O Sobrevivente

Here's yet another Mad Max inspired post apocalyptic outing from the glorious 1980's that depicts a parched and barren world inhabited by leather clad gangs (an odd choice of material to attire oneself with considering the scorching temperatures!) who drive around recklessly in armour plated cars and on motorcycles searching for the most precious commodity remaining on earth: water.

Yes, fans of the genre may recognise the above plot as exactly the same as Giuliano Carnimeo's Exterminators Of The Year 3000 which was also released in 1983. In fact, the miraculously fortuitous ending in both films is exactly the same to! (I don't know which one was released first but considering the derivative nature of the Italian movie industry in the late 70's and 80's I would hazard to guess that Carnimeo's film was most likely 'heavily inspired' (ahem) from the film being reviewed here.

Back to the film and oddly, it would appear that the producers of this, neglected to hire two always vital contributors in any film making process, namely a screen writer and a script writer (!!!) - well at least one could be forgiven for assuming this to be the case as this film has virtually no logical plotting nor character development (or even character definition for that matter!) and has scarcely any dialogue throughout! The end result is a somewhat confusing affair with scene after scene of seemingly pointless car chases and shoot outs revolving around a (VERY HOT!) woman who is being pursued by just about everyone she encounters (including the films beefy hero).

To be fair, as the movie progresses a plot of sorts is disclosed and there's even the trappings of a love story that begin to blossom! On the plus side, the action sequences are competently handled throughout with some fair stunt work on display in a number of scenes and as previously mentioned, - males rejoice, for the heroine along with all of the other females in the cast, is absolutely gorgeous (and spends the entire film in some seriously sexy leather shorts!) Wey Hey!!! For fans of the genre this is certainly worth a watch but it has to be said that this is far from the best of its kind.

....on a future Earth where it apparently....never rains anymore?

Now I'm only speaking for myself here, but if I was a girl (which I'm not), and my living environment was 99.9% large, hard, uneven, sharp, randomly strewn rocks, my first fashion choice wouldn't be a leather thong slit up to my hip bones. Of course, that's just how I roll, I'm a different breed of cat. Fortunately for the lucky ladies, none of them ended up with so much as a scratch on those long, shapely legs.

Which, of course, is the only redeeming quality of the movie. Normally, I'd complain that Monique St. Pierre should lose the football equipment, but with the advent of the internet, anyone can see her naked within 5 seconds anyway, so I actually enjoyed the novelty.

Full disclosure, I saw this as part of the "Grindhouse 2" collection, so I knew exactly what to expect, and got pretty much exactly what I expected.

In a post-apocalyptic future, people have banded together for survival. The key to that survival is water. A woman holds the key to the location of a vast water supply. She's being chased by a roaming gang of baddies hoping to gain her knowledge. Water is power and the baddies want the power. The woman is rescued (multiple times) by a man known as Stryker. Stryker and his friends will battle the baddies for the secret of the water.

Stryker is one of the countless number of films that looked to cash-in on the success of The Road Warrior. Some are good (or at least enjoyable) and some are not so good. Stryker falls into the latter category. There are lot of problems I had with the movie, but the biggest issue I had was Stryker is it's just plain boring. I had the hardest time staying awake. There's little that held my interest. The plot is so unbelievably unoriginal. The filmmakers attempted to take the search for gas in The Road Warrior and replace it with the search for water in Stryker. In addition, the action is repetitive. The good guys save the girl, then they save Stryker, then they save the girl, and on and on it goes. But the biggest bore of all comes in the form of lead actor Steve Sandor as Stryker. Sandor's Stryker is so unappealing and so dull that it's hard to believe he's the title character. You'd be hard pressed to find a lead with less screen presence. What a wretched waste of time!

In a post-apocalyptic world the world's water supply has dried up, but woman holds the location of the last springs being guarded by a group of female warriors. Stryker and company, along with the warriors go about stopping a warlord and his 'Road Warrior' gang.

Director Cirio H. Santiago's Stryker is another Mad Max 2 copy but with an American Western feel than most of the post apocalyptic films of 1983 including the similar, Escape from the Bronx, The New Barbarians, Exterminators of the Year 3000, End Game, 2019: After the Fall of New York to name a few.

The late TV actor Steve Sandor (with a handful of film screen credits, also the excellent voice of Darkwolf in Fire and Ice (1983)) looks the part as rugged, gun toting, cowboy hat wearing Stryker. Bandanna sporting William Ostrander is notable (incidentally also the voices Taro / Larn in Fire and Ice) as Bandit. Warrior women wearing old football shoulder pads and leather knickers, including Julie Gray, Monique St. Pierre and Andria Savio are all notable. Mike Lane's villain Kardis with hook hand is menacing but his minions have more interaction with the hero.

Howard R. Cohen's sparse script and Santiago's story is packed with slow motion shots, there's little people, 'Amazon' women, gangs, a tank, a tanker, cars, motorcycle chases, smoke grenades and shootouts across rugged terrain. The writers also pop in some flashback for good measure to try and flesh-out Stryker. The editing is disjointed and Ed Gatchalian's score, is more classical than synth, mostly piano and drums which is used sparingly throughout. Even though Sandor and Ostrander along with some of the female cast are highly watchable, in terms of production this probably on the lower end of scale of the post apocalyptic offerings.

Overall, if you enjoyed the aforementioned there's no reason not to indulge.

Steve Sandor ("Bonnie's Kids") is the title character in this routine "Mad Max" & "Road Warrior" inspired post-nuke sci-fi action flick. Teaming up with another hunky hero, Bandit (William Ostrander, "Christine"), he decides to help out a lovely young woman, Dielha (Andrea Savio), with knowledge of a plentiful water source. You see, in this world of the future, landscapes often consist of deserts, and water is hard to come by. The villain who stands in everybody's way is a snarling despot named Kardis (wrestler / actor Mike Lane, "The Harder They Fall").

This was the first of *seven* movies that Filipino exploitation icon Cirio H. Santiago ("TNT Jackson") made with similar themes and stories. It's not particularly distinguished, and you soon see that the "story", such as it is, is often incoherent. At first it seems as if we won't ever get to know the characters very well, but Santiago does save that stuff for the second half of the picture, when things slow down for a bit. We even get a bit of romance.

Santiago mostly concentrates on action and pace, and shows his audience a reasonably good time, with sex and violence aplenty. The music, credited to Ed Gatchalian and Susan Justin, is occasionally hilariously bad, but mostly it's good, atmospheric stuff, with a heavy accent on percussion. Costumes and vehicles are decent looking, but where the movie really works is the use of locations and the art direction.

Sandor is not a bad actor, but he's just sort of taking up space here. His character is generic and lacks personality. Ostrander also does what he can with an under written role. Lane is an effective, amusing villain, and the supporting cast includes Monique St. Pierre ("Motel Hell") and Filipino exploitation mainstay Ken Metcalfe, who was also the casting director on this show.

Not a terrible way to kill an hour and 24 minutes, but some people may prefer to just revisit the works of George Miller instead.

Six out of 10.