(1984/ITALY)
(aka. IMPATTO MORTALE, GIANT KILLER)
REVIEWED BY-DEVIN KELLY CAST: Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Vincent Conte, Marcia Clingan, Alain Blondeau, Norma Thyssen, Karen De Witt, Bill Dunun, Jeanne Marie, Rik Wallace, Janet Francis, Genie Thompson,Wanita Brown, Alan Sylvia DIRECTOR: Fabrizio De Angelis PRODUCER: Fabrizio De Angelis and Raúl García European International Films RUNNING TIME: 90 min. 56 seconds DVD SOURCE: Front Row Entertainment
That's right - good old Larry Ludman himself...Fabrizio De Angelis. Euro film clique heralded producer of grue-splashing horror diamondsand one man factory of some of the later eighties most mind-altering,Southwestern U.S. shot Italo-actioners around. In other words, a God among many (although some of the actors he's worked with, I'm sure, will disagree). De Angelis' IMPATTO MORTALE (DEADLY IMPACT) of 1984 was his second foray into directing following his much loved (well, at least now) THUNDER, and boy do we need our helmets for this one! Strap yourself in -Williamson's got the controls!Keeping him close by from his days of THUNDER (1983), Fabrizio brings back tall glass of water Bo Svenson for another go in Ludman Land. This time Bo's stepped knee deep in a Las Vegas casino caper, and he's dragging his old running mate from Castellari's THE INGLORIOUSBASTARDS (1978), Fred Williamson, along for the chase. When a computer whiz (Alain Blondeau) who's found a way to crack the times Vegas slot machines will deliver, turns up drowned and his girlfriend Kathy (Marcia Clingan) abducted, take-no-shit cop Svenson finds himself dealing with a murder. Seems two cold-hearted criminals (Vincent Conte and the wickedly entertaining, Giovanni Lombardo Radice) have caught on to the easily snatched loot in possession of the young pair, and they want the whole damn stash. Only problem for them...big Bo wants their asses!!
Radice and Conte give the girl a chance to live and take them to the other half of the dough, which is located at her abandoned dream ranch, up in the isolated Four Peaks Mountains. With the callous way these two feed bodies bullets, she's liable to have her brains shot out by sundown. Thugs don't always count on the good guys though...especially on Fred Williamson and his trusty (or should I make that, rusty?) clunker of a chopper. "Try to get this bucket of bolts up in the air!", Svenson at one point shouts. I kept waiting for it to sputter and fall like a stone!
What results in all this cash passing, car chasing, shooting, foot chasing, and helicopter dodging, is, well...cash passing, car chasing, shooting, foot chasing, and helicopter dodging. Thats about the bottom line with DEADLY IMPACT - it's an action film and an action film it's gonna be...and hell, it's a De Angelis film, and a De Angelis film it's gonna be too! What did you expect?! Well, for me, mindless fun, and for the most part that's what I got. Fred Williamson will likely be found on the cover of most budget DVD releases of this (though rightfully, not on the original artwork - that honor goes to Bo), but I would not suggest this as a Williamson action offering if he's who you're here to see. As Lou, the helicopter tour pilot, Williamson's more in the complaining buddy role as opposed to being Svenson's fellow butt-kicker. In fact, "The Hammer" doesn't even pick up a gun here!
Svenson on the other hand carries an insanely humongous pistol and gets into all sorts of shit, including a really cool moment where he's forced to beat a rolling grenade down a flight of stairs and has to fly over the rail half way to the bottom. Of course, he just gets up and keeps on a chasin' - just like he does about three other times during the film. He might as well have been ROBO-BO! We'll just pretend we didn't see the part where's he's run out of a gay bar(!). I had a hard time believing that even 007 could pull off the faked helicopter crash that Fred and Bo stage behind a mountain, though. We go from massive Ludman explosions to Fred clearing the smoke and flying back up and over after Radice and company. WHAT!?!? Guess there just happened to be a spare chopper they could blow up back there. Ummmm...yeah...
Also, what was the point of Svenson's useless relationship subplot? The most I got out of it was a good laugh when his lady friend emotionally tells him, "Why is it that I have spent some of the best years of my life chasing around a cop who's good in bed, but'll never marry me?", to which he so softly replies, "I don't know, but I need to borrow your car". Only such raw, tear-jerking sensitivity could be found in a Ludman.
One of the main highlights of IMPATTO MORTALE for me, was of course the presence of Giovanni "John Morghen" Lombardo Radice, who as always, here turns in yet another lovable nasty bastard. Instead of chopping the cocks off of natives and raping lovely ladies, this time GLR makes things simpler, drowning and shooting those who cross his path. Since the wilder days of HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK (1979) and CANNIBAL FEROX (1981) however, Giovanni had matured as an actor, and just prior to DEADLY IMPACT had returned from another long stint in theatre. Although he did not care for De Angelis, whom he described to me as "a terrible person", Lombardo Radice did feel it was one of his more challenging roles, even if not one of the better films he's done. It would be Vincent Conte's only film - despite being the son of Italian crime favorite, Richard Conte - but he's not as horrible as some other one-timers we've endured. His dialogue sure wouldn't help argue that fact though, when he's saying stuff like, "My dream is to have a house with a tube in every room. Even in the john".
As far as originality goes in the score - you'd find more on a Beatles cover album. Here we've got borrowed ditties from Fabrizio's THUNDER and even a dash of NEW YORK RIPPER (1982) groove. The stuff cranked out new for the film could be better played on an eight-key Fisher Price keyboard. I think Fabrizio must have been speaking to Umberto Lenzi about the importance of recycling. The usual Arizona desert locales (some of this was shot in Phoenix) are a dead giveaway of a De Angelis effort from this period, and busy Las Vegas nightlife is captured on location, also.
Although Bo Svenson had his no-gimmicks, dry cop role here eventually well cloned in other De Angelis films (the THUNDER series, 1985's THE MANHUNT), this is probably the best teaming of the two. Bo's at his most lively here for the batch of Fabrizio flicks he did do, although he's never appeared overly enthusiastic in any of them. He's in recent years, received praise from director and fan, Quentin Tarantino, who cast him in a supporting role for his popular KILL BILL: VOL.2 (2004). I'd recommend DEADLY IMPACT / IMPATTO MORTALE as one of his better top B Italian billings, and equally to see another really good Giovanni Lombardo Radice performance.
The Front Row disc is typically barebones other than a scene selector, but the on-screen image is at least presentable and not totally horrendous, although full-screen. As for the image of the overall package presentation itself, they could have done something a little more creative than just slap an unrelated shot of Fred Williamson on the cover. Oh well, as I said - typical.
STORY: 2 BITCH SLAPS OVERALL FILM: 2 1/2 BITCH SLAPS EXTRAS: 0 BITCH SLAPS PICTURE/AUDIO: 2 BITCH SLAPS OVERALL DVD: 1 BITCH SLAP
