In Firefox, Clint Eastwood, in a bold change of pace, plays a renegade computer programmer who invents a new web browser that quickly becomes popular, making him rich.

Sound dull? Unfathomably, the real Firefox, in which Eastwood (also directing) plays a burned-out pilot tasked with stealing “the most sophisticated warplane on the face of this earth,” is rarely more interesting. Well, at least it gives us another entertainingly eccentric performance from Freddie Jones (The Elephant Man) on which to chew.

There’s more than a whiff of the lackluster from the start, when Eastwood suffers what appears to be flashbacks to a stock-footage festival he attended while fighting in Vietnam. This debilitating dread, played up as a great demon he must constantly battle, manifests itself mainly through Eastwood sweating and dramatically pausing when he shouldn’t as he goes undercover in Russia. Fully two-thirds of a movie ostensibly about one kick-ass piece of weaponry is bequeathed to a lethargic spy thriller rife with bad accents, dull dialogue and rather unpleasant jingoism.

All this could be forgiven, perhaps, if the main attraction were at all interesting, but even here, despite some really neat effects work by John Dykstra (Star Wars), the plane is ultimately a letdown. For a film built around the concept of “the greatest warplane ever built … a Mach Five aircraft with thought-controlled weapons systems,” the filmmakers do precious little to make it seem unique.

It looks cool, sure, but after a wearing hour and a half of setup, finally arriving at the “Let’s see what this baby can do!” point, I expect a tad more from an action thriller than a half-hour of cruising altitude and refueling while Soviet generals argue with each other over where the plane might be. And when there is finally some bloody action in a long-promised dogfight the likes of which we presumably have never seen … we’ve seen it before, and better, and longer.

In film, there’s Eastwood classic (Unforgiven) and Eastwood junk (Pink Cadillac). Firefox, all buildup and no payoff, is Eastwood meh. —Corey Redekop

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Tim Kincaid’s Riot on 42nd St. is so bad that it’s an argument for New York City officials’ Disneyfication of the area depicted — one of sex shops and flame steaks, of grindhouse theaters whose oft-flashed marquees were playing everything from Steele Justice and Penitentiary III to Masters of the Universe and Wet Hookers. Real wet hookers strut the streets outside to the tune of the Casio-clap soundtrack.

Having served time behind bars for killing a drug pusher, Glenn Barnes (John Patrick Hayden, Hot Tamale) brings his porn ‘stache and Haggar slacks back to the Deuce and more specifically, back to The Garage, the spacious theater owned by his family. Barnes aims to help them reopen it as a nightclub, thereby acquiring the wrath of Farrell (Michael Speero, She’s Back), the owner of the rival club across the street, Love Connection, where skanky women dance undulate in the altogether.

Farrell’s competitive business strategy is twofold: First, get his ladies to prostitute themselves to customers, and two, crash The Garage’s debut gala with automatic weapons. The latter proves more effective as his goons shoot up everyone in the place, whether they’re being entertained by high-stakes gambling, hoochie lingerie dancing, stand-up comedy (courtesy of actual “comedian” Zerocks, playing himself) or a woman crooning something about a “Uranus Child.” The shootout — with each group shown killed twice, the second time in gut-busting slow-motion — results in the titular riot. Then a cop played by future Lawnmower Man Jeff Fahey (in just his third movie ever) says something meant to be profound. Go home, people.

As cheap as dirt and probably as tasty, Riot on 42nd St. is punishing viewing that finds inspiration in repetition. Writer/director Kincaid (Breeders) flourishes with such incompetence, it all makes sense when you learn of his prolificness in the world of gay porn. This comparatively mainstream release is woefully flaccid, good only as a time capsule of the Big Apple’s sleazier, greasier times. —Rod Lott

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Singer-turned-actress Lola Falana (The Liberation of L.B. Jones) stars as Lady Cocoa, a spoiled, sassy “hot piece of cheese” who gets out of prison for 24 hours in order to testify against a mob boss. Under the watchful eye of two cops in a Nevada hotel, she bats her eyelashes, throws temper tantrums and scoffs, “You poo-poos!”

After she tires of tossing off the insult “Buster Brown,” she ventures into the casino and soon finds herself in a heap o’ trouble, being pursued by no fewer than two teams of hitmen, one of which contains football player-turned-soda pitchman “Mean” Joe Greene (The Black Six); the other, a dude in drag. The best scene has a car being chased through the casino by a cop on foot. Do the math.

I’ve long believed that there was no such thing as a bad theme song for a blaxploitation movie, but then I heard this film’s, appropriated from “Pop Goes the Weasel” (an alternate title for this cup of Cocoa). Director Matt Cimber (Butterfly) has it played over and over and over. —Rod Lott

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Fresh from warring in Vietnam, Doug Russell (James Igleheart, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) dreams of pursuing real estate, pawing his wife again and finally meeting their toddler son, born as a result of previous pawing sessions. But first, the fresh vet is recruited to help steal a file cabinet full of gold bars for a Chinese crime lord. Talking him into it are his military buddies, Morelli and McGee (whose paired names sound like a fly-by-night law firm found advertising on bus stops), played by Carmen Argenziano (the original When a Stranger Calls) and Leon Isaac Kennedy (the Penitentiary series), respectively.

After the fortune-making transaction in the ocean is through, Morelli and McGee (or a failed TV cop pilot, perhaps?) increase their take by greedily turning on Russell. They stab him from the front and behind, and toss his bleeding body overboard to sleep with the fishies. Miraculously, Russell cheats death as he’s washed ashore on an island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers. Although one of them wishes a barrel of rice would’ve appeared on the beach instead of this new Afro-ed stranger, they teach Russell the way of the samurai with bamboo swords so that he can become a one-man Death Force. (To put it in terms of the film’s alternate titles, he’s so Fighting Mad that he’s sure to exclaim Vengeance Is Mine.)

Back home, McGee is putting the moves on Russell’s wife (Cover Girls‘ Jayne Kennedy, then Kennedy’s real-life spouse), a singer in seedy bars. Many scenes exist in which Russell’s son (played by Iglehart’s actual child, James Monroe Iglehart) cries and/or looks terrified when McGee comes around, because the tot was too young to understand the scenes of domestic violence going on around him were just pretend.

When Russell is able to avenge his near-murder, Death Force hits the revenge-picture sweet spot. No fewer than three torsos spurt streams of blood when our hero’s sword — now made of steel — separates them from their heads. Written by Saturday the 14th mastermind Howard R. Cohen and directed by the Philippines’ ever-prolific Cirio H. Santiago, who dabbled in blaxploitation before (most notably 1974’s TNT Jackson), the movie delivers, but freeze-frames on an abrupt final shot so cruel and bleak, it’s like a well-planted kick to moviegoers’ nuts. You’ll get over it. —Rod Lott

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Mission: Killfast seems like Ted V. Mikels’ answer to the Andy Sidaris series of spies, lies and exposed thighs (and then some), yet the result is so bad, Sidaris looks like a Cahiers du Cinéma-lauded auteur in comparison. That’s bound to happen when your sections of principal photography are separated by nine years.

The plot, as it is, revolves around missing detonators, which pass through the hands of the characters as if water. Should said detonators fall into the mitts of someone who also possesses “the components,” kablooey: nuclear bomb. Called in to prevent this global catastrophe from occurring is martial-arts master Tiger Yang (Game of Death II), playing himself and fresh off “a world tour.” His first order of business once in town? Appearing in the local parade as its “grand marshall” [sic]; certainly there are better ways to keep a low profile when on a life-or-death mission, but how could Mikels justify so many minutes of parade footage otherwise?

The director/writer/producer uses it in the same way Mission: Killfast‘s villains do their “skin mag” empire: as a front to keep people distracted. The would-be Playboy Mansion, largely a pool adjacent to a neighborhood golf course, allows for some skanky ladies with rockin’ bods to cavort about in swimwear apparently swiped from Star Search‘s spokesmodel wardrobe. For whatever reason, the woman Mikels’ camera chooses to focus on has a shaved head, as if she stopped by after chemo.

Elsewhere, there’s ’80s B-movie starlet Jewel Shepard (Hollywood Hot Tubs), eschewing thread. Appearing in a see-through mesh shirt to accentuate the bare nipples, Mikels himself. Later, he appears with novelty eyebrows, which is something to see, even if the movie is not. Coming out between his War Cat and the drama (allegedly) Female Slaves’ Revenge, it’s an incomprehensible mess of polka dots and mullets, of Canon fax machines and Casio scores. —Rod Lott

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