Lamberto Bava’s ‘Blastfighter’ or — Carry On Rambo?
What do you get when you smash the films ‘First Blood’ (1982), ‘Deliverance’ (1972), ‘Southern Comfort’ (1981) and super-weapon movies like ‘Blue Thunder’ (1983) all together? A huge fucking mess, that’s what! Yet despite the fact that this movie is a blatant rip-off, it is absolutely nothing like any of the films it is obviously cribbing from, although it does raise the question — just what the hell is this film, then?
Lamberto Bava’s ‘Blastfighter’ (1984), possibly one of the best titled movies ever made, concerns ex-cop, and ex-con, Jake “Tiger“ Sharp who, on his release from prison for killing his wife’s murderer, is given a high-tech Spas-12 shotgun (which I shall from here on call ‘Blastfighter’) by his cop buddy to exact revenge on the corrupt attorney who put Jake away. Blastfighter is a secret new prototype weapon developed for the police that hasn’t been put into active service yet. Blastfighter is state-of-the-art. Blastfighter can shoot grenades, tear-gas, explosives… you name it.
However, at the moment of pulling Blastfighter’s trigger, Jake decides not to kill the lawyer and chooses to head off to his cabin in the woods on the outskirts of a remote Appalachian town to live the quiet life instead, hiding Blastfighter under his the floorboards of his shack. But things have changed in this town since the last time he was here as a gang of evil locals are indiscriminately killing the local wildlife and selling their body parts for vast sums of money.
Tensions between Jake and the locals escalate after the gang kill Jake’s baby deer one day when Jake is in town buying a feeding bottle for the animal and then reach a dangerous boiling point when Jake runs the gang’s local Chinese herbalist out of town. And things get REALLY bad when the bloodthirsty red-necks brutally murder Jake’s daughter’s scientist boyfriend and Jake’s Blastfighter-distributing cop buddy in cold blood. See what I mean about this having nothing in common with any other movie plot wise?
It’s not long before the gang have Jake on the run and are hunting him through the woods. Can Jake save his daughter? Will Jake make it back to his cabin where he can dig up Blastfighter and unleash explosive mayhem on these assholes?
Where to even begin?!
I’ll start by saying that if you’re not a fan of Italian genre cinema then this is not the film for you, although if you’re not a fan of Italian genre cinema then quite why you’d be watching this in the first place is utterly beyond me. ‘Blastfighter’ is cheap, shoddy, creaky and, at times, down-right god-awful.
Yet if you are an Italian genre fan then ‘Blastfighter’ is awesome! The first half is all build-up and scene setting and it’s all rather entertainingly done with a script that is genuinely so bad it’s unintentionally hilarious along with appropriate OTT acting and laugh-out-loud histrionic performances. And once all the pieces are set in place and the second half kicks in the movie is just non-stop action from then on. The pacing is great, the narrative rhythm oddly compelling and the whole movie has that one essential ingredient these films need to work — energy. And if you like movies where you can see all the seams (which I do) then you’ll love ‘Blastfighter’ as ‘Blastfighter’ is nothing BUT seams.
Plus, to give verisimilitude and authenticity to the Appalachian woodland feeling Bava wisely decides to have a pounding Italian synth score running throughout, sometimes combined with American country and western, something I can honestly say I’ve never encountered in a movie ever before. It’s like going to a concert where Crystal Gayle and Tangerine Dream are playing on the same bill. This is the stupidest soundtrack I’ve ever heard and the film is all the better for it.
To be serious for a moment though the real reason we’re here is to see Blastfighter in action and even though Blastfighter isn’t dug up until only ten minutes before the end when it finally is Blastfighter lives up to its name and absolute mayhem ensues. Limbs go flying, cars burst into flames, bodies explode and the body count goes through the roof.
I love it when movies do this; when they jump on a band-wagon or rip-off a bigger budgeted popular feature and the result is something absolutely unique and, more than likely, not what anyone involved in it ultimately had in mind or suspected that it would turn out as bonkers as it did.
‘Blastfighter’ is a seriously stupid movie, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
