Enemy Gold

Another cheap and silly thriller from the Andy Sidaris stable, this one actually made by his son. Julie Strain, the pneumatic scream queen of the 1990s, co-stars. The story is about the usual wooden good guy agents battling criminals and at the same time uncovering a cache of civil war gold, leading to more action. The only emphasis is on pin up models wearing very little, and it's all rather silly, although fairly well shot for its budget.

This film essentially begins during the American Civil War with a couple of Confederate soldiers stealing some gold that was being transported by the Union Army. One of them is wounded and dies trying to escape enemy patrols while the other is killed by Indians somewhere in East Texas. Before he dies, however, he manages to write about the stolen gold in his journal and subsequently buries it as well. The scene then shifts to the present day with two federal agents named "Chris Cannon" (Bruce Penhall) and "Mark Austin" (Mark Barriere) planning to conduct a raid on a Bolivian drug lord by the name of "Santiago" (Rodrigo Obregon). Just prior to that, they are joined by a female agent named "Becky Midnight" (Suzi Simpson) who has only recently graduated from training. In spite of that, she performs her duties quite well and the drug raid is a tremendous success. What none of them realize, however, is that Santiago has certain resources at his disposal and he is not somebody who can tolerate any interference in his illegal business enterprises. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film had a certain amount of potential but it was undermined to a great degree by a poor script and extremely weak acting. Admittedly, these weaknesses were mitigated somewhat by having three attractive actresses like Tanquil Lisa Collins (as "Ava Noble") along with the aforementioned Suzi Simpson and Julie Strain to enhance the scenery. But even then, it just wasn't quite enough and I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.

This movie is in a league of its own. Caught this on Beer Goggle Vision on Spike TV at 2am, and it reaches the final frontier of B rated (C rated) movies.

The conversion between the producers of the movie must have went something like this.

Exec 1: "Hey, so we got these two playboy chicks, maybe we should make a movie with them"

Exec 2: "Ok, but we will need a plausible story line that will work with their gigantic breasts, and lack of acting ability"

Exec 1: "True, I've got just the thing. Let's stick in Bruce Penhall and Mark Berrier into the movie. Next to them Suzi Simpson will look like Elizabeth Taylor."

Exec 2: "Fantastic, but whats the plot"

Exec 1: "Lets go with the usual. Special agents fighting a drug lord. They find some diary, and look for gold"

Exec 2: "Brilliant!"

Exec 1: "We can call it Enemy Gold"

Exec 2: "I like it! Also, we can get the one of the A Team directors to helm the film"

Exec 1: "Okay, lets start shooting tomorrow. I want this in theatres next month"

So yeh, that sums it up. If you need a good laugh, grab some smokes, some beer and some friends and you got the night made.

My Sidaris movie streak continues with the 1993 movie "Enemy Gold". Granted, this particular movie sees Andy Sidaris step back and has Christian Drew Sidaris take over the director's chair. But hey, potato potato, right?

"Enemy Gold" is a step back from the original formula, and this particular movie from writers Wess Shannon Rahn and Christian Drew Sidaris just didn't really live up to the expectations set by the numerous many previous movies from writer and director Andy Sidaris. Yet, I managed to sit through the movie in its 92 minutes runtime, but the best thing about this 1993 movie was actually the cover.

The storyline in "Enemy Gold" started out okay, but it quickly escalated into a chaotic mess of a storyline where the red thread went right out the window and the movie felt like director Christian Drew Sidaris was just putting together randomly filmed segments to make a movie.

The movie also has changes to the character gallery, so it lost that particular continuity that the previous movies had going on for it. I have to say that it was nice to see Julie Strain make it to the roster, but given the limitations of the script, then it was not much she had to work with. Sure, there were some familiar faces from previous movies, such as Bruce Penhall and Rodrigo Obregón, but nothing noteworthy.

"Enemy Gold" is not up to par with the previous movies and it is actually a less than mediocre attempt at the genre from director Christian Drew Sidaris.

My rating of "Enemy Gold" lands on a four out of ten stars.

This is the 9th out of my 12 reviews for the works of Andy Sidaris, in chronological order. For the first time, he only produced the movie, but left the director's job to his son Drew, who had regularly been director's assistant before. Renting a video cassette of „Enemy Gold" was my start into the world of „bullets, bombs and babes" many years ago and it still is a pleasure to revisit!

The story is simple: Three agents discover a bunch of drug smugglers, kill a few and put the rest in jail. The big boss is not amused and sends a killer to eliminate the agents. The interesting twist is that the agents are treasure hunting on their „day off": they find a map that leads to lost gold from the civil war. The historical flashbacks make the movie a bit more interesting, because the rest is quite predictable. Fortunately, we have familiar faces with Mark Barriere and Bruce Penhall who play the good guys, plus Julie Strain as Jewel Panther (sic!), the killer. Debutante Suzi Simpson plays an agent by the equally unlikely name of Becky Midnite, and Suzi follows the footsteps of Dona Speir quite well for a first try. Remember, Dona appeared in no less than 7 of Sidaris' movies before and seemed impossible to replace! Alan Abelew deserves mentioning; he plays Dickson, a man you love to hate. If you ever worked for a boss like that, you know what I mean. „Enemy Gold" has a simple instrumental rock guitar soundtrack, a bit different from the style of most predecessors. Don't miss the documentary „Let's make a Sidaris movie" (bonus on the American DVD), because it explains how the members of the whole family worked together to make a movie - not an ordinary film team.