Deadly Harvest

If this film has a mesdsage it's a somewhat mted one in that if they really want to farmers rule. In the end food is what's the most important thing, more than any other commodity that we place value on.

A famine has come on the earth as a result of our slovenly industrial practices and we see it from two points of view. Clint Walker who is head of your typical American farm family trying to survive and Nehemiah Persoff head of a blakc market food ring in a nearby midwestern city.

Deadly Harvest is a cheaply made film which has faded shades of that other post apocalyptic film On The Beach ithout the power, poetry, and stars of the latter.

The message as I said before is a mted one.and muted. Taken to its logical conclusion Archer,Daniels,Midland and companies like that will rule the planet.

Just watched Deadly Harvest, then noticed a distinct lack - and recent vintage - of IMDb comments about it. But I ain't even gonna TRY to sway ya: You're gonna hafta make up your OWN mind about this one. You probably won't regard your time and/or money to have been wasted if you view this. But, neither do I believe that it's one of the greatest movies ever made, although a considerable percentage of IMDb voters apparently feel that way. It's got an uncomplicated premise: because of global COOLING, the food supply has become inadequate - nothing new in some parts of the world; but, in THIS film, in North America, as well. That's as much SCIENCE fiction as there is, however. The rest of the picture focuses on character behavior resultant from this circumstance. Therefore, the heavy reliance on acting, and not much else. I'll leave it up to you to decide who, if any of, and how, the thespians might imperfectly execute their craft. My impression is that it's done well enough to take seriously, but just average.

Deadly Harvest is about global environmental breakdown that could have been prevented if people would have listened. Sound's familiar. Multiple harvests are lost causing a dip into the non-existent food reserves. Brother, people should have been eating the oil reserves instead. It causes the government to lie about food and people to degenerate to killing mobs. The city folk are pitted against the country folk because the country folk have farms and can produce food while the city folk rely on the lying government. There is an odd prim and proper ethical side to the degeneration as the city folk steal the country folk's food. But things get pretty bad and the country folk come to take revenge. I'll agree that city folk would be in dire straights if there should be food shortages, but then there's always soylent green.

Welcome to the taupe movie. Everything in the film is taupe.....the actors' skin and hair, their clothes, the ground, the sky.... My God! How bleak can it get?! The movie details the plight of North America when global weather patterns shift causing crops to freeze and harvests to be lost. The government realizes that there is no food left and before long, it's every man for himself. Walker (one time Greek God who now looks rather haggard and is desperately trying to give this poor film some heart) plays a farmer who becomes a target of vigilantes because he has things like chickens, vegetables and a cow. Brown is a desperate city dweller whose daughter is in dire need of proper nutrition and whose money now does him no good at all. Persoff is a heartless entrepreneur who's been hoarding food all along in order to be a player during the shortage. All the elements converge during a wedding ceremony when some men try to steal the bounty of food that's been offered as a present. Then a string of violent events continues until the fade out. The idea of the film is somewhat ambitious (though not entirely original.) The execution of it (mostly due to the severely low budget and the amateurism of the acting) is agonizing. The opening of the film is horrendous. Anonymous businessmen talk (and talk) about the situation with camera setups and sound that's probably worse than most underground pornography of the time. The rough lighting and photography continue throughout the film which, as stated earlier, exists in a bleak pallet of tan, taupe and brown with occasional splashes of navy blue. Some really lame actors attempt to portray despair and emotion in the face of the situation, but mostly they come off as laughable. Whelan, as Brown's elderly father and Greenhalgh as Walker's wife are chief offenders here. Cattrall has an early role here as Walker's daughter. The part has little to it, but she performs adequately for the most part. The thing is, the film wants to be serious and foreboding, but it's so melodramatic and trite and done with such little style that it doesn't stand much of a chance. If one were to remove the shots of cars/trucks driving down desolate roads, the film would likely run 40 minutes!

"Deadly Harvest" was made at a time when the Earth's climate was thought to be cooling due to a sun-blocking shroud of pollution. The film takes this premise to a setting in which winter begins in August! The world's food supply is almost gone and the social order is breaking down.

Unfortunately, this film mostly comes across as just another cheap, violent 'tax shelter' ripoff. Walker is wooden (and his wood is weaker than usual) as the heroic farmer, while Persoff is inappropriately hammy as the arch-villain. Geraint Wyn-Davies of later "Forever Knight" fame had yet to show talent here.

The film does take on a haunting quality near the end as it tours a frozen, near-deserted Toronto and witnesses a family's last meal.

-Tony