Movies with the word Slaughter in it: Slaughter

Welcome back for the week my gentle and loving readers.   SoOoooo... I did not get any ideas, comments or suggestions for what to write this week.  Honestly it is okay to offer some film, TV or video game ideas.   With that in mind, I randomly chose the word slaughter as the crux of what I would be viewing.  As luck would have it, rather than some jiggly girl in lingerie with big breasts running up the stairs rather than out the door, I got a blaxploitation of action packed goodness starring the one, the only Jim Brown (Cleveland Browns fullback from 1957-1965, only man to be inducted to the sports Halls of Fame for College Football, Pro Football and Lacrosse) This is Slaughter.

Girl, you already got your alimony check.  Now git!

Jim is Slaughter, former Captain in the Green Berets, war hero and all around bad ass. With his dad being deep in the mob, a car bomb goes off killing both his dad and mom as they returned from an evening show. Nosey reporter Kim (Marlene Clark of Enter the Dragon, Ganja & Hess, The Beast Must Die, Switchblade Sisters, Sanford and Son and Highway to Heaven) senses a scoop and badgers our hero whom wants nothing to do with her. Hitting up one of dad's contacts he is off for revenge to nail the muthas that killed his folks. Taking out a handful of these dirtbags, Slaughter has been picked up for unloading a Colt .45 (pistol not the malt liquor) on an airstrip.

That may be a factory recall.

Expect a few N bombs folks because...um, it's the seventies?  The chief inspector of US Treasury (Cameron Mitchell of Carousel, Blood and Black Lace, The Beachcomber, The High Chaparral, Space Mutiny,Memorial Valley Massacre and Easy Kill) says he can waive the murder one and assault with a deadly weapon charges if... Slaughter heads down to South America (Mexico City) and take the rest of these scumbags out.

The mobsters that almost lost their lives decide to lay low, live off the ill-gotten gains for a while and not draw attention. That doesn't sit well with number 2 in the organization Dominic (Rip Torn of Montserrat, Slaughter, Blind Ambition, The Beastmaster, City Heat, RoboCop 3, Men in Black and Men in Black 2) who wants Slaughter dead, the organization to expand and take over L.A. Slaughter just made it to "South America" only to find out that reporter girl Kim is actually part of the US Treasury department as a field agent and the chief assigned her to watch Slaughter's back...possibly his front too.

Yup, she's never going back.

Dominic wants Slaughter's head on a pike given his boss insists Dominic's girl Ann (Stella Stevens of The Nutty Professor, General Hospital, The Poseidon Adventure, Chained Heat and Santa Barbara) to pork information out of Slaughter but ends up falling for our boy.

Will Slaughter live up to his name? Will Rip Torn live up to his? Why did Kim have so few lines?

South America was all over Mexico City so I don't know why the organization couldn't have been located in Mexico. Still love that we see Slaughter's folks in a car that explodes, covered in flames that shoot up 20 feet in the air, the next scene Slaughter is waiting on the ER doctor for news. Doc tells him that his father didn't make it and I am thinking, "Well yeah, dude got well done." Went up like one of That Guy From Harlem's NY strips.  Just needed a bottle of crappy J&B scotch to go with dad after that.

Driving Mr. Brown: The TV Movie.

Shows Across the Pond: The Sweeney

Hey folks. Back again. Just to mention again Rotten Reelz can be reached at rottenreelzreviews@gmail.com for comments, critiques, queries and even suggestions. That being said I found a show from across the pond on parallel with Starsky &Hutch here. Giving all the levels of clashing classes, police and official corruption, bribery and oh so close links to criminal elements. The Flying Squad, a division of the Metropolitan Police tended to the scum of armed robbery and violent crimes. Watched like a hawk by their Detective Chief Superintedent, DI Jack Regan and DS George Carter are on the case. This is The Sweeney.

Gonna plug ya with my Roscoe, see?

Created in 1975 by writer Ian Kennedy Martin (The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Capone Investment, Mitchell, The Sweeney, The Chinese Detective, The Fourth Floor and King & Castle) mirroring the actual corruption of the real-life Flying Squad in which actual commander of the Flying Squad, our heroes Detective Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw of Inspector Morse, Mitch, Cry Freedom, Bomber Harris, Home to Roost, Into the Blue and Goodnight, Mister Tom) and Detective Sergeant George Carter (Dennis Waterman of Scars of Dracula, Sextet, Alices's Adventures in Wonderland, Sweeney!, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Tube Mice, Minder and Cold Justice) working the streets and being the thief takers. (Detective Chief Superintendent Kenneth Dury in 1977 up for five counts of corruption and set to the hoosegow for 8 years.)

Regan, the chief "thief-taker" is a hard ass cop annoyed with Scotland Yard procedures and red tape constantly complaining about it. Clearly from Manchester he attempts to muddle his accent poorer upbringing is a seat of ridicule for his Londoner partner George Carter. A bit of a womanizer, quick to a fist fight, divorced with a daughter offers a working class dynamic. Carter is a force unto himself. The man drinks like a fish whilst smoking like a chimney. A former boxer, lover of football (Soccer for us Yanks) after the death of his wife he chased many a skirt but not as successful as Regan he is constantly more a good cop to Regan's bad cop.

Give us the dirt or it's lights out for you, me old son.

Both have a casual relationship with their chief DCI Frank Haskins (Garfield Morgan of Albert!, Henry VIII and His Six Wives, Z Cars, The Man Was Hunting Himself, The Odessa File, Crown Court, George and Mildred, Shelly and Jenny's War) who they refer by first name rather than by rank. Of the three he is married with three children all attending boarding schools (probably Hogwarts) is the only one with a stable background having a former service in Royal Corps of Signals (ran radio during the War) and is constantly at lager heads with Regan on procedures and conventional police work.

This show has that same gritty dark feel that the original Get Carter and brings a seedy underbelly of London showing rampant crime and cops coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Laughed myself sick seeing more than a handful of guest stars I immediately recognized. Such as: Patrick Troughton, John Rhy-Davies, Brian Blessed, Joss Ackland, Prunella Gee, Geraldine James and Stuart Wilson. It's sinister, cleverly-written and well cast. One for those that loved the grimy, 

nebulous vibe of the cop drama films and TV of the seventies. Highly recommend this for folks enjoying something tenebrous and redeeming at the same time.

Oh that's the face of a man losing his temper.