Ground Zero

What a strange atmosphere is being created in the streets and on the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco in this exciting action picture. Although the characters and the story are in fact bad, it still has a certain cult-flair.

One of the worst films I have seen outside of the horror genre, this snoozer-loser dulls the mind and spirit like a morphine drip, but does nothing to ease the pain. Unlikely story which concerns a nuclear device ticking away on the Golden Gate bridge, and the back-and-forth bickering of political figures as to what should be done about it, is a showcase of unmotivated performances which is teeming with uproarious dialog and paced with the all the steadiness of a three-legged race.

GROUND ZERO suffers from a lackluster and unalluring visual quality distinct to old, cut-rate film, and it somehow manages to flatten the appeal of its picturesque San Francisco environs(making this look more like a film lensed in Baltimore). The door was wide-open for gratuitous violence and cheap thrills for this project, an opportunity left essentially untapped(although the scenes taking place on The Golden Gate Bridge clearly *were* filmed there, marking the one-and-only point of distinction in this movie). By no means recommended, even to foaming-at-the-mouth fans of bad movies. Chances are this won't even cross your path, but in the event that it does, don't dignify its meager existence with so much as a sideways glance.

2/10

I watched portions of this bizarre film with my jaw hanging open in disbelief. For a start, the premise is that a criminal ,trying to get two of his associates released from jail, threatens to detonate an atomic bomb in San Francisco. Yes, that's right, an atomic bomb. Isn't he over-reacting a little? Where did he get hold of it?

But don't worry, a member of the President's security team is investigating. In real life, I doubt if they would let this nutball within 100 miles of the President. Sporting a strange mullet haircut, carrying a cane and wearing a poloneck white sweater, Ron Casteel is the most conspicuous undercover agent I've seen. In moments of tension, he is prone to make philosophical speeches ("From the moment I was born, I started dying" one begins) and recite poetry.

He and a colleague investigate VERY SLOWLY. Even though the film has an extremely short running time, it seems very long, mainly because every scene is extended to at least twice its natural life, accompanied by irritating and often completely inappropriate music (no less than five composers worked on the film!)

There is some impressive location work on the Golden Gate Bridge at the film's climax and I guess that is where most of the money went. Absurdly, even though our heroes have discovered the location of the bomb, apparently they don't inform anybody else. San Francisco is about to be nuked and yet there aren't squads of police, atomic scientists and bomb disposal experts milling around, just our two heroes shooting it out with the baddy as the countdown continues.

This lunatic farrago comes to a climax that is - well, let's just say it's highly unusual and very much in keeping with the rest of the film!

This movie barely moved. I had trouble following the plot also. I am giving it two stars for the spectacular camera shots from atop the highest point of the Golden Gate Bridge. It looked both spectacular and scary, and the wind sound effects added to the impact. These camera shots came at the conclusion, by the way. It was rather painful trying to get through this film.

This forgotten obscurity, made in San Francisco by local talent, was barely released in movie theaters in 1973. It will appeal to people hooked on crappy drive-in movies. To force the release of two imprisoned mafiosi, terrorists conceal an atomic bomb on the Golden Gate Bridge. They kidnap the city's attorney and show him the bomb. Even though they mean business, the D. A. thinks it's a parlor trick engineered by another attorney (played by celebrated lawyer Melvin Belli, who is terrible here.)

Enter G-man Gideon Blake, a substandard cross between James Bond and Dirty Harry who seems to already know about the bomb and the entire plot of the movie. He and clean-cut sidekick Steve spend the rest of the film tracking the villains and arguing the value of using deadly force when saving the world from terrorism.

Blake, who spouts poetry as he kills and says stuff like "Ever since I was born I started to die," is played by steely Ron Casteel, who was a real-life AM radio disc jockey at the time. He delivers every clichéd line with clenched teeth and the conviction of a distracted driver.

Triple-threat writer-producer-director James T. Flocker over-directs his actors and tries to imitate the brutality and hysterical plotting of DIRTY HARRY and its ilk. But Flocker is no Don Siegel. He does get a lot of mileage out of a distortion lens that makes people's asses look enormous. Most of the running time consists of people driving cars and boats around some of the least scenic areas in and around San Francisco.

Even though it rates a zero in almost every department, the final ten minutes of GROUND ZERO are mildly suspenseful, as Blake defuses the bomb atop the Golden Gate and chases the bad guys around on dangerous-looking, high altitude cat-walks.