Sudden Death

My review was written in September 1985 after watching the movie at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.

"Sudden Death" is an unimpressive thriller likely to get okay playoff on the action circuit by virtue of its femme vigilante theme. Filmmaker Sig Shore (best-known as producer of the WB hit "Superfly") has put together commercial elements, but directed them flatly.

Denise Coward (a former Miss Australia beauty contest winner), toplines as Valarie Wells, a New York City rape victim who buys a gun, and not unlike the Charles Bronson in "Death Wish" archetype, starts hanging around in sleazy locations. Sure enough, other men try to assault her with fatal results.

Her businessman boyfriend Herbert (Robert Trumbull) is patronizing, thereby alienating her affections which are transferred to the cop on the case. Det. Lowery (Frank Runyeon). Quite improbably, when Lowery discovers she is what the press had dubbed The Dum-Dum Killer (after the lethal bullets she uses), he jumps in bed with her and later successfully covers up her guilt when closing both cases.

Low-budgeter suffers from a paucity of action, with a lengthy final reel foot chase by Lowery after the rapist that is thoroughly unexciting. Coward is a looker, but her impassive, expressionless acting wins little audience sympathy. Runyeon, a tv soap opera star, looks uncomfortable in action scenes.

Though advertised as "the first female vigilante", pic actually suffers by comparison to its more stylish forerunners, "Ms. 45" and "Alley Cat". Tech credits are okay, with an emphasis on exploding blood packs in the various victims.

I know that this is an old and campy movie, but the message as a whole rings true even today...if someone gets raped, they want revenge and boy is it sweet when you get it. Look at Sally Fields in "An Eye for an Eye" ----You want it, You get it, You love it!

A tale from the vile city about rape & revenge. The gorgeous Denise Coward gets brutally raped by two crazed criminals in a stolen taxi. She barely survives. With the police investigation slacking, she decides to go after the criminals herself in true Charles Bronson style. Instead of finding them, she encounters several more sleazeballs that try to rape her. So she blows all of their guts out in slow-motion with dumdum bullets. Then goes home each time, satisfied and relaxing with a mixed Martini on the rocks. Halfway the movie something strange happens with the plot. She shows remorse, throws away her gun, thereby ending her killing spree. But the plot picks up with a police officer, her love-interest (yes, sex scene!), being on the trail of the two initial rapists. Beautiful Denise decides to tag along and brings with her... a shotgun. All this on the tunes of a groovy '80s electronic soundtrack, as if Herbie Hancock was goofing around with a cheap Casio keyboard.

The film is full of sex and violence and reinforces what George Gerbner and his associates at the University of Pennsylvania claim about fictionalized TV and film violence leading us into a "Mean World Syndrome" perception of reality. New York City comes off looking pretty terrible and the males who inhabit it even worse. They are all thugs and sex-starved beasts who live only to drink and attack women. It's not a pretty place to be. The plot is a mirror image of the Bronson "Death Wish" films, but with a female vigilante who goes out to exact revenge on her rapist attackers. It also parallels "Sudden Impact" very strongly. Hence the title "Sudden Death." Poor acting and uninspired editing, but the film accomplishes its mission: to make us angry and retaliatory and vindictive. It is full of action and punks whom we are happy to see extinguished. Recommended to those who love vigilante movies and can suspend disbelief in many instances during this 90 minute get-even flick.

I saw this film under the title "Dirty Harriet", which of course is completely wrong: the heroine is not a cop, but a vigilante (a more appropriate title would have been "Pauline Kersey"!). Anyway, "Sudden Death" is also pretty accurate, as that's exactly what most people who make the mistake of attacking her get in the second half of the film. The script is poor in several ways (the heroine becomes a cold-blooded killer too easily, even her first killing doesn't seem to shake her at all; her targets are also spotted too easily, it's like there is a sex maniac around every NYC street corner; the investigation of a male detective that she befriends feels a lot like padding), and the direction is strictly-by-the-numbers. Former Miss Australia Denise Coward (what an unfortunate name!) is not bad in the lead, but the film is nothing special. *1/2 out of 4.