In (and as) Mean Johnny Barrows, Fred Williamson (Black Caesar) plays a decorated Vietnam solider dishonorably discharged from the service for punching a soldier who made him step on a live land mine. Back in California, Unemployed Johnny Barrows can’t seem to find a job. I don’t think it helps that all he wears are jeans so poorly acid-washed that it looks like he peed in them.

Eventually he gets tied up with the mob, hired to be a hit man for $100 grand and a piece of land. One of his assignments is to take out gangster Tony Da Vince, played by Roddy McDowall. After watching the Planet of the Apes star attempt to act like an Italian mobster, I now know where Dana Carvey found the inspiration for his Pistachio Disguisey character in The Master of Disguise; McDowall is more convincing kissing the curvy mob moll — and that’s saying something.

By the finale, Ambidextrous Johnny Barrows infiltrates a mob boss’ hideout with a shotgun in each hand. Minutes later, he’s defeating an opponent with a well-aimed Chinese star to the eye, making him Master Ninja Johnny Barrows.

Directed by Williamson himself, Mean Johnny Barrows also stars slumming white folk Stuart Whitman (Night of the Lepus) and that noted blaxploitation staple Elliot Gould (Ocean’s Eleven). The actioner ends as all actioners should: with the words “Dedicated to the veteran who traded his place on the front line for a place in the unemployment line – peace is hell” superimposed over a freeze frame of a honky bitch getting blown to smithereens. —Rod Lott

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I’m glad that New World Pictures gave Blade Runner baddie Rutger Hauer a legitimate shot at becoming a Stallone-sized action hero. I only wish he didn’t have to do it in a mullet and purple silk shirts. A better vehicle would have helped, too, for Wanted Dead or Alive is lacking in spark. If not quite DOA, it’s arguably more D than A.

A contemporary rejiggering of the same-named Steve McQueen television series of the late 1950s and early ’60s, the film focuses on Los Angeles bounty hunter Nick Randall (Hauer), the kind of loner who pockets a harmonica at all times and lives on a boat part-time, but uses both possessions to woo a med student (K-9‘s Mel Harris, in her movie debut).

After terrorist Malak Al Rahim (KISS kommander Gene Simmons, first seen disguised as a rabbi) blows up a theater screening Rambo: First Blood Part II, Randall is given one week and $250,000 to bring the guy down. He will, natch, but damned if it doesn’t feel like a real-time viewing. Action arrives in too-brief bursts, and to the tune of one of the worst scores the synth-soaked ’80s offered.

Wanted Dead or Alive often looks like a made-for-TV movie, which is weird when one considers how much grit director Gary Sherman was able to bring to Vice Squad four years earlier. Further holding it back from feeling cinematic is the third-billed presence of TV staple Robert Guillaume, who at least gets to fire off something he’d never be allowed as Benson: “The next time you decide to fuck me, Lipton, kiss me first!”

So inert is the story that I found myself more engrossed in a recurring restaurant location’s sign of “TRY OUR TASTY GRILLED BREAST OF CHICKEN.” I will give Sherman credit for the movie’s great ending, in which Randall blows Rahim’s noggin clean off with a stuffed-in-mouth grenade, then walks a few steps to sit down and play a few bars of “You Are My Sunshine” on the ol’ mouth organ. —Rod Lott

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Seven establishes many of what would become Andy Sidaris’ established trademarks, yet it’s evident this is an early effort, given that at one point, Sidaris shows us a pre- and post-sex scene, but not the sex scene itself! The Helen Reddy joke dates it, too.

In this crackerjack crime film, a syndicate is running rampant, resulting in six murders before the opening credits are even finished, including death-by-flaming-spear and homicide-via-crossbow-shot-by-passing-skateboarder. The cops call in noted hit man Drew (William Smith, Invasion of the Bee Girls) and assign him to kill seven mob figures (hence the title). Drew wants $7 million dollars (again, hence the title) to do so and rounds up various pals until he has his own team of seven (do you spot a trend here?) to take the bastards out. His team includes a cowboy, a professor, a stand-up comedian, a race car driver, a hot chick and a rotund Hawaiian with mad kung-fu skills.

Each of these characters is assigned his or her own miscreant to off, which they do in purely Sidaris ways, whether involving a helicopter, a rocket launcher, a motorcycle or an inflatable doll. Of particular note is when the Hawaiian busts his karate moves on several villains. “Hi-ya!” shouts one, to which our hero replies, “Hi-ya, my ass!”

But that’s not even the funniest bit of dialogue. No, that honor goes to a throwaway scene in an Orange Julius as a random fat guy approaches the counter:
Random Fat Guy: “I’ll have one!”
Orange Julius Employee: “One of what?”
Random Fat Guy: “One of everything!”

While Seven is far from the most polished of Sidaris’ efforts (the boom mike makes three cameos), there’s no denying its pulp pleasures from frame one. Plus, it contains the only Silly-String-as-foreplay scene I’ve laid eyes on, and two Playboy vets in its cast: H.O.T.S.’ Susan Kiger, who gets naked, and Terminal Island’s Barbara Leigh, who doesn’t — say what?!? —Rod Lott

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Barely released in theaters, 2009’s 12 Rounds was, like 2006’s The Marine, one of WWE Films’ well-intentioned but ill-fated attempts at turning John Cena into an Arnold Schwarzenegger for the aughts. Directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger), it was a serviceable vehicle largely ignored. For the redundantly titled sequel, 12 Rounds 2: Reloaded, the WWE subs another fan-favorite wrestler, Randy Orton, yet aims straight for the home-video market.

With a voice that sounds eerily like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Orton is paramedic Nick Malloy, who becomes an unwilling pawn in a dozen-round game. It’s masterminded by a madman named Heller, your standard-issue villain (Brian Markinson, Shooter) who sets up an entire Best Buy showroom worth of high-dollar equipment in a dingy tunnel full of steam and puddles. If Malloy refuses to play, his kidnapped wife (Cindy Busby, American Pie: The Book of Love) will die. (It’s a wonder she isn’t crushed by her hubbie during lovemaking, being a twig to his trunk.)

Round one involves a guy with C4 explosives stitched into his stomach, so you know Heller means business. (Another clue: his douchey Bluetooth earpiece). Heller has Malloy run all over town like Domino’s drivers back in the era of the 30-minutes-or-less guarantee. During an early round, Malloy acquires a sidekick of sorts in Tommy (Tom Stevens, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome), a substance abuser with a wise mouth, a parole anklet and a butt cut.

Steering the race-against-the-clock proceedings is Roel Reiné, who specializes in DTV sequels, including the Death Race and Scorpion King franchises. He keeps things moving, sometimes so frenzied he calls too much attention to his showiness. Heller’s motive is a lot to swallow, so Reiné throws so many things at viewers as distractions: a coke whore, a bulldozer, an overwrought finale. It’s all very silly, yet more or less diverting. —Rod Lott

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I hate that someone as talented as Wesley Snipes has alienated and tax-evaded himself into direct-to-video hell (not to mention federal prison), but at least Game of Death is a pretty damn decent paycheck project, as far as pure paycheck projects go.

Our former Blade plays Marcus, an undercover agent/assassin for the CIA who, after confessing his sins to a priest (token black Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson) sets his sights on an arms dealer (Robert Davi, Licence to Kill) being financed by a Detroit hedge fund manager (Quinn Duffy, this movie’s Very Loud Business Prick with Brian Grazer Hair).

As you can imagine, that doesn’t sit well with said dealer, so Marcus finds himself in a do-or-die, kill-or-be-killed situation for the bulk of the picture — a Game of Death, if you will, but one not to be confused with Bruce Lee’s 1978 partly posthumous epic of the same name.

Or should it? That old Game of Death found its star kicking his way up a building, floor by floor; this new Game of Death finds its star shooting his way through a hospital, floor by floor. The facility is the kind of movie hospital where the entire second floor not only houses a loony bin, but one that goes unsupervised and whose patients act like Romero-esque zombies.

Thanks to Snipes, the movie generally works in spite of director Giorgio Serafini’s dabbling in needless STV tricks, i.e. switching to black-and-white and skipping frames, both for no discernible reason. —Rod Lott

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