Choque Mortal

"What a feeling..." Irene Cara must have thought. "Just a few years ago I was performing and winning Oscars for acclaimed musicals like "Fame" and "Flashdance", and now I'm undressing myself and racing through sewers in a cheap & sleazy exploitation B-movie!". "Tell me about it..." could have been the reply by Tatum O'Neal. "...Ten years ago, I had world at my feet for winning an Oscar as a 10-year-old in "Paper Moon". Now I'm depicting a street prostitute with a foul mouth in a cheap & sleazy exploitation B-movie."

Well, there's one advantage. People like me have zero interest in watching movies like "Flashdance" or "Paper Moon", but I am on a mission to watch as many cheapy and sleazy exploitation B-movies from the 80s as much as humanly possible! The starring of the two leading ladies with a slightly more glamourous background, plus a brief appearance by the charismatic Peter Fonda, make "Certain Fury" a curious must-see oddity for the fans.

What several other reviewers already stated is truthful. "Certain Fury" is a solid and vastly entertaining actioner; - or at least for a while. It's a story about two girls on the lam. They understandably panicked, following a brutal and unforeseeable incident in court, but now they're considered as hardened criminals and there isn't a way back. The first half hour is fantastic, and I genuinely thought I had stumbled upon one of the roughest and most violent flick since "Chained Heat" and "Escape from New York". The extended opening sequences in the courtroom and the subsequent escape through the dangerous sewers are top-notch entertainment. It's grim, bloody, relentless, and fast-moving. Loved it.

The whole concept collapses like a feeble house of cards shortly after that, however. A slowdown of pace was inevitable, I guess, but "Certain Fury" turns into a dull, melodramatic, and whiny mess instead. The girls seek refuge in the apartment of an abuse boyfriend/pimp, escape via numerous rooftops, end up in a massive drug house, etc. Oh yeah, they also become BFFs along the way, of course. The performances of both Cara and O'Neal are admirable, and Stephen Gyllenhaal (later responsible for the excellent "Paris Trout") is clearly a gifted director, but the script is full of really bad dialogues and unevenness. Watch it until after the sewer gas incident, and you've got yourself 20 minutes of genuine, unhinged exploitation.

You can just imagine how they tried to sell this one. Two Oscar winners Tatum O'Neal and Irene Cara team up together in this very trashy, b-grade urban action-thriller exploitation; a modernized mould of "THE DEFIANT ONES".

After a full-on, adrenaline-fueled first half-hour of courthouse slaughter, bullets spray the screen, panic erupts and bloody exchanges occur. Escaping that frenzy the girls end up in the city's sewers fighting the underground elements, running from the authorities who want their blood and getting on each other's nerves, as sparks fly between two prisoners that couldn't be any more different in all walks of life. On the run they go, trying to survive, being wrongly fingered as accomplices to what went down. One costly mishap after another puts both in dangerous predicaments on the dirty side of town.

I thought this was going to be great; formulaic, yeah, but what an excessive opening with strong stunt-work. Instead by the time it hit the halfway mark, it had already peaked. There it becomes uneven, the tension from then onwards (other than the crackhouse fight) had little impact as scenes go on longer than they should and eventually it meandered to the (lousy) finish line. Sometimes it wanted to have its cake and eat it too, dipping into both half-baked exploitation and serious drama. The latter does get manipulatively cheesy by trying to strike up an emotional chord; like the (unnecessary) scenes with one of the girl's father (Cara). Even the low-brow dialogues make it hard to take seriously. Although I did like the combination between O'Neal and Cara, even though the character details are predictably wear-worn, yet their interactions engage, from the callous remarks/or actions to their growing bond. Both stars weren't afraid to get down and dirty, but while not particularly likeable O'Neal did standout in her hardened, street smart hooker turn. Someone who didn't is a paycheck collecting Peter Fonda who appears in one of the most ridiculously unconvincing staged moments in the film involving a nail-filer.

"Certain Fury" is grade-Z stuff in most departments (the low production values and the often very bad dialogue stand out), but Tatum O'Neal is engagingly tough and she makes the film worth watching all by herself. Irene Cara is awful, and the slashing scene is hilariously fake, but Tatum won me over, enough to give this film a ** rating.

I Love the movie certain fury. I have been searching for this movie for years and years.I love both actresses, Irene Cara and Tatum Oneal, These are both talented women I would have liked for them to make a part2 of this movie. They both did a great job. I would like to see these women make another movie together soon. Both actresses have there own unique style therefore you can not judge them.

Come on Stephen and Micheal what do you say, They say twice is always nice. Or have another another action and drama with them together with Kristy Mcnikol. I think with these three women will be a blast. with actors Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawk.

Thank you for taking the time out to read my comments.

It's like this:

Tatum as po' white trash. The Tuff Girrl. She smokes! She swears! She needs a new agent and quality time at a tanning salon!

Enter Irene "Fame" Cara. The Good Girrl. She's from Westchester! She wears GAP clothes! She once again shows us her negative-boobage in an unintentionally hysterical near-rape scene!

This turkey trots along like a how-to tutorial in camp & cliche, and the kitchen sink has been thrown in for good measure. We have a foot chase in the sewer-tunnels, a towering inferno in a crackwhore flophouse, the classic Peter Fonda boat scene, and a finale that had me spraying cherry Capri Sun from my nostrils. Hint: It's supposed to be sad but it's really a knee-slapper.

Not quite campy enough to be cult, "Certain Fury" can surely be found in a Blockbuster close-out bin... sandwiched somewhere between "Tuff Turf" and an Olsen Twin flick.