Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

soulexpress It's impossible to hate this low-budget Italian rip-off of "The Terminator." Between the non-stop action scenes and the testosterone that permeates every frame, HANDS OF STEEL is a decidedly watchable hunk of mid '80s Eurotrash.In a near-future when pollution has created severe health and weather issues for the American people, a cyborg assassin named Paco Queruak (rhymes with "Kerouac," oddly enough) is dispatched to kill the country's leading environmental activist. However, Paco's human side prevents him from taking the blind, wheelchair-bound old man's life. Instead, he softens the killing blow so that it merely wounds the environmentalist. Paco then goes on the run, both from the FBI and from the evil industrialist Turner (John Saxon), who hired him for the hit.He hides out in a small, isolated town in his native Arizona. There, Paco befriends Linda (Janet Agren), a rugged blonde who owns a combination motel and eatery. Paco earns first the fear and disgust, but later the respect, of a local gang of arm-wrestling truck drivers, who he quite literally beats at their own game. When the bad guys begin to zero in on Paco, getting Linda seriously wounded, one of the truck-driving arm-wrestlers sacrifices his life to save hers.After much fighting and killing, it's down to Paco and Turner, who is armed with a laser that Paco slaps away from him. Paco says, "Turner, you got it wrong about controlling my mind. You only own a man when you control his heart." To drive his point home, Paco reaches into Turner's chest with his cybernetic arm and pulls out the man's heart. Now it's just Paco and Linda, who has grown to care about him. But Paco is torn between his human and robotic sides. To its credit, the film ends right there, on a refreshing note of ambiguity.OK, so Paco's car is red in its first scene but magically turns white for the rest of the film. OK, so the characters barely qualify as one-dimensional. OK, so the female cyborg sent after Paco makes fight sounds you'd have to hear to believe. OK, so the entire film has the look of an Italian backlot trying to pass itself off first as New York City, then as rural Arizona. But still and all, for what they were doing, the damned thing works! It held my interest for its full 95-minute running time. What can I say? HANDS OF STEEL is the best arm-wrestling-cyborg-assassin-with-a-heart-of-gold film ever produced.

Comeuppance Reviews In a post-apocalyptic city, Rev. Arthur Mosely (Fantasia) is the man controlling things. With posters pasted all around that scream "You Have No Future", the populace is understandably despairing. Enter a hulking brute named, inexplicably, Paco Queruak (Greene). Queruak is 80% cyborg and has been programmed to kill Mosely. After seemingly completing his mission, Paco goes on the run and ends up in rural Arizona. He stops at a road house run by Linda (Agren) and begins working there, as well as developing a relationship with her. But her joint is known for its rowdy arm-wrestling competitions. A man named Raul (Eastman) sure does love to wrist-wrassle. All the while, a mysterious businessman named Turner (Saxon), as well as his goons, are after Paco because they want to stop him, and they will stop at nothing to do so. Dodging danger at every turn, what will happen to Paco Queruak? Paco Queruak. That name is really all you need to know. The minds that could come up with that applied their talents to an entire movie. How do you even pronounce that last name? Is it like Jack Kerouac? Because if so, Paco Queruak is the real "beat poet", if you know what we mean. Hands of Steel is director Sergio Martino's take on the movies of the day - it's sort of a melange of The Terminator (1984) and Robocop (1987) if they were to walk into a Road House (1989) and go Over The Top (1987). Impressively, Hands of Steel pre-dated all those movies except The Terminator. Martino would go on to use Daniel Greene in American Tiger (1990) a few years later, but here he's cast perfectly as the lead, because he can be as robotic as he wants to be.In the future there are plenty of abandoned warehouses, signs warning against acid rain, and, perhaps most dangerously, John Saxon with a laser cannon. It seemed like Saxon was going to have a sit-down role for most of the movie until this scene occurred. It's worth watching this movie for this part alone. Plus there's an evil cyborg named Susie that is uncredited in the movie but looks a lot like Daria Nicolodi. But as for the lead, Daniel Greene as - one more time - Paco Queruak - for a guy with "Hands Of Steel" he sure ends up in the right place. That being a place where arm wrestling is king. And during a computer run-down of his attributes as part man and part machine, this is seen on the screen: "Negative Characteristics: None". So he really is the perfect man. But the strange coda at the end of the movie just may confuse things. You'll just have to see it to know what we mean.Highlighted by some great music by Claudio Simonetti, Hands Of Steel is a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

tomimt Paco is an assassin cyborg, who after a failed assassination escapes and starts to regain his humanity in the tender, loving care of motel keeper Linda. All this happens while the bad guys try to find their broken toy in order to get rid of the evidence before the FBI gets on their track.If anything is evident from Hands of Steel, it's the evident lack of budget. It's one of those cheap 80's movies, that are filled with clunky special effects, odd music and strange plot pieces which in the case of this movie revolve around arm wrestling.Hands of Steel is what it is: a cheap, clichéd sci-fi yarn with moments of unintentional hilarity from severally overacted scenes of oozing testosterone and badassery.Surprisingly enough the movie is not totally unwatchable. It has some nice scenes in it and the camp value is high, but it does require a certain state of mind.

Scarecrow-88 A ruthless businessman, Francis Turner(John Saxon) attempts to assassinate a political revolutionary using a human cybernetic killing machine but doesn't expect that his creation would recall his humanity, softening the blows of his hands of steel leaving the target alive. On the lam, Paco Queruak(Daniel Greene) will find a temporary home working for a lonely female bar owner, Linda(Janet Agren) in the Arizona desert as Turner's agents and the FBI search for his whereabouts. Paco also finds an adversary in truck driver Raoul Morales(George Eastman as yet another memorable heavy, this time a sweaty, hostile, conniving aggressor who doesn't appreciate defeat, especially in an arm wrestling match, and often attempts to harm his foe in underhanded attacks)who eventually assists Peter Hallo(Claudio Cassinelli), Hunter's hired assassin, in trying to upend Paco so that he wouldn't leave a trace to his creator's organization.Sergio Martino's Italian imitation of James Cameron's The Terminator lays the melodrama on a bit thick, but Hands of Steel benefits from some exciting action sequences where herculean Greene's Paco crushes skulls and snaps heads of those that threaten him. Saxon's Hunter is as cruel and vicious as they come, having those under his command eliminated if they fail to carry out his orders in either killing or retrieving his creation..Saxon is relegated to a glorified supporting role, mostly ordering his men from a safe distance in his office, only at the end hitching a ride in a helicopter to personally survey the situation from the sky, although he does eventually comes face to face with Paco, as you'd expect.Being a fan of "human cyborg" movies, Hands of Steel was entertaining if cheap(..the attempts to make the weapons futuristic fail, such as a giant laser and a missile launcher) with attempts at building the central relationship, a blossoming love affair between Paco and Linda, a man made mostly of metal and the woman that helps him communicate with that human side that remains, is really cornball. The arm wrestling matches(..perhaps influenced by Stallone's Over the Top)are a bit of fun filler with Paco's battle with portly baldy Anatola Blanco a particular highlight..the loser would set off a trap releasing a rattlesnake! I thought the use of Arizona in this film was rather effective(..I'm quite fond of films in godforsaken destitute sun-drenched settings where most folks avoid due to the miserable climate)and Linda's remote bar, a place parked in the middle of nowhere, exactly the ideal location for someone on the run from the authorities and assassins, works as an isolated hellhole only bar scum would inhabit. Hands of Steel is a far cry from Martino's stylish giallo thrillers in terms of quality, but the film might be appreciated by aficionados who love B-movie low budget action junk. Terrific electronic score from Claudio Simoneti and a cool special fx sequence where Paco is repairing mechanical problems with his arm.