Steel Frontier

I made it about 8 minutes into "Steel Frontier" before I turned it off. Then, glutton for punishment that I am, I watched some more the next day. Today I had to iron a pile of clothes, so I decided to finish the movie, and that was its own punishment. Here's what I don't understand: Robert Rodriguez and Shane Carruth each spent $7,000 on their debut features and created two remarkable movies. Yet here we have two directors with arguably way more money, and they churn out a huge, steaming pile of crap. Let me see if I can figure out the logic: "It's 'Road Warrior' but it's like a future Western. We'll get the cheapest 'actors' we can find, we'll have my mentally challenged cousin write the script, and we'll spend the budget on a bunch of explosions. We can't lose!"

Seriously. I don't think even the MST3K guys could improve this. But if you insist on watching it, I recommend getting very drunk first.

It has to be said that this film is definitely one of the better "bargain bin" movies out there - I'd feel a bit cheated if I had paid £15 for it, but at about £1.50 I felt that I definitely got more than my monies worth.

The film can't quite decide if it wants to be "Mad Max" or one of the Clint Eastwood "man with no name" spaghetti westerns, and as such is stacked with clichés from both. Even the manic loony who hangs out with the bad guys in "Mad Max" is there.

That guy from "Blade Runner" also cops a good billing, although he only turns up at the beginning and the end of the movie.

Favourite bit - for me the punch-up on top of the oil refinery - if you look closely you can see the "post-apocalyptic" rush hour traffic thundering past in the distance as the two protagonists knock seven bells out of each other.

Get several lagers in, a few pizzas and sit back and enjoy what is ultimately lightweight but entertaining drivel.

Ok, when I rented this several years ago I had the worst expectations. Yes, the acting isn't great, and the picture itself looks dated, but as I sat there, a strange thing happened. I started to like it. The action is great and there are few scenes that make you jump. Brion James, maybe one of the greatest B-grade actors next to Bruce Campbell, is great as always. The story isn't bad either. Now I wouldn't rush out and buy it, but you won't waste your time at least watching this good b-grade post apocalyptic western.

Before you say Mad Max, they were making these films 20 yrs before Mel Gibson came along. Basically take any of Clint Eastwood's westerns and put it after the nuclear Holocaust. Great film for budget they had. My two gripes is the overuse of guns and gas powered vehicles. They try to justify it with a old military armory as the death riders base. But still a weak premise. And they set up a nice powered sniper rifle in the beginning but they never use it again. The best gun in the whole film is a throwaway used once to hunt down dinner. Yes most of the acting is weak and stiff but so we're 99% of these films. Also biggest continuity issue is several struggles use the clear sound of clothes being torn but after the struggle not a single new tear in their clothes.

Honestly this is a fun Road Warrior reinterpretation. Brion James does his best and Bo Svenson has a fairly significant side role. The early car chase scene is pretty damn good! But Joe Lara's long Jesus hair is hilarious and you can tell he's kind of trying to do his best to work around it at times. The action is plentiful and well staged and there are some interesting characters - one who's so interesting you'll want him killed off as soon as he opens his mouth! But all in all quite a satisfying sci-fi action film that's certainly dumb - but they know what they're doing and everyone's having a great time. Highly enjoyable Sunday afternoon action flick.