Colpo letale

I found this VHS tape in a $2 bargain bin. Its cover, which depicts a dominatrix/goth with mime-like facial paintings reflected in the sunglasses of a bloody knife-wielding punk, promised an evening's worth of cheesy urban exploitation, the kind of fun only a 1980's grindhouse flick (like MANIAC) can deliver.

The atmosphere was definitely all there: hookers smoking under neon lights, grimy warehouse settings, all the filth and sleaze and corruption you could ask for. I couldn't believe this was filmed in Australia and not New York City. But the knife-wielding punk from the cover illustration? He never shows up. The main character looks kind of like him, but that guy generally wears a suit, and is a pimp, or something kind of like a pimp. He certainly doesn't stab anyone with a knife. In fact, he spends most of the movie running in fear from a bunch of elderly mobsters. The goth mime prostitute does appear, but as it turns out, she only wears the goth mime outfit during one brief scene. Ordinarily she looks like any other fresh-faced, spunky kid.

My hopes of a star-crossed, subcultural romance disappointed, I looked for entertainment in other arenas of the film. I liked a lot of the fighting and chasing, only I couldn't keep the various mob bosses straight and thus most of the plot made absolutely no sense to me. About halfway through it seems like suddenly every baddie in Australia turns against the two protagonists, and the rest of the movie is about them running...and running...and running...until the cop who always hated them becomes their friend, and what do you know but he owns a monster truck! I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will say that it involves tons of car crashes, and it reminded me a lot of THE WARRIORS.

DEAD EASY is enjoyable, but mostly for its relic value--the strange fashions and overall aesthetic. I think it should have lost the bewildering mafia angle and instead concentrated on how an atmosphere of drug abuse, prostitution, and brutality may affect the love between two people alone in the city. Such an atmosphere does eventually bring George and Alex together in DEAD EASY, but the romantic plot--ostensibly the central story of the movie--seems a little too tacked on.

This movie really could of been something. Instead, it's a half as..d attempt as an action drama, about real life on the Cross, a place I wouldn't go again to, as first visiting it two years ago, in the day, thank god, esp. with that senseless king hit death last year. This well intended flick wastes some bloody good actors, not including it's lead, Burgess, a David Argue lookalike, who's pathetic character, George, a down and out hustler, is fun to watch. We encounter a mob war too. How lucky is this? Model, Rosemary Paul, not bad as a heroin actor/pro starts work as an escort at a new dive. Her first client, first telling her to scream, then torches the place. We have some corrupt cops too. A younger, honest cop (Mackenzie) getting too smart for his boots, gets transferred to yeah, again... Coonabarabran, hope I spelt that right (movie joke). After getting drunk, a watchable fun moment, he decides to fight back, joining forces with George and his girl, to rid these corrupt pr...s., once and for all. He's off to a good start with this awesome looking buggy, fully protected, like something out a bad science fiction movie, Mad Max, or more so, Exterminators Of The Year 3000. But this isn't 3000, it's eighties reality, and I for one, am not impressed, where this film is a cut and paste job. Where did the other pages of script and plot go. Still, Dead Easy still manages to be bloody entertaining, if unintentionally funny at times, (like that clumsy choreographed dance number) mainly because the reality of it, is that's it's quite a pathetic movie, without meaning to be. It's title song isn't bad either, though most people wouldn't agree with me on that one. Mainly an Aussie effort for the undemanding.

Boy, this is an odd one. The first half hour is a straight up hardcore Aussie crime flick. Then it turns into a semi-comical romance...and then into a story of a junkie and police corruption...and then back to a mob film...and then a couple on the run movie...and then a car chase movie...and finally a story of sacrifice and redemption (peppered with running from the Nazis/WW2 references). They were a bit ambitious there. It reminds me of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS but without the style. I really liked the guy who played the old enforcer Jack. The scene where he met up with the karate guy in the dark alley is great. If you like your Australian films a bit on the sleazy side, this'll do!

From the description on the box, you'd think this was a horror movie. It is not. It is far, far worse.

I found it entertaining - marginally - to watch the antics of British thugs involved in a mob war and putting on a show starring a brothel girl. The plot is inane, the acting poor, and the ending is absolutely stupid. The wardrobe is very late 70's, and the first shots of the male lead look like Saturday Night Fever but with a nobody who can't act instead of Travolta.

What saves this movie? (If you can call it that...) The police constable is very funny. You see women's breasts. All of the fight scenes are absolutely comical - unintentionally - one lands two men in piles of trash in the alley - trash that looks suspiciously like bean bag chairs. I guess they're lucky they went out of style just then.