Short Attention Span Review - L.A. Bounty (1989)
People who read this blog are looking at that poster and seeing the names Sybil Danning and Wings Hauser, and I'm sure the obvious question has reared its ugly head. Is this another of those bad movies that this dude really likes? Yes. Yes, it is. Look, here's the thing: I don't like most bad movies. Hell, I despise camp for camp's sake. But there are bad movies I enjoy, and an awful lot of them feature my main man Wings Hauser. It's a simple formula, really: give the man time to shine, and he will make the movie worth watching. Of all the bad movies that he has starred in (and there are many), there are only a few that fail to entertain. Most of those are titles where his name is featured prominently, but his role is meager. This isn't one of those movies. Here, he's given ample time to ham it up, and he does so with shameless aplomb. He plays a deranged painter/killer who carries on a one-way conversation with God throughout the movie, hoping to impress the big guy. Often, he is hoping to impress him with the creativity or outright cruelty he displays in his numerous killings. If you are familiar with Wings, you can see where pairing the actor with that part makes this a must-see action cheapie. In the lead role, we have Sybil Danning, who says very little and kills lots of villains. Honestly, as a youngster, I only saw her as eye candy, this despite the fact that she often mixed it up where gunfights, catfights, and even a swordfight or too are concerned. However, to my knowledge, this is the only time she was picked to star in such a film, and I feel that she carried it off well. I think I sold her short in my youth, and if she did anything else like this, I'm suddenly interested. Now, as far as plot, craftsmanship, and any of the various technical merits are concerned, L.A. Bounty is serviceable. That's about it. Take Hauser out of the mix, and it would probably register as a dud, despite Danning's good showing. Even with Wings sinking his teeth into such a gonzo part, L.A. Bounty falls well short of his better pictures, to include the handful of legitimately good movies that he made. Still, while this ranks among the lesser of those good bad movies that he specialized in, I had a lot of fun with it. I was drunk, but I imagine that most people who sit down to watch L.A. Bounty in 2020 will be similarly impaired.
Final Grade: C+
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| Wings Hauser, people. I mean, if he gets enough screentime, the movie is worth watching. Legendary. Just legendary. |
