2020 - Texas Gladiators

My review was written in November 1985 after watching the film on Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

"2020 Texas Gladiators" is an incomprehensible action pic, made during the 1982-83 boom in Italian takeoffs on "Mad Max" and similar films. New Line Cinema mulled a theatrical release last year (under new title "Sudden Death") for this item from Helen Sarlui's Continental Motion Pictures banner, but instead it is going direct to home video by MHE release.

Absent any Texas location establishing footage, this made-in-Rome property opens with a telltale scene of post-nuclear war marauders attacking a priest and nuns. A group of "rangers" (our heroes) defeat the baddies, but one ranger Catch Dog (Daniel Stephen) tries to rape heroine Maida (Sabrina Siani) and is banished from their group by nominal leader Nisus (Al Cliver).

Without any exposition, next sequence is apparently several years later, with Nisus working at a petroleum refinery and Maida taking care of a cute little girl (revealed to be her daughter several reels later). Catch Dog shows up leading a bunch of marauders on 250-cc. Motorcycles, riot police arrive in a battletruck and are protected by bullet-repelling thermal shields, and a Nazi-styled leader named Black One (Donal O'Brien) tries to set up a new order.

Though action sequences are directed adequately, film totally lacks connective tissue and makes no sense whatsoever. Only laughs are provided by guys dressed up like cowboys, wielding whips presumably left over from the 1960s pasta oaters craze, and very fake Indians riding to the rescue. In a shaggy dog joke, Catch Dog carries around a weird-looking, multi-barreled prop gun, which he finally tries to shoot in the final reel -it doesn't work, so he tosses it away in disgust unfired.

Multinational cast is okay, with ubiquitous leading lady Sabrina Siani styled to resemble Daryl Hannah this time out.

The first 10 minutes takes place over at least 5 years, but you wouldn't know that if you weren't paying attention. Which you don't really need to do, because this plot is all over the place. And by all over the place, I mean everywhere but in this movie.

If you are a fan of Italian post-apocalypse movies, this will be familiar. It's not a good as most of them; the stunts are okay, the vehicles are pretty tame, the action is mediocre, and the typical nudity is sub-par. Other than that, it's a good movie to have on while doing something else. No scene stands out, the acting is what you'd expect, and the soundtrack is forgettable.

But you still need to watch it if you're a fan on the genre.

I found Texas Gladiators (the english version) to be an excellent source of entertainment, but only because it was a piece of purile rubbish. The fact it was made in 1982 only heightens my abhoration of the costumes, which if the words "typical 80's bad guy" do not sum up I don't know what does.

From big things like the absence of a script and/or plot to the little things like labeling a 44-gallon drum with the word "DINAMITE", this film (if we can call it such) made me glad one of my friends paid the rental fee.

Luckily we rented this video in the frame of mind of looking for the worst movie we could find, and I believe we attained that goal in renting Texas Gladiators.

The year is 2020.

The place is Texas.

The setting is the aftermath of the great nuclear war that devastated everything. In this new environment, man has deteriorated to the level of beast.

The opening scene is the carnage at a "church" (which looks like a deserted warehouse with a cross, a statue, a priest dressed in all red and two nuns). Apparently these savage men (they look prehistoric) are attacking. The priest is being assaulted and nailed to a cross, while the nuns are being raped and ravaged. In the midst of this (after enough watching) our 5 Texas Gladiators appear and kill everyone who isn't a priest or nun. One of the Gladiators, Catch Dog, rapes(I'm not sure if he's successful. It looks like no to me, but the others are sure he has.) a young girl (Maida - Sabrina Siani) he's found. The other Gladiators take offense to this and dishonorably discharge him into the desert. Apparently they have a strict moral code and go around the wastelands enforcing their own brand of justice.

We are then thrust into the future, where one of the remaining four (Nisus - Al Cliver) has joined Maida at this research facility where they are developing their own power supply. Apparently they have a daughter as well. Not sure when this happened. Time sure flies in the future. No wonder that gold watch is so coveted. Catch Dog then shows up with a whole bunch of guys on motorcycle and they attack the compound. Think of the Road Warrior, except change from gas to nuclear, and make everything really crappy looking. This is then followed up by Catch Dog's ally showing up in an old, beat up truck all painted black. Of course I mean Donald O'Brien and his brown jumpsuit paratroopers (they all wear black motorcycle helmets and have these giant shields with holes in them). These guys have "modern" weapons and decimate the entire facility. After, Maida gets raped yet again, Nisus is killed and we are transported, without warning, into the future again.

The director, having stolen every cliché from every post-modern-cataclysm movie, begins to steal from other genres (a.k.a. - The Deer Hunter). We are now in a bar, playing Russian roulette. This is not a Christopher Walken moment. It is actually pretty dull and laughable by comparison. Anyway, it turns out Maida is now the property of this gambler. The remaining 3 Gladiators turn their attention to him, when they discover he has one of their "amulets" (its just a circular pendant with a 5 on it.... it could be a nickle with a hole in it for all we care). They win and get the girl, but two are sent off to a hard labor mine for causing so much trouble. The third rescues them and somehow Maida becomes the fourth honorary member of the group. She seeks revenge and the plan becomes to take down Catch Dog and the Black One (a.k.a - Donald's O'Brien's impersonation of a bald, crazy SS officer).

This movie is ridiculous on so many levels. Continuity, plot, transition, sets, props, costumes are all meaningless. This is an Italian rip off of something. This is like 2019 : After the Fall of New York, except that was actually not bad. Maybe this was the sequel to that ??

Anyway, this movie is horrible. Its so bad, one can't stop laughing. The sets consist of filming in rock quarries, mines, abandoned factories/warehouses and the woods. The props all look like something that was left behind in Italy after the Nazi's were defeated. Did anyone notice the Gradius video game in the bar ? All the actors and stunt people got their 2 day course diploma from the William Shatner School of Acting and Fighting. We also get a lot of travel time (think Manos : The Hands of Fate). We get to see a lot of going somewhere, either by walking, running or driving. What is nice is Sabrina Siani. She was very hot. She gets plenty of screen time (this includes her numerous rape scenes) and a lot of running is involved. If one was careful enough and seen many of these Italian knock-offs, one might notice the familiar breasts. Yes, thats right. She's the body of Ocran, from Lucio Fulci's Conquest.

The movie is not quite as smooth as 2019, but it has it's own moments. It is quite silly (especially at the end when it turns into a western) and definitely worth watching if you've got time and laughs to spare, or if you're looking for something to cheer you up. To sum it up in one idea : the director, Joe' D'Amato, is responsible for giving us Ator the Invincible (Miles O'Brien !!! NO! NO! NOOOOOO !!!!).

Joe D'Amato, mostly known for his sleazy and downright nauseating horror flicks like "Buried Alive", "Anthropophagus" and "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals", joins his contemporary Italian colleagues in making over- the-top cheesy and ridiculous post-nuclear Science Fiction movies! The trend started elsewhere, mostly with the Australian "Mad Max" and John Carpenter's "Escape from New York", but the Italians exploited the success of these films shamelessly and endlessly! Lucio Fulci had "The New Gladiators", Sergio Martino had "After the Fall of New York", Ruggero Deodato had "Atlantis Interceptors", Enzo G. Castellari had "The Bronx Warriors" and our good pal Joe D'Amato has both "Endgame" and this "2020 – The Texas Gladiators". It's a deliciously cheesy hodgepodge of semi-processed ideas and blatantly stolen sequences from other movies, and if you're a fan of this sort of trash, you're guaranteed to love it in spite of all the awfulness.

The movie starts, as to be expected, as a bunch of chaos! Texas is entirely destroyed by nuclear warfare and hoodlum gangs randomly run amok in the streets. Luckily there's a quintet of courageous beefcake warriors parading around to protect the weaklings. During a fight in a monastery (there's a nun who cuts her own throat … TWICE!), one of them is banished for trying to rape a girl and another one leaves voluntary to marry and live in a community that tries to rebuild civilization. The evil Nazi-inspired Black One violently invades this community, however, and makes a widow out of the warrior's wife. The tree remaining buddies pick up the girl in a sleazy bar and decide to help her in defeating Black One and his evil lieutenant, who's also an old acquaintance of them. Mind you, this is just a very brief and shortened plot description. There's a whole lot more going on in "2020 – Texas Gladiators". Too much to mention, actually, as there are authentic traditional Indians, enslaved mine workers, Russian roulette sequences that are stolen straight from "The Deer Hunter", Nazis with amours of steel and one tremendously cool Asian fighting expert!

Unless, of course, you have no idea what the early 80's Italian rip- off/exploitation business is all about, you simply cannot dislike "2020 – Texas Gladiators". Whilst slightly less outrageous and entertaining as "Endgame", this is another over-the-top flamboyant smörgåsbord of sleaze and violence. Donald O'Brien is fantastically stereotypical, in a totally deliberate fashion, and the battle sequences are hysterical. Imagine: hi-tech weapons can't perpetrate through the armor of the Nazi soldiers, but old-fashioned Indians with their primitive arrows and spears wipe them out in a matter of seconds! D'Amato's film is full of similar nonsense like this, and more. A real treat for demented exploitation dorks, like myself.