Deadly Ransom (1998)

Deadly Ransom (1998)- *1\2

Directed by: Robert Hyatt

Starring: Loren Avedon, Lisa Crosato, Francesco Quinn, J.J. Perry, and Brion James












Max Lightener (Avedon) is a Navy Lieutenant, used to staging raids with his strike team. When his fiancé, Jackie (Crosato) is kidnapped, he teams up with a guy named Luis (Quinn) and snaps into action. It turns out the main baddie behind the kidnapping is a drug-doing no-goodnik named Bobby Rico (James). Faced with such an opponent, Lightener later calls in the assistance of his strike team so he can initiate “Operation Shadow”, i.e., get his girlfriend back. Also Lightener supposedly has some precognitive abilities a la Michael Pare in Blink of an Eye (1992), but that’s not developed very well. Will Lightener strike like lightning or lighten his load?

Okay, let’s start with some positives. (There aren’t many, so don’t get comfortable). In an apples-to-apples comparison (or should we say Avedon-to-Avedon comparison?), Deadly Ransom is better than the other Avedon-produced film, The Silent Force (2001).  While it does have a similar feel, which makes sense, Deadly Ransom has some funny knife-throws, an exploding helicopter which looks like it was lifted from some other source, Avedon shoots people while sliding down a rope like an angry, full-grown gentleman invading a DZ Discovery Zone, and one member of his strike force looks like noted pervert Anthony Weiner. This calls into question the effectiveness of his strike force. The movie contains shooting, blow-ups, and some silly fights. It's lit well.

There. Now that we’ve front-loaded what positive attributes we could scrape together out of the movie’s 97 minutes (including the end credits), here are the problems. Avedon remains unlikable. It’s hard for the audience to get behind his mission because we simply don’t like him very much. You can tell he produced the movie because there are multiple scenes of his face. Evidently he believes his face is so powerful it can stop a sniper’s bullet. As we all remember, Avedon played an evil kickboxer that fought David Hasselhoff in a classic episode of Baywatch entitled “Kicks”. THAT should have been a full-length feature instead of Deadly Ransom. Avedon should have realized that.

The tone of Deadly Ransom just feels off, and there’s no character development. Just a smidgen of depth to the characters - we don’t ask for much - would have gone a long way here. That is replaced by bickering between Avedon and Quinn, which is always a bad shortcut. When they’re not bickering, they’re training shirtlessly in the desert. Yay. Proving that the movie is straight-up racist, instead of dying by knife-throws like everybody else, when they kill a Native American, they throw a tomahawk at his head. Presumably they don’t know the meaning of the word “subtlety”. You don’t need to prove a cultural point with your choice of weaponry.

Despite the presence of an automated tank that looks like it has a smiley face, Deadly Ransom just doesn’t engage the audience. Is it really even that different from Mike Norris extravaganza Survival Game (1987) - just another Kidnap Slog? Sadly the answer is no, and it’s hard to imagine video store patrons consciously choosing Deadly Ransom at their local video store in 1998, or at any other time. Even the great Brion James can’t save it, and that’s not a good sign. It all feels kind of junky and trivial, and really shouldn’t go on anybody’s must-see list.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty 

Indio (1989)

Indio (1989)-* * *

Directed by: Antonio Margherti

Starring: "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler, Francesco Quinn, and Brian Dennehy












Somewhere deep in the jungles of South America (the film was shot in Argentina, Borneo, Brazil and the Philippines) a businessman named Whytaker (Dennehy) is disrupting the local indigenous population and bulldozing their huts attempting to get to a mine. When it spirals out of control and people start dying, Daniel Morell (Quinn) gets involved. Morell is the son of an “Indio” chief and an American woman. Just how that odd couple got together is never explained. 

Morell just happens to be a highly-trained Marine, and when he goes into “fight” mode, he whips off his shirt, dons some war paint and feathers, and begins making life miserable for Whytaker and his team. So Whytaker brings Morell’s old Marine instructor, Jake (Marvelous) (he legally changed his name to Marvelous) to the remote location in the hopes that he can stop Morell. That’s really just the beginning of the showdown in the jungle. What will happen?

Indio is one of the better jungle films we’ve seen to date. We won’t call it a Jungle Slog, because there’s really nothing sloggy about it. Of course it’s Italian-made and directed by the great Antonio Margheriti, and by ‘89 the Italian obsession with jungle-set movies had led them to make more mainstream jungle fare, having gotten the gore and weirdness out of their system with items like Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Jungle Holocaust (1977). So it was back to the jungle again, but this time a wider audience can appreciate the not at all First Blood (1982)-like stylings of Indio. The presence of Brian Dennehy in First Blood and Indio is surely a coincidence...

Of course, as soon as the movie started we were on Marvelous Marvin Hagler watch, and he doesn’t appear until 44 minutes into the film. But once he appears, things improve. And they weren’t even bad to begin with. As Jake, the Vietnam vet who is adept at playing the pan flute like an angrier, tougher Zamfir, Marvelous steals the show. 

Of course, it’s hard to match Brian Dennehy, who always delivers. He even says the classic line “We got company!” in the first five minutes. Just why Whytaker’s company is out in the middle of the jungle, and why a local Indio can join the U.S. Marines, may seem confusing at first, but eventually everything falls into place. The plot, the structure, and the fact that everyone is always calling Morell “Half-breed” will remind viewers of the Fabrizio De Angelis-directed Thunder trilogy.

Morell (played by Olivier Gruner lookalike Quinn) pretty much does what MacGyver would do if he were trapped on Gilligan’s Island: he makes bombs from coconuts and other weapons out of jungle items. He’s also handy with a blow gun, and thanks to one of our favorite things, repeated footage, we get to see him aim his bamboo stick at us, the audience, more than once. 

There’s also repeated footage of bulldozers taking down huts. None really explode, but there are some other things that blow up, including a helicopter. There are also the classic waterfall shots, shirtless natives, and machine gun shooting we all know and love. But Margheriti and the cast make it all work on a level that improves upon all the jungle flicks that came before it.

While it could have used a song, that’s really our only minor quibble with Indio, which remains one of the best jungle outings we’ve seen to date. No wonder there’s a sequel.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett