TERROR IN BEVERLY HILLS (1991) *

Terrorists kidnap the president’s daughter while she’s shopping on Rodeo Drive.  Naturally, there’s only one man who can stop the terrorist mastermind.  That man is played by… 

You guessed it... Frank Stallone.

Terror in Beverly Hills is punishing almost from the get-go.  It’s particularly sluggish when the focus is on the terrorists.  The beginning is plagued by long boring scenes of the terrorists boarding a plane, getting annoyed by a kid in the next seat, and getting hassled at customs.  It’s almost like director John Myhers was more interested in the minor inconveniences of traveling rather than the action.  

In fact, it takes almost twenty minutes for Frank to even appear on screen.  I never thought I’d want MORE Frank Stallone in a movie, but here we are.  Stallone does what he can with his limited skill set, and in the right hands probably could’ve been marginally effective.  Too bad it’s painfully clear Myhers has no idea what he’s doing.  Aside from a few haphazard car chases early on, the action is largely absent, leaving us with a lot of dull scenes of people arguing with each other.  The action we finally do get is poorly staged and the editing is embarrassing.  The big fight between Stallone and the heavy is especially terrible. 

The highlight (for me anyway) was seeing Cameron Mitchell as a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, chain-donut-eating Yelling Police Captain.  His constant obscenity-laden diatribes help to keep you awake, although he’s not in it nearly enough to make it worthwhile.  Some amusement can also be had from seeing the great William Smith (whose familiar voice is dubbed by another actor) as the President.  Unfortunately, he’s only in a handful of scenes and never gets to do anything worthy of his talents.