Maria (Josephine Chaplin) is a cop looking for the man who murdered her husband. Tony (Steve Parkman) is a jazz musician searching for his girlfriend’s killer. They learn the same man, a Mob boss named Don Miguel (Craig Hill) is responsible. Maria and Tony team up with a tough American cop (Mike Connors from Mannix) to bring the Don down. They even stoop to the gangster’s level by kidnapping his daughter and forcing him to play hardball.
Downtown Heat finds Jess Franco working a bit out of his comfort zone. He’s not the world’s greatest action director, so he’s not really the best man to helm a generic cop thriller. In other hands, it might’ve worked, but then again, the action, plot, and drama are so dull that it makes it hard to care either way. Maybe if Jess tossed in some of his patented sleaziness, we might’ve had a winner. Still, it’s hard to say if anything could’ve saved this slow-moving bore.
The movie does momentarily come to life in the third act when the cops realize the only way they can catch the bad guy is to stop playing by the rules. This blurring of morality is interesting, but it occurs too late in the game for the message to have its intended impact. While this part of the film is mildly entertaining, it’s not nearly enough to salvage the dreary first two acts.
Connors is top billed, but he doesn’t even show up until about the halfway mark. Even if he is a little long in the tooth for a role like this, he at least seems to be having fun. Lina Romay injects the movie with a little spark as a punk rock gang leader who turns her back on her fellow druggies to help the cops. Naturally, it doesn’t end well for her. It’s a shame Romay wasn’t in it more because when she’s on screen, Downtown Heat does have a little bit of sizzle.
As for touches only Franco could bring to a motion picture, he gives us yet again his trademark lazy camera zooms. This is also another Franco movie (like Death Whistles the Blues) where one of the characters is a jazz musician, and there’s a jazz performance to pad out the running time. And like Commando Mengele: “Angel of Death” and Esmerelda Bay, everything ends with a big helicopter explosion. As for Franco repeat offenders in front of the camera, we have Romay, Hill, and Robert Foster all popping up yet again.
I thought this one was decent.
ReplyDelete