ACTION JACKSON
D: Craig R Baxley 1988
From the producers of Predator & Lethal
Weapon! screams the video slick so you know what you’re in for. Yes, it’s Carl Weathers as the mofo one man
army “I don’t play by the rules” cop with a chip on his shoulder, the slick one
liners and the personal vendetta against the bad guy. Trouble is the bad guy is played by Craig T
Nelson and it’s kinda hard to take good ol Craig T seriously. Not sure if Craig is playing a cold hearted
bastard or if it’s that his acting is so tv movie of the week that he just
appears emotionless. Big budget action
movie like this and they couldn’t get Gary Busey or even Wings Hauser? What is the world coming to?
So the movie starts with some poor union
schmuck workin’ late with his secretary (no he really is working!) when they
get they’re asses kicked by a big budget ninja white boy gang who come in thru
the windows and send the schmuck out as toast!
Said ninjas of course consisting of a cool unkillable black guy, a guy
with an incredibly bad mullet, the guy who looks like Huey Lewis and a token
just plain ugly white cracker.
Craig T plays a car manufacturer/rich
bastard by the name of Peter Dellaplane who is knocking off the union guys from
the AWA who aren’t on his side. See,
he’s got his eye on the presidency. He
doesn’t want the throne, he wants to be the power behind the throne. So he’s killing off the guys who get in his
way. Our man Action Jackson is in his
way. Jackson
“You nearly tore that boy’s arm off!”
“So? He had a spare.”
Damn, they don’t write ‘em like that
anymore. Anyways, good ol Craig has
married Sharon Stone and is porking Vanity on the side. Tough life Craig. Action gets in the way of course but not
until the girls get the puppies out for a walk. Shazza, after overhearing a conversation
about a dead union guy, goes to Action to tell him about it and seek his
advice. She knows her Craig T is a good
guy deep down, honest. She is of course
wrong and they both nearly get run down by a cab driven by cool unkillable
black guy. Cue Action Jackson jumping on
top of cab and shootings and car crash and black guy getting away. Least now we know that Action deserves his
nickname. Oh yeah, Vanity does what she
does best, look sultry, sing bad 80s drek and take her top off.
So we end up, after a bit of biffo and a
few one liners ‘tween our hero and our junkie with the nice tits, at a big
party at Craig T’s place where the cool unkillable black guy is gonna off a
union boss and make it look like Action Jackson is responsible. But Action has a new offsider in Vanity’s
bodyguard who turns up in the nick of time and saves Action from being burnt to
a crisp and the boys then toast the mullet guy and the ugly guy and eventually
even Huey Lewis, but I mean come on how hard can it be to kill Huey? Should have just played his records back to
him! Even the cool unkillable black guy
finally gets it, though I have to admit I was disappointed in how easy it was
in the end. Never fear though because we
still got the big showdown ‘tween Craig T and Action going mano o mano where
finally Carl remembers where he got his start and he gets all Apollo Creed on
Craig’s ass. The good guys win, the bad
guys are all dead, Jackson
Carl ain’t no Richard Roundtree, hell he
ain’t even Danny Glover but what the fuck, he did what he had to do and that’s
all you can ask. And he sure as shit out
acted Craig T and Vanity but then that’s not saying much is it? Oh yeah I should mention the oriental guy
with the droopy mustache and that awful balding at the front, long at the back
cut who’s in all these movies too. Who
is that guy anyway?
