Mean Guns

The post-modern gangsters pioneered in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction didn’t take long to spread to every corner of the cinema landscape.  Suddenly pop-culture references became just as important as shoot-outs and characters were swimming in quirky idiosyncrasies.  Even low-budget auteurs like director Albert Pyun (Cyborg, The Sword and the Sorcerer) jumped in headfirst, dragging meat-and-potatoes action stars like Christopher Lambert along for the ride.  

In Mean Guns (1997), Lambert stars as Lou, one of a hundred-or-so assassins hired by the Syndicate, all of whom are invited to a secret meeting led by Vincent Moon (Ice-T).  In the spirit of competition, Moon offers up 10 million dollars to the three survivors of what turns out to be a Battle Royale-style death match.  Lou teams up with Marcus, Dee and Cam – an innocent bystander – in a group effort to shoot their way to the top of the leaderboard.

 

Set against an ironically peppy mambo music score, Pyun delights in letting the bullets fly, imitating the two-fisted, gun-fu stylings of John Woo to good effect.  Although the action is frenetic, with multiple actors blasting in every direction, the clever editing manages to make sense of all the chaos.  Sure, there are some clumsy attempts to incorporate backstories, subplots and comic relief, but they never distract from what is an all-around good time.  Genre fans will recognize plenty of faces (Deborah Van Valkenburgh from The Warriorssurvives yet another gang apocalypse!) and even Ice-T brings his A-game.  

 

Mean Guns brings the sort of inspired B-movie mayhem that MVD’s Rewind Collection was made for!  The new Blu-ray features a 1080p HD transfer that still sports cigarette burns but otherwise looks just fine.  Extras include new interviews with producers Gary Schmoeller and Paul Roseblum as well as composer Anthony Riparetti.  Those go along with an archival commentary from the late Albert Pyun, a trailer, collectible mini-poster and clever retro slipcover.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembodied visions of his ex-lover who refuses to go quietly into the afterlife.  And
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annabelle West is named the sole beneficiary…that is, if she can be proved sane afte
Read more

Impulse

Image
William Shatner, for all his ego and arrogance, always seemed comfortable being the butt of a joke.  His career outside of the  Star Trek  franchise was a bumpy road of corny TV shows and enjoyable B-movie dreck.  But he never delivered anything less than 100% “Shatner!”  Like 1974’s  Impulse , a regional drive-in quickie directed by William Grefé ( Stanley, Mako: Jaws of Death ) that casts the once and future Captain Kirk as a psychologically troubled con man whose childhood trauma leads to a string of murdered women.  After dumping the body of his last victim in a Florida canal, Matt Stone (Shatner) is on the prowl for another financial windfall, this time using a phony investment scam to entice Ann (Jennifer Bishop) into a romantic relationship.  But when Ann’s daughter, Tina, is witness to the murder of his business associate (Harold “Chop Top” Sakata), Matt has to clean up his tracks and speed up his escape plan.  That includes silencing Tina…and whoever else gets in his way.   Ta
Read more