Walter Hill's THE DRIVER and Michael Mann's THIEF - prototypes for DRIVE

 

What would Drive look like, made in the 70s and 80s?

I loved Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive (2011) but am unconcerned how much of it is original or homage (or whatever). It's an exciting, beautifully crafted thriller which I'm already looking forward to seeing again. But in my mind, I can't keep it in total isolation from older films I've seen, and it's fun to explore what Drive echoes. Maybe even compare how different decades have treated similar stories and characters. Many others have already been cited as influences, but these two are leading the pack...

THE DRIVER

(1978, USA)

The Driver (Ryan O'Neal) waits for two masked men to rob a casino, then burns rubber to get them away from a squad of police cars. It doesn't go completely smoothly - a witness (Isabelle Adjani) catches a clear look at him and smells money. The Detective (Bruce Dern) can't make the case stick and hatches an elaborate plan to catch The Driver red-handed.

I thought Ryan Gosling's impossibly cool character was a fresh take, until I saw Ryan O'Neal behind the wheel of a car, clean-shaven, sandy-coloured hair, blank expression, a man of few words... O'Neal's character also has strict rules for every job he takes on, can't be taken lightly, and quietly enjoys music.

Whereas Drive concentrates on various players in the underworld, The Driver uses a more  traditional cat-and-mouse structure of police trying to crack his case. That isn't to say the story is at all straightforward and full of surprises. Walter Hill (scriptwriter as well as director) adds one of his regular 'strong women' as The Connection (Ronee Blakley of A Nightmare on Elm Street) in this the year before Alien landed (for which Hill was a writer and co-producer).

The location is Los Angeles and much of the action takes place at night, though watching this DVD it's hard to judge the quality of the cinematography. The Driver is far less image-conscious than Drive, but adds far more tyre-squealing car chases and police cars. More isn't necessarily better, and some of the action is spoilt by jump-cuts and random continuity.

When there isn't action, the pace often flatlines, with not even Bruce Dern bringing it to life. O'Neal is good at playing against type, but his serious stares are only a shade away from his 'slow burn' from What's Up Doc?.Besides style, The Driver also lacks a driving soundtrack. The fun is all in the unravelling story and it's tough attitude. It's a huge contrast to the car chase comedies that were all the rage at the time, like the freewheeling Smokey and the Bandit franchise.

Walter Hill would next direct The Warriors, beginning an impressive winning streak of cult thrillers including Southern Comfort, Streets of Fire and 48 Hours.


Trivia: note how the above UK quad poster refers to the films simply as "Driver".

I watched the UK DVD from Optimum. The grainy print and night-time scenes gave the image compression quite a few problems in some scenes. But this is a recent anamorphic-widescreen release and I very much doubt there's a better version out there.

THIEF
(1981, USA, original title: Violent Streets)

Frank (James Caan) is a specialist in high-tech safe-cracking. His price is high yet he doesn't work for just anyone who can pay. Fiercely independent, he doesn't work as part of any mobs and hasn't even any regular family life. All that's about to change and his next job will be the toughest of his career.

Thief isn't about a driver, and James Caan is far less calm and collected than Ryan Gosling, but the story structure and dilemmas of his character's independence have strong parallels.

Frank is a professional, one of the best in the business, allowing him to pick and choose his clients even if they can afford his asking price. His goals in life are simple and he'll do absolutely anything to achieve or protect them.

As in Drive, there's a contrasty 'look' and a synth-heavy soundtrack. Night-for-night shooting in Thief accents car headlights and streetlighting, though it all isn't as overly style-conscious as Mann's later 80s thrillers. This works in favour of Thief's realism, a look at how mobsters blend into society and how any safe can be dismantled with the right scientific application... The electronic soundtrack by Tangerine Dream is not what you'd expect from a film that co-stars Willie Nelson.

Like The Driver, this an impressive early work from the director, being Michael Mann's first feature. For his next film he "wanted to get away from the streets" and plunged into an effects-laden, supernatural, Nazi horror film... before returning to a life of crime stories.

Trivia-wise, this is also an early production credit for Jerry Bruckheimer.

I watched the Optimum DVD from the UK. It's rare to see Michael Mann not shooting in his beloved 2.35 widescreen - this is presented anamorphic 16:9. Optimum are usually the label that releases films that major studios don't think are going to make money any more. Likewise with The Driver. Their loss.


A longer case for the merits of Thief.


More Thief info at this Michael Mann fan website.

My look at the musical influences on Drive's soundtrack.

PUPPET ON A CHAIN (1971) gets a widescreen DVD in the US

I'm delighted that this brash, brutal action-thriller has finally been remastered widescreen and released on DVD in the US by Scorpion Releasing. Previously only available around Europe in full-frame, I'm hoping this will find a new, wider audience.

Follow the links below for more details:

I've updated my review of Puppet on a Chain here, including the original trailer

DVD Talk have this review of the new DVD


Scorpion have also released the atmospheric teen survival chiller Humongous (1982) and then, in April, the Australian plane crash horror The Survivor (1980).

SUCKER PUNCH (2011)

SUCKER PUNCH

(2011, USA)

Fantasy action epic with a killer soundtrack

At the moment, I'm not watching nearly as many new films as old. I guess the point of collecting movies is to watch some of them occasionally. But the mention of an army of zombie soldiers and giant samurai warriors caught my interest. Then I heard that this isn't a fantasy action film so much as a fantasy drama which lapses into fantasies of action... Even more interesting. Directed by Zack Snyder whose movies I've all enjoyed - 300, Watchmen and the Dawn of the Dead remake. That's enough to warrant a watch.

Like 300, it's real actors set in a largely CGI world, which I currently associate favourably with graphic novel adaptions (though this is an original story from the director). CGI worlds suit fantasy very well, though sensibly, sets are used for the indoor scenes. An early example of this approach, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) made things far too complex for itself by building everything in the computer, using very few sets or props.

A fatal accident sends a teenage girl into a corrupt private asylum where the inmates have to 'dance' for paying visitors. But when BabyDoll dances she daydreams of escape, her fantasies inspiring her and her new friends to attempt to escape captivity...

I kept seeing elements of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, like the fight with the giant Japanese armoured warrior, an identical opponent to one of Sam Lowry's heroic fantasies who also used a heavy-duty spear. The theme of searching for an escape from guilt also struck me as a similarity. One early scene also reminded me of the ballet school from Suspiria - something about the colours used in the set.

The real life interludes slotted between the elaborate and varied action scenes were just as entertaining, owing to the stylised look and strong performances from Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac (intense enough to make a great Scarface). Good to see Scott Glenn onscreen again (Backdraft, The Right Stuff, and last week's review The Keep).

Key scenes are backed with some extraordinarily reworked cover versions of the Eurythmics, Björk, Jefferson Airplane and other offbeat tracks that immediately impress.

While Zack Snyder's 300 presented men as sexy heroic fantasy, Sucker Punch does the same for women, with a female-heavy cast that appeals to both sexes in a different way to the more obvious 'chick flick' comedies. Admittedly, the incendiary use of the name BabyDoll for the lead character (Emily Browning) keys the audience into its brand of humour. But I was surprised that the film was only rated 12 (on UK home video) considering the amount of sexual content in the story (alluded to, ever present, but never explicit). Japanese anime/movies/TV have their young female characters sexualised, often with shorter skirts, less confidence or self-determination. Yet they largely escape the criticism that Sucker Punch has drawn.

I've also been disappointed by far more exploitational 'schoolgirl action hero' Japanese movies, especially recent direct-to-video offerings made on low budgets that are on offer at the same price. This offers similar action but on a huge scale, set to maximum thrillpower. If Sucker Punch had been Japanese, it would have been the success it deserves.

Available everywhere on DVD and Blu-ray, with an option to watch the longer director's cut, though I was perfectly satisfied with the theatrical version.

BLACK DYNAMITE (2009) - the man who takes on The Man

BLACK DYNAMITE

(2009, USA)

This is already my favourite spoof of the blaxploitation era because it's the funniest and also the most accurate recreation. To be more precise, it's a homage to the sub-genre where one man takes on all the odds - Shaft, Superfly, The Mack... as opposed to the films where women took on all the odds - Coffy, Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones... and nothing to do with the horror subgenre where every iconic monster movie (up till then) was remade for a black audience.

Black Dynamite is a labour of love and is itself low-budget. One of its many strengths is the script, cleverly weaving in so many familiar elements from the originals, as well as layering in the technical distractions the original actors would have had. It's as much an homage to lowest-budget cinema of this era, as it is to this particular genre, making it accessible to anyone with a fleeting experience of early 70s exploitation.

The star, Michael Jai White (Spawn himself), co-wrote the story and the script. A dream role for someone who obviously enjoys the films as an actor and a martial arts stunt performer. The huge cast includes a short cameo from Arsenio Hall (Coming To America), and Sally Richardson-Whitfield (I Am Legend) as Gloria, Dynamite's 'black power' girlfriend.

While many of the action scenes are played for laughs, Michael Jai White also demonstrates dangerous-looking nunchuck and kung fu action in some very impressive long-take fight scenes. While he's aiming at channeling Jim Kelly (Black Belt Jones, Enter The Dragon), he more closely resembles a pumped-up Shaft, which is no bad thing.

The fashions, the language, the hairstyles are funny because they're accurate, rather than exaggerated. When shoes and hair are that high, they don't need to be any bigger. And the soundtrack is so accurately done, I had a hard time telling new music from old - new songs were recorded using authentic analogue techniques and contemporary instruments. They blend completely with library movie music in favour at the time.

Similarly, stock footage of explosions and stunts intercut smoothly with the intentionally 'badly shot' footage. Not since House of the Devil will you be so confused knowing what year you're looking at. Cleverly, they didn't create the look the hard way - by degrading the footage electronically, but by shooting it all on a 16mm stock, a grainy and very contrasty look that matches cheap 1970s' 35mm.

Faltering zooms, microphones peeking into view... aren't laid on too thick and are sometimes so subtle that they make the actual onscreen goofs look intentional. There's one fantastic back-projection gag that made me yearn for more Police Squad!

It's all too short. Several scenes have been abbreviated into montages to keep the story snappy, though after seeing the deleted scenes play out in their entirety, you can see that they weren't working or funny enough.

I'd enjoyed the more sporadic spoofs like Undercover Brother and Austin Powers in Goldmember which played the giant afros for laughs. But this is an intensive, better researched, reverential movie for fans of the originals who enjoy and embrace their style, music and politics.

Released last year on DVD, this is also available on blu-ray in the US and Germany. The DVD has deleted scenes, and some fun, informative featurettes on the movie and music production that don't outstay their welcome.

The Black Dynamite trailer is still live on Icon Home Entertainment's website for the movie.

I previously waded into the blaxploitation horror film cycle here.

VANISHING POINT (1971) - a high speed trip

VANISHING POINT

(1971, USA)

He's delivering a Dodge Challenger to San Francisco. The owner is gonna be pissed...

Barry Newman appeared in two very different action movies, both involving extended tyre-ripping car chases.  Fear Is The Key and Vanishing Point kept re-appearing in cinemas throughout the seventies as welcome supporting features and I was lucky enough to catch it on the rebound. Its images lodged in my subconscious, but I wasn't sure whether I'd still enjoy it 25 years later.

As a teenager I accepted many films at face value - either they were entertaining or they weren't. A movie that was one long car chase was certainly entertaining, Kowalski, the guy being chased by the police, was obviously the guy whose side I was on. I wasn't analysing it all for subtexts or reading any of the characters as metaphors for facets of society - a friendly biker, a madman in a sports car, a church of Jesus in the middle of the desert...

So what on Earth did I, as a young teenager, make of the drugs, the music and the naked girl on a motorbike? As far as I recall, I completely missed the drugs reference, enjoyed the music, and simply assumed that some people in the American deserts ride around naked. This was still a time when peaceful counter-cultures and hippy ideals were frequently presented in mainstream movies. The bikers, the music, and the mind-blown vibe helped teach me more about the anti-establishment than the establishment, and the wilds of Nevada looked like a better place than deepest, darkest suburbia.

But as a result, I didn't want to try drugs, drop out, live in the desert, get a bike or even drive a fast car, but I was certainly open to the laidback attitude and, well, just how friendly everyone could be. That is, except the racist rednecks, the police, and the villainous homosexuals. The positively bizarre gay characters are necessary for a plot point, but they don't need to be gay. They certainly don't need to wear pink shirts, act like nellies or carry handbags (give me a break). The celebrated documentary on gay representation in cinema, The Celluloid Closet, heavily criticised the scene. I can't wait to hear director Richard Sarafian talk about it on the commentary track...

Vanishing Point is an example of an 'arthouse' movie that can be exciting and entertaining. Could you get a wide release of a movie like this today? It's certainly 'of its time', an experimental story - an example of a road movie that you can join for the ride and see what happens.

The other comparable title that springs to my mind is Jack Cardiff's Girl On A Motorcycle, which is more like a travelogue. It also ducks out of the journey into multiple flashbacks to hint at the character's backstory. Vanishing Point improves on it in many ways, making it a high-speed chase rather than just a trip from a to b. It also looks like Barry Newman is actually driving, which Marianne Faithfull never did. It also removes the never-ending prose, as we hear her thoughts spelling out bloody everything.

I'm less familiar with Easy Rider, which Girl On A Motorcycle also predated. Easy Rider hasn't got the constant pursuit driving it, and the soundtrack wasn't as appealing to me. While it's easily the most famous of this 'genre', I'm more devoted to Vanishing Point and Electra Guide In Blue, which I'll revisit soon.

The music, the characters, the cinematography make this an experience, and of course there's the driving...

A regular component in car stuntwork in sixties and seventies cinema is Carey Loftin. He worked on this, Bullitt, Duel, The French Connection, Fear Is The Key, Grand Prix, Diamonds Are Forever, The Getaway and even The Love Bug. Wow. His specialty seems to be not just stuntwork, but really high speeds. The cars drive fast, there's no sneaky sped-up filming - what you see is what you get. Blistering handbrake turns, near misses, leaps, side bumping, chopper chases...

There are some spectacular wipeouts along the way but, A-Team style, there are no casualties. The police don't have much on Kowalski but they chase him to the state border anyway - like Smokey And The Bandit, literally on speed.

Barry Newman is Kowalski, a character sat halfway between straight society and a hippy commune. Strange that the actor should star in two movies then move back to TV for two seasons as a pro-active lawyer in Petrocelli. His blissed-out vacant look from behind the wheel is haunting. Also check him out as a tough guy in the action thriller Fear Is The Key (1972).

Kowalski is championed and guided by 'Super Soul', a blind DJ (Cleavon Little, before Blazing Saddles) who warns him about 'the blue meanies' over the radio. Theirs is the strongest, almost telepathic relationship in the story. If Little hadn't been an actor, he'd have been a storming DJ. In the rest of the cast, one of the nastier cops is played by Paul Koslo, who was also dependable 'Dutch' in The Omega Man, filmed the same year. In the desert, there's an almost unrecognisable Dean Jagger (the quasi-Quatermass of X-The Unknown).

On the soundtrack, among the country music names I didn't know, are Kim Carnes, Rita Coolidge and Burt Reynolds collaborator, the late Jerry Reed. This isn't my kind of music, but I still enjoy the soundtrack. Coincidentally, it's been recently released on CD from Harkit Records. The original vinyl front and back covers are shown above and below.

After watching the UK DVD (below), the sights, sounds and stunts have inspired me to upgrade to the blu-ray, which also offers the longer US cut which features Charlotte Rampling in the additional scenes. I'm also looking forward to the making-of documentary, and hearing the director's commentary track on the blu.

Here's an original trailer on YouTube (the DVD and blu-ray is presented in 1.85 widescreen)...

I'm not even going to mention the 1997 TV movie remake with Viggo Mortensen and Jason Priestley...

BATMAN (1943), BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949) - the early screen Bats

'Cliffhanger' serials were a popular part of cinema programmes for decades. Short, action-heavy films that always ended with the hero about to die. Audiences would then have to wait a week to find out what happened next. Cliffhangers took off when film was still silent, often with a women in the middle of the danger - The Hazards of Helen, The Exploits of Elaine, The Perils of Pauline...

But comic book heroics provided the perfect characters for the greatest cliffhangers of the early sound era with Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, The Green Hornet, Tarzan, The Phantom all made their onscreen debuts in these serials in the 1930s and 40s. The fast action and slim plots eventually influenced the screen thrills of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Star Wars mimicked the opening 'story so far' exposition from the cliffhanger format, right down to the rolling text used at the start of every Buck Rogers serial (of 1940).

Before the era of the cliffhangers ended, the two earliest movie visions of Batman appeared...

BATMAN
(1943, USA)

"Fasten him in the zombie chair!"

The first onscreen adventure of the caped crusader is blighted by its wartime depiction of the Japanese villains. Dr Dakar (J. Carroll Naish in 'Japanese' make-up) sits in his evil lair over an evil pit of crocodiles (watch out for that hidden trapdoor!), sitting in front of a huge evil statue of Buddha (what?) as if that would make him more hateable. Dakar has also chosen to hide his secret headquarters behind a sideshow ride, showcasing waxwork tableaux of Japanese army atrocities! A choice of 'covers' which has always puzzled me.


Batman even dishes out the hate-words ("slanty-eyed Jap murderer", that sort of thing) reminding us of the public level of hatred around at the time. Also how easily the enemy in any war is demonised by the media.

If you can stomach all that, you get can see Batman and Robin in action in some fun, fast-paced, furious fistfights, peppered with eye-opening stunts. The baddies have energy guns, a rather nifty car that changes colour, and machines that turn the living into mindless zombies and even re-animate the dead!


Batman on the other hand is curiously without gadgets. He has, er, his fists! Beating the baddies into submission in a series of punishing brawls. He only has Robin to help him. This Robin is usually the first to be knocked down in every fight. He also has big curly hair and baggy underwear worn, as is traditional, on the outside. With Batman's big, floppy, pointy ears, they don't look sufficiently dynamic as a duo.

There isn't a Batmobile, unless you count Bruce Wayne's sedan, which at least has blinds on the inside so that they can change into their Bat-costumes. The car styles are of the same bulky vintage as the vehicles seen in Batman: The Animated Series (1992).


Then there's the smallest Batcave ever - it only has a desk and one chair in it (Robin has to stand). And some rubber bats on strings. Not a good look. Alfred the butler is a fairly useless English clown. Gotham City is near L.A. (it appears on a letter addressed to Bruce Wayne).

Obviously not the best screen Batman ever, but it is the earliest, and a chance to sample a typical cliffhanger serial, with it's cheaty endings, punishing stunts and mad storylines.


In the past there have been 'politically correct' cut down versions on home video, clearing out the anti-Japanese language. But this currently available 2-DVD set (from Columbia Pictures) has all 15 episodes uncut. It's presented fullscreen 4:3, the way it was shot, and is of course black and white. The quality is fine but the tease at the end of episode 2 is missing a few closing lines.

BATMAN AND ROBIN
(1949, USA)

The second Bat-cliffhanger serial looks and feels more modern, tighter, right down to the tights. Only made six years later, this looks like it was made in a different decade. The duo actually look like a dynamic crime-fighting force.

Their bigger Batcave actually has science stuff in it. The baddie is closer to being a super-criminal, right down to a mask and a strenuous dual identity. The Wizard has the power of long-distance remote control! Cars, vans, machines, even people...


This serial also features the screen debuts of Commissioner Gordon, Vicki Vale, and the Bat-signal. There's less Alfred, less boring Bruce Wayne, and more of the Bat. The desert locations, forever a stamping grounds of westerns and serials are the polar opposite of the gothic or even metropolitan stalking grounds later associated with Bat-stories, but this is still a huge improvement over the first.

We also have this serial to thank for the next screen incarnation of Batman. The story goes that Hugh Hefner was showing this at his mansion to an enthusiastic audience, and a Fox TV executive was inspired to suggest that it would also make a good TV series... Three successful seasons followed, and a feature film, also confusingly called Batman (1966). This classic show, starring Adam West and Burt Ward, was one of the biggest phenomenons in TV history, but has yet to appear on home video in any format...


Batman and Robin is available as a complete serial on a 2-DVD set. Again fullscreen and black and white.


If you like cliffhangers, the must-see is Flash Gordon (1936), the most expensive of the serial genre. It's an adaption of the same comic strip that was used as the story for the tongue-in-cheek 1980 movie.

Further classic serial cliffhangers out on DVD are being reviewed here on the Chapterplays site.

To find out what happens next on this blog, you'll have to come back next week, at this theatre!

GOLD (1974) - gritty action with Roger Moore

GOLD
(1974, UK)

Roger Moore's best non-Bond action movie

For some reason I missed this in the cinemas, and never ever fully caught it on TV. Maybe the publicity stills of Moore sitting in a bath with Susannah York put me off, making me think it was slushy. Anyhow, just seen Gold in 2.35 widescreen for the first time (on a recent region 2 UK DVD) and it's still very enjoyable, thrilling and surprising, with extensive location filming in Johannesburg, back when South Africa was split by apartheid. Watching it with a couple of friends who lived there recently helped add some additional insight.

While I've been looking through a few seventies thrillers, I bought Gold after remembering a scene with a killer Rolls Royce. Like many people, I'm wary of Roger Moore's James Bonds because of the lightweight family films they became, filled with far too much silliness. But his earlier Bonds, especially Live and Let Die are closer to Connery's toughness. Gold was filmed the same year as The Man With The Golden Gun but released slightly earlier.

It's based on 'Gold Mine' by Wilbur Smith, a very popular author at the time, who specialised in thrillers set in Africa. With the sort of detail used for the diamond trade in Ian Fleming's Diamonds Are Forever, Gold depicts the trade from start to finish, from the rockface through to the financiers in the stock market. The opening titles show the process of mining and refining the ore. The leftover rock being relegated to huge slag heaps on the surface. These level, man-made mountains later form a stage for the film's climax. I'm told that the refining process has now been modernised and the slag is being re-processed to extract even more minerals. There's gold in them there slags!

But to dig all the ore out, miners have to go deeper underground than ever, a risky business. A cave-in kicks off the story, with troubleshooter Rod Slater (Roger Moore) risking his life to get everyone out. The mystery is why the trapped miners were so far off course with their digging. If they'd gone any further, they might have ruptured a huge undersea lake that could have flooded the mine forever. While visiting Jo'burg, I went down the last remaining liftshaft into a gold mine. You haven't seen darkess till someone turns off the lights down there. The escape shaft was also particularly terrifying, a small slanted tunnel to the surface - not for the claustrophobic.

Like a true airport page-turner, the characters are closely linked by blood and bed. The daughter (Susannah York) of the owner of the mine (Ray Milland) is married to his deputy (Bradford Dillman), but she fancies playing the field. Meanwhile Bradford and his gay sidekick (Tony Beckley) are in league with the head (John Gielgud) of an international cartel. While Roger and Susannah hook up and go gallivanting, a murderous and explosive plot is being hatched...

Frankly, the sliminess of baddies doesn't get much better than Bradford Dillman and Tony Beckley. Gielgud isn't slimy, but is excellent at greedy ruthlessness, especially round a table with the big-hitters. It's not far removed from his aloof butler in Arthur, but without the humour, he's suitably dangerous. Dillman never fully escaped TV roles, but I've always liked his distinctive voice and sneaky eyes - he dabbled in horror films with Chosen Survivors, William Castle's Bug (1975) and of course Joe Dante's original Piranha (1978). Tony Beckley played several borderline gay roles, such as the disdainful Camp Freddy in The Italian Job (1969), but could also be a realistic serial killer, in the unconventional When A Stranger Calls (1980), his last film. Here he has a pad tastefully painted lilac and covered in pictures of male nudes, greek statues of course. Nothing to do with the story, just a little local colour, as subtle as a mallet.

Ray Milland is always a welcome face, here his career has somehow recovered from the truly awful The Thing With Two Heads (where the head of a white racist is grafted onto a black guy's body) and he's in his best shouty, confrontational form. I think his best horrors were The Man With X Ray Eyes (1963) and The Premature Burial (1962). His daughter is played by Susannah York, the only female character in the whole shebang. While she looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, the actress has appeared in many cult movies, including the gruelling They Shoot Horses Don't They? (1969), and getting the first lesbian screen kiss in The Killing of Sister George (1968). She's most famous as Superman's mother in the first two Christopher Reeve movies. Ms York is happily still working, mainly on British TV.

The interiors were filmed at London's Pinewood Studios, with some really convincing mining sets. But there's extensive location work shot in Johannesburg, in a country where apartheid was a political reality enforced by the white dictators of the time. While the story shows black and white miners working together in harmony, note that the mine bosses are all white and, even at social gatherings, the crowds are segregated into black and white. The miner's homes next to the mine look spotlessly clean and modern, but this wasn't the reality for the majority of black people in South Africa, and still isn't, years after the fall of the apartheid regime.

With larger-than-life characters and plenty of plot twists and surprises, one involving a six-year old Patsy Kensit (Lethal Weapon 2), this is still highly enjoyable and gritty action, particularly the climax.

The UK DVD is a pleasant surprise, accurately presenting this 2.35 widescreen anamorphically. Though the cover artwork is far from inspiring, especially compared to the Polish DVD or the original poster. The film is also available in Germany.

Here's the opening titles on YouTube...