Endgame - Bronx lotta finale

My review was written in January 1986 after watching the movie on Cinemax.

"Endgame" is a rather weak entry in the crowded post-WW III series of Italian action films made circa 1983. Emanating from the Helen Sarlui pic stable (though she does not take a screen credit), item was mulled for a while as a New Line theatrical release but went instead to pay-tv and home video.

Misleading opening reel establishes a tv game in the year 2012 called "Endgame", quite similar to Robert Sheckley's concept used in the classic "The Tenth Victim" (and recently updated in another Italian pic, "The Final Executioner"). Al Cliver toplines as a successful warrior in the killing game who is recruited by a telepathic mutant Lilith (Laura Gemser) to help her band of mutants leave the city (where they are subject to extermination by storm trooper-styled soldiers) to set up a new community.

The tv game is over in 20 minutes, with the remainder of the film given over to fights en route to delivering the mutants. Action scenes are perfunctory, with none of the thrills to the model for this genre, "The Road Warrior".

Given the poor dubbing of these pictures, "Endgame" benefits from its telepathy gimmick, which allows many dialog scenes to have staring faces with no lips moving as the thoughts are voiced-over on the soundtrack. Acting is stilted, with the ubiquitous husband-and-wife team of Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti both credited with different "real" names, Moira Chen and Gus Stone, respectively. Freeze-frame non-ending is poor.

In the year 2025, a nuclear holocaust has left New York City ruined, inhabited by persecuted telepathic mutants. Keeping the people pacified is the reality television program Endgame, where a new hero must save a group of people and fight to the death.

Directed by Joe D'Amato (under the pseudonym Steven Benson) Endgame (Bronx lotta finale) is one of the better executed Italian post apocalyptic B-films. The action seems endless especially in the closing act as scavenger packs and telepathic mutants fight it out with hunters, gladiators and military elite. There's an unnecessary rape scene, this aside the majority of D'Amato's Max Road Warrior meets Beneath the Planet of the Apes is very watchable especially if you enjoy the likes of Rats: Night of Terror, Warriors of the Wasteland and Bronx Warriors.

The locations and costumes deserve a mention. Carlo Maria Cordio's music working best when it's borrowing cues from Vangelis' Blade Runner score.

Interestingly, the TV game concept (even though not fully explored) predates The Running Man a good four years before Arnold Schwarzenegger's scifi romp and was made around the same time Stephen King's pseudonym book was published.

Overall, not too shabby at all.

This was not as bad I expected...

The first half of this film is very boring and it is suitable to use the fast forwarding on your remote, because the last half is so much better. You can see easily that the budget for this film has been very low, but the action scenes actually work rather well. The post-WW3 vehicles are creatively constructed from existing cars and motorbikes. The car with no doors is my favorite. I wonder where they get all the gas and spare parts for those things in a destroyed world?

The acting isn't so bad. The telepath girl looks good and carries her role very well. The only scene of her I laughed out loud was that where a telepath makes a big stone floating up. You can easily spot the wire holding the styrofoam-stone in the air, it's just so goofy.

I gave this 5/10.

Wow, this is italian exploitation flicks at it's best. Guess this one came because of the post-apocalyptic hype after "Escape from New York" and "Mad Max", and got stuff like "Rollerball" also in it. Of course it's an awful movie full of missing links. But here is simply no need for explanations, this question would be stupid. It's the full atmosphere of 80ies italo exploitation thrash: good explosions (gas!gas!gas! - nothing digital! I reminisce in nostalgica), crazy overacted characters, some bare breasts, a setting full of cheap dirt. Those movies are so honest in their cheasiness and roughness, I love 'em. - And the eighties were best! Italy full ahead! A pitty the video-market got down and what is left is filled by the majors with hollywood-cheapos exploiting themselves with their own cheap ripp-offs which have no life of it's own; a pity, no good exploitation-scene nowadays...

And hey, wow, this one has them all in it: Joe d'Amato, Al Cliver, Laura Gemser, Michele Soavi and George Eastmen. - A Fest! Gets a nerdish 7 out of 10!

Based on the reputation of director Joe D'Amato, who's primarily known for an endless number of pornography movies and perverted exploitation flicks, and a shallow first look at the VHS cover and stills, I was expecting "Endgame" to be an extremely low-keyed and virtually worthless piece of Italian 80's trash but I'm glad to announce that it actually is a pleasantly engaging Post-Apocalyptically themed Sci-Fi experience. It's a piece of 80's trash nevertheless, of course, but one of the most enjoyable kinds. "Endgame" belongs in the extended category of Italian produced "Escape from NY" knockoffs and it can easily compete with the most successful and notorious accomplishments in there, like Sergio Martino's "After the Fall of New York", Ruggero Deodato's "The Atlantis Interceptors", Lucio Fulci's "The Fighting Centurions" and Enzo G. Castellari's "The New Barbarians". These titles probably don't mean anything to 'normal' film lovers, but to true fans of Italian exploitation cinema they form an excellent source of comparison. The main story lines are very familiar and D'Amato isn't too ashamed to add in one clichéd plot twist after the other, but the film is extremely fast-paced, spectacular and indescribably violent, so who really cares about originality? Al Cliver plays a terrific Snake Plissken clone, but the show is obviously stolen by the almighty George Eastman as the arch enemy. It's the years 2025 and everybody eagerly awaits the new edition of a popular TV show, called "Endgame", in which a couple of bloodthirsty hunters go after a human prey. Ron Shannon wins the game, but only thanks to the help of the telepathically gifted mutant Lilith (D'Amato muse Laura Gemser). The government systematically exterminates all the mutants, and thus Shannon swears to help Lilith and her other mutant friends flee out of the city. Along with a troop of recruited mercenaries, Shannon guides them out of town but the group successively encounters hugely challenging ordeals like a community of blind cannibalistic monks (a splendid homage to "The Omega Man" perhaps?), an army of bewildered mutants and Nazi-like government soldiers. "Endgame" is glorious and priceless 80's entertainment like they just don't make it anymore. The battling sequences are extended and body count is enormous, with literally hundreds of bad guys and the occasional good guy dying left and right and in highly imaginative ways. In spite of the obviously low-budgeted production values, D'Amato managed to gather together some excellently apt set pieces and flamboyant vehicles and even the make-up effects are far above average. Director Joe D'Amato stated that this is his own personal favorite of all the movies he directed, and he's probably right although I personally have even bigger soft spots for "Anthropophagus" and "Beyond the Darkness". This is somewhat also a very atypical D'Amato film and that's a positive comment. For once, he could keep his viewers alert and fascinated with actually content instead of through showing nudity and sleaze. I mean, Laura Gemser stars in this film and she barely takes her clothes off! George Eastman also stars and he doesn't even attempt to rape a woman! This is just a perfectly entertaining Italian post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi movie with all the necessary ingredients: action, bloodshed, gimmicks, costumes, silliness and a terrific freeze-frame end shot.