Wednesday, 13 June 2012

Nightforce (1987 Director; Lawrence David Foldes)

The first thing I wondered after watching this was ‘why is it called ‘Nightforce’ when it’s pretty much all set in the day?’. Never let relevance get in the way of a catchy title-or a plot for that matter. When rich kid Christy is kidnapped by terrorist Estaban and his cronies, her Fiancé’s brother Steve (who she’s been knocking off) decides to round up a few of his geeky college mates and form a rescue squad (as you do). The most interesting thing about this bunch is that lone female member Carla (Linda Blair) is among them. Luckily on their travels these halfwits hook up with the elusive Bishop (genre stalwart Richard Lynch), a lone mercenary who joins and ends up leading their cause. That’s fortunate for them as these idiots couldn’t run a bath (check out the end bit where one of them suddenly realises that he can't fly an helicopter). Anyway the top and bottom of it is that the chick gets rescued, the baddies get killed and nearly everyone gets to go home. The end.

Hardly a classic in the vein of anything you’ll see with Chuck Norris etc but this is mildly entertaining fare with bad rock music and gratuitous explosions that were typical of nearly every mid to late eighties action flick. Having a couple of cult film stars helps matters such as Richard Lynch (who’s always worth watching and has a rare role here as a good guy) and Linda Blair who to be honest is probably wasted as she doesn’t do a great deal really. Also Cameron Mitchell has a small part but sadly looks worse for wear. The years weren't kind to him before he croaked it in 1994. 

Overall Nightforce is worth a nosey if you like daft 80’s action films and you don’t try and compare it to any of the greats like ‘Die hard’ (which shouldn’t be a problem really-they’re hardly in the same league). It’s certainly the product of a bygone era which holds a lot of fond memories for this film fan.

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