Theme Song: Violins, trumpets, definitely a lot of timpani drum, maybe a bassoon? Composer Brad Fiedel went on to score the first two Terminator movies.
Interesting Dated References: Standing up and fighting for what you believe in.
Best Line: “I’ll come down on you so hard you won’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
Social Context: I can’t figure out the target audience for this movie. There’s a “female getting revenge and protecting her child” angle, but it’s couched within hours of military/industrial complex political minutiae, which interests no one. Apparently sensing the disparity, the filmmakers then add a third act full of loner/survivalist heroics having absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
Summary: Rob Cutter (Daniel Hugh Kelly, Cujo, the “McCormick” in Hardcastle and McCormick) and his wife Barbara (Amy Madigan, Streets of Fire, The Day After, Uncle Buck) are career military personal who enjoy paintball and Frenching in full combat gear.
After a military helicopter crash, Rob discovers a flaw in the rotor of the downed machine. Instead of contacting the manufacturer and leaving a bad Yelp review, Cutter takes the part home to investigate further. Apparently this is a major scandal because he is immediately shot by assassins in front of his child.
Barbara is then chased by the same assassins for like three hours in an absurd car chase that includes a rest-stop tire change. Eventually she escapes and runs into the woods where former military friend Ben (Michael Ironside, American Nightmare, Scanners, Top Gun, Total Recall) happens to be living a loner/survivalist lifestyle with a full arsenal. The way she finds Ben is by going into the woods and shouting, “Ben!,” until he shows up.
While holed up with Ben, they get attacked by even more hitmen, thugs, and corrupt military personnel. Ben is killed and her child kidnapped, leaving behind his Voltron figure, which happens to contain the flawed rotor piece.
Barbara then figures out his was all perpetrated by a corrupt army general and arranges for the return of her son in exchange for the flawed part. During the exchange, she reveals she’s wearing a wire and all the corruption is uncovered. The military general drives off a cliff and everyone is happy and nobody seems to care about the kid who had to watch his dad get murdered.
Worth Mentioning:
– One of the assassins is played by character actor Maury Chaykin.
– Director Mario Azzopardi has some curious credits (including a bunch of TV series spun off from movies): Viper (2 Episodes), Cobra (2 Episodes), M.A.N.T.I.S. (2 Episodes), Robocop: The Series (2 Episodes), Total Recall 2070 (5 Episodes), Poltergeist: The Legacy (1 episode), In The Head of The Night: The Series (3 episodes), F/X: The Series (3 episodes).
Poster and Box Art: This box art is not very exciting.
Availability: Used VHS.