Rebel: The Director’s Cut

Rather ironically, the first movie featuring Sylvester Stallone as a lead actor was re-released in the UK to capitalize on the popularity of First Blood. The roles are almost inverse opposites. John Rambo was a Vietnam veteran who resented the abuse and demonization he suffered from the anti-war movement. Jerry Savage was one of the New Left activists doing the vilifying. However, Savage tired of talk and now intends to take direct, violent action in Robert Allen Schnitzer’s director’s cut of Rebel, which releases on VOD and in select theaters this Friday.

Student activism was not cutting it for Savage, so he hitchhikes to New York to join a cell of militant guerillas, led by Tommy Trafler. On the way, he meets Laurie Fisher, who sells crafts in the City with her hippy-dippy commune.

Savage feels the chemistry with Fisher, but his new roommate and co-conspirator, Estelle Ferguson obviously feels something for him. The plan is to bomb the corporate headquarters of a kitchenware conglomerate to expose their defense contracting sideline. Marlena St. James, also known as “The Black Bomber,” will craft the explosives, but Ferguson must plant them within the Midtown tower. The idea is to set the explosion for an early Sunday morning, to avoid loss of life. (Here’s a pro-tip: if you do not want to kill anyone, do not blow-up any buildings.)

However, the FBI has an informer within the domestic terror cell, but much to Special Agent William Decker’s frustration, the CIA has taken defacto operational control. As most historians would agree, J. Edgar Hoover was not at all turf-conscious and never minded sharing jurisdiction on big cases. Yeah, right.

Frankly, Rebel lands awkwardly in the wake of Boulder’s antisemitic domestic terror attack. In some ways, Schnitzer critiques the extremist mindset, but he also clearly invites sympathy for Savage’s cause.

Schnitzer’s screenplay, co-written with Larry Beinhart, is confused and raggedy, but all sides of the pseudo love triangle exhibit strange, unlikely screen presences that make Rebel oddly distinctive. Obviously, Stallone was the only cast-member who was going anywhere, but Vickie Lancaster is acutely sad (in the intended way) as Ferguson. Antony Page also has such a Dennis Hopper thing going on as Trafler, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Easy Rider thesp had been a model for the character and Page’s portrayal.

The Evil Touch: Heart to Heart (Early Stallone)

For a greedy wastrel, a perfectly good serial killer should never go to waste. He believes his rich, disapproving aunt should be the so-called “Monster’s” next victim, even if he must kill her himself. Where did this sinister scenario come from? The mind of Sylvester Stallone, who wrote the teleplay under the oddball pen-name of Q. Moonblood several years before the release of Rocky. The upcoming re-release of Stallone’s first starring-role in Robert Allen Schnitzer’s Rebel offers an opportune time to revisit his first IMDb writing credit, the “Heart to Heart” episode of the American-produced Australian anthology series, The Evil Touch, hosted by Anthony Quayle.

Nephew Richard is lazy, entitled, and mean-spirited, so his wealthy guardian Aunt has finally decided to write him out of her will. However, it will take a few days for her lawyer to return from his ill-timed business trip, which leaves ample time for Richard to kill her.

Since the Monster has been amassing a horrendous body-count across the countryside, the ne-er do well nephew assumes if he copies the killer’s M.O., her murder will automatically be attributed to the serial killer. He just needs to make nice with his Aunt, so he can lure her somewhere isolated. However, there are a few variables to his plan that he cannot control, but experienced genre viewers might anticipate.

Nevertheless, Stallone, a.k.a. Moonblood, gives his big twist an amusing additional half-twist. Consequently, “Heart to Heart” is surprisingly satisfying, in a suitably macabre way. Regrettably, episodes of The Evil Touch are currently only available as inferior-quality YouTube uploads. Yet, the slightly blurry video adds a hallucinatory effect that makes each episode feel like a feverish dream.

Self-Quarantine Viewing: In Search of Last Action Heroes

In times like these, we could use some heroes. It makes us nostalgic for the 1980s, the golden age of action heroes. That was the decade action really came into its own as a distinct genre. Back then, even our president, Ronald Reagan, was an action hero. At a time when we’re self-quarantining and social-distancing, we will try catch up on some DVD/VOD releases we missed when they released earlier in the year. Oliver Harper’s In Search of Last Action Heroes, (co-produced by David A. Weiner, director of In Search of Darkness) is a particularly good viewing choice, because as an entertaining documentary survey of 80’s action, it also gives viewers plenty of good ideas for subsequent films to watch—and it is indeed available on DVD and VOD.

Of course, it is hard to chronicle 80s films without referencing some films of the 70s that they built on. This is particularly true of Death Wish and Alien, whose sequel Aliens is considered an action film rather than horror movie (that is a debatable but defensible position). Two stars come to define the era for Harper and co-writer Timon Singh: Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which makes sense.

As was the case for In Search of Darkness, Harper follows the development of 80s action in roughly chronological order. Along the way, he and his many talking heads cover the rise of Cannon Films and the influence of Hong Kong action auteurs. Fans will be thrilled to hear director Sam Firstenberg look back on the American Ninja franchise, but they will be disappointed the late great Steve James is overlooked during the discussion. (Honestly, I would argue James is sufficiently significance to warrant his own documentary. Email me if you agree.)

None of the really big stars like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, or even Michael Dudikoff (the American Ninja) appear in Last Action as interview subjects, but Harper talks to some really cool character actors and bad guy specialists, like Al Leong (Lethal Weapon), Bill Duke (Predator), Ronny Cox (Robocop), Vernon Wells (Commando), and Jenette Goldstein (Aliens), as well as Eric Roberts, who is in a class of his own. However, he gets a good deal of commentary from two contemporary action stars: Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White.

Escape Plan 2: Hades

In the first film, Ray Breslin’s security firm was headquartered in Los Angeles. Now, its in Atlanta. The tax credits must be better there. They really ought to move the company to China, because that is clearly where this sequel expected to do most of its business. When you think about it, it rather makes sense Chinese movie patrons would be so interested in breaking out of prison. It is a new high-tech, off-the-books prison, but Breslin is as slippery as ever in Steven C. Miller’s Escape Plan 2: Hades (trailer here), which releases this Friday on VOD.

Breslin’s specialty, showing up private prisons, has not earned him a lot of friends. Unfortunately, the rescue operation that goes bad during the prologue will not help matters much either. Still, he can be philosophical about setbacks, like dead hostages, because he plays go with his new protégé, Shu. Despite his martial arts skills, Shu is the first member of the team whisked away to the double-secret Hades facility, while watching the back of tech entrepreneur Ma Yusheng, a somewhat estranged childhood friend.

Ma is the target of a paying customer, but it soon becomes clear Hades’ “Zookeeper” is rounding up members of Breslin’s firm for reasons of personal payback. This facility with its constantly morphing structure and largely automated support services poses a particular challenge to Breslin. His three golden rules for escape have always been: learn the layout, learn the routine, and get outside help. So, time to improvise.

Escape Plan 2 is only releasing on VOD and DVD, which is a shame, because surely there are [older] fans out there who would enjoy watching Sylvester Stallone team-up with Dave Bautista, but they might not get the word without a theatrical release. Most likely, it was to protect Stallone from stupid click-bate pieces on how low the per-screen-average was for his latest film, even though the marketing was entirely targeted at the VOD market (these seem to be a specialty of Yahoo Movies). At least it spares the studio the agonizing decision of whether they should launch a best supporting actor Oscar campaign for Bautista or 50 Cent.

Chinese super-star Huang Xiaoming handles about seventy-five percent of the fight scenes, which is a shrewd decision. He definitely has the chops and the physicality. Stallone looks fine as a guy drinking coffee in a café, but he is starting to push it as an action hero. Again, Miller and screenwriter Miles Chapman wisely have Breslin play a more Picard-like role in the first two acts, but they just cannot keep Stallone out of the big climatic rumble. As Breslin’s friendly rival Trent DeRosa, Bautista swaggers through the film like it is all a big lark to him, which it probably was—and yet that works. 50 Cent and Jaime King do not have much to do as Breslin’s support staff, but Titus Welliver sort of upstages the primary villain as the Zookeeper’s tough talking deputy, Gregor Faust.

Hades was conceived as the first part of a sequel duology, but it definitely has plenty of closure, despite clearly suggesting where the in-the-works third film will go. Granted, Hades is not a transcendent masterpiece, but it is considerably more enjoyable than many films Stallone made in his prime (remember Rhinestone, Oscar, or Over the Top?). This is totally a B-Movie, but Huang and Bautista bring quite a bit of value-added. If you enjoy attitude and testosterone, Escape Plan 2: Hades should happily distract you when it releases this Friday (6/29) on DVD, BluRay, and VOD.