Blastfighter

1985 "The Force Of Vengeance"
5.7| 1h27m| NR| en
Details

An ex-cop, fresh out of prison, returns home to find it ruled by violent rednecks and must fight to protect himself and his daughter, using his combat skills and a powerful grenade launcher.

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Also starring Valentina Forte

Reviews

Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.
Diagonaldi Very well executed
Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict
Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
ofumalow Other commenters here have compared this to "Rambo," and it did come out early in the cycle of cheap Rambo imitations. But it's at least as much like "Walking Tall," in that the upstanding ornery cop (or ex-cop in this case) moves to a small hick town and immediately runs afoul of the good-old-boy louts running amuck there. His long-lost daughter shows up uninvited, and when the bullies kill one of her friends, they spend the rest of the movie's second more "Rambo"-like half stalking father and daughter through the surrounding wilderness in order to eliminate the remaining witnesses.This is fairly well-paced but not as much fun as you might hope. The dubbed dialogue is sort of funny-it's the usual bad Italian approximation of what Americans sound like, read by actors sporting very hokey "redneck" accents-but the film is an adequate, earnest "B" rather than luridly ridiculous and entertaining in the mode of many later "Rambo" knockoffs or 80s Italian exploitation films in general. Nor is the action or violence very memorable. My favorite exploitation actor George Eastman aka Luigi Montefiori turns up playing the main villain's sympathetic older brother, a much more low-key role than usual for him and not a very interesting one. Michael Sopkiw, the U.S. actor who was never able to parlay his stardom in these early-80s Italian movies into an American career, is handsome (here with a big Marlboro Man 'stache) and agreeable-enough as usual. Anyway, it's an OK time-killer but nothing special. Lamberto Bava does a decent job, but his 80s giallos and "Demon" movies are more memorable. Fans of the period will enjoy the disco-synthy score, though the fact that the film actually was shot in the U.S. (Georgia) makes it less obviously a European imitation of an American movie than most similar Italian enterprises around the same time. By the way, the irrelevant title was originally intended for a science-fiction movie that the funding fell through for. I guess some marketing materials had already been prepared, so to save costs they kept the title when the entire project was changed into this less-expensive rural action thriller.
Scott LeBrun Adequate cheese ball entertainment should prove to be somewhat interesting for any fan of Lamberto Bava, son of Italian filmmaking maestro Mario Bava. Lamberto filmed all exteriors Stateside, in this tale of ex-cop "Tiger" Sharp (Michael Sopkiw, "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley"). Tiger has just gotten out of prison for his revenge-killing of the man who murdered his wife. Now he's trying to live a normal life, but he will soon be approached by Connie (Valentina Forte, "Cut and Run"), the daughter that he hasn't seen in ages. He makes enemies out of a bunch of mentally challenged redneck hunters, especially Wally (Stefano Mingardo), brother of Tigers' friend Tom (Italian genre & exploitation icon George Eastman).The title seems to suggest something at least slightly futuristic, but that is not the case. This is more a tale of a private war in a woodsy setting; ultimately, the finale strongly echoes "First Blood". The only thing remotely futuristic is the title weapon, something that definitely earns the adjective "badass". It can fire just about anything, it seems. But it doesn't come into play until the final 10 minutes of the movie."Blastfighter" is rough going for a while - it's a loud, sometimes chaotic, sometimes incoherent mess of a movie. It sort of improves as it goes along, and the characters become more engaging. The actors on screen are fine; also among them are future director Michele Soavi ("Stagefright", "Cemetery Man") and stuntman / actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua ("Rats: Night of Terror"). Sopkiw is a decent B movie hero, handsome and rugged, and Eastman is always good value. But the people doing the dubbed-in American voices tend to be over the top, especially the gal doing Fortes' voice. It renders her character rather annoying.Overall, it shows you an amusing enough time, with a fun electronic score by Fabio Frizzi ("Zombi 2"), and a particularly lively finish that features explosions aplenty.Five out of 10.
dbdumonteil How many movies were inspired by the horror classic "the most dangerous game" ?Even such recent works as Gibson's "Apocalypto" were . This one is not worse than the others ,and if the two leads had shown more emotion ,had they "played" ,it could have been even endearing.As an action movie ,it's moderately entertaining ,with a hackneyed screenplay -just one thing "happens" which would not generally happen in this kind of superman flick-And it's after "it " happens that the movie has nothing more in store for the viewer.Well filmed in nice landscapes which recall " Deliverance" another movie "blastfighter" borrows from.And the same horrible cliché that claims that country people are savage uneducated brutes.
hamburger They obviously ain't seen BLASTFIGHTER then cuz this is one kick ass flick we got here! Made the same year as his equally lightning-paced film DEMONS, and featuring the exact same Claudio Simonetti score used in MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY (a film I highly recommend BTW), Blastfighter is a hot little piece of celluloid. Genre favorite Michael Sopkiw (AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK) is here as the hero who seeks revenge on the redneck bullies who killed his daughter and ruined his life. Also, Joe D'Amato reg George Eastman co-stars doin' what he does best: playing a bad guy. Here, he actually has speaking lines! There's lots of action, a good storyline with a fair amount of suspense and drama, and of course loads of gory violence toward the end. Now, after seeing this, is L. Bava really as bad as most say? I think not. You might be very well surprised.