Broken Bars (1995)

Broken Bars (1995)- * *

Directed by: Tom Neuwirth

Starring: Benjamin Kobby, Joe Estevez, Donald Gibb, and Wings Hauser








At Trabuco Federal Prison in Los Angeles, bad stuff is goin' down. A corrupt warden named Pitt (Wings) forces the inmates to Punchfight for his own amusement. If they agree to do this, he rewards them with in-cell delivery of prostitutes, strippers, drugs, and, presumably, cigarettes. He's helped along in all of this by his C.O./henchman, Mr. Jake (Gibb). If anyone disobeys Pitt in any way - including refusing to Punchfight - he spikes their heroin with poison and tosses them away.

Wanting to get to the bottom of the goings-on in Trabuco, Jack Dillon (Estevez) of the F.A.C.T. special ops division (don't ask what it stands for, as it was never said...or if it was, we missed it) sends in his best man: Nick Slater (Kobby). The taciturn Slater then proceeds to either fight or make friends with a series of stereotypes...er...I mean, inmates, until the eventual final showdown with Pitt. Won't anyone reform our criminal justice system?

Broken Bars is nothing if not a parade of men with questionable hair punching the snot out of each other. If that's what you're after (and why wouldn't you be?) then this is the movie for you. An alarming amount of the prison population in 'Bars is ponytailed and shirtless. Or some combination thereof. There are more ponytails per capita in this movie than in an episode of My Little Pony.

All that being said, Broken Bars follows the prison-Punchfighter template pretty much to the letter with no surprises in store. Bloodfist III (1992), Death Warrant (1990) and In Hell (2003) are classic examples. Van Damme is usually involved in some way.

Wings, as he usually does, brings a lot of charisma and command to his performance, and he tries mightily to save an otherwise bog-standard outing, as our friends from the UK might say. With his military uniform and close-cropped blonde hair, he really made us see how much he looks like Guile from Street Fighter. Surely not coincidentally, that's yet another Van Damme connection. 

Fan favorite Donald Gibb also stands out as a cast member who is trying. But, as Death Warrant had a clear-cut evil baddie like The Sandman, and Broken Bars has no such character, it starts to flounder a bit without that focus.

The production company Gun For Hire was behind both this and Enter The Blood Ring (1995), and we noticed some similarities between the two films. Both starred Benjamin Kobby and both featured a ringleader character of some sort who sits in a chair and watches people punchfight. 

In this case it's Wings Hauser, in the other film it's Robert Z'Dar. Evidently, the people at GFH thought this was an incredibly winning formula, but as it turned out, Broken Bars and Enter The Blood Ring are two of the rarest Punchfighters of the 90's. 'Bars barely eked out a VHS release here in America on the York Entertainment label. 1995 was a banner year for Gun For Hire, though.

It's all very much like an episode of Renegade - a ponytailed hero rides into our lives on his motorcycle while blues guitar wails on the soundtrack. There's also the Prerequisite Torture of the hero, among other clichés we all know and love. We do credit the filmmakers for adding some gratuitous female nudity, because without that, we'd be looking at an all-male cast for 95 minutes, and they must have figured that wouldn't go over well with what is probably an all-male viewership.

Broken Bars certainly won't win any points for originality (except maybe for the title, which we're still trying to figure out), but as a semi-lost video store artifact, it has some value. The only problem is that it struggles to hold our full interest for the entire running time. Those two factors pendulumed back and forth for us, as it surely will for you too.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Bloodfist VII: Manhunt (1995)

Bloodfist VII: Manhunt (1995) - * *1\2

Directed by: Jonathan Winfrey 

Starring: Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Jillian McWhirter, Eb Lottimer, Rick Dean, and Steven Williams

Jim Trudell (Don) is a mysterious drifter who wanders into a local biker bar. After being harassed by the clientele, naturally a barfight ensues and Stephanie Williams (McWhirter) is impressed. She leaves with Jim and they get a hotel room for the night. When he wakes up, she's gone, as is his car. Surely frustrated as all get-out, he goes to L.A. to try to track her down, but soon gets accidentally embroiled in the nefarious schemes of the baddies. With Captain Doyle (Williams) hot on Jim's trail, along with certain other less-savory members of the force, Jim has to summon all of his "particular set of skills" to survive on the streets until he can clear his name. With the police, the FBI, and gangs of toughs all out for Trudell's blood, will he ever survive the MANHUNT?

The cops have a stand-up Neo-Geo arcade game in their break room. Dude! The cops have a stand-up Neo-Geo arcade game in their break room. In 1995. That must have cost like ten thousand dollars. I really want to join the LAPD. They’re not just fighting crime – they’re Virtua fighting crime.

So, Don is on the run and it's nothing at all like The Fugitive (1993). No similarities whatsoever. Never mind that it was a recent box-office hit and that the Corman factory made it their business to do low-budget versions of big Hollywood blockbusters. What we all need to realize is that Don is his own man. In this case, he's being hunted. Hence, Manhunt. 

Like most of the later Bloodfist sequels, this is really its own movie and not connected to any of the others. It was also released as simply Manhunt, which makes more sense as there's no underground fighting that the Bloodfist appellation would indicate. When the fights do occur, they're a lot of fun to watch, but they're more few and far between than you might think. The scene in the park is a standout, with Don shooting guys with wildly colorful shirts with a machine gun. There should have been more scenes like this one.

But it's not all punching and roundhouse kicks to the head. There's a serious message here as well. For a while, Trudell has to hide out in a dumpster. Apparently he's there for a long period of time, until the guy taking out the trash shoos him away, calling him a drug addict. It really shows the plight of our nation's homeless. Then more face-kicking swiftly ensues.

Steven Williams plays Captain Fuller -- sorry, Captain Doyle, and he's a much better than average BYC. For one thing, he's not trapped behind his desk like most of the others are. He's out on the street in the manhunt for Trudell. Stephen Quadros, unrecognizable here as the guy from Shock 'Em Dead (1991) even though it was only a few years before this, plays not just another guy with a snappy wardrobe. He looks a lot like Kevin Bacon this time around. We've heard of fakin' bacon, but this is ridiculous. There are a lot of other B-Movie names on display, such as Eb Lottimer, Rick Dean, and Jillian McWhirter, who did a lot of low-budget action movies in her day, notably Last Man Standing (1995).

Director Jonathan Winfrey (presumably no relation to Oprah) was hot off of one of our favorite titles - but not one of our favorite movies - Excessive Force II: Force On Force (1995). He does a competent job, and, like most Corman movies, the running time is on the shorter side. Meaning there isn't really time to get truly bored, but a bit more action and a bit less running around might have helped things a bit.

On the brighter side, the soundtrack is a standout, ranging from hard rock to funk, but there are no credits saying who did the songs. There are no Bloodfist soundtrack albums as of this writing, but someone should at least compile a "Best of Bloodfist" for those that enjoy the music from the series. I think collectors would appreciate that.


In the end, Bloodfist VII: Manhunt is enjoyable enough, but it isn't really exceptional in any way. There are enough decent moments to keep it afloat, but don't go in expecting fireworks.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out write-ups from our buddies, The Video Vacuum, Cool Target and DTVC!