Il giustiziere del Bronx

THE BRONX EXECUTIONER begins with lots of electronic / computer stuff going on, letting us know that we're in "the future".

This movie is a conglomeration of elements and particles from other movies that were actual hits, unlike this misbegotten stew of misery. There are bits of ROBOCOP, BLADE RUNNER, and THE TERMINATOR, with a pinch of THE ROAD WARROR tossed in for the hell of it.

How could this not be the most exciting movie ever made?

A woman named Margie (Margie Newton) is head of an army of killer-biker androids. They lead an assault on mankind that is sheer, chunky cheddar ballet! Bullets fly as people flip, flop, and twist about in slow-motion! All while Margie runs around in her red, leatherette mini-dress and dog collar!

The dialogue is poetically pathetic, and constitutes the greatest strength of this cinematic smegma..

Enter Warren (Woody Strode), who's in this movie for reasons unknown. Fights occur. More people fly around. Motorcycles ride through a blasted landscape. There are musclemen. A rape / murder scene exists only to show pointless nudity, and to give the viewer something to be angry about other than the emptiness of this nonsense. A battle takes place. Margie decides to shed her clothes as well. Etc.

A stupendously skull-flattening experience...

I'm the post-apocalyptic Bronx, evil androids and humanoids engage in a war for supremacy.

Director Vanio Amici's Bronx Executioners, released in 1989 but feeling like a B-Movie from 1982, extensively uses footage from the 1984 film The Final Executioner. The Bronx setting, despite claiming a post-apocalyptic vibe, bears little resemblance to the actual Bronx. It lacks the fun, futuristic elements, and coherence found in films like 1990: Bronx Warrior, Rats: Night of Terror, and The New Barbarians, among others. The gunplay, dog attacks, staged fights, and severed heads contribute to the film's chaotic mix.

Woody Strode's reused footage as Sam from The Final Executioner now portrays the character Warren, while Alex Vitale, previously the Russian in Strike Commando, plays Dakar, aspiring to be human. Margit Evelyn Newton, known for Hell of the Living Dead, is the only actor from the first film with new scenes in the second. The inclusion of saxophone in the last act attempts to evoke a Blade Runner vibe. Notably, Paolo Rustichelli's music, borrowing much from The Terminator (1984), stands out as one of the film's highlights.

Overall, Bronx Executioners feels like a poorly assembled remake of 'The Final Executioner,' lacking coherence. It may appeal to those who enjoy sporadic scenes of men rolling and falling around.

A new sheriff in town helps a good hearted robot battle other cyborgs who are militant and kill crazy, where as some cyborgs are good and civilized, anyway the new sheriff sorts everything out after training with Woody Strode (The film's most famous cast member) in this crummy action flick which is pretty much what you would expect from the bargain bin. Bronx Executioner is one of the 4 titles you can have for the low price of 5 dollars and of course as the old saying goes, if something is too good to be true, it is. So with 4 movies for 5 bucks (6 with tax) This averages out to be a dollar a movie and when I got done watching this clunker, I started wondering if I hadn't paid too much. Another interesting thing is that the DVD promises a Michael Dudikoff introduction which sadly never materializes and instead we witness in horror as Italian actors run around and shoot at each other with no sense of who's really shooting who or for that matter who we should be rooting for. Still as these things go, there is some schlocky fun but it's not nearly as fun as say ROTOR or Future War which offer more bang (Read laughs) for the buck. Still i'm not complaining, after all I have nobody to blame but myself for buying this. And to think I could've used the five dollars to buy myself a Mad Magazine. A pity.

* out of 4-(Bad)

The Bronx Executioner is truly an hypnotic experience. There is something mesmerising about the film's sheer lack of plot, continuity and credibility. Viewers searching for an intelligent sci-fi thriller should look elsewhere. However, if you enjoy car crash cinema, then this is the film for you! One of the most charming things about this movie is the fact that it is entirely unapologetic about making absolutely no sense.

This is signalled from the very first sequence in which an ancient looking computer bleeps. For about 2 minutes. From there we get a confusing voice-over about a trainee sheriff, James, and warring humanoids and androids. Before you can say, "what the?", our stony faced trainee has been given a sheriff's badge - after completing an obstacle course and doing a few chin-ups.

The film then shifts almost entirely away from James, to the leader of the humanoids, Dakar. Dakar spends most of the film driving around in his jeep, screaming incoherently into his walkie talkie. When Dakar realises that Margie is behind the rape and murder of his girlfriend, he finally puts the damn walkie talkie away and joins forces with James to bring Margie down.

The characters of Dakar and Margie are truly hilarious. Dakar looks like a WWE escapee, while Margie runs around in a red leather dress and at one stage sports a truly fetching peroxide blonde mullet. Both actors are fabulously awful. In all fairness, lines like "the only thing I love is death" and "why do those damn androids hate us so much?" really didn't give them much to work with.

Other moments or jaw dropping incompetence include the rape of Dakar's girlfriend, who is apparently violated in 5 seconds while fully clothed and a sub-plot involving killer dogs and green lights on a computer monitor that makes no sense whatsoever.

This film is definitely not for everyone, but fans of camp 80s Euro-action films or car crash cinema could do a lot worse than spending 90 minutes of their time on "The Bronx Executioner".

This is another film I happened upon at my local DVD rental outlet of which I had no prior knowledge; having watched a spate of belated Euro-Cult sci-fi outings over the last couple of years, I suspected I’d be in for a ‘so bad it’s good’ ride – but the end result, though certainly unintentionally hilarious, is a wretched piece of junk.

To begin with the plot doesn’t make a lick of sense: little wonder, since it lifted a good deal of footage – including Woody Strode’s entire performance – from THE FINAL EXECUTIONER (1983), a film directed by Romolo Guerrieri (hence his unofficial credit above)! Anyway, here we get a rookie sheriff in a futuristic New York – replacing Strode (dubbed, what else, “The Black Man”) – who has to quell an ongoing conflict between a colony of androids and one comprised of renegade humanoids (the script even makes some dumb comparisons between the latter’s fate and that endured by Native Americans over the years!); incidentally, don’t ask me to explain the difference between each faction of robots, because I sure as hell couldn’t tell them apart!!

As is usual for this kind of film, we’re treated to a crappy electronic score and characters who could best be described as scum; ironically, the would-be hero doesn’t do much of anything throughout (even if he’s relentlessly undermined by martinet Strode during his period of training). As a matter of fact, the lead is actually...er...the leader of the humanoids – a short-tempered beefcake wearing a ridiculously undersized sleeveless shirt and who’s supposedly fallen in love with a human; when she’s raped and murdered by rival androids, he sets out to infiltrate the latter’s castle base (having by this time befriended the cop). Margie Newton (from Bruno Mattei’s equally lamentable HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD [1980]) is the bimbo leader of the villainous robots – who, amusingly, gets an itch for lovemaking just as the final onslaught is about to begin!

While there are some undeniable howlers throughout – particularly the humanoid leader’s dumb monologues – the film is simply too poorly handled (in all departments) to be easily enjoyed; in fact, even if less than 90 minutes in length, I found it virtually unbearable...