Fuga dal Bronx

Ten years after "1990:The Bronx Warriors" life is still a pure hell for the Bronx warrior street gangs.A sinister Manhattan Corporation with plans for the region sends in death squads named 'The Disinfestors' to eliminate the remaining inhabitants,and only the man called Trash can stop them.Mark Gregory is back as Trash in this cult follow-up to "1990:The Bronx Warriors".This is surely very fast-paced and violent flick with tons of action.Of all the early 80's post apocalypse movies,"Escape from the Bronx" looks like it has one of the higher budgets,mostly spent on spectacular flame-thrower effects and effective explosions.The acting is terrible,although it's always nice to see Lucio Fulci's regular Paolo Malco in the small role.The soundtrack by Francesco De Masi of "The New York Ripper" fame is also quite good.Check it out.6 out of 10.

Back in the 80s, several producers in Italy decided to copy whatever was popular in the rest of the world and create some low-tech, low-budget, and low-expectation knockoffs. This is one of those films with a title, plot and characters that have counterparts in "Escape From New York". But overall, its kinda cool.

Mark Gregory returns as Trash who is living the smooth life of being a thung in the slums. But the evil General Construction Corporation have decided that the Bronx needs to rebuilt and decide to save money and time by simply killing everyone who didn't take them up on their offer to move to New Mexico(what's so bad about moving to New Mexico anyway?). The GCC hires an expelled prison warden who loves death(played by Rat Packer Henry Silva) to lead a bunch of "disinfesters" who are guys in silver jumpsuits & bike helmets that carry semi-auotmatics and a bunch of astronauts with flame throwers. Trash is their target and they pursue him and his friends on a long chase sequence under the Bronx.

Worth checking out in its original form or the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version.

My review was written in January 1985 after a screening at Cine 42 on Manhattan's 42nd St.

"Escape from the Bronx" is a thinly plotted followup by the same Italian filmmakers who made one of Vic Morrow's last features, "1990: The Bronx Warriors". Prospects are quite limited at the nation's action houses.

Mark Gregory returns, circa the year 2000, as Trash, one of the survivors of gang warfare in the sci-fi extrapolation of New York City's problems. Story, heavily indebted to John Carpenter's "Escape from New York", has the General Construction Corp. Hiring Wangler (Henry Silva) to exterminate the residents of the Bronx, while manipulating the press and public into believing that the populace is being relocated to new housing in New Mexico. Scheme is to raze the Bronx and build luxury housing there.

A crusading reporter, Moon (Valeria D'Obici, star of Ettore Scola's "Passione D'Amore") tries to help the Bronx denizens, coming up with the idea of kidnapping G. C. Corp.'s president as a bargaining chip. Master thief Strike (Timothe Brent) is recruited to pull off the caper, but the dull second half of the picture consists largely of nihilistic shootouts in place of plot twists.

Director Enzo G. Castellari's action style is overly heavy on slow motion balletics in place of the exciting chases which made "The Road Warrior" and latterly "The Terminator" hits in this genre. Cast, including a cute son to help out Strike, is merely functional, but pic is aided by acceptable post-synching of English-articulated dialog.

Outstripping its predecessor by 3 score and ten this little beauty ranks with Hard Boiled for relentless, brutal action.

Depending on which copy of this film you own it is either "a few" or "ten" years after Bronx Warriors and another sinister corporation (or it may be the same one with a different name as Thomas Moore is the boss again, but he has a different name too) is diddling with the denizens of the Bronx, this time by "burning and gassing the last remnants in order to build the city of the future". Understandably pissed off at this "the murdering warrior gangs unite to defend their homeland sewer by sewer" from the silver suited sadists that are roaming around wielding bombs, machine guns and flamethrowers. Henry Silva is leader of The Disinfestors and when knocking out several squads fails to halt the clean up, Trash and a crusading but hideous reporter Moon, decide to kidnap the GC Corporation president as a bargaining tool. A final assault involving The Disinfestors against everyone else rounds off the show.

Removing the loathsome martial arts from the first flick and also the tiresome expostion this move almost never relents and has an orgasmic final 15 minutes involving so many dead bodies that it defies belief. Trash (unarmed) taking on 3 heavily armed men with a helmet plus the scene where he trips up a couple with a conveniently placed drainpipe are cartoon-like in their energy and ludicrousness.

Mark Gregory has lost the mincing gait this time and looks like he really means it when he offs people (check his expression as he burns Disinfestors).

The only other bona fide returning character from part one is Carla Brait in a cameo as the Iron Men leader although the lack of continuity isn't a big deal as this film was quite clearly meant to stand alone and was only called Bronx Warriors 2 in the UK.

The theme score is cracking and hits home all through the set pieces. It seemed that a loose plot was formuated and Enzo Castellari decided daily to create ever more ambitious set pieces to fill time. The first ambush on a clean-up squad, the hostages rigged with bombs scene, Clark's kidnapping and the final scrap are pure energy.

It's not high art, it's dubbing is shite but it has a good-looking, hard as nails hero, a body count that is in the hundreds and easy-to-hate loathsome villains.

Negative points: The ease with which they kidnap Clark; Little Strike; Trash's high explosive bullets.

Positive points: Everything else

Joy!

Who was honored at a special "psychotronic" screening at the

Paris cinematheque. This one came second after a fairly decent

war movie. During Q&A, Castellari did not hide the fact that, for the

first movie, Mark Gregory was hired in a Gym in Roma, for his

physique more than his non-existent acting skills, which he proved

in several movies. Castellari stressed the fact that he was

disappointed with Gregory in this one, since he had lost a lot of

muscular weight (maybe that's why he never looses his jacket ?

And no closes-up, hiding his non-existent acting skills) Anyhoo, it

never was an actor to begin with, that is obvious. Anybody knows

what became of him ? (Castellari is a pretty nice and jovial man,

BTW, very open and straightforward during Q&A) I still think this sequel is better than the original, for what it's worth.

Both had huge releases in Europe, with impressive posters, and

made good money. Now, you have the same with 50 mil budgets,

a few MTV stars and special effects galore… Go figure !