New York Connection

Brolin stars as an ex-cop turned trucker driver who has to track down a psycho extortionist after the guy mistakenly kidnaps Brolin's daughter. Along the way he encounters pimps, prostitutes, crooked cops, youth gangs and, worst of all, his ex-wife. Ouch! Despite the horrible title (exactly what is that supposed to mean?), this is a great little thriller that captures NYC at its sleazy best. There are two great car/foot chases courtesy of stunt coordinator Chris Howell (who even had his preteen son C. Thomas Howell doing stunts on this!). Unfortunately the Media VHS I have is so dark during the last 15 minutes that it is hard to make out exactly what is happening (it is a chase through the sewers). Also featuring Julie Carmen, Dan Hedaya, Mandy Patinkin and porn star Sharon Mitchell (who also appeared in William Lustig's MANIAC).

My word what a ride! Bizarre and spiteful, but dynamically boundless. Now that they don't make urban action thrillers like this any more. They just wouldn't dare. But boy do I miss them. "Night of the Juggler" is a jaunty, outrageous and politically incorrect very late 70s chase thriller filled with a lot running, chaotic driving (stealing police cars), chewy dialogues and ballsy beat-ups. It's a relentlessly raw and intense barrage, as our protagonist violently bounces from here to there encountering cops, corrupt cops, an ex-wife, pimps, prostitutes, bouncers and street gangs along the authentically seedy strips of New York in his quest to find his kidnapped daughter. In what was a bungled napping attempt of mistaken identity… although the kidnapper still believes he has the right girl; that of a wealthy real-estate owner. Now just wait until James Brolin's ruggedly scruffy ex-cop character gets his hands on the madcap kidnapper. There'll be hell to pay! Everyone he comes across that stands in his way have felt it. The pulpy plot might be "heavily" contrived, unpleasant and fairly ridiculous, as it goes beyond and pushes reality many times. However this one-man riot machine provides on-going gritty, seedy and unapologetic excitement. No one is safe from this one man's devotion. "I've got to find my little girl." A chiselled Brolin is fitting in the central role, looking and acting the part. Cliff Gorman is particularly edgy as the scummy kidnapper. Then you have Richard S. Castellano bringing some solidity and Dan Hedaya is memorable as a psychotic cop. Director Robert Butler provides great location staging for its action and keeps a frenetic pace keeping things rough and ready. It might not be high-art, but this grungy, slam-bang action fodder is smashing entertainment.

Truly this film should be called Night of the Jogger. It would make much more sense than Night of the Juggler, which has to be one of the most uninteresting titles ever assigned to a movie. Not only are there tons of joggers everywhere, but all the characters jog everywhere they go. Every time they need to go somewhere, they jog. There is no real reason for this.

Brolin and his daughter start out for her school, jogging of course. But then she decides she can jog there by herself, and Brolin turns around for the jog home. About twenty seconds later, Brolin's daughter is kidnapped from the park when she is mistaken for a rich businessman's daughter.

Here we come to one of the most implausible parts of the movie. The kidnapper throws her in the car, and she just sits there, calmly. She never tries to get out of the car. At several times they are stuck in traffic jams. Her window is down, her door is unlocked, for gods sake the car can't move, and yet she does not even try to get out of the car.

We head into a long chase scene with Brolin getting a cab to chase the kidnapper. After the kidnapper crashes his car, he grabs the daughter by the hand and they run into the subway and catch a ride. Yes, that's right, the kidnapped daughter willingly runs with the kidnapper. They are on a crowded street and yet she never plants her feet and refuses to move, or even screams for help. She just runs along with him.

When they get off the subway, the kidnapper steals a phone company van. He helps the daughter up into the front seat, has her slide over to the passenger side....and she sits there. She doesn't even attempt to go open the door or get out. This girl should be charged as an accessory in her kidnapping!

The other really annoying part of the movie is that as Brolin tries to find his daughter, he is arrested or stopped by the police. But instead of saying "my daughters been kidnapped." He keeps saying they have to let him go, and either being really vague or trying to explain the whole story. Same thing happens when he tries to find what the kidnapper dropped outside a live girls porno place. He goes into the little viewing booths, and does he say his daughter has been kidnapped and that he needs help. Of course not, the big dope says "I'm looking for a girl..." Oh yeah, that's really going to help in a peep show setting. Sigh....

The movie is fairly frustrating as the characters sabotage themselves over and over again. It is only through this contrived sabotage that the kidnapper gets the daughter and Brolin doesn't get her back right away. And the kidnapper is really wacko, but not in a scary way. We find out his motives when he explains the entire reason to the daughter as they are walking to his house - yeah, that's right, the daughter is still walking along with the kidnapper. Hell, he isn't even holding her hand now. So if you can stand the frustration or if you are with friends and want to laugh at the sheer contrivances that keep this movie going, be my guest and watch this movie - and remember the movie is about joggers, not jugglers.

Columbia went far over the top with NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER! This has got to be the biggest raunchiest production ever released by them! Late-night junkies who saw this on TBS, listen hard! Go out and find the REAL uncut video release starring James Brolin. You'll see what I mean because all the explicitness of its violent subject matter were heavily cut on TV, making it mediocre by comparison. Brolin is an ex-cop searching for his kidnapped daughter (and some answers!), but he faces both urban gangs and the cops at the same time. This may have been his most ambitious role yet as an actor, as he roughs up almost anybody he encounters! Plenty of mean, dirty, and exciting action keeps boredom away. Its urbanized setting and mystery elements make up for a too simple plot. Surprisingly, it's worth a look....if you can find it!

A great yet undeservedly obscure entry in the New York as Urban Wasteland cinema genre of the 70's and 80's. Put this one in there along with "Fort Apache: The Bronx," "Taxi Driver," the "Death Wish" series, "Escape From New York," Roberta Findlay's "Tenement," and "The Warriors." Recognizing that from the perspective of 2010, our collective image of New York City is no longer like this, after over two decades of sprucing the place up, you young'uns who don't have any memory of that period can get a good snapshot of the rampant fear and paranoia of those days in this film. It gives that same added emotional frisson you would get watching a fictional World War II movie that was made during the War itself, realizing how seriously both the filmmakers and the audiences at that time would have looked upon this fictional presentation as a representation of reality, knowing that lives were still on the line and the whole crappy situation was very much in full effect.

The film's intentions are made clear as within five minutes into the movie, we get terrorism, a woman trying to kill maurading rats with a broom handle, and a hot dog vendor telling the hero, Jim Brolin, "Did you know that 10,000 people left New York last month?" The Psycho of the Hour, the "Juggler" of the title, a racist and a scumbag, kidnaps a little girl and holds her for ransom. Her father is a rich real-estate developer, who Psycho Pants blames for destroying his South Bronx neighborhood by "letting the N*****s and the S****s move in" and destroy all the buildings. Or, so he thinks.

But dummy has kidnapped the wrong girl: she's really the daughter of James Brolin, an ex-cop with an anger management problem and a total lack of fear. Now in order to track down the Psycho, Brolin is unleashed on an apocalyptic Manhattan landscape, where he careens around like a pinball in a pinball machine (contemporary reference there), crashing trucks, stealing police cars, getting in fights with peep show booth bouncers and Puerto Rican gang members, and beating the tar out of all of them. Brolin also gets hold of a psycho cop on his tail, played with eye-bulging glee by Dan "Noon O Clock Shadow" Hedaya, and pushes Hedaya into a pen of vicious, snarling attack dogs, who then proceed to bite him a new one! Yowch!

Meanwhile, character actor great Richard S. Castellano is the lead cop on the case(s), who doesn't have contact with Brolin's character, but is sort of watching him from afar. It's all building up to the final conflict between Brolin and the psychotic kidnapper in an underground bunker full of steam pipes. Yeah, just like every other movie ever made (Terminator 2, Commando, Robocop...I could go on, but I won't).

This is REALLY sleazy and action-packed for a major studio release and I loved it! Plus you get to see some great footage of Manhattan in its grimy prime and the devastated South Bronx landscape.

Sure, the plot is over-the-top and ridiculous; Brolin attacks almost everyone he comes into contact with, including his ex-wife, and he's supposed to be the Good Guy; his daughter is not the most appealing character; and the Police are all portrayed as barely competent idiots. I didn't care. I still enjoyed this movie immensely.

That title does bite the big one, though.

UPDATE: It is my understanding that the rights holder for this movie, who is a small production company, not a major studio, is not interested in releasing this on DVD of Blu-Ray anytime soon. So your only chance at seeing this is digging up an old VHS release and hitting up Goodwill for a working VHS machine.