GamerTab
That was an excellent one.
Protraph
Lack of good storyline.
Lucybespro
It is a performances centric movie
Kinley
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Comeuppance Reviews
Christy Hansen (Udy) is a beautiful equestrian rider who seemingly has the perfect life: she's about to marry Bob Worthington (King), a member of the prestigious and wealthy Worthington family. (Don't they even sound rich?) - the only problem is, she's in love with Bob's rough-and-tumble brother Steve (Van Patten). She thinks this is the worst problem in her life, until she's kidnapped and held captive by the San Felipe Anarchist Army. They're a south of the border terrorist organization led by the sinister Estoban (Fisher) who doesn't at all resemble any Cuban dictators we might know, and his army of thugs. Getting the typical run-around and red tape from the government - which includes Christy's own father, Senator Adam Hansen (Mitchell) - Christy's friends decide to become a makeshift mercenary force and go and rescue her themselves. Despite having no experience in the violent arts, the aforementioned Steve, plus Henry (McQueen), Eddie (Miller), Mack (Marcel) and Carla (Blair) attempt the rescue mission nevertheless. Along their treacherous way, they meet the mysterious but extremely helpful Vietnam vet Bishop (Lynch). Will this ragtag band of amateur vigilantes rescue their friend? Dare you find out? A very impressive B-movie cast filled with fan favorites just kind of wade around in the mush of this colorless outing. It starts off in a very disjointed manner, and steadily becomes a more coherent, but more standard exploding hut/fruit cart chase actioner that doesn't really offer anything new for die-hard action fans. Sure, the opening bit has plenty of slow-motion mindless shooting set to the synthesized main theme and you think "this has promise". but then a certain blandness and repetition sets in. 80's staples such as the disco scene and aerobics help matters, but not enough to save the movie in its entirety. The movie needed more Cam Mitchell, who basically does a "sit-down" role. Chad McQueen brandishes a rocket launcher, and, after some initial fears, he does indeed maintain his trademark: no sleeves. McQueen's arms must always be unencumbered by any form of cloth.Richard Lynch puts in a likable performance, and he even plays the flute and has a pet monkey. Where else but here will you see the movie credit "Rambo the monkey as Pin"? Pin, or should we say Rambo, wears cameo pants like the rest of the cast. His performance really stands out. Van Patten also appeared in director Foldes' Young Warriors (1983), and seems like a young, confused Treat Williams. Linda Blair plays the "tough chick", playing against the more girly Christy. It could almost be said that her character here could be a continuation of Brenda from Savage Streets (1984). Carla could be like what Brenda would have turned out as later in life. Adding to the positives column is the end-credits song, "I Still Remember", sung by Linda herself.Despite its mediocrity, items like Night Force actually did their own little part to make the video stores of the 80's great. They added their own brick in the wall of mind-boggling choices the best video stores had. Not every movie ever made is going to be an awesome life-changer. Sometimes corraling some familiar names together and having them engage in some mindless shooting and blow-ups is enough. Clearly the filmmakers knew this, as indicated by its 79 minute running time. It was all good enough for Lightning Video to release it (it was produced by Vestron Pictures) - and as long as you don't expect too much, you might be able to wring some enjoyment out of the rag that is Night Force.
paskuniag
If Leonard Pinth-Garnell, the Bad Cinema maven from SNL, ever compiled a list of ten examples of "Truly Bad Cinema," this epic would have to be on it. Now, I usually don't consider films like this one to be worthy of mention on a bad-movie list. Normally, I prefer the grand turkeys like "Conqueror" and "Exorcist II." Still, Linda Blair is Linda Blair, and it was her starring in it that got it made. So I guess we can blame her for this turkey. The fact that these college-age dudes and babes can suddenly shoot like Green Berets is a variation of Roger Ebert's "thirty-second genius" motif. That is where the lead hears the whole plot from somebody in 30 seconds, and immediately knows what to do. In this case, the kids practice shooting for a couple hours, then are ready to do battle with an entire army. My favorite bad moment is when the kidnapped girl is ravaged by one of the enemy soldiers. The Commandante comes along, shoots the soldier, then has HIS way with her. She must have had more Latinos land on her than the Bay of Pigs. My favorite character is the American soldier-of-fortune, played by Richard Lynch. They should have called him Pizza-Face Jones, since a) Lynch's face has more holes in it than the Van Wyck Expressway, not far from where Lynch grew up in Brooklyn and, b) he acts like Harrison Ford on 'Ludes. There's not much more to say, but if you must see it, try to catch it, unedited, on one of the premium movie channels. If you rent it, do so on two-for-one night, along with something that you know is good. A couple beers will help you bear it.
AshXF
I once took a job at a crappy, buffet-style restaurant to pay bills and I quit in less than a month. I hope that's the only reason Linda Blair decided to do this movie. I'm on a quest to see everything she's been in, and I love Linda Blair but jeeeeeez. BAD movie!In a nutshell, a wimpy damsel in distress, daughter of a senator, is kidnapped by clichéd Latino terrorists and hauled off to some banana republic as a hostage. Now her father, a senator who pushes for no negotiations with terrorists, decides he'd rather loose his kid than his job and we are made to believe that the United States government is absolutely NOT going to recuse a senator's daughter. (Come on, that little country would have been turned into a parking lot)Enter her 5 college friends. They are old enough to be legal to purchase guns, but still young enough to be stupid. Somehow, in a matter of hours, they procure machine guns and a bazooka and set off to shooting in the local dump without alerting the authorities. They then pile all the weaponry into the back of their jeep, cover it with a tarp, miraculously avoid the border patrol and just mosey down into South America looking for their friend.Naturally they get into trouble. Enter Bishop, the Vietnam vet mercenary who, out of the goodness of his heart, equips the kids with better, bigger guns he happens to have lying buried in his backyard, training and cameo gear. How nice. And thank god he knew how to fly a chopper else they may have had to walk home at the end.So now, the newly expert commandos, having bypassed the years of training necessary to fight the terrorists, rush in to rescue their friend and end up blowing up everything in sight. It's a good thing these terrorists who probably were given guns for Christmas toys as kids have no aim. In the process, 2 of the guys are killed, but hey, as long as they rescued the idiotic girl, then it's OK. Trade one certain death for 2 accidentals, it's all good. And despite the fact that all the bad guys are dead, they don't go back to retrieve their friends' bodies. I'm sure their families will understand. And how many times did this blond chick have to show her breasts or be raped? I think she wears clothes for all of 3 minutes of her screen time.Now I WILL say this, Linda Blair did pretty damn good with what she was given. She was no wimpy, clichéd girl usually seen in these testosterone laced flicks. She had the best lines, watching the boys shoot off bazookas in the dump, tricking them into taking her along, and it was kinda cool to see her run, all decked out in cameo, shooting up some bad guy butt. However, for all her character's enthusiasm in rescuing her friend, she only got to shoot in the last sequence. The majority of the movie had her ducking behind cars as the boys shot the bad guys.So why did I shell out $5 to a used video website and another $5 for shipping? As I said, I'm on a quest to see every movie Linda Blair's ever been in, even this one. There *IS* one good thing that might make this video worth it to Linda Blair fans....the opening and ending credits has a rather catchy rock and roll song playing, and it is sung by none other than Linda Blair! She sounds a bit like Pat Benatar, not too bad either! She should have looked into a singing career instead of making this movie.Hats off to Linda, major BOOOS to whoever wrote this swiss cheese of a plot story.
dae5
A definitive example of 80s action trash: probably the only people who would shell out cash for a ticket were wasted teens looking for some skin and lots of explosions. Watch the opening sequence and marvel out how shoddy the editing is: when one of the baddies fires at an officer, there is actually what looks like a break in the film (as if to chop a few frames out) followed by a painfully out-of-sync death scene of the fat officer- ooph!- getting plugged by a bullet, which apparently stopped in mid-air for five seconds while the camera crew switched reels.By today's standards (and 80s standards, probably) the action is sub-par, not gory enough to be interesting but violent enough to be morally inexcusable. Thankfully, every once in awhile Night Force falls into softcore porn territory- this is the only movie I've seen that interrupts a cheap shower scene with flashbacks to a cheap sex scene- but not nearly enough to make the rest of the movie bearable. Night Force exploits pointless violence and gratuitous sex, and poorly. Virtually everyone involved in making this film- actors, actresses, FX technicians, editors- have officially lost any artistic integrity they once had.