Movie Details
| Title: | 1990: The Bonx Warriors | |
| Director: | Enzo G. Castellari | |
| Year: | 1982 | |
| Genre: | Apocalypse | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 07.05.14 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- High Crime
- The New Barbarians
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 07.05.14 | Netflix | Finally got around to seeing this. I remember having to miss it during the first Fantastic Fest due to scheduling or sleeping in or whatever. I always liked the fact that they shot in the Bronx in the early 80s and called it post-apocalypse... and didn't have to change anything. They thought audiences would just believe it because The Bronx was such a shithole back then. Now I've learned they shot maybe most of the interior stuff in the ruins and rubble of Rome, but still. Damn the Bronx was in rough shape back then. There's a quick shot where the actors are running through the streets in their futuristic wardrobe and in the background you can see a bunch of black kids playing basketball in some decrepit court. I wonder what they thought if they noticed the weird Italian white dudes running around with cameras, security provided by the Hell's Angels MC. There's another shot that Castellari kept in of an actor completely biffing on his bike. I mean he goes down HARD. The script never really addressed it, but that fall had to result in a few broken bones or something. But other than the retro shots of the Bronx, this movie isn't much. It's kind of like Escape from New York meets The Warriors, if Michael Beck was a gay Italian body builder who couldn't speak English. It's not QUITE as post-apocalyptic as I'd hoped - Manhattan still seems functional and no Road Warrior body armor - and everything about all the performances are pretty terrible, but this type of movie is also kind of hard not to have at least a little fun with. Certainly compared to Grown Ups 2, I had more fun with the camp and weird Italian style of this. The beginning credits are kind of cool, paying fetishistic close-ups to the futuristic brutality of the spiked elbow-guards and metal finger-claw weapons of the not-so-distant future (the title refers to like 8-9 years in the future, that's pretty dire but who knows if Guliani hadn't gotten into office). There's lots of weird unafraid-to-come-off-feminine gangs... like the ballet face-paint gang and the roller-skate street hockey gang and Fred Williamson is a really odd kingpin named "The Ogre" who benevolently doles out gasoline and electronics to his neighborhoods. Then Vic Morrow is named "Hammer" and wants to kill everyone for some reason... and at the end I can tell a bunch of the crew were burned by real flame throwers hitting panes of glass in front of the camera. So you know... worth watching. |
