Deadly Heroes

"Deadly Heroes" is a true test of bad movie endurance. Even fans of Billy Drago, Jan-Michael Vincent, or Michael Pare, will be severely tested. Throw in an astonishingly bad performance by the female lead, Claudette Mink, plus a story that brings new meaning to the word contrived, and you might be living with the fast forward button. I actually admired the cab driver's acting, compared to the cardboard acting by the leads. In summary, a totally unbelievable script, bad performances all around, and zero redeeming qualities. This was a movie that I didn't even want to like, because the plastic gun hijacking set in motion one of the most contrived story lines ever put on film. Not recommended, even for admirers of the actors. - MERK

This is one of those good-guys-on-a-daring-mission-against-impossible-odds movies that offers the expected bursts of violent action just often enough to maintain the interest of its intended audience. Remember when Michael Pare showed promise back in the underrated "Streets of Fire?" He's come down from those days but still makes a suitable hero and is keeping himself in shape. Note how good he looks in the torture scene where he's stripped to his undershorts, tied against a wall, and subjected to punches, kicks, and a few electrical shocks. Titillatingly, some of these shocks are applied directly to his nipples though the contact is just a flash and can't compare to the slow, agonized way in which Steve Durham's nipples were "fried" in "Born American." Pare's undershorts, alas, keep off-limits the more sensitive and vulnerable areas of his male anatomy -- a bit of prudishness which doesn't make much sense when the whole idea is to subject him to the greatest possible pain.

You know those really bad action films of the late 80's and early 90's? Some of them had big star names like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis or Norris. This one only has semi-known Billy Drago, and everyone else are just no-names(I certainly didn't recognize anyone else). The film has just about every action-cliché known to man; the tough guy hero, the female lead who can't do anything at all by herself, and is merely there to give the hero someone to save, the bad guy who's like the meanest damn SOB you could possibly imagine; not only is he a killer, a terrorist and an A-hole, he's also a rapist. The male lead was probably chosen for the role because he has muscles and a ridiculously deep voice. The female lead was chosen because she's attractive, willing to do nudity, and because she can look helpless and attractive at the same time. The action is straightforward with no surprises. The plot is ridiculous and unoriginal. The acting is laughable. The characters are clichés and stereotypes. The film is thoroughly predictable and the action is so simple and unexciting that its only possible use is eye-candy. All in all, the film has nothing at all to offer. Everyone should just avoid this... unless of course you're a really big fan of B-movies. I recommend this solely to fans of B-movies. Everyone else should just avoid this. 1/10

Story Synopsis: Former US Navy SEAL Brad Cartowski is travelling home from a holiday with his wife & son when, while waiting in Athens Airport, the son discovers that the plastic toy guns that a group of people are carrying are actually real ones disguised in order to bypass metal detectors. The people carrying the weapons are terrorists planning to hijack a plane in order to demand the release of Jose Maria Carlos, a feared terrorist who was captured by the CIA in Guatemala a while before. They succeed in hijacking the plane despite Brad's best efforts to stop them, taking his wife Marcy as an insurance policy. After Carlos is released, they travel to North Africa where Carlos & his henchmen plan to celebrate, using Marcy as a love slave. Brad turns to his former colleagues at the Navy in order to launch a covert mission to rescue Marcy & defeat the terrorists. But the terrorists, who have something of a lucky streak as well as being unusually smart for a bunch of maniacal killers, certainly don't make it that easy for him.

Film Analysis: During the 1980s, Israeli film producers Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus formed Cannon Films, a studio that would become a powerhouse of cheap B-grade action & fantasy during the whole of the 1980s. Despite the majority of their films making a lot of money, they always ran at a loss. After a disastrous alliance with director Tobe Hooper, Cannon went bankrupt, although their last theatrical release – the Albert Pyun-directed Van Damme vehicle CYBORG came out shortly afterwards.

After they went belly up, Golan & Globus kept on making films, with their creation of 21st Century Film Corporation (which would make the likes of the final Death Wish film DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH & the remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) lasting for a short while. Deadly Heroes, a film helmed by Golan himself, was one of these releases.

Deadly Heroes is nothing more than a typical 80s film made in the 1990s. The action scenes are serviceable & have a mild intensity that works in the film's favour – the film's running time goes by in a flash. The beginning of the film is quite intriguing, with the terrorists being given modified weapons by a mad scientist before moving on to the airport massacre which starts off after a young boy learns of the weapons' true purpose & alerts the security guards.

The film is fast paced & has some ingenious plot devices – namely the 'toy' guns – but is not smart enough to rise above the flood of the 1990s' DTV action film genre (although it does manage to completely avoid using the flood's stock MacGuffin of illicit drugs, something which was extremely pervasive throughout that genre at the time). Golan keeps things going with admirable skill & has an eye for action, although the film is not exactly a corpse-fest. If you find this film in the discount bin of your favourite DVD retailer, purchase it. It'll be a good buy for the low price (if you live in Australia like I do, it can be bought from the local $2 shop for at least $2).

On the acting front, Michael Pare brings a rough charm to the proceedings, as well as a dogged determination. Jan Michael Vincent appears to be giving the film a degree of contempt while Billy Drago has a lot of fun playing the terrorist head honcho with his unique brand of unpredictability.

Michael Pare and Jan-Michael Vincent star as two commandos who look to fight it out against middle eastern terrorists who have hi-jacked a bus as well as kidnapped Pare's wife in this highly unlikely tale. Someone wrote me to ask what makes a guilty pleasure different from a laughable bomb. I had never thought about it but it had to be that the movie was goofy yet competently made, where as a laughable bomb is just goofy. Deadly Heroes is a laughable bomb because the movie starts with hijackers taking over a bus with plastic guns (I'm serious) I'm not even going to go into what it takes to actually make something penetrate the skin and kill, mainly black powder and the pressure which is highly explosive. Indeed one can't think of worse thing to make out of plastic. The movie actually proceeds to get even dumber as Billy Drago surfaces as a the head honcho villain. Indeed it is weird but it is only Jan-Michael Vincent who seems suited to his part. Where as the rest of the cast (Even the usually respectable Michael Pare) are uniformly bad. Still this is hilarious to watch and somehow this clunker plays on TV every summer for some unfathomable reason.

* out of 4-(Bad)