wyck Expressway, not far from where Lynch grew up in Brooklyn and, b) he acts like Harrison Ford on 'Ludes. There's not much more to say, but if you must see it, try to catch it, unedited, on one of the premium movie channels. If you rent it, do so on two-for-one night, along with something that you know is good. A couple beers will help you bear it.

dae5 A definitive example of 80s action trash: probably the only people who would shell out cash for a ticket were wasted teens looking for some skin and lots of explosions. Watch the opening sequence and marvel out how shoddy the editing is: when one of the baddies fires at an officer, there is actually what looks like a break in the film (as if to chop a few frames out) followed by a painfully out-of-sync death scene of the fat officer- ooph!- getting plugged by a bullet, which apparently stopped in mid-air for five seconds while the camera crew switched reels.By today's standards (and 80s standards, probably) the action is sub-par, not gory enough to be interesting but violent enough to be morally inexcusable. Thankfully, every once in awhile Night Force falls into softcore porn territory- this is the only movie I've seen that interrupts a cheap shower scene with flashbacks to a cheap sex scene- but not nearly enough to make the rest of the movie bearable. Night Force exploits pointless violence and gratuitous sex, and poorly. Virtually everyone involved in making this film- actors, actresses, FX technicians, editors- have officially lost any artistic integrity they once had.

gridoon Making a film that's even stupider than Schwarzenegger's "Commando" seems like an unimaginable feat, but here it is. Starts off with some gratuitous nudity, then degenerates into a ludicrous action film. Some of the dumbness was probably intentional, but that doesn't make it excusable. Linda Blair is curiously absent during most of the big action scenes, Cameron Mitchell, in his last film appearance, has a brief cameo, and the main villain is a Fidel Castro lookalike! The film is thankfully short, though (not counting the closing song, it runs about 73 minutes). (*1/2)