I wanted to watch something to honor one of my favorite actors, the late Wings Hauser. Wings was an actor as idiosyncratic as they come. His performance as Ramrod in Vice Squad is one of the all-time greats, and I wanted to acknowledge his passing by reviewing a film of his I had never seen before.
Words don’t really do this movie justice. You have to see it to believe it. The best description I can think of is it’s The Room if it was a low budget ‘90s action movie. Like The Room, it was the brainchild of a non-actor who somehow got enough money together to make his own movie. In this case it was lawyer John de Hart. He was also somehow able to get Wings to play his best friend and William Smith to play the bad guy.
As a Wings tribute, I got my money’s worth as he gives a fun performance. Wings probably sensed de Hart and co-director John Paradise’s lack of experience, which afforded him the opportunity to go gleefully over the top in ways only Wings could. If this was a “normal” movie, his performance would’ve been the highlight. Since there is nothing normal about Champagne and Bullets, Hauser’s antics are more like window dressing.
Like Tommy Wiseau, de Hart was somehow able to convince a really hot chick (in this case, Playboy Playmate Pamela Bryant) to have gratuitously long and extremely uncomfortable sex scenes with him. The pinnacle of the looney love scenes comes when de Hart is about to have sex with her and hands his champagne glass to a visible crew member who takes it out of frame. You won’t believe it.
I guess I should talk about the plot. De Hart and Hauser are former cops who get thrown off the force when their colleague Smith plants dope on them. De Hart’s girlfriend (Bryant) has freshly escaped from a Satanist cult that just so happens to be headed by Smith. When Smith kills his true love, de Hart goes out for revenge.
The high point is the musical number performed by de Hart. “Shimmy Slide” is a verified bop and a definite ear worm. De Hart’s musical abilities (or lack thereof) are hysterical, and his choreography (or lack thereof) will have you in stitches. He sings several other songs on the soundtrack, most of which are ballads that play during the hilariously over top love scenes that are beyond cringe worthy. (This might be the first movie that contains a lover’s montage that is just one static shot.)
Yes, it’s terrible, but I fucking loved every minute of it.
The WTFness of this movie transcends mere words like “good” or “bad”. It exists in a Zen world that could’ve only sprung from the imagination of John de Hart. The Zen attitude can be summed up by one dialogue exchange when Wings is in the hospital and holds up a glass of water.
Wings: “Is this glass half empty or half full?”
De Hart: “It looks dirty to me.”
AKA: Road to Revenge. AKA: Geteven.
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