La prise de Beverly Hills

This movie will insult your intelligence. Mindless action movie or not. This is a 4 year olds dream of a hero fantasy that makes no sense and it's not even enjoyably bad. It's bad bad.

Ken Wahl plays "Boomer" Hayes, a football star who must become the unlikely hero when the owner of his team, "Bat" Masterson (veteran screen villain Robert Davi), masterminds a false toxic spill in order to get Beverly Hills residents evacuated from their homes. Thus, the empty homes will be ripe for looting by Mastersons' many minions (consisting largely of disgruntled ex-cops). "Boomer" teams up with Kelvin (Matt Frewer), a uniformed BH Cop, who was in on the scheme but took a powder when things got violent. All night long they must dodge attempts on their lives while heading for a showdown with the ambitious criminal.

"The Taking of Beverly Hills" is an amusing credit for veteran Canadian-born filmmaker Sidney J. Furie ("The Ipcress File", "The Entity", "Iron Eagle"). It's WAY over the top in terms of destruction; get a load of all the damage that henchman Benitez (Branscombe Richmond) does while trying to dispose of our heroes. It takes stupidity, implausibility, and chaos to glorious levels, and will likely have its viewers grinning and shaking their heads in equal measure. Fortunately, this is one movie that knows damn well how ridiculous it is, and makes up for in pace and energy level what it lacks in brains.

It begins appropriately enough, with Frewer doing voice-over for a credits sequence that is both a kind of love letter to, and critical assessment of, BH. It benefits the most from Davis' smooth performance as a bad guy who REALLY wants to be accepted by the elite of BH, including the fat-cat father (William Prince) of the sexy lady (Harley Jane Kozak) whom Davi covets. In another character detail, he also happens to be asthmatic.

The supporting cast includes such familiar faces as punk rock star Lee Ving, Lyman Ward (Mr. Bueller in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"), Tarantino favourite Michael Bowen, Wahls' "Wanderers" co-star Tony Ganios, Ken Swofford ('Fame'), Michael Alldredge ("The Incredible Melting Man"), and George Wyner ("Spaceballs") as the BH mayor. Pamela Anderson has an uncredited bit as a cheerleader.

Richmond makes such a nuisance of himself in his efforts to eliminate Wahl and Frewer that it's an utter shame that his comeuppance isn't a lot more glorious.

Ultimately, it's all a little too silly for its own good, but it's definitely not boring.

Six out of 10.

I had originally seen the preview for this movie within another nameless early 90s stinker, back in the day. I hadn't given this movie another thought until I was at a truck stop in Morrilton, Arkansas, and saw it sitting there, collecting dust next to a bunch of other stinkers (like Tremors 3). I immediately remembered the preview: a bunch of cars blowing up, lots of shooting, plenty of "tag lines;" you know, the usual action movie cliches. Realizing that I'd never see this movie again, I bought it. During the drive home, I kept building it up to my girlfriend as being the stupidest looking movie on earth, based on the preview that I had seen over a decade ago. Once we got home, we popped it in the VCR, prepared to laugh ourselves silly. Not so. It is one of the most underrated movies of all time. It is fantastic!!! Great (if not a little cheap looking) action sequences!! Great plot! Decent acting! Superb plot twists and turns! Unformulaic ending! I was quite surprised. I think the previews made it look far worse than it actually is. The scene where the hero is blowing stuff up to "Epic" by Faith No More almost causes goosebumps. The catch is: You MUST be a fan of the genre. If you are, this movie will NOT let you down. I promise! See it! It's available somewhere out there from MGM. 7/10

Not a bad film, a fairly unlikely plot (though it's not alone here!) and what I'd call watchable. However I don't think it does Ken Wahl justice as he's a good, natural actor which this part doesn't give him the scope to display. I was surprised to see Ken with a pretty unflattering hairstyle (and brown haired too!) and hear his less than deep voice in this. Would hardly have recognised him in fact. Sadly a good actor can't save a mediocre script and nothing-special direction.

Ok, is this movie cheesy? well, yeah. But it's one of those films I rented when it first came out and I kind of enjoyed it (come on, the cop is the same guy who played max headroom). It has it's cheesy moments, not to mention parts that aren't believable (would the whole town really be ok with just staying up playing cards in some hotel lobby?), not to mention how they somehow had such an accurate tracking system they knew down to the penny how much loot they stole? Nothing ground breaking here, but still a good film.