Ponto Fatal

An awful sub-par thriller from Crown International Pictures, much along the lines of their follow-up LOW BLOW. It's hard to know what's worse: the quality of the martial arts fights (in which the blows are the softest ever and barely hit the opponent half of the time), or the acting from a cast slumming it throughout. The plot, in a nutshell, is about a criminal gang armed with stolen weapons who go on a killing spree through the city, leaving one tough cop to track them down.

Actually, I think the worst thing about this film is the quality of the editing. It's incredible - worse than in an Ed Wood film, for instance. One shot will have a character coming up to somebody from the left, then the next shot will see them randomly standing to the right of that person. It makes for a disconcerting viewing experience to say the least.

The production values are very poor, although at least the outdoor locations are sunny. Leo Fong gives an appalling performance in the lead role, just as he did in LOW BLOW; throughout the movie I couldn't work out what was worse, his acting or his wig. Cameron Mitchell seems drunk in his turn as the villain, and only Richard Roundtree and Stack Pierce in support give anything approaching halfway decent performances. Yes, there's some quite graphic violence in KILLPOINT and a storyline that just about passes muster, but the execution is so poor that it's a real chore to sit through.