Street Hunter

I'm a guy, but I'm also fairly intelligent. When I want a riveting storyline with an interesting plot, great character development and Oscar winning performances, I know to go elsewhere. Its kinda a waste of time to give this movie a bad review. Look at the cover art, what else did you expect? That's way I love this movie, it doesn't try to be anything else than what it is, and I admire a movie that's honest. This movie is a perfect example of the martial arts explosion of the late 80's and will always hold a special place in my heart. Again, this is an action movie. Bad guys getting shot and getting their necks broken for 1 hour 45 minutes. Keep that in mind and I'm sure you'll enjoy

Entertaining enough movie about a cop turned vigilante. (Drummed off the force as a fall guy in a scandal--Detective Blade--yes that his name--roams the streets taking out the gangs and keeping the peace in the neighborhood his own personal way) (Literally he drives around the town in a giant van which the local street kids recognize--at one point these two guys get the none too bright idea to try and break into it, and the other guy goes "Hold It--That's Blade's Car!!!!") A ridiculously young John Leguizamo is here as a wannabe shot caller/kingpin who hooks up with a group of out of work militia types to try and waste his various enemies so he can control the gangs and criminal activity of the area, but of course he's not very well aware that the leader of the militia he's working with is going to cede any actual power to him. (It doesn't help that he looks like he's about 12, that's how young Leguizamo looks here!)

Anyways the plot is ehh--the plot doesn't really matter....you mostly watch a movie like this for the strength of the persona of the lead--and Steve James is awesome as Blade here. I actually feel bad that the man didn't get more (or any) recognition during his life (James died at the tail end of '93 according to imdb--weirdly one of his last movies was Weekend at Bernie's 2 where he played one of the two Jamaican guys tasked with resurrecting Bernie from the dead which is--I genuinely love Weekend at Bernie's 2 but that might not have been the best role to go out on for the man) Anyways he is just awesomely charismatic here, and you can't help but wish he had been given more chances to play the leading man in a whole bunch of B movies. He could've had an awesome career as a B movie hero, (I mean outside of his various sidekick roles in the American Ninja series of course) and well just based on his work here he would've 100% deserved it as he totally makes the movie watchable.

I don't know very much about the late Steve James, but I always enjoyed his work in action movies. James was the coolest of the cool. He seemed to take his job as an entertainer very seriously, but was usually cast as black sidekicks to white protagonists. Street Hunter is an exception. James is the main character in Street Hunter, but you wouldn't know it from the deceptive video packaging. It almost seems to be an attempt to hide the fact that the movie is about a black hero. The movie itself is a very low budget flick, but James' character comes across as a very cool and likable hero. He's a great guy with a great heart. The cast also includes Reb Brown (he's a lot of fun in this), John Leguizamo, Thom Christopher, the lovely Valerie Pettiford, and singer Richie Havens. The cast help to make this lackluster movie rather likable. It's not a great action flick, but Steve James' Street Hunter is one of my all time favorite video heroes. He's got heart, soul, and he's ultra-cool. God Bless Steve James.

Based on the reviews I read of this film, I was expecting to at least find this amusing. I was not amused. It was terribly boring, wooden acting, ad-libbed script, lacklustre cinematography and a waste of time. All of those things would have been fine if it had at least been charming or unintentionally funny, but it refused to do little more then fill a runtime. The only amusement was derived from a couple of ridiculous names in the credits. I've seen lots of these actors in much better films, so the blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the director. Should serve as a reminder that aspiring filmmakers have an incredibly low bar to reach in order to actualize their filmmaking goals.

I was a friend of Steve's. Before I start, go back and take a look at the poster for this film. This was Steve's first-and-only starring role in a feature. Whose picture is biggest? Reb Brown, a/k/a the white guy. Ah, Hollywood...

Steve was trying to get Street Hunter started as a franchise, and he got a lot of friends and acquaintances to join him here, thus the fairly (for a low budget film) star studded cast. After playing the black sidekick in so many movies, he saw the possibility of getting out in front. Hard to do in Hollywood. Harder if you're black in the 80's, even with Steve's film resume'.

It's a good action movie, especially given that the complete budget was probably exceeded by the craft services costs on any of the major features he worked on.

One of my favorite moments was when I was able to send him a photo of the Streethunter name on the marquee of a 42nd Street theater. We had gone to many a movie on that street, and Steve said seeing his name there above the title was like a validation of all the work he had done to date. Sadly, he passed away from cancer before he could (perhaps) do Streethunter II.