Goma-2

A masterpiece of Spanish cinema, Goma 2 is a beautiful revenge story in which an ex-ETA member who has no problem calling themselves "the Spanish" and who is marked by ETA, decides to take revenge on the mafia farmers after the death of his wife (Ana Obregón, who provides a formidable performance) in an attack in Roussillon (Very in the ETA style) and the inaction of the Spanish authorities who supposedly control the protagonist as part of his amnesty pave the way for explosive revenge in on the other side of the Pyrenees.

Without forgetting Lee Van Cleef as villain in command and lawyer for the bad guys, making this piece of art one of the best samples of Spanish cinema.

Apart from special mention is the fact that the ETA members have a file with their members in Spanish, only in Spanish.

Watching this film Killing Machine Americans Margaux Hemingway, Richard Jaeckel and Willie Aames looked so jarringly out of place among the Spaniards and other European types in this Spanish produced film, you have to figure that they did this one for the paycheck and the European trip. Hope the checks cleared for them.

Jorge Rivero of the Mexican cinema and best know to American audiences as Pierre Cardona from the John Wayne western Rio Lobo is our protagonist. A former terrorist he's settled down to the simple life of a truckdriver in Spain. He has a California kid brother-in-law in Willie Aames and a pregnant wife in Ana Obregon. Rivero gets involved in a dispute between Spanish and French truck farmers and his wife is killed. After that he's a Killing Machine and he sure has the expertise.

Lee Van Cleef is the organized crime figure head of the union. He never looks out of place because he's the same smirking, sardonic Van Cleef we know from a gazillion American and spaghetti westerns. He knows it's a turkey, but gobble he doesn't.

I doubt the film will get the restoration it needs. The sound is terrible, the acting is phoned in performances, and the direction most pedantic. Sounds like these truck farmers were peddling some spoiled fruit.

A profesional hit-man has started a new life as a track driver in Spain. In a travel to France, carrying oranges, escorted by his lovely wife, he will run into a lot of problems, because of the local mafia that is trying to control the market of fruits. He will try to stay away from trouble, but his beloved wife, by mistake, will find a horrible death, trapped inside the truck, when They will put fire in it. After this, he is simply forced to return back to his old ways, find through his old contacts all the guns and information that he needs and then kill each and everyone of the bad guys. Simple film, with ordinary plot and flat characters, for entertainment without any expectations. For those who like this kind, not so bad for rent and see in the video.

What can I say? First of all no stars for this turkey. I saw Killing Machine on one of those old '80s videocassette deals hosted by Sybil Danning. She is actually the best thing about the program, because the movie stinks big time! It is billed on the video box to star Lee Van Cleef, Richard Jaeckel, Willie Aames, and Margaux Hemingway. They are more like guest stars, because the real star is some Spanish bum that I've never seen before and never want to see again. Its supposed to be about a truck driver that is attacked by French unionists: they kill his wife, and he goes after them. It is never fully explained why the unionists are angry at the truck drivers other than the fact that they carry fruit that is evil (I guess...like I said...It is never explained). Lee Van Cleef plays a lawyer (!) that covers things up for the union. There's an interesting scene that is supposed to be in a courtroom, but it looks like the scene was shot in a cheap conference room in some warehouse. Cleef was very old here, so the idea of him being some kind of tough guy is demolished by his aged appearance. Hemingway looks astonishingly bad, and her acting reflects her awful appearance. Richard Jaeckel (mispelled?) makes the worst performance by William Shatner look good, and Willie Aames is annoying as always. Aames had passed over his teenage good looks, so there isn't even anything good to look at. I heard later that he bottomed out on drugs and converted to Christianity (no small favor for movies...stay out, Willie!) PLEASE SKIP THIS TRASH! UPDATE 08/04/05: I originally voted this the worst film I saw in 2005, but then I saw High Tension and changed my mind.

Just some few comments and justifications about the plot.

The french unionist are also farmers. Historically, last four or five decades, every time french farmers are in strike or perform any protest about their salaries or because of low prize of their products they use to destroy the trucks and or the fruits from Spain because in their opinion Spaniards are unfair producers (best prices, best weather, more production, best quality). French police use to be absent during these vandalic acts.

Under the UE laws there no reasons to make this, but it still happens occasionally. However nowadays it is more usual see French farmers stopping lorries importing farm produce from Spain, Portugal and Morocco, in a border protest over what they call unfair price competition.

Sometimes farmers parked tractors to block several roads near the borders. The farmers' protests over food prices have disrupted traffic across France every year.

The movie is time-located just in worst years of the Spanish-French farmers relations.