Dead Man Walking

1988
5| 1h27m| R| en
Details

After Leila, his boss's daughter, is kidnapped by psychopathic plague victim Decker, chauffeur Chazz teams up with plague-infected mercenary Luger to penetrate the toxic & off-limits Plague Zone and bring her back alive.

Director

Producted By

Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment

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Reviews

StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Comeuppance Reviews In the far distant future of 1997, the world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland (yes, another one). Many survivors have a deadly plague and their quarantined area is known as "The Plague Zone". When super-evil baddie Decker (James) and his minions, including Snake (Richardson) kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman, his chauffeur, Chaz (Combs) goes into the plague zone to try and rescue her. But he brings along a mercenary, Luger (Hauser) to help him. The devil-may-care Luger and the skittish, nerdy Chaz are the original odd couple - but will they use their combined mixture of brains and street-smarts to outwit the baddies, rescue the girl and defeat Decker once and for all? Anyone who reads this site regularly knows we try to always find movies that are set in "the future" but are now the past. Dead Man Walking certainly qualifies, but sadly this movie is nothing more than a programmer, a Sunday-afternoon time-waster that adds nothing new to the already-tired "Post-Apocalyptic" movie so prevalent in the 80's. We all know the Italians mastered the genre; it was fairly presumptuous for Gregory Dark to assume he could outdo them. This is a director known for his porn movies, "erotic thrillers", music videos and wrestling stuff. And Street Asylum (1990). It seems his heart was not in this project. There is only so much actors can do with mediocre material, and talented men like James, Wings, Richardson and Combs are fighting an uphill battle here.Mix Neon City (1991), Maniac Warriors (1988), and Omega Cop (1990) with the news reports inspired by Robocop (1987) and the "wacky", "futuristic" set design in the vein of Shredder Orpheus (1990) (especially prevalent in the "Cafe Death" scene) and that should give you some idea of where we are here. Brion James stands out as an especially psychopathic bad guy, whose "evil clown" appearance makes him even scarier. Wings has shorter hair than usual, and plays a game we can only describe as "Chainsaw Chicken" while listening to jazz music. Apparently this is what goes on in the future. But the closest companion of all to this movie might be Nightmare at Noon (1988), which also featured Wings and Brion James, and it shares other similarities as well. But Nightmare at Noon is better.Sadly, Dead Man Walking seems like it's missing something. It's hard to say what it is, perhaps some kind of verve or energy. As stated earlier, it's an overdone idea, and something would be necessary to make it stand out from the pack. The real problem is that there's not nearly enough action. This can barely qualify as an action movie. As it stands, this movie is okay, standard fare, but you'd think the cast would elevate the dull material and unfortunately that does not happen.Clearly Tim Robbins is either a thief or just ignorant as evidenced by his 1995 movie of the same name. Perhaps the only good that the 1988 Dead Man Walking has done in the world is confuse video store patrons looking for the Susan Sarandon vehicle, only to accidentally rent this one instead. We'd love to see the look on their faces.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com
merklekranz You absolutely must see every Wings Hauser, Brion James, or Jeffrey Combs film, could be the only three possible reasons to see "Dead Man Walking". The whole thing looks like it was shot in a Newark junk yard. The kidnapped girl is so unsympathetic, you will regret that Brion James keeps her alive. Speaking of Brion, he is fanatical and memorable as the villain . Other than a Russian Roulette game with chainsaws, everything else is forgettable. The meaningless and totally "not funny" newscasts that are spaced throughout the film are nothing but padding for a script that could have been thought up in fifteen minutes. Believe me, unless you are a fan of the actors, this is to be avoided like the plague (pun intended). - MERK
HorrorMaven I thought this movie looked kind of geeky, but I'd heard good things from a friend, and it had Jeffrey Combs, so I gave it a chance. I was pleasantly surprised. The story held my interest and the dialogue was fun and interesting. There is a touching scene (thanks to Mr. Combs' fabulous acting skills) with the main character that made me almost want to cry. It was sort of like "Blade Runner Lite." The news casts interspersed between the action are worth the rental fee alone. They're really hilarious and some are right on target! Brion James was great as the evil Decker and Wings Hauser did well as the Zero Man hero. I might be just in a really, really good mood, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's fun afternoon viewing.
wotanet like every post apocalyse movie this one have the scenes into a junkyard, with garbage cars (I mean a pacer-buggy!!) and very very bad special effects. The only good actor for the psicopatic conduct is Brion James, a classic actor of the doomed future of mankind. If this movie have a big evaluation by IMDb users is for his homolog "Dead Man Walking" with Sean Penn and Susan sarandon, not for itself.