Private Wars

Steve Railsback is an underrated actor who plays an ex-cop named Jack Manning. Manning, who now is a private detective, has become a drunken-shell of his former self. When approached by an old friend, Manning is called back into action. This time, to clean up a town and prevent a rich tycoon from taking whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

This movie is so "creatively bad" it's hilarious. Even if I was paid to TRY making a bad movie, I wouldn't be able to dumb-down enough to make one that comes close to Private Wars. If you are a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, you need to watch this movie and wish that Joel was with you. This movie is worth watching because the everything is so unrealistically funny that you will not be able to stop laughing.

Steve Railsback is given Chuck Norris powers in this P. M. Entertainment flick where he's a drunk former cop hired by an old friend to help clean up and take back a section of city overtaken by punks. The punks are being paid by Stuart Whitman who is trying to run the people from their homes to build a business center.

I always heard that by 1992 the P. M. guys had finally managed to start coming into their own, and that defiantly seems true here as everything is more on par from there earlier stuff like the direction, pacing, and production to actually giving their older casted stars like Whitman something to actually do as he's amazing here as the scummy bad guy. The final act feels a bit rushed, but this is overall a lot of fun.

Outside of the rabidly trash movie-loving cognoscenti, I honestly don't know why those doyens of destruction at PM Entertainment aren't more revered as DTV shoot 'em up gods! 90s exploitation is often disparaged, since very few wax nostalgically about, Billy Blanks Sci-fighting ouvre, but, utilizing robust filtering there are many batso Bobby Dazzlers yet to be discovered! If pyromaniacal PM Entertainment had only produced 'Private Wars' it would nonetheless remain a meritorious low budget treat! The credulity-sapping levels of B-movie bossage herein provides a plenitude of skewed shenanigans, and 'Private Wars' remains a veritable must-see for, Steve Railsback's dipso butt-kicking private dick, Jack Manning! This riotously entertaining heft of gun-happy hokum has sinister property developing sleaze, Alexander Winters (Stuart Whitman) paying bloodthirsty, Ghetto blasting goons to violently harass the locals into selling up.

The beleaguered community reluctantly approach liquor-sotted sleuth, Jack Manning (Steve Railsback) to take on these muscle-headed minions of sadistic crime Kingpin, Winters. The sheer bravura absurdity of having, Railsback as an indestructible Krav Maga-savvy Equalizer makes 'Private Wars' such a madly compelling misfire! A relatively unsung cult actioner, Steve Railsback's beerily sardonic, profoundly whiskey-warped, front-kicking, stumble-bum Seagal is pure DTV WTF gold! The fact that, Railsback is a quality actor makes his legless performance that much more precious. Watch 'Private Wars', trust me, you'll wonder where it's been all your B-Movie life! Not on the same lurid level as 'Deadly Prey' or 'Miami Connection', but the bountiful fisticuffs are ably choreographed by the noted martial artist, Jack Salvitti.

I read somewhere that early PM films are awful, and they kind of are. But they're also kind of great! How can you hate a film that has four separate montages? It's impossible.

This one has Steve Railsback (of the mighty Turkey Shoot and the Wing Hauser/Meg Foster weirdness Edge of Terror) as a straight cop in a world of cops on the take. After catching a police captain getting a kickback from a property developer (Stuart Whitman), Railsback is framed and booted off the force, becoming a drunken P.I.

Meanwhile, his mate's neighbourhood is under threat from evil gangs (the montage introducing the gang – all three of them! Is hilarious. Love the repeated stamping of the kids car!) which results in one dead shopkeeper and a vengeful sister. Can they clean up the neighbourhood, fight off the evil property developer guy (who has conversations with underlings while folks duke it out by his swimming pool), fall in love with each other, blow crap up, have gunfights etc etc etc? It's all about the montages. You've got two bad guy montages, one sobering up/training montage, and a 'cleaning up the neighbourhood' montage. That's a lot of montage for the six pence I paid for this. It's not a horrifically bad film, and I couldn't help but wish the action could have been a bit more 'packed', but tis a fine slice of cheese that wouldn't be out of place in your crappy nineties action movie collection.

Unless it was made in the eighties. I can't be bothered checking. Also - check out the user review from rsoonsa on this very page - talk about a pretentious arsehole with no sense of humour!

A neighbourhood called "Jackson Heights" of Los Angeles (in reality the Pico-Union District in L.A.s Rampart Area) is to be razed in order for an extensive high-rise commercial complex to be constructed in its place, developed by Alexander Winters (Stuart Whitman in a hammy turn) who employs multi-cultural (?) street gangs to terrorize inhabitants into moving off, only to have a residents group hire ex-policeman and private investigator Jack Manning (Steve Railsback) as its choice to lead the locals in vigilante activity to enable them to remain in their homes, fighting back against the evil developer and his minions, including the corrupt chief of police along with numerous feral-appearing individuals who utilize martial arts as a way of life, apparently. An irrational and cliche-filled script seemingly targets an audience of subnormal 12 year old boys and is devoid of character development and logic but is laden indeed with predictable dialogue, and action that engages an abundance of stunt men who fill lengthy tiresome scenes with their whirling about and pounding upon each other (any one of the blows as depicted would immediately terminate any actual conflict), while Manning singlehandedly, although generally drunk or sleep-deprived, masters large numbers of foes during the course of a mind-numbing film that could not conceivably be tolerated by anyone with even embryonic intelligence.