Opération panthère noire

You know, it takes a big man to do a good job at a hard task. But it takes an even bigger man to admit he what he cannot do, and then strive to do what he does best. That is Andy Sidaris in a nutshell. True, while he'll never be the next Steven Speilberg, he is truly a master at the task which is presented to him: B-movies. I have only seen three of his films and can tell this already. Enemy Gold is one of them. This film is a slap in the face to those who say that the exploitation of Sex, violence, and rock-&-roll are wrong, and then rubs the slap down with a little ice. What I'm trying to say is, that this movie, while not entirely wholesome, is still a good movie, no matter how you slice it. The enormous juggs are just a way of keeping peoples attention.

This is the 9th out of my 12 reviews for the works of Andy Sidaris, in chronological order. For the first time, he only produced the movie, but left the director's job to his son Drew, who had regularly been director's assistant before. Renting a video cassette of „Enemy Gold" was my start into the world of „bullets, bombs and babes" many years ago and it still is a pleasure to revisit!

The story is simple: Three agents discover a bunch of drug smugglers, kill a few and put the rest in jail. The big boss is not amused and sends a killer to eliminate the agents. The interesting twist is that the agents are treasure hunting on their „day off": they find a map that leads to lost gold from the civil war. The historical flashbacks make the movie a bit more interesting, because the rest is quite predictable. Fortunately, we have familiar faces with Mark Barriere and Bruce Penhall who play the good guys, plus Julie Strain as Jewel Panther (sic!), the killer. Debutante Suzi Simpson plays an agent by the equally unlikely name of Becky Midnite, and Suzi follows the footsteps of Dona Speir quite well for a first try. Remember, Dona appeared in no less than 7 of Sidaris' movies before and seemed impossible to replace! Alan Abelew deserves mentioning; he plays Dickson, a man you love to hate. If you ever worked for a boss like that, you know what I mean. „Enemy Gold" has a simple instrumental rock guitar soundtrack, a bit different from the style of most predecessors. Don't miss the documentary „Let's make a Sidaris movie" (bonus on the American DVD), because it explains how the members of the whole family worked together to make a movie - not an ordinary film team.

This film essentially begins during the American Civil War with a couple of Confederate soldiers stealing some gold that was being transported by the Union Army. One of them is wounded and dies trying to escape enemy patrols while the other is killed by Indians somewhere in East Texas. Before he dies, however, he manages to write about the stolen gold in his journal and subsequently buries it as well. The scene then shifts to the present day with two federal agents named "Chris Cannon" (Bruce Penhall) and "Mark Austin" (Mark Barriere) planning to conduct a raid on a Bolivian drug lord by the name of "Santiago" (Rodrigo Obregon). Just prior to that, they are joined by a female agent named "Becky Midnight" (Suzi Simpson) who has only recently graduated from training. In spite of that, she performs her duties quite well and the drug raid is a tremendous success. What none of them realize, however, is that Santiago has certain resources at his disposal and he is not somebody who can tolerate any interference in his illegal business enterprises. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film had a certain amount of potential but it was undermined to a great degree by a poor script and extremely weak acting. Admittedly, these weaknesses were mitigated somewhat by having three attractive actresses like Tanquil Lisa Collins (as "Ava Noble") along with the aforementioned Suzi Simpson and Julie Strain to enhance the scenery. But even then, it just wasn't quite enough and I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.

A bit strange to see this is made in 1993 and doesn't come out ofthe eighties. Maybe that's the reason I just came across this T&A flick.

This is a perfect example of a flick were acting isn't the main thing. You make a cheap flick with bad acting, a lot of T&A, some action and a hell of a sleeve to put on your VHS release so it would be picked up easy at a rental shop.

Starts okay and the use of yellow lettering in the opening credits do say enough, this is a B-movie. Well I said starts okay, but after 1 minute the horse scene takes ages and when we move over to nowadays, the attack at the house, so cheesy. Standing in front of a door with glass and not be seen, really. And when the chick comes in the first fight scene, OMG.

Yep, y ou guessed it, this is one for the boys full of stuffed tits easy to spot. Two Playboy playmates are in it, do I need to say more?

Today this kind of flick can't be made anymore, politically incorrect, girls are just used for sex and need to be sexy. If you come out of the grindhouse era pick it up, if ypu are a millenium, skip it.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 0,5/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

"Enemy Gold" marks a turning point in Andy Sidaris' filmography: his son Christian is sitting in the director's chair, and Dona Speir, Roberta Vasquez and Cynthia Brimhall are gone. The female lead this time is Suzi Simpson, and she is quite a find (I wonder why Sidaris didn't use her again): she has a great body (no matter what angle you look at it from), combined with a sweet, innocent face and a cute smile; she is appealing in the same way that Hope Marie Carlton was, plus she fights a bit more than other Sidaris heroines. Tai Collins, as a higher-in-command agent, is another total knockout, and Julie Strain, as an assassin-for-hire, is like a mythological Amazon come to life. Looking at this woman is much better than listening to her - her delivery turns her character into camp. The pacing of the movie lags in the second half, and when it's all over you have the feeling (as with other Sidaris movies) that it could have been much better. But what is there on the screen is still enjoyable - some of the lines are funny and all of the women are sexy. (**1/2)