Coldfire

This Hauser vehicle, no doubt directed by the master himself, who had already brought out the entertaining and sick "The Art Of Dying", has brought another entertaining flick, surprisingly long but surprisingly entertaining. There are some unintentional laughs and a nice set of bouncing boobies, near it's start, but on the whole, this not bad so cop drama, being a little amateurish at times (hey, but that's what makes B movies fun) may give you a high, as is the new killer drug represented by the movie. Hauser also starring, is right where we want him, a veteran cop, again cool and likable. We've have two young rookies, stealing the limelight, one a kind of William Baldwin lookalike, who starred, by not for long, in the other Hauser vehicle. He's a real smart arse, cocky, and very likable, where his Latino partner and buddy, a more serious cop, is showing a lot of potential in the department, and doesn't want to be brought down by his sidekick. These two provide most of the laughs in the flick. Violence is occasional here, if very seldom, but effective, an early scene seeing one cop who I really liked it, lose it. Even the best stress. It's our nice little unit of likable cops, versus the real nasty baddies in a b grade, which can only be described as bl..dy entertaining, and not bad, especially as the movie progresses. This one actually surprised me to be honest, where we spend more time with the cops, and really get into their troubles, but mainly I'm talking about our two young punks, the Latino overacting which gave cause for laughs. It as also fun, watching the young cocky punk, clashing with Hauser. We also see the drug up close, and it's effect on one buyer. Hauser fans, a definite watch.

Both Michael Easton and Kumar De Los Reyes are beautiful in this movie, and the camera loves, loves, loves them.

Easton gives a decent performance, though lack luster when doing the Starsky "I'm a criminal" routine or playing drunk. Kumar gets 5 shirtless scenes, Easton unfortunately none. It seems he thought himself too thin (or others did) for the full beefcake routine at this time. Sad.

The drug plot is a little too involved, but a reasonably entertaining MacGuffin. (It's not just drugs, it is a Russian plot to undermine America.)

The lispy gay villain is a bit too much, but okay for its time.

All in all, a quite good example of it's genre, which is direct-to-video cop actioner/procedurals of the 80s/90s with a much much prettier male leads than most of these. Good work, Mr. Hauser, though not getting Easton's shirt off during this early stage of his career was a dick move.

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the movie on PM video cassette.

Wings Hauser's debut as director, "Coldfire", tries to cover too much ground but emerges as an offbeat cop drama about the drug world. Film was released direct-to-video last summer.

Like his second recently released directorial effort, "Living to Die", this film displays Hauser's interest in character development rather than narrative. Chief among numerous subplots is the relationshp of young buddy cops Michael Easton and Kamar Reyes, each too gung ho for his own good.

They're working undercover at a high school as anrcs when a new designer drug from Russia, Coldfire, hits the streets. It turns out to be an isidious plot by renegate Soviet scientisht Albert Cutt to undermine America.

Hauser's own role, as an over-the-hill fellow cop, is relatively small. Behind the camera he coaxes quality performances from the cast, which includes Cynthia Brooks as a tough-nosed fellow cop and sexy Darcy DeMoss as Reyes' main squeeze; latter graduated to female lead in "Living to Die".

Easton is particularly impressive in the lead role and easily could be up for a co-starring assignment on a youth-oriented tv cop show. Addison Randall, also a director, has a fun time playing against the macho stereotype as a gay drug kingpin.

The film is a ridiculous nonsense-filled badly acted caper, which doesn't hang together past the opening credits.

The drug ColdFire doesn't feature much in the film, and there's a totally unnecessary sex scene.

The acting is pretty bad, the soundtrack is something akin to a bunch of Vangelis B-sides, and the bad guy is too camp to be evil.

I thought the film was fantastic. By far the best rubbish film I've seen in a long time.

It also cost me the princely sum of &pound1.97 for the DVD from the local 'Game' shop.

Well I can't say I wasn't warned about this film, I read David's review and ignored it cause i've heard lots of action-packed films called boring so that didn't stop me from buying this film for 2.99 off Ebay, though now I can see that David was mostly correct in his review and Easton and Reyes(who both were shot to super-stardom in One Life To Live later on) are both pretty good,though it's kinda hard to root for his character. Though i'm not bothered by the film's low budget look, I knew it was gonna be low-budget as i've heard that most early PM films are like that. What I didn't expect was for the film to be so goddamn BORING, I swear this felt more like a drama then an action film, especially with the heavy focus on the love/hate relationship with Jake and Nick and they're relationship with Dix, it felt too drawn out and took too much focus away from the main plot. Though the film isn't a total waste, it has it's funny moments, like when Jake randomly yells Attica! near a jail cell for no reason, there's some nice nudity, Easton and Reyes are both pretty good, and the climax is pretty nicely done actually and manages to generate some actual tension and the main villain manages to become intimidating despite his annoying voice, but despite those good things, I can only recommend this film to PM completists who feel the need to see every film they've produced, or for those who will see anything with Wing Hauser's name on it.