À balles réelles

A middling low budget action thriller which involves a group of stunt actors and actresses tangling with a drug gang who kidnap a couple of their number, spurring a rescue attempt. Cheesy stuff indeed, with some RAMBO-style bow-and-arrow action. Totally implausible, but reasonably entertaining.

Following his debut Star Crystal (1986), writer-director Lance Lindsay quickly moved to Real Bullets but it seems to have slogged through post-production (evidenced by a odd voice over) and distribution (the date in the end credits is 1987, but Vidmark didn't put out the VHS until 1990). The So Calif Stunt Team led by John Gazarian (who co-wrote with Lindsay) heads to Vasquez Rocks for a fun weekend, but end up running running afoul of a major drug dealing operation (owned by Martin Landau, whose only scenes are him getting phone calls at home). Landau got roped into this as the female lead is his daughter, Darlene Landau. The end is basically a 20 minutes shootout with the stunt folks taking on 60+ drug stooges. Oddly, for a team of real stunt performers, the actual physical stunts aren't as over-the-top as you'd expect. Gazarian (a Glendale dentist in real life) must have been involved with Darlene Landau as they later re-teamed with Driven to Kill (1991), an early PM Entertainment release. As for Lindsay, he left the film business and now makes brass garden ornaments.

My review was written in April 1990 after watching the movie on Vidmark video cassette.

Good intentions aren't enough in "Real Bullets", an amateurish saga of the life of stunt persons. Even a guest shot by Martin Landau can't save this one.

Filmmaker John Gazarian also toplines as a teacher of aspiring stunt artists who becomes an adversary to evil drug smugglers led by Wolfgang Linkman. His script with helmer Lance ("Star Crystal") Lindsay simplifies matters by using the real first names for the principal cast members.

Given the subject matter, stunts here are surprisingly unspectacular. Acting is poor. Leading lady is Darlene Landau, no relation to Oscar nominee Martin Landau who phones in his role as a mafioso.

Movie started slow but once the big names were on screen the movie took off. Very nice display of talent. Hopefully a sequel was produced.

Let's face facts here. There's a world of difference between pulling off stunts in a movie and producing, writing, directing and acting in one, and this is proof of that. Very few stuntmen ever turned in good acting roles (Ben Johnson. Hal Needham, Jock Mahoney and Richard Farnsworth being a few exceptions to the rule), and some good stuntmen managed to make some watchable movies, but this one manages to rate at the bottom of the list. Even many of the stunts aren't very good. There's no story, no good dialog, no good directing, editing or acting. In short, this film was ill-conceived from the start, and proves that even action films can be a waste of time to sit through.