McBain

Starring: Christopher Walken, Michael Ironside, Maria Conchita Alonso, Michael Joseph DeSare

Synopsis:

Santos, a Viet Nam vet, attempts to lead a people's revolt in Colombia to overthrow the oppressive El Presidente. When his revolt fails and he is killed, his sister Christina goes to New York to find McBain, a lieutenant Santos rescued during the Vietnam War. McBain agrees to avenge Santos ' death, calls up his old war buddies, raises the necessary funds by killing a few drug dealers and threatening the mafia, then leads an attack to topple the corrupt government.

This 1991 movie is one of the first titles to be released from Arrow Video’s “budget label” Arrowdrome, that isn’t a re-release of Arrow’s back catalogue. It has an air of Chuck Norris’ Missing In Action about it, but with loftier ideas. Glickenhaus was responsible for the equally entertaining action movie; The Exterminator, to be released on the main Arrow Label, and the fun 90s action movie Shakedown (aka Blue Jean Cop).

Forget the character from the TV show The Simpsons, this movie has nothing to do with that. It’s funny that the show riffs on a movie that takes itself seriously despite being unintentionally funny most of the way through. Imagine the release of an aborted attempt at a bigger budget motion picture of The A-Team and you come say way in describing what McBain is like. Glickenhaus reportedly wanted this to be his “Heart of Darkness”. That was no small ambition and not realised in the movie, except to mention a line or two from Apocalypse Now:

“What? You miss the smell of napalm in the morning?”

The plot is fairly simple but has a series of distinct acts; Introducing McBain and his debt; His mission to get “volunteers” to join him; the mission to obtain financing; the journey to Colombia and the final mission.

McBain has a reason to want to help overthrow the Colombian government; he owes a debt to Santos which his sister collects posthumously. But the others? Most of them are successful and are “persuaded” only by the flimsiest of reasons, by McBain. All it does is serve to get to the best part of the movie and that’s’ when they’re shaking down criminals to help finance the trip. Sister Santos’ collection of dollar bills just won’t cut it.

Emulating a little of what made The Exterminator fun, the band of brothers rip off drug dealers, eventually getting to a “boss” who they persuade to finance them by suspending him from a crane. The crew have fun blasting away drug dealers as if it was the “thing to do” back in the late eighties/early nineties. Something which Steven Seagal pretty much killed off by 1995. The rest of the movie is about getting out to Colombia and then helping the resistance get to the Colombian palace.

To say “They don’t make movies like this anymore” isn’t far from the truth, although The Expendables had a good go at it, recently. The hilarious aspect of McBain is that it’s all done with a kind of po-faced seriousness. Only Steve (American Ninja) James seems to be having a laugh during the shoot. Although he always seems quite cheery in every production he’s in. Michael Ironside is always reliable and doesn’t disappoint here. In McBain, he plays a slightly more upbeat version of his character from V; Ham Tyler. At one point I did expect him to turn around to McBain and call him “Gooder” by accident. Incidentally, Ironside has been in 202 productions! At age 61, there’s still no stopping him and I thank the maker for that, as I always enjoy his performances. I’m sorry to say that I’ve never been a fan of Maria Conchita Alonso. Nothing about her appearance in McBain changed that. Chris Walken plays McBain with a wide eyed (complete with eyeliner) sombre performance, as if Glickenhaus has asked him to emulate his performance as Nick from The Deer Hunter, crossed with Jamie Shannon in The Dogs of War.

Explosive action sometimes masks some huge blunders in production and continuity which largely explains why McBain is being released by Arrowdrome and not Arrow, in the same way The Exterminator is. For example, the mid-air explosions look like something out of the TV show Airwolf. If you’re one of those people (said in a Barry Norman voice. Anyone under 25, just google the name) who get off on movies that have a long list of blunders and you like to spot them, McBain has some brilliantly dumb-ass errors, Including:

Shooting a jet pilot with a snub-nosed pistol, mid-air. (No jet fighter windows were harmed in the making of this movie).

The beating of a man by soldiers who are looking for Christina (Maria-Conchita Alonso), somehow ignoring the Americans wearing loud shirts and sunglasses; because they wouldn’t know a thing about her.

The apparent resurrection of bad guys. If you can kill em once, you can kill em again!

Summary:

The chances of you just coming across this title and thinking “what the hell!” are slim. Perhaps you’ve seen that Chris Walken or Michael Ironside star and take a punt on it, as it’s cheap. I hope you do, because it is entertaining. It doesn’t stand up to today’s anally retentive scrutiny but it sure does pack a wallop and deliver the goods, even if the production betrays its budget and shortcomings. Be kind, be open-minded, and you’ll be rewarded.

6 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

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