Mission Manila

Saw this on cable television in Asia. Larry Wilcox of TV's 'CHiPs' grows a mustache and looks like a cross between Nick Nolte and Chuck Norris (but with a lot less talent). The film looks like it was filmed with someone's home movie camera. Larry (aka Web) is trolling around Manila looking for his brother, running into many 80s clad Filipina women and a horde a terrible character actors you've never heard of. The dialog is absolutely horrendous, as are the action scenes, which look like a bunch of drunks tumbling off of each other. In the film's climax, Larry commandeers a pimped-out Tuk Tuk that looks like an ice cream truck on LSD and infiltrates the antagonist's home. The purity of the film's awfulness actually makes it worth watching--for a laugh. This would have made good fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Though this film suffers from an obvious shortage of budget, it is worth seeing for the marvellous portrayal of the 'baddie' of the piece by Neil French. Like a latter day Sydney Greenstreet, he dominates the too few scenes in which he appears. Like Orson Welles in The Third Man he is a largely invisible, malignant, presence whose influence is felt throughout the drama. Unfortunately the script gives him no speeches of the weight of the 'Switzerland' speech in the Prater Amusement Park. Nevertheless he gives the lifeless scripted dialogue his all, and his eventual grisly end is as welcomed by the audience as it is by his adversaries within the film. It is a mystery that after this performance he disappeared from screens everywhere. One wonders what he would have made of the role of Hannibal Lecter for which he was, apparently an early nomination.