Ravagers

Based on an excellent book called Path To Savagery by Robert Edmond Alter and then butchered beyond recognition in typical Hollywood fashion, Ravagers is a lack-luster film pretty much from start to finish. Unconvincing matte paintings of a destroyed city starts things off and before you know it we are introduced to a forlorn Richard Harris with hang-dog face and soon-to-be-killed wife. After being sniffed out by scruffy "ravagers"and suffering loss of said wife Harris (even more mopey)takes to the road. His journey is not conducted with any sense of urgency but is marked by some striking scenery. The rocket graveyard is particularly effective. So is the ship used as a hang-out for Ernie Borgnine and his crew of authoritarian head-busters or whatever the hell they were supposed to represent. Judging by the names in the cast it is obvious that a fair amount of money was spent on the project. But the film lacks excitement. The pace drags.Richard Harris gives a bad performance. The story meanders. It is all very vague. Fans hoping for another post-apocalyptic adventure like 1975's The Ultimate Warrior will be disappointed. Ravagers is rather flat and dull. What interest it does hold owes to its 70s period flavor.

I only write reviews of movies with low rating, which actually are not that bad. Give them a chance!

I don't know why this film has such a low rating ( 4.6 at the this moment ) when it is actually really cool. Good story, acting, costumes, environment design, good presentation of post-apocalyptic world. I love movies about apocalypse and post-apocalypse and that's why I wanted to see this one at first place. I don't regret it at all! I enjoyed it and you probably will to if you like these kind of movies. Maybe the story is slow and becomes boring in few places, but that is not a reason to have 4.6 rating.

6/10

Columbia Pictures barely released this end-of-the-world movie, understandably so. It's an extremely cheap movie, using abandoned industrial sections to depict the burnt-out and rusting cities, but mostly shooting on bland Alabama countryside during the off-season. Some locations are even used more than once, sometimes shooting at different angles, but also cutting long scenes into pieces. I got a kick out of how the ravager gang's long march through the countryside through the first third of the movie was obviously originally one five-minute walk through the same rock quarry!

Speaking of editing, that's what the movie suffers a bad case of. We never find out exactly what happened to screw up the earth so bad, we don't know the relationship of the guy Harris kills near the beginning of the movie to James' gang leader character (A brother? Gay lover? A good friend?), and there are garbled moments like the night siege at the abandoned house where what exactly happened to Carney's character is never made clear - especially since he was well-armed and doing well on his own before the movie cuts to an outside shot of the house, then to Harris and Turkel far away! (Well, I admit we DO find out... eventually.) Not to mention how the background of Harris' character and his relationship to the various tribes/gangs in the area seems especially unclear.

But what really kills the movie is how utterly boring it is, with little action, but also scenes that serve no real purpose, like how Seymour Cassel's character is introduced before suddenly being removed. Certainly, seeing people like Richard Harris, Art Carney, and Ernest Borgnine in an end-of-the-world movie is lightly amusing for a few minutes, especially when you see them shooting or beating the crap out of people with the vigor of people half their age! But even that gets old fast. To save you from falling asleep, should you decide to see this movie, think about this: Columbia advertised this 1979 movie taking place in 1991. Yet Harris' character at several points indicates that the whatever-disaster took place when he was a boy. If you figure that one out, let me know!

The movie has some New Vegas and Fallout 3 vibe. You got the hero, the companions, Rivet City on a ship, some revenge pot on both the hero and the villain side. The villain got mad because the younger guy who got killed was his brother, maybe? I'm not sure, but it would make sense. That's why he cannot let it go...

The character is often annoying, but at the end he almost starting to make sense.

I liked the movie. You should watch it, if you are into the post apocalyptic genre.

What's wrong with it though?

The main character is not that likable. Characters actions often make no sense, or they speak nonsense. Maybe the acting is choppy for a main character. He doesn't appreciate his companion either, even though his companion is ready to die for him.

The gang is strange too, they are not smart like Negan's group, they so things the dumb and unnecessary violent way.

The ship-town's leader is the smartest in the whole movie, probably. He was just made a mistake at the end. New peoples showed up, yet he didn't tripled the security forces of the ship.

This movie could be a real classic with a better script, better main character and better ending.

Don't get me wrong, it's an alright movie, has it's moments, it just could be way better. Let's say this movie is a missed opportunity.

Richard Harris and Alana Stewart (George hamilton's ex, and at the time Mrs. Rod Stewart) plays couple trying to survive the future where earth is pretty much dead. Now there are these normads called the ravagers that roams and kills because they are your typical bad guys. The leader is character actor Anthony James. They even play undressing the manniquin (later stolen by MAD MAX). James and his ravager's attack Harris and Stewart, and kills Stewart leaving Harris for dead. Harris in return comes back and kills James' gay sidekick making James go on a revenge trail. Harris goes on a quest for a better life meeting a messed up old army guy (art Carney), Ann Turkel, Woody Strode and Ernest Borgnine (who takes 70min to appear only to disappear in 81min). Cassel plays a nothing part as a blindman who gets stoned. The film looks real cheap and it looks like it was cut to get a PG rating. The film is very padded, but looks slopply edited near the end. In fact James seems to be gaining more new ravagers which each new scene! It's ironic that this was Hollywood's answer to the apocalypstic theme, as this and DAMNATION ALLEY killed the apocalypitic theme craze, and it took a Aussie film MAD MAX 2 3 years later to get people interested in this genre once again, causing a grut of Italian rip-offs! But nothing beats the cheeziness of the original "Hollywood" incarnation The Ravagers!