Death Flash

This movie is what mid eighties action movies where about! Only, where some of those movies where good, this one just sucked ass! The acting is horrible, the special effects are overdone in a bad way, and the musical score is the worst i have ever heard in a movie (including porn, and that should say enough)

The story is about a cop called Johnny Duncan, who finds out his wife is having an affair, he shoots the guy and turns himself in, then he finds out that his sister is having drugs problems, so he escapes (in a 'briljant' escape scene) and comes to save her day!! That sums it up, he kills all the 'baddies' like he's in a video game, all the classic stereotypes are here, the shouting chief, the jail scene, the helicopter, flying cars which explode when they hit the ground, the druglord (who is doing loads of bakingpowder himself) the 'hot' chicks with 80's poofed hair, and the 'badboys' who just look tough, but die when you sneeze at them.

But, if you want to laugh at bad actors, bad scenes and bad music, you really should see it! I did laugh my butt off when i watched it, and it's a MIRACLE that it doesn't have an Alan Smithee credit, Tony Zardindast must be really proud of this!!

I'm glad there is documentary proof on IMDB that someone else has seen this film. It's so incredibly bad that I have wondered for years if I just dreamt it all. It's hard to see how Zarindast, reputation for woeful movies notwithstanding, could have really been playing this straight. It works as a comedy, being not a million miles from Naked Gun territory at times, but as anything else it is a monstrosity.

Cliche follows misfired stunt follows non-actor cameo follows cliche, etc, etc, ad nauseum, as the incoherent plot stumbles to a violent conclusion.

Structurally, it plays like two unrelated episodes of a very bad TV show. I saw it on Sky Movies in Ireland around 1992, and it was billed as "A cop goes undercover against the Mob", or some such, but the film seems to have nothing at all to do with the Mob. Instead, it seems to be about the kidnap of two glamour models by a bunch of bumbling idiots with machine guns.

The best bit is when our hero zooms across a car park on a motorbike, trying to prevent the bad guys from escaping in a helicopter. They must have done it in one take, because the helicopter has to hover for ages to give our hero time to reach it and then attain a tenable position on the leg things underneath the fuselage. The helicopter rises to an altitude of a couple of hundred feet. The bad guy in the passenger seat just sits there, hands on knees, looking at our hero, apparently unperturbed, until our hero reaches up and throws him to his death. Cuts then to a long shot of a dummy falling from a chopper.

I love bad movies like this, and this one's pretty bad, where among a lot of unintentional moments of laughter, we also have these WTF? moments, where we're just in disbelief. But believe me, there were worse films out around this time. Let's start with the opening music score, where at some point, during the mood of the sad piece, changes tempo, like into hysterical form, that cuts back to the previous mood. The acting is terrible, from everyone in the film, and there's laughable dialogue, done as if, off the cuff, just thrown in. There are some real pathetic moments too. The story involves a hot headed cop, and he can really kick ass, who accidentally kills his girlfriend's lover. Meanwhile little sister, thanks to her best friend, has been introduced to the life of drugs and sex, run by this stylish sleaze, Carl. When little sister had disappeared (she's really cute too) our arrested cop, flees, via route a hearing, to try and track her down, where we can only guess, or left questioning, what his fate is, in the final real. That actor has a face that looks like many, where the eyes get you. He looks like that Russian out of White Nights, only this guy's acting range is limited. Believe it or not, the score is the best thing I liked out of this '85 mess of a "make up as you go" movie. Aspiring writers/film makers should watch Death Flash, just an example of what s..t film making is, and this is pretty bad, but will guarantee a few laughs, plus some nice beauties in bikini wear.