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James Mitchum plays a Montana rancher who goes to the big city to find his runaway sister, who's fallen into the seedy LA underworld. He then takes his down-home style of justice to the big city sleaze peddlers! Mitchum is helped by a local who encountered his sister, Chucho (Erik Estrada), and a local social worker (Cathy Lee Crosby), but it's the evil pimp and sleazy madam, Anne Archer (in what was her breakout role), who Mitchum needs to face down himself. TRACKDOWN's plot is remarkably similar to Paul Schrader's HARDCORE (which came out three years later), where George C. Scott looks for his missing daughter, tracking her down to LA, going down a rabbit hole of the illicit subculture of pornography and snuff films. TRACKDOWN is not as erudite or as disturbing as HARDCORE, but it does deliver the DEATH WISH-like payback you wish Scott was allowed to dish out, and at the same time, does not shy away from the ugliness of prostitution. At the same time, the film might have been stronger if it had a director with more panache, say a J. Lee Thompson or Don Siegel, though TV director Richard T. Heffron does an adequate job. Interestingly, the film is based on a story by Ivan Nagy, who would later become famous as the ex-boyfriend of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, whose Anne Archer's character seems eerily similar to. Nagy's firsthand knowledge of the prostitution racket and sex trafficking likely gave the film its uncomfortable realism. Overall, while TRACKDOWN is certainly not high art, it does deliver the exploitation film goods and a gritty realism that I wasn't expecting.

AI CAPSUL REVIEW: Trackdown is a gritty, exploitation-flavored take on Hardcore, with James Mitchum dishing out cowboy justice in the sleazy underbelly of 1970s L. A. While rough around the edges, it delivers raw thrills and unexpected realism, bolstered by early performances from Erik Estrada and Anne Archer.

Writer/director Larry Cohen made consistently interesting low-budget genre films, wether it was horror (IT'S ALIVE, MANIAC), thrillers (PHONE BOOTH, MANIAC COP), blaxploitation (BLACK CAESAR), sci-fi/fantasy (THE STUFF, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT), so I was a little disappointed with how pedestrian this film felt compared to his other more outrageous films. Eric Roberts plays a comic book artist in NYC working at Marvel Comics for Stan Lee, when, after trying to pick up a cute girl, Janine Turner in a pre-NORTHERN EXPOSURE role, on the street one day, she has a medical episode and is whisked away by an ambulance to take care of her. Roberts checks all the local hospitals to connect with the object of his affections, but she seems to have completely disappeared. Kind of an urban update of THE LADY VANISHES, the setup has promise and there is a conspiracy storyline, where no one believes Roberts, except possibly an NYPD detective, James Earl Jones in an uncharacteristically colorful role, where he gets to ham it up and chew the scenery. The film also features a solid score by underrated composer Jay Chattaway. Overall, I enjoyed THE AMBULANCE, and it was never boring, but it didn't grab me the same way Cohen's films usually do. FUN FACT! Cohen wrote a script for an unproduced film version of DOCTOR STRANGE, and that's where he and Stan Lee became friends, which is how he got Lee to appear in the film.

AI CAPSULE REVIEW: The Ambulance is a slick, conspiracy-laced thriller with a fun premise and an energetic performance from Eric Roberts, even if it never quite reaches the wild heights of Larry Cohen's best work. James Earl Jones steals scenes in a rare comedic turn, making this a solid but lesser entry in Cohen's eccentric filmography.

I'd always heard about this film and its cult following, and I've always found writer/director Lucky McKee's films (THE WOMAN, OLD MAN) challenging and intriguing, even if most of them seemed flawed in one way or another. In this film, McKee's first, Angela Bettis plays an awkward young woman who takes a shine to hunky Jeremy Sisto (CLUELESS, LAW & ORDER, FBI). Anna Faris (SCARY MOVIE, FRIENDS) plays her lesbian colleague who also takes an interest in May's awkward ways. Any audience member familiar with McKee's work knows his films typically go into dark and shocking places, so strap yourself in for where this film goes! My main issue with MAY is that the buildup to where the film goes takes too long, feels tedious, and is too clever for itself at times, winking at the audience one time too often at its own cleverness. Bettis is good in the lead as May, but it's Faris and Sisto who stand out in the picture. Overall, once the film gets where it's going, it's fantastic, but I felt it was kind of a slog to get there.

AI CAPSULE REVIEW: May is a slow-burning character study that takes its time getting started, but pays off with a memorably dark and twisted finale. Angela Bettis is solid in the lead, but it's Anna Faris and Jeremy Sisto who really shine in this offbeat cult horror gem.