Action USA

One of the many cheap action movies to come out in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This film is in the territory for MST3K, but despite the hilarious acting, editing, and camerawork, we are treated to a nice series of car chases with over-the-top stunt work. The story-line follows two FBI agents (very Riggs and Murtaugh-esque) assigned to protect a murdered drug dealer's girlfriend from thugs and run into trouble from every direction. With cheesy performances by Cameron Mitchell, Ross Hagen, Hoke Howell, and William Smith (!), you can't go wrong with this.

Director John Stewart should be given a medal. Not only does he play off of every stereotype known to the action genre, but he redefines ridiculous car chases and explosions-for-the-sake-of-them. ‘Action U.S.A.' is a must see for any action fan, and an even muster see for any fan of B-action movies that make you laugh. Where else can you see a house blow up because a car ran through it (without the car being damaged)? From beginning to end this movie will make you laugh, and laugh a lot. Stay far away if you're not a fan of cheesy acting and irrational plot structures, however, as this movie carries them in spades. For those of you whom this sounds even remotely interesting to, go out of your way to find it: I guarantee you will not regret it. Rating: 26/40

Millions of years of evolution have lead to the accidental making of this movie,a vast wet tapestry of human relationships through out history connecting each of us to one another, and also this movie. Does stuff get blown up? Stuff does. Is it possible to film a whole movie along one greasy state road in Texas? Oh yes. With poverty being so rampant through out the world is there enough money to make this movie? Again, yes. No starving child was fed so that this movie might dance before your eyes as some flickering light upon a cave wall. A screenplay was purchased with money, and from those words captured in ink, this movie was born. Yes, there is a car chase and yes there is nudity.

If there is ever a film that lives up to its title, it is this one. There is lots of action and it is filmed in the U.S.A. (the title on the clapper in the end credits is A HANDFUL OF TROUBLE). Director John Stewart can't go ten minutes without staging some crazy action scene. It is weird though as his film unfolds almost in reverse as the biggest action scenes take place in the opening twenty minutes. Not that the film's finale is a let down, it just doesn't have the huge explosions and insane car jumps that the first 20 minutes display. You know you are in for a good time when the opening credits list Cameron Mitchell (who was obviously shot separately from everyone else), William Smith and Ross Hagan in succession.

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the movie on Imperial Entertainment video cassette.

"Action U. S. A.", originally called "A Handful of Trouble", is an above-average chase picture headed direct-to-video in American stores this month.

Thi is an excellent example of the type of escapist fun that packed drive-in theaters as recently as a decade ago but is now without a natural home. Title change to a generic moniker reflects the pic's aim toward foreign audiences.

Unusual heroine Barri Murphy (not afraid to the her hair mussed up in the action) stars as Carmen, on the run from gangsters when her boyfriend (Rod Shaft, a good handle for a car-pic thesp) is rubbed out for stealing diamonds and she's a witness.

Chase format involves topnotch stunts, with cars frequently flying through the air and luxury cars demolished. Solid teaming of Gregory Scott Cummins and William Hubbard Knight as a pair of FBI men protecting Murphy adds flesh to the streamlined Texas-lensed opus.