Furia callejera

Badly acted, written, and directed, Certain Fury provides a fair amount of unintentional laughs. Tatum is the 'bad' girl, Irene the 'good' girl gone bad. One of the funniest scenes had Tatum spitting in Peter Fonda's face. He responds by slashing her face (in unconvincing close-up) with his nail file. When she falls to the ground screaming, he blurts out to his hench-men, "Get this bleeding bitch off my boat!" If you like 'good bad films' then this one is for you. If you prefer quality...well then you've been warned.

"Certain Fury" is grade-Z stuff in most departments (the low production values and the often very bad dialogue stand out), but Tatum O'Neal is engagingly tough and she makes the film worth watching all by herself. Irene Cara is awful, and the slashing scene is hilariously fake, but Tatum won me over, enough to give this film a ** rating.

Tatum O'Neal and Irene Cara end up in court together. When a shootout in the courtroom cause everyone to flee, Irene and Tatum inadvertently end up running from the bullets and the cops. Pretty fast paced action keeps this B-Movie humming along pretty good. Tatum and Irene believe it or not have good chemistry together. Tatum plays a hardened toughy pretty well and in my opinion makes this movie entertaining. A little far fetched (what Hollywood flick isn't?) but still enjoyable. See it uncut as a TV version will be heavily edited. Peter Fonda makes a cameo as a sleazebag. One thing I learned from this movie is that sewer gas is highly flammable? Who knew?

"What a feeling..." Irene Cara must have thought. "Just a few years ago I was performing and winning Oscars for acclaimed musicals like "Fame" and "Flashdance", and now I'm undressing myself and racing through sewers in a cheap & sleazy exploitation B-movie!". "Tell me about it..." could have been the reply by Tatum O'Neal. "...Ten years ago, I had world at my feet for winning an Oscar as a 10-year-old in "Paper Moon". Now I'm depicting a street prostitute with a foul mouth in a cheap & sleazy exploitation B-movie."

Well, there's one advantage. People like me have zero interest in watching movies like "Flashdance" or "Paper Moon", but I am on a mission to watch as many cheapy and sleazy exploitation B-movies from the 80s as much as humanly possible! The starring of the two leading ladies with a slightly more glamourous background, plus a brief appearance by the charismatic Peter Fonda, make "Certain Fury" a curious must-see oddity for the fans.

What several other reviewers already stated is truthful. "Certain Fury" is a solid and vastly entertaining actioner; - or at least for a while. It's a story about two girls on the lam. They understandably panicked, following a brutal and unforeseeable incident in court, but now they're considered as hardened criminals and there isn't a way back. The first half hour is fantastic, and I genuinely thought I had stumbled upon one of the roughest and most violent flick since "Chained Heat" and "Escape from New York". The extended opening sequences in the courtroom and the subsequent escape through the dangerous sewers are top-notch entertainment. It's grim, bloody, relentless, and fast-moving. Loved it.

The whole concept collapses like a feeble house of cards shortly after that, however. A slowdown of pace was inevitable, I guess, but "Certain Fury" turns into a dull, melodramatic, and whiny mess instead. The girls seek refuge in the apartment of an abuse boyfriend/pimp, escape via numerous rooftops, end up in a massive drug house, etc. Oh yeah, they also become BFFs along the way, of course. The performances of both Cara and O'Neal are admirable, and Stephen Gyllenhaal (later responsible for the excellent "Paris Trout") is clearly a gifted director, but the script is full of really bad dialogues and unevenness. Watch it until after the sewer gas incident, and you've got yourself 20 minutes of genuine, unhinged exploitation.

Oscar-winners Tatum O'Neal and Irene Cara in an exploitation B-flick? Well, yes and no. "Certain Fury" was obviously made to appeal to the midnight-movie crowds, but there is strength in some of O'Neal's scenes with Cara (playing two girls on the lam after a courtroom shootout leaves blood and bodies everywhere). I liked it when Tatum suddenly turns maternal towards Irene and nurses her back to health (after rescuing her from a drug den). With Cara slung over one shoulder burbling about her mom, Tatum quietly says "I know, I know." This is a good scene; in fact, the picture has several good moments, but every bit with Cara's father (played by Moses Gunn on the verge of tears) is a bummer and Peter Fonda's cameo appearance is awful (you can't tell if he's slumming without effort or if he's just a lousy actor). There's an elaborately staged fight scene between O'Neal and her boy-toy which is unintentionally funny, and the dialogue is so perpetually profane it becomes a running joke.