TrueJoshNight
Truly Dreadful Film
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Comeuppance Reviews
"The Company" is an elite team of top-secret mercenaries who go around the world dispensing death in a ruthless manner. When nice guy Tom Cattrall (Thayer), who is an unassuming TV repairman and resembles author Stephen King, gets ensnared in this dark organization because they want his wiretapping skills, he soon gets on their bad side. A former member of The Company, Danny Burke, wrote a tell-all book about their dirty dealings and now The Company is after him big time, and Tom and Danny's sister Jan (Hoskins) have fallen in love. As if that wasn't enough, Tom and Jan enlist a book publisher and a cadre of hobos they hired to rent out an abandoned warehouse and SELF-PUBLISH Danny's book. Can they finish the book and get it out to stores in time? Or will they all fall prey to The Company's nefarious tactics? In the first five minutes of The Retrievers we get some classic staples some movies don't have in their whole running time: the classic neck snap, guy falling out of a guard tower, fan favorite decapitation (this time with garden shears) and someone yelling "noooooo!" -- that's what's good about The Retrievers - it's fan-pleasing fun from start to finish.Even though the film was released in 1982, it has a pleasant 70's feel to it and the movie does resemble Death Machines in many ways. It has some funky tunes on the soundtrack and shag carpet graces many floors in the film, among a lot of other 70's decor and clothing. I loved that alone, but it's also violent, fast paced and has plenty of funny dialogue. What's not to love? It is worth noting that there is a last-minute character we all love, in the vein of Bear, Machine Gun Joe, The Dead Man and The Cowboy (Maximum Force (1992), Provoked (1989), Chains (1989) and Maximum Breakout (1991) respectively) - this time it's a morbidly obese man named Big Mac (can they do that?) he eats apples and throws them at bad guys. Also tuba music plays when he walks. Fat guy humor for ya. Go Big Mac! There are some cool movie-making techniques used in The Retrievers: hand-held camera for some fight scenes and some tastefully-done sped up action. There is a very cool montage during the bookmaking sequence. It ends on a freeze frame as all action movies should. Also in the credits there are some interesting things: Katey Sagal of Futurama fame sings the stirring end credits song and future Road House (1989) director Rowdy Herrington also gets a credit. And in case you wanted to know who played the "Wetbacks", that's there too. "WETBACKS" gets a credit!!!! We didn't make that up, it's an actual credit. You won't see that again in these PC times.This seems like it would have played at drive-ins at the time. It was also released on Vestron in the 80's. Sure, it falls prey to some low-budget bugaboos such as seeing the boom mike/mike shadows, underlit scenes and some terrible acting/non-acting (watch out for the book publisher saying "your work ethic is terrible)...but The Retrievers is cool, entertaining fun that 80's action fans should love.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com
jessecrowder
Just bought myself a copy of "The Retrievers". First of all I must say that the trailer for this schlock is by far more entertaining - but that seems to be the case with many B-grade actioners. The plot isn't half that bad and maybe in hands of some real filmmaker, it could have actually worked. Now the only reason to watch this reasonably forgotten gem is it's undeniable cheese -value. Action scenes are slow but frequent so you don't have to press the fast forward in your remote all of the time.There is one guy, whose name I didn't catch, who posses some martial arts skills. His kicks are fast and quite flashy - especially when he's fighting the hero in the end. This is mostly because Max Thayer doesn't manage to be even a bit believable in his action scenes. His kicks are knee -high and I've seen more impressive punches thrown by 5 -year old boys.Acting is total garbage and I was expecting gratuitous nudity. There is none. Well, there was one female character who's supposed to be some kind of literary agent - I suppose. She looks like a contemporary adult film star and is having a bubble bath for no obvious reason in the middle of the film.This balances on the level of "being just plain bad" and "being just SO plain bad that it's actually good". I'd be hard pressed to go through it again, but it's a good addition to your 80's STV - action movie collection.PLUS Katey Sagal (aka. Peggy Bundy) sings the song over closing credits. Well, you have to start somewhere... I also noticed director Rowdy ("Road House", "Striking Distance")Herrington's name in the credits. I believe it was in the grip -department or something.Avoid if you like to actually enjoy your movies. Get it if you have a soft spot for geriatric Kung-Fu and painfully bad acting.
fab-one
This is definitely one of the few movies still in my mind. I watched this when I was still in second year high (around 1984 here). Nevermind if this movie is not a classic, but this is surely a hard action and one of the best movies released that year in our city. Action flicks were then making money here.
William
This boring action film directed by guy who made KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE and the comedy THEY CALL ME BRUCE? stars Max Thayer (last seen in ILSA: HARLEM KEEPER) as a man who is recruited by a organization who does the dirty work for powerful people. When on a routine mission to stop an ex-merc from writing a book on something that happen in the past, Thayer realized what the organization doing is wrong and teams up with the ex-merc's sister to help her brother's return and print the book her wrote about the organization. The fight sequence looks badly staged (even though it was supervised by Master Bon Soon Han). Music is stock music used in many other films like Andy Sardris's SEVEN to DRAGON VS. NEEDLES OF DEATH ad music. The film even ends in a sloppy end credit song, which wasn't even credited. Not recommended, unless you just want to see an action film.
