ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

markthompsons This movie is just THE BEST. It's absolutely hilarious - a total knock off of Miami Vice. I found it on VHS tape at a thrift shop and gave it a go. I had forgotten how many up and coming BIG name actors were in this.James Remar makes an excellent villain. A young Laurence Fishburne is also very good as a Little Haiti drug dealer. Lauren Holly is also great in an early role as Nikki, lover of BOTH member Carlos.The first half of the film as the Band train with Joe in the Everglades, learning how to survive is done very well, with the Band naturally complaining about everything at first but slowly and surely adapting. The final big battle at a Miami dope farm after Joe's death is great as well, where the Band of The Hansd finally put all their experience with their mentor to the test.The film is, in short, great. Not excellent, but great, and I strongly recommend it.

djslammm I found this movie in a video store shelf when I was 14. At the time, this movie was phenomenal. This movie gives you a very nostalgic feel of what the 1980's would be like in Miami. I am a very big 80's buff so this was a definite for my collection. I am very pleased to see they released it on DVD. What really makes this movie neat is that at the time, almost all of the actors were unknown, with the exception of James Remar. This movie is based upon the many programs that were employed to straighten up troubled minors and make them realize the value of life. Unfortunately, many of those programs were cut because of mismanagement, lack of funding, or were bogus boot camps run by abusive individuals. I do believe with the right people, a program like this can work, and that is what this movie portrays. Although this plot is fictional, it still leaves you with that feeling of "Wouldn't it be great if this actually worked". This movie was one of the first '80's films I can recall to touch racism, drug trafficking, assault weapons, gang warfare, and the effect it had on the youth at the time and put a positive spin on the outcome. One more thing, Bob Dylan and the Heartbreaker's (from Tom Petty) recorded a song for this movie specifically that cannot be found anywhere else. It is called "Hell Time" and it is pretty awesome. The rest of the soundtrack could use some work as they did not include Mr. Mister or Prince. If you enjoyed the Miami Vice series or if your a big action packed '80's buff, I highly recommend this movie whether you rent it once or add it to your collection as I did.

Mister-6 Ladies and gentlemen, afficionados of the '80s, fans of Michael Mann, allow me to introduce a movie most of you probably have never heard of."Band of the Hand" came and went in 1986 like the millions of other movies of the '80s, some with more plot and less style, others vice versa. But what makes this any different than the rest of its ilk?Well, for starters, it was produced by Michael "Miami Vice" Mann (which accounts for the Miami setting and the Don Johnson clothing styles), it was directed by Hutch from TV's "Startsky and Hutch" (Glaser), a LOT of familiar faces are featured in the cast (Holly, Fishburne, Remar, Graham and Ferrero and Smitrovich from "Vice") and has that old "hey-let's-get-the-kids-together-and-clean-up-the-neighborhood" plot transplanted into Reaganomic drug-enforcement sensibility.On the down side, there is little to nothing in the ways of personality in the characters; they act just about the way you'd expect TV characters to act. Thing is - THIS IS A MOVIE! And while there are a lot of stretches where people say nothing and just do their thing while music plays on the sound-track for "emotional emphasis", there are a few dozen of these scenes too many for my taste (hey guys, a little dialogue so we'll know what people are thinking would be nice...you know, once in a while?). And WHY, in the name of every holy being you could possibly think of, did Mann think he had to ape EVERY SINGLE nuance from "Miami Vice"??? You know, Michael, you are allowed to do something different every once in a while.Thank god he learned his lesson later on and actually did better movies like "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Heat". Even 1981's "Thief" with James Caan was done better in style as well as story. Of course, "Miami Vice" wasn't on TV yet, either.As it is, just a reminder of everything that was pastel in the '80s. Other than that, this is a "Hand" that should be banned.Four stars, mostly for the look. Maybe "Band of the Hand" would be better if you watched it with the sound turned off? I'll have to try that sometime.

nos4a2-2 This is one of those movies that you had to see when it first came out. It also helps I think if you were the same age as the kids in the movie. The locations were magnificent. And some of the performances were not too shabby either I might add. This was an atypical 80's movie, set in Florida (do you think that a Miami Vice relation was intentional?). When I was a kid I loved this movie, and upon watching it again recently, I didn't even remember how cheesy it was. I just remembered these 5 deadbeat kids, forced to work as a group to survive, and everyone thinking that it would never work. Even now that I've seen it and know how cheesy it is, I still just remember it the way I used too.