AMERICAN MADE (2017) ** ½

Tom Cruise stars as Barry Seal, a shady airline pilot who gets hoodwinked by the CIA to fly planes and take spy photos for them.  When they fail to give him a bonus, he takes to running drugs for the cartels to make ends meet.  Naturally, when the CIA needs to put guns in the hands of the Contras, they call on Barry to fly them in.  Pretty soon, Barry is running drugs, guns, AND soldiers.  It’s a pretty sweet set-up, but it can’t last forever, can it?

Directed by Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow collaborator Doug Liman, American Made is one of those Dark Side of the American Dream movies.  Barry is after all, only trying to provide for his pregnant wife (Sarah Wright).  Why work a dreary job flying planes for the airlines when you can bring home backpacks full of cash at the end of the workday?  Of course, that means you’ll probably wind up being shot at, thrown in jail, or worse, but hey, so what?

American Made is basically Blow with planes.  If you want to see a drama about the rise and fall of a scumbag during the period of ‘80s excess, this is an OK one.  It coasts mostly on Cruise’s considerable charm, but unfortunately, he isn’t given much of a character to work with.  Cruise is never not fun to watch.  It’s just that the amoral character has very little redeeming quality about him.  Cruise’s constant grinning from ear to ear with his trademark Cheshire cat smile can only get the character so far.   

It doesn’t help that the supporting players are even more thinly sketched.  Wright looks great, but she is never given anything more to do than just than to just be “the wife”.  Domhnall Gleeson has some good moments as Seal’s slimy handler, although he’s really just more of the personification of “The Man” than a flesh and blood human.  Caleb Landry Jones is annoying as Seal’s fuck-up brother in-law, who’s mostly just there to complicate the situation.  

Liman hits all the marks you’d expect from a story of ‘80s greed.  However, the film is curiously lacking the emotional connection necessary to make you feel the rush of the highs and lows the characters experience.  Without that connection, it’s just a slick but empty morality play.   

AKA:  Barry Seal:  Only in America. 

BORDER RADIO (1988) **

Chris D. (the lead singer of The Flesh Eaters) stars as a musician named Jeff who gets stiffed out of some money by the promoter of his last gig.  In retaliation, he robs the place with the help of his buddy (John Doe from X), and he splits to Mexico.  As soon as he does this, his manager informs his wife Lu (Luanna Anders) that the band is about to hit the big time.  While waiting for her husband to return, she winds up having an affair with Jeff’s roadie and best friend, Chris (Chris Shearer), which naturally complicates matters.

Border Radio was one of those deals where the filmmakers started off with a short film and expanded to feature length.  It certainly feels that way too because of its herky-jerky nature.  The segments where characters are interviewed and give their answers straight to the camera don’t really add much to the film or give much depth to the characters.  I have a feeling they were only there to pad out the running time.  

Directed by Allison (Gas Food Lodging) Anders, Dean (future cinematographer for Jack Frost 2:  Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman) Lent, and Kurt (Poison Ivy:  The New Seduction) Voss, Border Radio owes a heavy debt to Jim Jarmusch.  It’s in black and white, has a very loose narrative, and the characters are all obsessed with rock n’ roll.  While there are bits and pieces that work here and there, the mosaic approach ultimately yields uneven results.  Some of the performances are solid (especially Doe, who would go on to play a supporting role in Road House the next year), but the languid pacing and overall repetitive nature of the film (there’s a lot of scenes of guys sitting around noodling on their guitar) prevents the viewer from really engaging with the picture.

POPULATION: 2 (2012) **

This should’ve been a slam dunk.  It’s basically The Last Man on Earth, except, you know, with a woman.  I’m a sucker for these post-apocalyptic lone survivor types of dramas, and even though Population:  2’s budget was pretty low, it is not without its moments.  Unfortunately, there’s just too much unnecessary business that gets in the way of the post-nuke survivalism drama.  

Scientists, in an attempt to curb global warming, create a shield to block against the sun’s rays.  It doesn’t go according to plan, and they wind up effectively wiping out the human race.  One sole survivor, Lilith (Suzanne Tufan) manages to save herself from annihilation and forages for supplies to prolong her dreary existence.  

The first sign you are in trouble is during the opening credits sequence.  I mean, the movie is called Population:  2 and there’s at least ten actors’ names in the credits.  That’s because the scenes of our heroine wandering the wasteland are intercut with flashbacks to her former life.  These flashbacks just don’t have the same impact as the stuff with Tufan sifting through the desolation.  The scenes with a pilot who dropped the bomb that killed everybody especially feel like padding, and the same static shots from his cockpit get repetitive in a hurry.  I have to wonder if this maybe started out as a short film and then director Gil Luna added in a bunch of shit with the pilot just to get it up to eighty-two minutes.

The good news is the post-apocalyptic scenes have an occasionally strong moment.  I especially liked the scene where Tufan tells us that she still wears her mask when she goes out in public, just to be safe.  I think we can all relate to that.  However, just when these sequences start to gain a little power, the filmmakers cut back to the past, and the movie loses a lot of momentum.  

AKA:  Apocalypse:  Day One.  AKA:  After Doomsday.  AKA:  The Survivor.  

DELIRIUM (2007) ½ *

You know you’re in trouble from the first few minutes of Delirium.  I know these low budget filmmakers have to pad out their films to get a releasable running time, but even I have my limits.  A jock puts a flyer on a bulletin board (OK, “bulletin board” is being generous.  It’s just a fucking easel.) to find people who want to rideshare for a “Spring Break Roadtrip”.  Then, we get a long painful scene of several students slowly walking up to the easel, reading the flyer, and then tearing off the contact info.  One or two of these shots would’ve sufficed.  Or, if you wanted to show everyone taking the scrap of paper as a way to introduce your characters, you could’ve made it cinematic or visually interesting.  Or you know at the very least, edit it down so it flows.  But no.  They show every single character walk, read, rip, and walk away.  

Anyway, the stereotypical characters finally carpool.  There’s the nerd, the jock, the horny babe, the lesbian, and the token black character.  Luckily, the sound is so bad you can’t hear what they’re saying half the time.  Unluckily, you can hear what they’re saying the other half and it’s just as annoying as you’d expect.  If the endless scenes of the characters yelling, dropping F-bombs, and hurling insults at one another don’t drive you up the goddamn wall, wait till you get to the part where the car breaks down and they all wander around the desert waving their cellphones in the air trying to get a signal.  

After yelling and fighting and launching slurs at everybody, the stranded motorists then decide to walk through the desert where there is even more yelling and fighting and launching of slurs.  As day turns to night, a killer in a black mask and fedora knocks them off one by one.  There’s a little blood, a little gore, and a little T & A, but not nearly enough of it to make this slow-moving slog worthwhile.

It’s obvious the team that made this movie had no money, time, or talent, so I will show restraint and give it ½ * instead of No Stars.  Even then, the kills, when they finally come are rushed.  The killer, who dresses up like The Shadow is OK, I guess, but he doesn’t have much personality.  That said, he’s still by far the most likeable character in the entire flick.    

STEEL FRONTIER (1995) ** ½

Joe Lara stars as a harmonica-playing cowboy who rides across the post-apocalyptic wasteland getting into adventures.  Brion James is the evil leader of “The Death Riders”.  Along with his motorcycle-riding cronies, he goes around the wasteland, toppling small town governments and executing anyone who doesn’t join his ranks.  Lara doesn’t take kindly to that, and he infiltrates James’ ranks in order to free the town of his iron fist.  

Steel Frontier is an agreeable mix of post-apocalypse action and Spaghetti Western.  It gets off to a good start with Lara finding a guy with his legs cut off on the side of the road begging to be put out of his misery.  From there, it just sort of hops from one post-apocalyptic cliché to the other.  It’s not great or anything, but it’s a decent enough flick if you like these kinds of genre mash-ups.  The action is a bit better than you’d expect too as Lara’s motorcycle has more gadgets and weapons than James Bond’s car.  Since it’s a PM movie, lots of stuff blows up, so there’s that.  

There was no reason this had to be one-hundred-and-one minutes though.  It definitely could’ve used some tightening up in the second act, that’s for sure.  Still, there are little bits of amusement to be had.  I liked the way Lara awkwardly secured his hat to his motorcycle just before a big chase scene so it would match the second unit footage of his hatless stunt double.  I also thought it was funny that after about twenty minutes, James ups and decides that he doesn’t like the name Death Riders anymore, so he changes his faction’s name to “The United Regime”.  I guess he tested the name with focus groups who decided The United Regime sounded a little less threatening.  

The cast is fairly decent.  Lara is an OK hero and James is an ideal villain (although he basically disappears for the entire second act).  Bo Svenson has some good moments as his right-hand man who has had enough of all the killing and wants to settle down.  Kane Hodder and Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiones have small roles too, but they aren’t given a whole lot to do.   

SHE-WOLVES OF THE RING (1965) ** ½

Lorena Velazquez and Elizabeth Campbell return as Loreta Venus and Golden Rubi in this third installment of the Wrestling Women franchise from director Rene Cardona.  This time out, a nasty faction of warring wrassling babes challenge the ladies to a wrestling tournament.  Naturally, these women are up to no good and will stoop to any low in order to win… including kidnapping Rubi to make Loreta to throw her fight!  

I guess the biggest problem with She-Wolves of the Ring is de-escalation.  The first two movies saw the Wrestling Women battling a mad doctor and an Aztec Mummy respectively.  In this one they just fight… other wrestling women?  It certainly seems like a step down if you ask me.  If this was the first film in the franchise, I might not have felt the same way.  However, without any fantastic content to speak of, the flick feels a little lacking.  Luckily, the series eventually went back to doing what it did best by having the Wrestling Women fight Panther Women and Killer Robots in subsequent installments.

The good news is the series’ war of the sexes aspect still works.  Not only does Elizabeth Campbell still have her short and nerdy boyfriend; there’s another Wrestling Woman who doesn’t take shit from her husband and she routinely slaps, body slams, and wrestles him to the ground whenever he gets out of line.  We know nowadays that domestic abuse in any form is no laughing matter, but these scenes are still pretty funny, and I’m sure it had them rolling in the aisles back in ’65.

Since the plot revolves around a wrestling tournament, that means there’s a lot of wrestling this time around, so that’s a plus.  In addition to the EIGHT matches (the final match is rather rousing), there are lots of scenes of the women practicing wrestling in their spare time.  I liked these moments because it showed the women’s work ethic.  You don’t become a Wrestling Woman overnight.  It takes practice.  

Even though She-Wolves of the Ring is the least of the series, it remains thoroughly watchable thanks to the presence of the two leads.  Unfortunately, Velazquez is saddled with a terrible wig in this one, but that’s only so her hair will match her obvious stunt double during the wrestling matches.  Campbell gets to vamp it up for all she’s worth and even manages to steal a few scenes this time out.  Fans of Velazquez and Campbell (and Mexican wrestling in general) will find something to enjoy, but fans of their horror-tinged efforts will likely be disappointed.

OPERATION 67 (1967) *** ½

I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but by the looks of things, Operation 67 is El Santo’s biggest budgeted movie of all time.  In most of his films, when he plays secret agent, it often looks like a poor man’s James Bond.  This is about as close to the look and scope of the official 007 series as you can get for a Mexican wrestling flick.  It would put many of the American and Italian Bond rip-offs of the era to shame.  

The opening is a little longwinded, but it’s a surprisingly strong and semi-plausible set-up (for a Bond knockoff).  The head of an evil international crime syndicate tasks his right-hand woman (the sultry Elizabeth Campbell) with an ingenious plan:  First, they swap out printing plates from the Mint with counterfeit ones.  Then, they print a mess of money, invest it, and watch it grow.  They let the Mint keep printing money, before eventually revealing that they’ve been printing counterfeits the whole time, thereby simultaneously crashing the economy, and increasing the organization’s assets exponentially.  Interpol calls in El Santo and his partner, Jorge Rivero to stop the insidious plot.  

Directors Rene Cardona Sr. and Rene Cardona Jr. (who would go on to direct the sequel, The Treasure of Montezuma the following year) do a good job at aping the look of the Bond series.  Naturally, since this contains Mexican wrestling, it’s automatically better than about half the legitimate Bond flicks.  The action is much bigger than your typical El Santo adventure.  The sequence where Rivero is chased in his sportscar by an airplane equipped with machine guns is first rate.  He also handles himself nicely during a lengthy and brutal hotel room fight against an assassin brandishing a cane that doubles as a sword.  Speaking of gadgets, Rivero uses a cigarette that acts as a motion detector and of course, El Santo gets to drive around in a car loaded with weapons (like a flamethrower).  Another cool gadget is a literal shotgun microphone.  I love it.

Even the usual elements of an El Santo movie are played up to cartoonish heights.  Take for instance his crime lab.  No longer is he content with your basic sub-Batcave set-up.  Now, El Santo has an enormous missile silo lair that would be worthy of a Bond villain.  

I also enjoyed the little touches that you only get from an El Santo movie.  Like when El Santo and Jorge first get debriefed on their mission.  What do they do?  Do they spring into action?  Hell, no!  Jorge goes to watch a stripper and El Santo heads straight to the wrestling auditorium for a match!  You’ve got to love it.  The second wrestling match is cut short for an ingenious reason:  Campbell has the lighting fixtures above the ring cut and the lights come crashing down.  Luckily, El Santo jumps out of the way in the nick of time.  Sure, you’ve seen plenty of luchador movies before, but have you seen one that rips off Thunderball AND The Phantom of the Opera?  I don’t think so.  

It should also be noted that while this isn’t one of the “hot” versions of an El Santo movie (versions that added in nudity for foreign markets), the Asian-inspired striptease sequence does feature a fair amount of nudity, which is certainly noteworthy.