One of the things we are doing in order to find new movies to watch is looking into the works of directors who have managed to get a movie into our upper rankings before. "Killing American Style" is a film that is written, directed, and produced by Amir Shervan, the director of "Samurai Cop," although it is not as good as the film that succeeds it. Like Neil Breen, Shervan probably needed to evolve to the true heights of bad-moviedom that "Samurai Cop" encompasses but this earlier film is an okay effort. It definitely made us keen to watch another film by Shervan in the future (probably "American Cop" because why not more cop films). Also, this movie has Robert Z'dar, who was clearly a principle actor for this director during his relatively short American career.The film opens on some kind of audition where girls get mostly naked and dance but we weren't totally sure what the audition was for. The auditioner is interrupted by Z'dar to carry out some kind of money stealing endeavour. They get caught by the cops after stashing the money but come up with an elaborate plan to thwart their transport to jail that involves Z'dar's brother in drag. Brother gets shot and the escaped gang decides to infiltrate the first ritzy house they find to make their safe haven. The house they find is on a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere where they haul up with the family: the terribly dressed father (and you should know that everyone is terribly dressed; he's merely the winner), the mother who gets raped (why), their son, and the mother's sister who is conveniently a nurse. They end up calling in a doctor to try to treat the gunshot wound and the friendly Hispanic-stereotype ranch hand gets offed. Eventually the dad is blackmailed to do a money exchange with Z'dar's stepmom (?) at a motel but he hides the money outside his house and claims she ran off with it. A final showdown happens when the family tries to take control of their home, we get a totally misplaced title drop, and the bad guys are done for. In the end, the dad gives the hidden money to the ranch hand's grieving widow who goes straight from "how will I feed our children" to "what husband."
Overall, this movie was not a terrible watch. Every fight scene went on too long to keep our attention and it didn't have as many "what" moments as "Samurai Cop" to keep us entertained fully but there were some good things. We had a couple solid quotes, some reaction shots that didn't make sense, and, most of all, the terrible, terrible wardrobe. The main protagonist and antagonist in this movie at minimum were wearing shirts that had a deep V down to their navel. The bad sidekick wore a shirt that said "100% cotton prewashed" on the front which was just confusing. The dad in the movie at one point seems to be wearing a pink sweatsuit only to take off his jacket to reveal pink overalls with a huge opening right at the stomach. We all asked Keith if this is how people actually dressed in the 80s and he said, "In California, yeah." The hair was also a tragedy I can't even fully get into but it was heavily variations on a mullet. This movie is a good argument for killing American style.
Oh, and then there was this confusing still of the motel:
I think there's something wrong with your color balance.
Quotes:
"I killed five police officers on the way here and if they come looking for me . . ."
[while holding a gun up to a woman in a bath]
"You make one sound and I'll turn this into a blood bath."
"You've got guns but you still don't have a chance."
Spoon Rating: 4
No comments:
Post a Comment