The Curator of Schlock #399 by Jeff Shuster

The Warriors

Skip the director’s cut. 

There I was, stuck in a bowling alley in the dead of night next to a decapitated fentanyl dealer. Actually, the guy wasn’t decapitated. His head had exploded after the Revenging Manta, a ninja vigilante from the downtown Orlando area, threw a bowling ball directly at his cranium. I was picking bits of brain and skull out of my hair as the Revenging Manta gathered up the collection of multicolored pills and shoved them into a pink Hello Kitty bag. — To be continued.

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This week’s movie is 1979’s The Warriors from director Walter Hill. How have I not covered this movie on this blog? Maybe in all these years of pontificating about cinema I’ve not felt worthy enough to review this. I will do my best.

The movie starts out with Deno’s Wonder Wheel lit up against the night sky as moody electronic music from composer Barry De Vorzon plays in the background. We’re soon introduced to the Warriors, the resident gang of Coney Island, NY. They’ve been called to a meeting of all the gangs in New York City. And I mean all of the gangs of New York City: The Boppers, the Saracens, the Hi-Hats, the Moonrunners, the Panzers, the Jones Streets Boys, the Electric Eliminators, and the Van Cortlandt Rangers to name a few.

Nine delegates from a hundred gangs meet at a park in the Bronx where a man named Cyrus (Roger Hill), head of the Gramercy Riffs, ignites the crowd with promises of conquest. If all the gangs can keep up a truce and work together then no one in New York City could stop them. Not the police. Not the crime syndicates. He asks the crowd, “Can you dig it?” The crowd roars in triumph. Cyrus is a supervillain and like many supervillains, you in the audience are secretly admiring him. And just when Cyrus is on top of the world, a punk named Luther (David Patrick Kelly) shoots him dead.

Right after Cyrus falls to the ground, the lights in the park blaze on and dozens of cops storm the scene. Cleon (Dorsey Wright), the Warlord of the Warriors, goes to check on Cyrus. While he and the Gramercy Riffs examine his corpse, Luther points the finger at Cleon stating he’s the guy that shot Cyrus. He and the other Rogues attack Cleon and it’s not long before the Gramercy Riffs join in, beating him to death.

With their Warlord nowhere in sight, the rest of the Warriors escape the park and hide in a cemetery. Swan (Michael Beck) is the War Chief of the gang, the second in command that has to get them home to Coney Island. Joining him are seven other gang members like the hothead Ajax (James Remar) and graffiti artist Rembrandt (Marcelino Sánchez). The Gramercy Riffs want the Warriors alive if possible, wasted if necessary. They’ve put out a call to action to all the gangs between the Bronx and Coney Island to take care of The Warriors. 

What follows is a struggle for survival as the Warriors escape the cops and well as the likes of the Turnbull Acs, the Punks, and the Baseball Furies. It’s a trial by fire and not all of the Warriors will survive the journey home. To say more would spoil this movie. The Warriors is a brilliant film, showing us the perspective of guys Paul Kersey would shoot without giving it a second thought. Never boring and well worth repeated viewing, you can catch The Warriors streaming on Paramount+. 

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, and episode 549) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #398 by Jeff Shuster

Memory

That’s your movie title? You’re not even trying!

Where was I? Oh, I was undercover at a bowling alley, trying to buy some fentanyl from a drug-pusher named Gary. 

“Where’s the money? I don’t have all day.” Gary said as he lifted up a turquoise bowling ball. Suddenly, a look of terror spread across his face. Out of the shadows walked the Revenging Manta, the vigilante ninja of downtown Orlando. 

“You!” Gary screamed before hurling the bowling ball at the masked avenger. The Revenging Manta caught the ball and threw it right back at Gary. The ball struck Gary’s head with tremendous force. His cranium exploded, bloody chunks of flesh flying everywhere. A crimson geyser sprayed from his neck as the headless body stumbled around for a bit. — To be continued.

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This week’s movie is 2022’s Memory from director Martin Campbell. And it stars Liam Neeson as a hardened assassin out for vengeance. In these turbulent times, my cinematic comfort food usually revolves around aging leading men such Gerard Butler, Denzel Washington or Liam Neeson playing a character with a “certain set of skills” that gets pushed too far and unleashes holy hell on the bad guys. He makes them suffer and the audience  enjoys seeing them suffer. Everyone leaves the theater happy.

Or that would be the case if the trailer wasn’t a lie. When watching the trailer for Memory, we’re introduced to Liam Neeson who refers to himself as “the bad man.” He’s an unstoppable assassin, the best of the best. And then he gets an assignment that he will not do. He will not kill a child. And then you, the audience member, thinks, “Well, he may be a merciless assassin, but at least he doesn’t kill children.” Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.

We then see him taking out the bad guys, tipping off the cops to what he’s doing. The main detective is played by Guy Pearce. Neeson’s assassin states that he can’t keep doing his job for him, that these traffickers have to pay for what they do to children. We learn that Neeson’s assassin has some memory issues and can’t always remember where he was the night before. Maybe he’s not who he thinks he is. The trailer promises a competent action thriller from the director of the James Bond films Goldeneye and Casino Royale. Okay. I’m sold.

And then I watch the actual movie and am sorely disappointed. For starters, Neeson feels more like a supporting character than the lead. I guess that honor goes to Guy Pearce who’s looking a bit beaten down by life if I have to be honest. Maybe they dressed him down for the role of Vincent Serra, head of an investigation into child sex trafficking in El Paso. We see him trying to catch a guy pimping out his own underage daughter, but ends up killing the father in a tussle. Vincent asks the girl to give testimony against the cartels. Otherwise, she’ll be kicked back to Mexico. Her situation makes me depressed.

Then we have Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson), a contract killer in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. Alex visits his brother in a senior center and his brother stares at him with vacant eyes, a grim reminder of Alex’s own fate. By the end of the movie, Alex is just a befuddled old man, barely able to string a sentence together as he bleeds from his wounds. This isn’t what I want to see. Where is Neeson kicking ass? A couple months ago I was watching Neeson throw a guy from a moving train into the path of an oncoming moving train. 

It seems this movie is a remake of the Belgian movie, The Alzheimer Case. Apparently, that movie holds an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes while this one remains at 28%. Maybe I should check out the original.

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, and episode 549) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.