Prime Time: King Solomon's Mines (1985)

If you’re going to make a movie that hopes to cash in on the success of Indiana Jones then you may as well be as blatant as possible about it. King Solomon’s Mines, based on the old adventure stories by H. Rider Haggard (although I couldn’t say how closely the film resembles them), is about as blatant as can be. That doesn’t matter when the stars get to shine. But there are many sequences when things just aren’t as entertaining as they should be.

Richard Chamberlain is rugged adventurer Allan Quatermain, hired by a woman named Jesse (Sharon Stone) to help find her father. The two travel around Africa, being as respectful and culturally sensitive as you might expect (aka not at all), and they end up heading towards the legendary King Solomon’s Mines, hotly pursued by a man named Dogati (John Rhys-Davies) and a German explorer named Colonel Bochner (Herbert Lom).

Directed by veteran J. Lee Thompson, a man with a filmography crammed full of the kind of movies you may have been forced to watch alongside your grandfather on a Sunday afternoon (hey, I love many of them now, despite slightly resenting them back then), King Solomon’s Mines is, in many ways, enjoyable action fare. The script, by Gene Quintano and James R. Silke, neither of whom seem to have specialized experience in this genre, is crude and clumsy, but there are enough set-pieces dotted throughout to guarantee a certain level of fun. It’s just a shame that you can imagine those set-pieces being improved by the main music from the Indians Jones movies. Or even just featuring Indiana Jones in place of Quatermain. That isn’t the big problem here though. The big problem is a lack of any chemistry between the leads, a lack of any decent characterization for anyone, and nothing to really care about. We’re thrown into the plot with a sequence that allows us to assume some of the backstory, the finale is unsatisfying and unbelievable, so it’s really only the middle section that works as well as it should (especially during a fun action sequence set on a train).

Chamberlain is handsome and charming, which is kind of what he brings to almost every role, and Stone is left to look pretty alongside him, sometimes acting more as the damsel in distress and sometimes being a strong and capable asskicker. It could have been a decent role, but the script leaves her as undeveloped as our hero, only interested in putting them in various perilous situations and then developing some kind of love between the two of them that feels even more fantastical than some of the other plot elements. Rhys-Davies and Lom are fun villains, although the former will keep reminding viewers that you could always just switch this off and revisit those Indiana Jones movies. Ken Gampu and June Buthelezi deserve a mention, playing African characters who are generally treated poorly by the script playing up their “primitive ways”.

If you can look past the rear projection work and the stunt double appearances, there’s some genuinely impressive stuff onscreen at times, from that aforementioned train sequence to a face-off between two airplanes in the sky. There is plenty of dynamite thrown around, some booby traps and big beasties, and even some cannibals that want to boil people in a big pot in a way usually only seen in cartoon depictions of cannibalism.

I doubt anyone involved will look back on this as their best work, even the Jerry Goldsmith score is quite forgettable (although not actually bad), but I hope they don’t view it as their worst. It’s very much of the era, and very much a Cannon film, but it certainly tries to stay entertaining from start to finish.

5/10

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Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989)

Charles Bronson is a tough guy, once again, in this piece of sleazy nastiness from director J. Lee Thompson. Of course, Bronson was always a tough guy in pretty much everything he did so, don't worry, I'll give you a bit more about his situation this time around.

Bronson is a cop who can't seem to pin anything on horrible uber-pimp Duke (Juan Fernandez). Duke specializes in little girls for his clients, which leads to Bronson specializing in making Duke's life as difficult as possible. It's not all by the book. In fact, it's about as far from the book as you can get. The clock starts to tick faster when a Japanese businessman (James Pax) turns to the police when his young daughter is kidnapped. The distraught father also has a few peccadilloes of his own, and Bronson may not be too happy about helping him if he finds out just what he's been up to since arriving in America.

Written by Harold Nebenzal, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects is, in many ways, standard Bronson fare, yet it's also a bit different. His character is forced, albeit momentarily, to question how his mind works when he's not on the job, to consider the damage done and the huge difference between his own view of the world and the view that others can take. There are times when this creeps into territory covered by the likes of Tightrope and The Offence. And then there are times when Bronson forces someone to eat a watch.

Director J. Lee Thompson is well known for a filmography that's pretty loaded with testosterone, and he worked with Bronson on a number of movies before this one (this was their last film together), so viewers shouldn't have been TOO surprised by the end result this time around. It may have some extra unpleasantness, but it's still all about Bronson doing a good job where the system falls down.

Bronson is fine in the lead role, whether he's aggressively scaring pimps and crooks or going off on a bizarre racist rant aimed at numerous Japanese people he views as pesky interlopers, at one point. Fernandez is suitably loathsome as Duke, and Pax is, arguably, one of the more interesting characters to be placed in a movie like this. It's made clear that he's not the nicest guy ever, especially in the way that he treats his wife, but he's also not demonised for his actions, despite the one main sequence that sees him sliding from relatively harmless thoughts of his fantasties to grossly inappropriate real actions. Peggy Lipton and Amy Hathaway are just fine as the women in Bronson's life, Perry Lopez does well enough as Eddie Rios, Sy Richardson is a bad man who works with Duke, and fans of Nicole Eggert will be pleased to see her in a relatively early role.

It might leave you wanting to take a shower as the end credits roll, but this is another fine piece of Bronson-led machismo for those who like such fare. And I count myself among that demographic nowadays.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/10-Midnight-Kinjite-Charles-Bronson/dp/B008FYZIZK/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1405919498&sr=1-1&keywords=kinjite

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

I must say that as the Death Wish movies evolved and moved away from the interesting and serious first movie it wasn't exactly the worst thing that could happen. While the sequels became more outlandish and implausible, the entertainment factor seemed to settle at a reasonable level and Charles Bronson always managed to hold your attention as vigilante Paul Kersey.

The rapists and muggers might have started to hide away but a new breed of criminal overshadows even their nefarious deeds. The drug dealer. After witnessing the effects that drugs are having on the kids of today, Paul Kersey decides to once again take the law into his own hands and start killing those who he feels most deserve it. The police close in, Paul finds his services being hired by someone with a vested interest and everything unfolds predictably enough for those who have enjoyed the previous movies.

J. Lee Thompson was the man who took over the directorial duties from Michael Winner and he does a perfectly reasonable job. Some of the continuity and editing feels rushed and clumsy but these movies are all about Bronson believable kicking ass and, once again, he does just that.

The script, this time by Gail Morgan Hickman, is quite basic but also utilises some plot points not all that dissimilar to Yojimbo, which at least makes this more than just a rehash of a rehash of a sequel to the original.

Bronson is excellent, as ever, in the main role and the other actors all do just fine with what they're given. Kay Lenz is the love interest this time, Dana Barron has a brief turn as the daughter of Lenz's character, Danny Trejo and Mitch Pileggi have what must amount to two minutes of screentime between them (but they're always great folk to see in films) and George Dickerson and Soon-Tek Oh play two very different police officers.

If you enjoyed the previous three movies then I can't think of any reasons that you would have to hate this one.

6/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Wish-DVD-2012-Release/dp/B0073DOJUE/ref=sr_1_10?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1329000829&sr=1-10