Rapid Fire (1989)

Rapid Fire (1989)- * * *

Directed by: David A. Prior

Starring: Joe Spinell, Douglas Harter, Dawn Tanner, Ron Waldron, Michael Wayne, and Del Zamora











When the evil terrorist Mustapha Ahmed (Zamora) and his sidekick Eddy Williams (Wayne) escape military imprisonment and steal a high-tech, high-powered gun (See cover on the left), all hell breaks loose. Hansen (Spinell) calls in his best agent, a man named Mike Thompson (Waldron) to bring Ahmed and Williams to justice. 

Thompson initially balks at the assignment, but when he sees his chance to get revenge against Williams - who he served with in Vietnam (?) and who wronged him then - Thompson jumps at the chance. To complete his mission he teams up with Corie Parker (Tanner, whose only other credit is fellow AIP vehicle Center of the Web), a pretty government agent, as well as Pappy, a not-so-pretty mercenary with a larger than life personality and joie d’vivre. Will the three heroes rise to the occasion and stop the baddies? Find out today...

1989. Will the wonders birthed in that magical year never cease to issue forth? Here, the classic AIP team of David A. Prior, William Zipp and David Winters bring us Rapid Fire, not to be confused with Rapid Fire (1992). This Rapid Fire stars not Brandon Lee, but one Ron Waldron as Mike Thompson. Somehow, we can see the excitement on your faces. Waldron tries for Clint Eastwood in his speech and mannerisms, but comes off as a confused cross between David Heavener and Robert Hays (both no strangers to AIP, interestingly. Prior must have a type he’s looking for). 

He almost gets into a barfight in perhaps the same bar as seen in Hell on the Battleground (1989). Thompson has a truck named Rollin’ Thunder, and, as if that wasn’t enough, his license plate is “FLEX”. His vehicle contains a lot of text. But even with all that firepower, he can’t compare to Pappy.

Unquestionably, Douglas Harter as Pappy steals the movie. It obviously belongs to him. A longtime AIP mainstay, here he finally gets some time in the sun, and he clearly relishes it. Luckily, so does the audience. Pappy is a large, robust man who is bald but has a long beard. He’s usually wearing sunglasses and smokes cigars. His favorite activity is hanging out in his pool, drinking cans of Miller Lite while surrounded by bikini-clad babes. He has great taste in casualwear, and he doesn’t take life too seriously. Yet, he always gets the job done and you can depend on him. We really grew to love Pappy. There needs to be more people like him not just in movies, but in real life.

Countering the ebullience of Pappy, there is a sad undercurrent to Rapid Fire, as it was fan favorite Joe Spinell’s last movie. There are credits honoring his memory both before and after the film. Unlike Operation Warzone (1988), he does stand up here, so it’s not solely a sit-down role, thankfully. Spinell was a great talent and will surely be missed. He brought uniqueness, life, and interest to every role he played. It truly is a shame he left us before his time.

But back to the silliness at hand, the main baddie, Williams, resembles noted pervert and scumbag Anthony Weiner. At least towards the beginning of the movie. Somehow, after repeated flashbacks and paranoid dream sequences, he goes more towards the Heavener side of things, confusingly, just like our hero Mike Thompson. I guess the Heavener look was big back in ‘89.

As usual with AIP, it seems a lot of time and care went into the music. The great Steve McClintock handles it once again, and he delivers some radio-ready songs that were as good as any of the hits of the day. His “C’Mon (My Hometown)” out John Cougar Mellencamps John Cougar Mellencamp, and Bob Harvey’s “The Shack”, well...it out Bob Segers Bob Seger. The songs enrich the movie and ignore the low budget. Sure, there’s a lot of shooting, car stunts, Prerequisite Torture of the hero and whatnot, and even the heartbreaking passing  of Joe Spinell, but we can always go back to “My Hometown”. That seems to be the message, and it seems to fit.

Featuring a very bizarre, totally out-of-left-field denouement, Rapid Fire is more AIP madness you have to love and enjoy.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty 

Heat Street (1987)

Heat Street (1987)-* * *

Directed by: Joesph Merhi

Starring: Del Zamora and Quincy Adams Jr.













Virgil (Adams Jr.) is a boxer who is nearing the end of his career. He’s mainly a trainer now, working at the boxing gym. He’s going through a wistful period in his life, and these nostalgic days are rudely interrupted when the local street gangs assault his daughter. Blake (Zamora) is a repo man who has at least one relative in one of the gangs, and knows the gang scene fairly well. Blake has a good job and a loving wife, and wants to eradicate the gang problem currently plaguing their California town. When the unlikely pair of Virgil and Blake team up to tackle the thuggery, the concrete will become HEAT STREET!

Not to be confused with Beat Street (1984), Heat Street is another City Lights production (for those who don’t know, it was the pre-PM company of Pepin and Merhi). Like other City Lights movies, here the P and the M were still finding their way in the world of action. It’s interesting to see the formative stages of what would become the leader in DTV action movies. So they were finding their way in the world, and what others may see as amateurish, we see as the beginnings of the PM empire.

Also their obsession with repo men continues (or, rather, starts, as Chance and Repo Jake came later). Pepin and Merhi were ahead of their time - now there are about 12 reality shows about repo people. The movie opens with what you might call “profiles in weirdness”, as the bizarrely hairstyled and dressed gang members pose for glamour shots. That’s how you know these people are in gangs. Because they dress like rejects from The Warriors (1979). One of their modes of attack is “Bikefighting”, something later expounded upon and improved in later PM’s.

Our TRUE sixth President, Quincy Adams Jr., plays the Black boxer with a lot of pride. Most of his lines are spoken with a nearly-impossible-to-hear mumble that really won our respect. I mean, if you’re an actor who has only been in a scant few projects, and you don’t make the slightest effort so the audience can hear your voice, you must be a confirmed badass who honestly doesn’t care what you think about him. Our hat goes off to  you, Quincy Adams Jr. You really should have been in more stuff.  His counterpoint, Del Zamora, has been in countless projects and really made a nice career for himself. But here he just barely holds his own with QAJr. But it’s not Zamora’s fault, he does his best, it’s just that QAJr. is a force to be reckoned with.

There’s the time-honored poolhall brawl, and the not-so-time-honored “scene where four people around a dinner table ALL take turns reading their fortune cookies”.  Well, you can’t have a boxing movie, or a boxing match, without some padding. There are elements in Heat Street of both The Hitter (1979) and Cold Justice (1989), and as a film, it falls, quality wise, somewhere in between the two.

If you’re already familiar with that City Lights style, do check out Heat Street if you can find it. If not...well, check it out anyway as an example of the vibrant days of the video store, when shelves were chock full of material just waiting to be put in your VCR to be taken a chance on.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Fresh Kill (1987)

Fresh Kill (1987)-* *1\2

Directed by: Joesph Merhi

Starring: Flint Keller, Del Zamora, Pamela Dixon, Ron Preston, Tricia Parks, and Robert Z'Dar













Allen Chester (Keller) is an aspiring actor who moves from his hometown of Chicago to Hollywood to pursue his dream. While he works on breaking into the movie biz, he works at a butcher shop. His co-worker is blonde weirdo Carter (Preston) who assesses his work performance by how many times he sneezes in people’s meat purchases. One night while waiting until midnight for the meat truck to arrive (is this common practice?), a mysterious woman pops into the shop and asks for Allen’s help. Her name is Leona Alexander (Parks), and it seems she’s trying to escape the clutches of criminal overlord Manny (Z’Dar). After accidentally killing some goons, the pair go on the run. Manny is especially mad because he believes Leona has two million dollars worth of his money and drugs. Meanwhile, Allen and Leona work through their mistrust issues and form a bond. Eventually Allen, Carter and a friend of theirs who is a street swindler act as makeshift mercenaries and stage a raid on Manny’s compound. Who will then become the FRESH KILL?

Fresh Kill is one of the better City Lights titles we’ve seen in terms of quality of acting, and technically as well it’s an improvement over past efforts. As we’ve discussed before, we find something inexplicably alluring about City Lights movies, and despite no-nothings bashing some of the more amateurish aspects of their output, we’ve seen almost all of them as of the time of this writing. Many of the CL regulars are in front of and behind the camera, and John Gonzales’ score is one of his best and helps the movie a lot.

Flint Keller as Allen Chester (or is it Allen Chester as Flint Keller?) is actually a likable main character, as opposed to the unlikable central characters in City Lights’ Mayhem (1986). He even goes through a character arc. Like Allen Chester, The Flintster should have done more in his acting career. Another draw for this movie is the presence of the great Robert Z’Dar. It was an early role and he looks svelte. Better things were yet to come in his career, but he does add a lot here. Also adding to the strength of the cast is Steve Welles as Mike, who runs an airplane hanger. This man is an American hero, as well as an American treasure.

Besides Mike, Fresh Kill is filled with odd characters and off-kilter situations. This comes through in the scene when Allen and Leona go to hide out at Leona’s mother’s house, and she and her mother smoke a pipe while the three of them watch torture porn. It seems pretty awkward for Allen. And the way writer/director Joseph Merhi depicts L.A. as crime-ridden, even lawless is also very entertaining. Merhi once again seems influenced by the classic Film Noir era - but Fresh Kill was shot during the L.A. big hair era. The mashup is amusing. And while the film does get a bit boring before the climax (a very common problem), there is also some over-the-top violence to keep things afloat.

Featuring the pounding song “Lost In the City“ by Gonzales (sung by Paul Shortino) - not to be confused with L.A. Crackdown II‘s “Lost In the Night”(doesn’t every City Lights movie have a song like this?), we want to know when a CD is coming out of all these songs. After all, this one is a movie highlight, and even plays during the first couple of scenes in the movie! Also it should be noted that there is a trailer for Heat Street after the movie. Fresh Kill remains one of the better gems in the tennis bracelet that is the City Lights Canon. It probably won’t be to everyone’s taste, but there are those of you out there who will want to check it out, if only for Robert Z’Dar. You know who you are. Flint Keller, we hardly knew ye.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty