Rush

This Italian post-apocalyptic action flick with lots of Ramboisms proved to be quite enjoyable. Nothing to call home about, but if you've got a little over an hour to kill, you could do a lot worse than 1983's Rush. Just know you're getting into a pretty silly flick.

...or not. This is one of Italy's worst post-nuke flicks, even worse than EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000. Charisma-free hero Conrad Nichols prances around the desert killing and killing and killing gas mask wearing soldiers without end. In the end, his climactic battle with Gordon Mitchell (TEN COMMANDMENTS) atop an oil refinery is made laughable because Mitchell stunt double doesn't even attempt to hide his true identity! All this to the tune of Francesco De Masi's great music, which was shamelessly plundered from ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX and THE NEW YORK RIPPER. Plotless, pointless, boring... lots of action but it's all done quite badly, I doubt if Tonino Ricci ever actually showed up to any of the filming days, or if he did, he just gave his crew free reign. Giovanni Bergamini's camerawork is pretty good and Vincenzo Tomassi's editing is top-notch (as usual), but there's nothing to hold it all together aside from Tito Carpi's quickie script. A truly lame movie that won't do much for you unless you're a hard-core fan of Italian post-nuke action, though here it's even more cheesy and pointless than usual. See ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX or AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK instead.

Conrad Nichols became the leading man in almost every subsequent film directed by Ricci, probably just because he had more than a stunning resemblance to more famous musclehead Italian action star Mark Gregory (who last I heard works in a pizza restaraunt in Rome). Lord only knows where Nichols is now... (probably a night-stocker at K-mart)

My review was written in October 1984 after a screening at Selwyn theater on Manhattan's 42nd St.

"Rush" is a minor, highly derivative action picture in the science fiction genre, which marks the return to theatrical distribution of the 1970s indie Cinema Shares Int'l. The director, Tonino Ricci signs his work Anthony Richmond, but that typically anglicized name will cause confusion with Jaclyn Smith's husband, the British cinematographer-director Anthony Richmond.

The film skimps on story and incident, preferring instead to rely on an Italian hero, whose stage name is Conrad Nichols, decked out to closely resemble Sylvester Stallone in "First Blood". He's Rush, a muscular road warrior who, 10 years after a nuclear war has devastated the world, attempts to free the slave labor ruled by a despot (Gordon Mitchell). Pic is set at an oil refinery plus greenhouse. The basic conflict of people afraid to go back "outside" while Rush is there to inform them that radiation has dissipated and the Earth is becoming fertile again, is never borne out by the visuals (which have the people outside already).

After uneventful opening reels of minor fights and Rush in captivity, our smiling hero escapes, cuing a last half of him being chased through a forest which directly mimics "First Blood". For a futuristic film, "Rush" relies upon uniforms, vehicles and weaponry which seem left over from a World War II opus. Cheap production has poor special effects (puffs of smoke when grenades explode) and very fake fight scenes, likely to invite derision by action film audiences. Silliest touch is having the laborers in ordinary clothes, with pieces of transparent plastic (like raincoats) worn on top for "style".

A sequel has already been made, though the only suspense at the end of "Rush" is whether the perpetually sweaty and oiled-body (he seems ready to pose ina Mr. Universe contest) Nichols will get to take a bath.

Rush a scavenger in a post-nuclear holocaust world and his group of oppressed freedom fighters take on Yor and his well armed militia to stop their experiments and avenge his brother's death.

Director Tonino Ricci offers a highly derivative Italian action, Tito Carpi and Ricci borrow the plot from Exterminators of the Year 3000, another Mad Max 2 copy-cat, along with a few set ups from First Blood (1982).

Released in 1983 the same year as a windfall of other similar films including Escape from the Bronx, The New Barbarians, Endgame, 2019: After the Fall of New York to name a few, Ricci's Rush is a lower end cash in. It suffers more so from the usual Italian production issues of the 80s, clunky dialogue, choppy editing, awful dubbing and sound design.

Carpi and Ricci's lapses in logic are as bizarre as the stock music, contaminated makeup, fight scenes, shootouts and sound effects. Under the red filtered sky water and plant life is scarce; but plenty of H2O is gushing out of a fire hydrant and there's an abundance of tree foliage in this post apocalyptic world of jeeps and golf carts.

Bruno Minniti in leather as Rush sporting a John Rambo-look does a good enough job as the lead. Riccardo Pizzuti's Steel is notable and is impressive in a throwaway fight scene. Both Osiride Pevarello as Homer and Laura Trotter as Carol deserve a mention.

Overall, one person's rubbish is another's treasure. Post apocalyptic completists may find it worth viewing if even to compare it to the aforementioned films and other Italian productions to match up the possible reused locations.