Bootleg

My review was written in February 1990 after watching the movie on Action International Pictures video cassette.

"Bootleg" is an amateurish Australian pic made in 1985 that apparently went unreleased Down Under and is surfacing for the U. S. home video market.

Helmer John Prescott obviously means to pay homage to private eye pics, but his film meanders all over the place. John Flaus plays a crazy old sax player in a jazz-rock band who's hired to find a runaway, pregnant daughter.

He inadvertently stumbles on a scam involving bootleg records, and the conflict is resolved out of left field (after a seemingly irrelevant prolog) by introduction of a messianic survivalist planning for Armageddon.

Carmen Duncan makes a good impression in a subplot as a prostitute who is befriended by Flaus, but lead roles are played flatly. Sluggish pace and cliched dialog work against creating interest in what already is a very dated film.