Alternative Title Week: The Bronx Warriors

Hiyas kids and welcome to Alternative Title Week.  Boy have I been scraping the bottom of the barrel for these cinematic wonders.  It would appear commonly in the latter 80’s that post-apocalyptic films are where the money is at.  With the success of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York and George Miller’s Mad Max that Italy was not far behind with its conglomerate of rip offs at the ready.  Prepare to be underwhelmed and less than flabbergast.  This is 1990: The Bronx Warriors a.k.a. The Bronx Warriors, Bronx Warriors, The Riffs and Warriors of the Bronx.

ICE CREAM MAN!!!!!!

Trash: You bastard! You work for the Spoiler Corporation!

Hmm, cannot help but feel like that spoiler was aimed at me.  Oh well.   Our esteemed director Enzo G. Castellari (Drango: A Bullet for You, The Inglorious Bastards, Warriors of the Wasteland and Escape from the Bronx) brings us a schlock half baked and poorly paced story arc of a trilogy.  The concept is the world has taken a turn for the worst after a massive crime wave due to illegal drugs…and yet somehow all of the buildings are intact, we still have a police force, there are major TV networks and people are still going to work.. Ahem but other than that clearly the world has taken a turn for the worst.  We see a young girl run across the bridge as we see Manhattan is completely untouched by this all consuming wave of crime.  The very crime wave that made New York vacate the Bronx to the gang element and let them have at it.  Street justice should clear these knuckleheads out in about a year is my thinking.

One!...singular sensation!!

  

  A former policeman name of Hammer (Vic Morrow of Combat!, The Evictors, The Last Shark,  Humanoids from The Deep and B.A.D. Cats) infiltrates one of the gangs in order to find sad lost girl Ann (Stefania Girolami Goodwin of The Heroin Busters, The Last Shark, Warriors of the Wasteland and Sinbad of the Seven Seas) desperate to escape her father’s company the Manhattan Corporation from its luxury bought from the expense of others.  Strive sweetie!

Trash: Anti-hero or soft headed goober?

 Let us not forgot the vicious gangs like the Zombies?  A gaggle of inline roller skaters with modified hockey sticks, pads and repainted Nazi helmets; these boys are as threatening as an ingrown toenail yet the Riders (because they have motorcycles) vow to take them on at every turn.  Led by their charismatic leader of few words Trash (Marc Gregory of Rainbow, Escape from the Bronx, Thunder and Thunder II) the only thing I have noticed what this kid has going for him is pants so tight you can make out his religion and he is a slab of beef Reb Brown style.

But low and behold the Riders take a meeting with a rival group with the sweetest collection of hot rods known as the Tigers and led by B-movie and exploitation legend himself, Fred Williamson (MASH, Hammer, Black Caesar, Crazy Joe, Black Eyes, Deadly Impact, From Dusk Till Dawn and Vegas Vampires).  Word on the street is Trash has a cop in his midst and needs to check that.  So say the Ogre(Williamson)…and then they causally and carefully pull out from the scene leaving the bikers to crane their necks to follow them out.   HUH???!!!

Deaf International Film SrL. brought us this little gem courtesy of its director and the heavy metal movement was very popular so yes that is the better portion of your soundtrack.  All these gorgeous hard tail bikes got these cheesy plastic skulls that light up attached to their hogs.  WHY??!!!  It looks absurd but hey I am not the props master here.   The duel switchblades mounted on the bikes was a neat enough effect to make up for the skulls though.

Boy, I can pick up the dumb ones.

 This action/adventure/science fiction Italian hybrid clearly tried to capture the vibe and feel of The Warriors and Escape from New York and thus not create either.   Castellari is also fond of slow motion gun play of bodies dropping or explosions directly under their feet and to be fair, cinematically it looks amazing.  We chucked physics right out the door but again a great shot should not be sneered at.