"There's Only One Way To Challenge The Face Of Death!"
Armed Response(1986) is a low budget action flick released by RCA/Columbia home video and was financed and made on a budget of around 1,500,000. The highest budget the director Fred Olen Ray has had for a film to date.
Cast: David Carradine, Lee Van Cleef, Mako, Michael Berryman, Lois Hamilton, Ross Hagen, Brent Huff, Laurene Landon, and Dick Miller.
Director: Fred Olen Ray
My Two Cents: Ah. Armed Response. One of those films that for some reason I have been trying to find for ages now, and now that I finally found the sucker, and popped in my VCR, it turned out to be a little bit like moldy cheese. Still packed a punch, but not necessarily the good kind. I certainly was not expecting a masterpiece from schlockmeister Fred Olen Ray, but for his first and last over a million dollar budgeted flick, I expected a little more pizazz. The film begins with a useless but entertaining prologue featuring a man cutting off one of his fingers to show loyalty to the head of the Yakuza, Mr. Tanaka(Mako), and to come away with a cool 5,000 bucks. This scene leads to nowhere however, since the man and his female accomplice are never seen again throughout the rest of the film. The randomness continues with the film's opening title sequence which consists of random shots of the cast in a bar chatting, and quick flash cuts of the credits coming in at completely random intervals, leaving the audience wondering why the director chose to edit the whole film like a kid with attention deficit disorder. The main title music by Tom Chase and Steve Rucker makes the sequences well worth it though with it's awesome guitar solo and smooth bass sounding like it came straight out of an episode of Miami Vice. The first 25 minutes or so of the film are tough sledding though. Dealing with an awkward at best bar sequence with Lee Van Cleef beating up on a couple of punks, and David Carradine having vietnam flashbacks. The first half of the film has this weird pseudo serious tone. It deals with tense issues like David Carradine's post traumatic stress disorder but then also has goofy sequences with a couple of doofy thieves played by Laurene Landon and Dick Miller, complete with laugh out loud stupid dialogue.
Here is an example of this film's ridiculous writing.
Deborah: You guys packing?
Cory: This ain't my dick I'm playing with.
That's just a taste of the ludicrous wordplay this film throws at you. I personally found it to be hilarious, but others might find it childish and immature. After Cory is done not playing with his private parts he pulls a double cross and shoots his partner, stealing the money and the statue. This statue holds great importance to the plot since it was supposed to be given to the leader of the Tong gang as a token of appreciation by Tanaka in order to prevent full out war between the Tongs and the Yakuza. This scenario is revealed to audience in of all places a strip club. Had to get in some shots of titties didn't you Armed Force? But the film isn't all just tits and statues. The film picks up pace as soon as Carradine's brother Clay is found dead, and he and the rest of his family go on a mission of revenge to bust the bad guys asses. Lee Van Cleef heads to bar and disappears until the end of the film, Carradine searches for Clay's killer on the mean streets, beats up some coke dealers, pimp smacks Ross Hagen out of his shoes, Michael Berryman makes an appearance as a ninja with a smiley face pin who promptly shoots Brent Huff with a shotgun exclaiming "Nice Try. BAD LUCK!" Complete with a new wave pop song in the background, and to make matters worse Tanaka kidnaps Carradine's wife and daughter. But all is not lost as Carradine and his pappy Lee Van Cleef gear up for war and set up a trade(The statue for his wife and daughter) Then Mako arrives with Berryman in tow along with a bunch of cannon fodder. Carradine hands Mako the jade suppository, doesn't shoot him in the face since his gun does not have a license, Lee Van Cleef shoots some guys, Mako tries to shoot Carradine but is out of bullets, Carradine blows his ass sky high with a detonator that activates the bomb he placed on the bottom of the statue, and Carradine like a stone cold bad ass gives us the one liner of the decade with "Rest In Pieces". The film isn't done yet. It still has a frustratingly lame climax to get to, complete with a random car chase leading to nothing, then followed by hilariously awful slow mo Michael Berryman shooting Carradine, Berryman's happy ninja getting shot by Carradine's wife, Carradine showing off his bulletproof vest to the audience and ending with a random shot of Ross Hagen's corpse underwater in a river somewhere. This all leaves me the viewer befuddled, confused and a little bit angry. Thank god I only paid a dollar for this.
All in all Armed Response didn't completely fall flat on it's face since I ultimately did have some fun with it, but it never rose above so so territory throughout it's entire running time. If anything the main thing that kept me entertained was David Carradine being a Vietnam vet that should not be fucked with, the hilarious dialogue, Mako, Michael Berryman's happy ninja, the brief but satisfying shootout at the end, and the laugh out loud inept use of slow motion photography. But other than that the film was nothing special. It could have used a lot more Lee Van Cleef.
**1/2(Out of Five)
Trailer
