L'ultimo guerriero

Earth has been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. Well, parts of the Earth, because somewhere in Italy, a band of purebred survivors--those without radioactive contamination--are holed up in a massive mansion surrounded by lush grounds, waiting for the next opportunity to go hunting for those with polluted blood. The Final Executioner is the story of one of their would be victims, Alan (William Mang, who looks, not surprisingly, a lot like Kurt Russell), and his efforts to take down the legally sanctioned hunters, who are led by Edra (Marina Costa) and Erasmus (Harrison Muller Jr. ). Alan has been trained to kill by former NYPD cop Sam (Woody Strode) who mostly hangs around giving his pupil moral support and mooching for tinned meat. Strode is by far the best thing about the film, though he doesn't look at all well and only appears for about a third of the running time. As for the story, it's a blending of elements from better films and stories, including Ten Little Indians, The Most Dangerous Game, and Escape From New York. The Final Executioner moves along at a fair pace and provides reasonable entertainment for less discriminate action fans.

My review was written in December 1985 after watching the movie on MGM/UA video cassette.

"The Final Executioner", also known as "The Last Warrior", is a subpar 1983 Italian science fiction film set after a nuclear holocaust (represented by lowercase stock footage of volcanic eruptions and bombed out neighborhoods). Cannon pickup wisely bypassed U. S. theaters in favor of home video release.

Story vaguely borrows from classics such as "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Tenth Victim", postulating humanity divided into two groups, the rich, privileged few and the radiation contaminated masses. The rich olk hunt down teh contaminated population for sport.

Cybernetics expert Alan (top billed William Mang) discovers that after 80,000,000 people have been killed in hunts there are no more contaminated folks to shoot down. To keep their privileges, however, the rich class continues to designate people as "target material" and kill off healthy folks, perpetuating the system.

Alan teams up with a tough, excop Sam (Woody Strode) to launch an assault on a hunters' headquarters. It takes many reels of filler, punctuated by extraneous sex scenes, until the good guys make some headway.

With no special effects, little atmosphere and a one-joke script, pic is science fiction in name only. Poor dubbing negates the cast's efforts, though Strode is an impressive screen presence convincingly beating up multiple young guys in hand-to-hand combat.

Here's a decidedly average Italian post apocalyptic take on the hunting/killing humans for sport theme ala The Most Dangerous Game, Turkey Shoot, Gymkata and The Running Man.

Certainly the film reviewed here is nowhere near as much fun as the other listed entries and is furthermore dragged down by poor voice over work, generally bland action sequences, a number of entirely tasteless scenes such as a prolonged rape sequence and some truly stupid and illogical points throughout.

Take for example towards the end of the film, when our hero manages to infiltrate the compound of the villains. He initially kills a sentry and leaves him in his jeep. Upon discovery of the said corpse, the villains response? (bearing in mind that our hero has come to brutally murder them all) – They resolve to wait until the next morning to look for the culprit (!!!!!!!!!!)

However, I suppose to be fair the film remains nonetheless about watchable if you can suspend your disbelief during such stupid scenes and does benefit immensely by the presence of the always excellent Woody Strode (even if his screen time is very limited)

Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination but still just about worthy of a watch for Italian B-Movie enthusiasts.

Perhaps I should state first that I'm an incurable sucker for the trashy Italian exploitation & rip-off cinema of the 1980s. I have seen all those "Mad Max" and "Escape from New York" imitations, and I can list several examples of titles that I enjoyed even massively more than the originals they are inspired by, like "Atlantis Interceptors", "2019: After the Fall of New York", "Fists of Steel", "Fighting Centurions 2072", "Endgame", etc. Most of these films are generally considered as worthless and irredeemable junk, but yours truly adores them! So, when I say that a certain title in this genre, say "The Final Executioner" is dull and forgettable, you can rest assured that practically nobody will enjoy it.

"The Final Executioner" combines the contemporary overused post-apocalyptic concept with the (also numerously recycled) idea of hunting human beings for sheer entertainment value. In the apocalyptic wasteland that remained after an all-destructive nuclear explosion, direly illustrated through the same old stock-footage, there are basically just two types of people left alive. The uninfected elite and the infected trash. The elite permit themselves to rape, humiliate, hunt down and kill the infected survivors simply for fun and games. One man fights back, however, and when the elite viciously gang-rape and murder his girl right in front of him, he enlists the help of a former cop for his ultimate plan of revenge. I realize this sound cheesy and cliched enough to be entertaining, but for some incomprehensible reason Romolo Guerrieri ("Young, Violent & Dangerous", "The Sweet Body of Deborah") managed to make it very boring! There are too many long parts of sheer dullness, the lead villains aren't nearly freaky or maniacal enough and the supportive role of Woody Strode is sad and pathetic. The violence and bloodshed are tame and brief, whereas the rape sequence is too long and utterly provocative. There aren't any cool post-apocalyptic set-pieces, vehicles or gimmicks and hero William Mang tries too damn hard to look like Kurt Russell.

This film is absolutely appalling and awful. It's not low budget, it's a no budget film that makes Ed Wood's movies look like art. The acting is abysmal but sets and props are worse then anything I have ever seen. An ordinary subway train is used to transport people to the evil zone of killer mutants, Woddy Strode has one bullet and the fight scenes are shot in a disused gravel pit. There is sadism as you would expect from an 80s Italian video nasty. No talent was used to make this film. And the female love interest has a huge bhind- Italian taste maybe. Even for 80s Italian standards this film is pretty damn awful but I guess it came out at a time when there weren't so many films available on video or viewers weren't really discerning. This piece of crap has no entertainment value whatsoever and it's not even funny, just boring and extremely cheap. It's actually and insult to the most stupid audience. I just wonder how on earth an actor like Woody Strode ended up ia a turkey like this?