Private Wars

Some time in the early 90s, action producers extraordinaire Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin must have sat down and asked themselves "Just how corny of a movie can we actually make?" Now, PM Entertainment released no shortage of cornballs, but I declare that PRIVATE WARS here might be the corniest of all. This urban adventure flick relies more on plot and characters than the studio's usual action outings, and the result is an entertaining but inherently flawed little production.

The story: As a greedy millionaire (Stuart Whitman) attempts to force people out of their urban neighborhood through terror and violence, the inhabitants turn to a disgraced ex-cop (Steve Railsback) to help them fight back.

In no way do I buy Steve Railsback as the action hero this feature tries to turn him into. In the film, he's a skinny guy with a bad haircut who at best looks like Lance Henriksen's destitute younger brother, but the story has him doing martial arts and beating up the likes of Vince Murdocco and John Salvitti with an efficiency that makes PM's usual lead stars look like amateur. Much like its leading man, the film's sentiment is questionable: the take-up-arms, defend-your-neighborhood philosophy is romantic enough, but it's pretty uncomfortable to hear Holly Floria call other characters cowards for wanting to get their families out of harm's way. The people populating this film are brave, but they're also very dumb.

Nevertheless, the level of hokeyness this ushers in is memorable. There is so much B-movie goodness here to love, from the ultra-nasty thugs (who break little kids' toys and push old ladies) to masturbatory expositions about Railsback's character and one of the most out-of-nowhere romances you could ever hope to see. The corniness is so permeating that even an Oscar nominee like Stuart Whitman ends up going thoroughly overboard in his performance, leaving it to good old Dan Tullis to be the best actor of the film, as witnessed in such scenes as when he makes a thug eat a chili pepper as punishment for assault and battery.

The action content ends up being decent. A pretty good car chase with a spectacular crash starts off the film, and the remaining adrenaline scenes are a mixture of shootouts and fights. Amazingly, there are more brawls in this one than there are in many movies starring martial artists, although none of these fights are particularly spectacular (despite the presence of PM regulars James Lew, Butch Togisala, and Art Camacho).

The movie inhabits a violent, crazy universe that I am glad I don't live in, but it's the excesses that ultimately make this film worth a watch. With its dramatic heavy-handedness and gung-ho attitude, this movie has PM's signature all over it but still manages to take an extra clumsy step to distinguish itself. General action fans and B-movie lovers ought to check it out, but everyone else better steer clear.

Outside of the rabidly trash movie-loving cognoscenti, I honestly don't know why those doyens of destruction at PM Entertainment aren't more revered as DTV shoot 'em up gods! 90s exploitation is often disparaged, since very few wax nostalgically about, Billy Blanks Sci-fighting ouvre, but, utilizing robust filtering there are many batso Bobby Dazzlers yet to be discovered! If pyromaniacal PM Entertainment had only produced 'Private Wars' it would nonetheless remain a meritorious low budget treat! The credulity-sapping levels of B-movie bossage herein provides a plenitude of skewed shenanigans, and 'Private Wars' remains a veritable must-see for, Steve Railsback's dipso butt-kicking private dick, Jack Manning! This riotously entertaining heft of gun-happy hokum has sinister property developing sleaze, Alexander Winters (Stuart Whitman) paying bloodthirsty, Ghetto blasting goons to violently harass the locals into selling up.

The beleaguered community reluctantly approach liquor-sotted sleuth, Jack Manning (Steve Railsback) to take on these muscle-headed minions of sadistic crime Kingpin, Winters. The sheer bravura absurdity of having, Railsback as an indestructible Krav Maga-savvy Equalizer makes 'Private Wars' such a madly compelling misfire! A relatively unsung cult actioner, Steve Railsback's beerily sardonic, profoundly whiskey-warped, front-kicking, stumble-bum Seagal is pure DTV WTF gold! The fact that, Railsback is a quality actor makes his legless performance that much more precious. Watch 'Private Wars', trust me, you'll wonder where it's been all your B-Movie life! Not on the same lurid level as 'Deadly Prey' or 'Miami Connection', but the bountiful fisticuffs are ably choreographed by the noted martial artist, Jack Salvitti.

A neighbourhood called "Jackson Heights" of Los Angeles (in reality the Pico-Union District in L.A.s Rampart Area) is to be razed in order for an extensive high-rise commercial complex to be constructed in its place, developed by Alexander Winters (Stuart Whitman in a hammy turn) who employs multi-cultural (?) street gangs to terrorize inhabitants into moving off, only to have a residents group hire ex-policeman and private investigator Jack Manning (Steve Railsback) as its choice to lead the locals in vigilante activity to enable them to remain in their homes, fighting back against the evil developer and his minions, including the corrupt chief of police along with numerous feral-appearing individuals who utilize martial arts as a way of life, apparently. An irrational and cliche-filled script seemingly targets an audience of subnormal 12 year old boys and is devoid of character development and logic but is laden indeed with predictable dialogue, and action that engages an abundance of stunt men who fill lengthy tiresome scenes with their whirling about and pounding upon each other (any one of the blows as depicted would immediately terminate any actual conflict), while Manning singlehandedly, although generally drunk or sleep-deprived, masters large numbers of foes during the course of a mind-numbing film that could not conceivably be tolerated by anyone with even embryonic intelligence.

I read somewhere that early PM films are awful, and they kind of are. But they're also kind of great! How can you hate a film that has four separate montages? It's impossible.

This one has Steve Railsback (of the mighty Turkey Shoot and the Wing Hauser/Meg Foster weirdness Edge of Terror) as a straight cop in a world of cops on the take. After catching a police captain getting a kickback from a property developer (Stuart Whitman), Railsback is framed and booted off the force, becoming a drunken P.I.

Meanwhile, his mate's neighbourhood is under threat from evil gangs (the montage introducing the gang – all three of them! Is hilarious. Love the repeated stamping of the kids car!) which results in one dead shopkeeper and a vengeful sister. Can they clean up the neighbourhood, fight off the evil property developer guy (who has conversations with underlings while folks duke it out by his swimming pool), fall in love with each other, blow crap up, have gunfights etc etc etc? It's all about the montages. You've got two bad guy montages, one sobering up/training montage, and a 'cleaning up the neighbourhood' montage. That's a lot of montage for the six pence I paid for this. It's not a horrifically bad film, and I couldn't help but wish the action could have been a bit more 'packed', but tis a fine slice of cheese that wouldn't be out of place in your crappy nineties action movie collection.

Unless it was made in the eighties. I can't be bothered checking. Also - check out the user review from rsoonsa on this very page - talk about a pretentious arsehole with no sense of humour!

Steve Railsback is an underrated actor who plays an ex-cop named Jack Manning. Manning, who now is a private detective, has become a drunken-shell of his former self. When approached by an old friend, Manning is called back into action. This time, to clean up a town and prevent a rich tycoon from taking whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

This movie is so "creatively bad" it's hilarious. Even if I was paid to TRY making a bad movie, I wouldn't be able to dumb-down enough to make one that comes close to Private Wars. If you are a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, you need to watch this movie and wish that Joel was with you. This movie is worth watching because the everything is so unrealistically funny that you will not be able to stop laughing.