Remove ads

Project Ludovico

Reader mode
For Christmas you should do either Die Hard, or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
 
Hey guys, sorry for the delay. Holly was in town and it was her last week here, so that came a bit first. I have a ton of material and am going to do like, a pseudo pledge drive run of a review a day here going forward. Gonna put out a lot of hopefully great material. :)
 
I am referring to the PBS thing where they put out all the A-list stuff at once. >.>
 
By Death Wish 3, they were really stretching things. Death Wish was a love letter to fascism in response to street crime. You could at least point to some ideas in it, even if they were abhorrent. Death Wish 2 was a skeevier Death Wish. Michael Winner is himself abhorrent but there wasn't any actual ideas at play except "Street Justice is best justice" and "PCP is a hell of a drug". I mean, it was a hit, because of course it was, but it had no substance. Instead of being Goebbels it was the guy in front of you at the Filibertos with a tattoo of the SS planning the final solution: What's the point?

In Death Wish 3 it had turned street crime into Mad Max. Aside from demonstrating why Marina Sirtis thanks God above for The Next Generation, it has street gangs being gunned down with a .30 machine gun. Oh and a rocket launcher to finish off the bad guy because its Cannon in the 80s and every bad guy needs to be rocketed to death. It made wholesale slaughter of poor people a festive occasion, as well as fridging anyone the character might become attached to.
We're not doing Death Wish 3, we're doing Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.

The Crackdown is about Cocaine but the powder kind white people like because Cannon isn't going to ask you to feel anything for some /minority/. Paul Kersey is back in LA with a 33 year old girlfriend for his 66 year old ass. She has a daughter that is given the legal minimum requirements of development. She's a woman in a Death Wish movie, so she has a life expectancy of 5 minutes. She dies. Michael Winner isn't director so there isn't a rape scene but she overdoses on cocaine she got from some guys, one of whom is Tuvok. Janeway and Sulu would be disappointed Tuvok. Damn disappointed.

Oh hey though, I got ahead of myself. The movie opens with a dream sequence of a woman being almost raped in a parking garage. Woah there Kersey, what the fuck? I dream of photoshop and infinite loops of bejeweled clones. You dream about women in peril. Fix your fucking issues. Especially since after executing two of the men, the third has his face. Holy shit, Freud dropped his notepad in horror and Jung is puking his guts out in a potted plant. At this...revelation, a pair of grips off stage slowly bolt him out of bed. He has to think about what has happened but he also has to throw his underwear in the laundry like a 13 year old.

Anyway, she dead. Paul defaults to his default programming and kills one of the guys responsible (not Tuvok!) at an amusement park, his body falling onto the electrical net above the bumper cars, scarring all the children below for life at his screams of agony. Justice has been served.

But oh no, someone saw! The owner of a local newspaper named White wants Kersey to kill all the drug dealers in town using his precise intel. That's not any kind of suspicious and his murder boner medication is kicking in, so Kersey is on board. He begins a campaign of very slow terror against the LA drug cartels.

I have to mention that because someone is old, doesn't mean they can't do action. Many actors have done actiony and/or violent movies into their 60s. Harrison Ford, Stallone, Michael Caine, etc. my adoptive father built a barn by himself in his 70s. Older people who have taken care of themselves can be capable of plenty of physicality and we shouldn't rule out older stars. They often turn in amazing performances in this kind of movie.

This is not one of those times.

While not as bad as Death Wish 5, which was a shocking 7 years after this film, he's still not actually capable of much action. Most of the kills in the movie are "Blandly shoots a gun", "Sucker punches someone" or "Outright idiocy". At one point, he goes into a restaurant posing as a wine salesmen with a bomb hidden in a fake wine bottle. Danny Trejo recognizes him though as the bomb counts down and he needs to escape, so he tosses a glass of plain water in the guys face and slides off camera before it blows. That's it. That's the action scene. Throwing water in Danny Trejo's face without any dignity and then sliding off camera so we can assume he was running away.


"Should I cut this a bit closer so you can't see they're dummies? Nah, why mess with perfection!"​

Kersey sidles or slow walks between intel briefings and lame Uzi firing. Cops ineffectually attempt to stop him. Repeat until both factions are wiped out in a final lame gun battle with each other and you look to your partner and go "Well that was early?" and you check the run time again. "Wasn't this supposed to be an hour and forty minutes long?". Aha, but there is a twist coming! See, Kerseys habit of just trusting some random asshole with suspicious intel might actually prove to be a mistake! As a call from White tells him to go to the middle of nowhere and meet a random guy for "reasons" and "just trust me its cool bro". Kersey lamely shoots his way out of a car that he's been trapped in and goes after this White guy for incriminating him!
Arriving at his mansion, he muscles his way in with his pistol only to find that it wasn't the real White at all! He's been helping a complete rando drug dealer eliminate all the competition! Its ok, how was he supposed to know that it was a fake? He only didn't check anything related to the guy and took him at his word. Oh and his girlfriend works for the real guy. There was really no way to know. However, !White wants Kersey dead because he "knows too much" and could go to the cops.
Fucking what? He doesn't know a single fucking thing until you try to kill him. He would have retired to some wrinkly, sweaty grandpa sex none the wiser that he did absolutely fucking nothing to stop drugs. He doesn't even know your name and has zero ability to find you, because you assumed someone elses identity and fucked off. You in fact have to keep reaching out to him because he can't find you! Good job Moriarty! He sends fake cops with a fake cop car out to arrest him even.

They pull him over and start rudely arresting him.

"What did I do?" says the country's most prolific mass murderer
"We're taking you in!" they say, refusing to explain
"But there has to be a reason!" he cries, ignoring the fact that he's killed a police officer.
"We're here to give you 30 seconds of what a Minority in the US experiences" says a modern audience.

Yeah they're fake cops but they literally know what he's done for their boss, so why don't they just say literally any of that? He figures out they're fake because they as LAPD officers aren't respecting his civil rights-Yeah, that's a sentence alright. The LAPD, noted defenders of civil rights. Anyway, they won't give any information and haven't done any fake cop research going in, so Paul makes them crash by being annoying. That's not a joke, he starts kicking the back of a dudes seat and the divider and they crash the car from annoyance. He has the exit strategy of a 7 year old. Can't he wait until he can limply sucker punch them like everyone else in the movie?!



Its a good thing that ramp was there​


After this thrilling escape, he goes home. Angered that this man who knows nothing might get away, !White has Tuvok call his girlfriend at the paper and tell her he has a hot scoop for him and to meet him in a parking garage. As she steps out the door of her office, she's immediately kidnapped as step 2 of this plan. Step 3 is to call Kersey at home. When he doesn't pick up because an ineffectual cop is there for revenge for his dead partner that didn't matter, he leaves a message on the machine. A message saying they've kidnapped his girlfriend. To avoid him going to the cops. They leave a message admitting to a felony. Excuse me but are we sure this is some criminal mastermind? Are we sure that this isn't some douche from Redondo Beach with an MBA and big dreams? Because you are your own Birnam Wood here friend.

After knocking the cop out with a sucker punch, he grabs his M203 from behind the Fridge (?!) and goes to the meeting place. Things quickly go bad as the man you hired for his ability to kill people, starts killing all their people with bottle rockets fired out of an M203. Alas, Tuvok and his car that isn't the RX7 he said he had, are among the first to go. This leads to a shootout at a skating rink and arcade, as Kersey ventilates people with 5.56mm as they stand in front of crowds. As he sprays from the hip. Should he be worried about his backstop? Of course not, this is the 80s and such concerns are for liberal pusses and\or "fags" as the decade would tell you. Kersey has no need to worry about spraying a crowd with bullets, his gun knows its own.
But there is a final showdown to be had. To let you know the stakes, the movie fridges the girlfriend with less than two minutes of movie remaining. Yep, 97% of the way through, it ices the love interest and has the villain jam his weapon in the process. Its so short I was able to capture the entire ending in one gif


"Man if I wasn't white, that cop might have shot me"​


Much like every other attempt to tug at your heart strings, its pointless and stupid because of how pointless it is. Drop a line about how a bad guy is a child pornographer but have the main character only chastise him over drugs? That's a Cannon Film. As is having the reporter go to the morgue to look at drug related deaths (why do you need to see the bodies?!) and have the final victim be a 13 year old streetwalker that had her throat slashed by a John over drugs.


A 13 year old
​
What makes Cannon Films a goldmine is because they're a lurid schlockworks with pretensions. They believed in every movie they ever made and this one was no different. There is no way this could have worked in all seriousness but they thought it would. Hell, Menachem would come back to it for 5th move, at a point when the actor needed a stunt double to throw groceries as people. No bad idea remains untouched! Today's purposely bad or mediocre movies can't compare with the pure joy of an insanely sincere Israeli guy just glad to be in Hollywood.

I'm going to have to do Death Wish 5: The Face of Death (no really) now at some point aren't I? D:
 
There's a documentary on Cannon Films on Netflix and DVD. Called Electric Boogaloo (Named after Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, a joke that would become a legendary meme).

Cannon was also known for chopping up the budget of some films and 'Re-investing' them into other ones. Like Superman 4 for Example. They butchered that one so they could make Superman 5 and a few other movies...at least till 4 tanked.

Canonn's idea for a Spider-man movie is...more an island of Doctor Moreau thing. They were so far off from sanity and reality that Stan Lee demanded that they scrap the original plans and make something closer to the comics.

Now, we never got to see that film due to Canonn tanking.
 
Bonus feature: The Dummies from the poorly edited explosion



(The green bits are transparent sections from my gif program)
 
Hey Athene if you're still taking suggestions, I would second the movie 9, dieselpunk homunculi are something I never thought I'd see but there you go. :V
 
The Beast (of War) is a very strange movie to talk about these days. In many ways its a relic. A movie about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with sympathetic Muslim characters? I don't even think you would be able to make this movie today. It's also pro intellectual, anti war and yet, has some of the best depictions of tanking that I've ever seen. The villain is the tank commander and by extension, the entire soviet union. Yet for the most part, he's an amazing tank commander. Most of his insanity is standard procedure but when he deviates, he deviates hard.

I first saw the movie in Tank School so we were all pulling for him because he was a tanker and they were in Afghanistan fighting the locals. It's weird now to watch it as an almost entirely different person. I don't approach things the same way, though I do miss tanking. Its hard to ground myself watching it again between nostalgia and intellectualism. I should probably start at the beginning.

Its the second year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The movie opens with a peaceful village being destroyed by a Soviet tank column, as retribution against Mujaheddin fighters. They destroy the homes, the kill animals, they salt the earth and poison the water. They kill women and children. Its barbarism. A tank section out of the two stays behind to do some looting and one of the tanks is destroyed by a man leaping from a rooftop and throwing a grenade inside. The tankers got sloppy. The driver of the other tank rushes forward to try to save them but its too late. This is our hero, Konstantin Koverchenko. He's an intellectual with a big mouth and a habit of independent thought. He's been busted down from Intel down through multiple billets all the way to Tank Driver. All for 'insubordination'. He's extremely well educated and this puts him at odds with most of the crew.

The commander, Daskal, is a former child soldier of WW2. They used to lower him down to plant explosives at Stalingrad at the age of 9. He was a tank driver in Manchuria at age 12. He lives, breathes and dies a tanker. Tanker with a capital T, not just someone that we would call a Rider. He's brought back every single tank he's ever had, even if he was the last person alive. He's not an intellectual, he's not even really a communist. He's a nationalist. He believes in his country, not in any kind of ideology.

Rounding out the crew, the Gunner is a drunk that has been turning their brake lines into hooch, the loader who's just some kid and their translator, Samad. Samad is an Afghan Communist. He is devoted to both Allah and Socialism, and as he tells Daskal, has easily managed to rectify the two.

They execute the man who destroyed the other tank in their section by slowly crushing him with the tank but he doesn't care, and tells them they're all going to die here in Afghanistan. He managed to damage their radio though, and they can receive but can't send. At a T-junction, they take the wrong turn, leading themselves into a significantly long Cul-De-Sac, instead of Kandahar Road. They have no way of telling this, as the map was damaged in the attack as well, since it was on top of the turret. The Mujaheddin know though.

The other main character is a young man named Taj. Thanks to attrition, he has just become the Khan of his clan. He's young, very devout and wants to do the best for his people. His cousin is a shit stain that only makes token commitments to Islam and is more concerned with making money off looting the Soviets. However, he has acquired an RPG launcher and ammo, which will allow them to perhaps even the score with the tank that executed the previous Khan. His sister demands nothing less and wants to be a part of their vengeance, but she's repeatedly told not to get involved.

Sounds about right for an 80s movie regardless of country of origin.

They will dog the tank the rest of the movie. A constant threat to the damaged and failing tank. Rather than have a united front in the face of this conflict though, the crew is divided. Samad has found himself on the wrong side of his commanders superstition, and being on the wrong side of a tankers superstition is a bad place to be. I last had a Hawaiian Punch 12 years ago and only briefly, because one of the ingredients is forbidden to even be spoken of. The last I saw it, the can was sailing across the tank bay after a TC saw me with it and slapped it the fuck out of my hand lest I bring it closer to his tank.


Its serious business.


Samad is an intellectual believer in Socialist with a son in university at Moscow. However he's a Muslim and to Daskal, that means that he is potentially the enemy. Anything that goes wrong on the tank, becomes Samad's fault. Daskal believes him to be working with the Mujaheddin, even when it makes no sense. Samad is just some poor clueless rider and not the best soldier. He believes in the cause but that's not enough to save him once Daskal is convinced he's guilty of sabotage. Soon, Samad is dead and Koverchenko finds himself tied to some rocks with a booby trapped grenade due to telling Daskal that he's going to report him.

Koverchenko really needs to learn to like, fucking zip it. Play ball until you're back at base at least man.

Tied to a rock, he's rescued when the Mujaheddin and women find him. They were prepared to kill him until he pleads for sanctuary, a lesson that he learned from Samad. He soon enters into a shaky alliance with them, fixing their RPG and offering to help take down Daskal. Daskal and his crew soon finds out that they're trapped and refuses to abandon his tank when given the opportunity by a !Hip crew. Very steadfastly in fact, as he's willing to kill the entire helicopter crew and his own men rather than abandon it.

I understand Death Before Dismount my friend, but there are limits.

So, he must backtrack all the way to the crossroads, and Koverchenko and the Mujaheddin are waiting for them. Its all leading to a final showdown. Especially when the afghan women get involved.

I love this movie still. I'm sorry, Daskal is for 95% of the time, amazing at fighting his tank. He could have made it back even with everything had he kept a united crew. Alas, he was too superstitious even for a tanker. They even got themselves some Israeli T-55s for the movie and even today, its in the running for the best tanker movie ever made. Fury is great, don't get me wrong. Its a tough competition.

As the person I am now, I enjoy the fact that Koverchenko is an intellectual who believes in the ideas of his nation and Daskal is a nationalist who accepts whatever his country says. After killing women and children as invaders, Koverchenko tells him its no Great Patriotic War and asks him when they became the Nazis. Yeah its an anti-Soviet film but really, nationalism overriding the core ideals of your nation is a major concern for the US.

The movie made like, fucking nothing though. Its cult in the extreme because it made diddly and was one of the lowest grossing movies the year it came out. However, if you get a chance and you like dark, depressing action movies with really good tanking, give it a shot.
 
Also

While they're kill crazy, I really appreciate that the women the entire time had a way better plan for ambushing the tank via crushing it under boulders. Had they just worked with them, they would have killed it way easier.
 
I think what gets me most about the entire film is Daskal's last word. I can't quite articulate why, it just haunts me the way he says it and the look on his face as he does so.

George Dzundza is a criminally underrated actor.
 
Hey guys been sick as heck so review is going up tomorrow. I think you might find it special. :)
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top