Frank Zagarino is The Saxman! This is what you get when you combine jazz and martial arts. Now, who would come to such idea? No one else than Cedric Sundstrom, the director of equally terrible American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt and American Ninja 4: The Annihilation. And who would accept the challenge of producing such thing? Well, none else than AIP , of course, which is production house owned by Prior brothers.
The first thing we see in this movie is half-naked Zagarino, doing some exercise. He is Michael Keller, the saxman who serves a jail time. Michael is sitting on bed in his cell, trying to remember when was the last time he played sax. Someone may think that man in Mike’s position should have a bit more important things on his mind, but not and Cedric. Anyway, flashback sends us back for 3 years, into one nightclub, where Mike is playing smooth jazz on his sax. His old buddy Mackie (played by Arnold Vosloo) approaches him after the gig. He asks for a favor from sax player. Mackie needs Mike to drive him on a date. But it turns out that it was just a cover up. Mackie forces Mike at gunpoint to drive him to mob boss Jack Fisher (played by Oliver Reed), in order to deliver him 500000$ and snuff-porn films. But they enter police chasing, which ended up in Mackie been gunned down and Mike arrested for running over a cop. He gets sentenced to 5 years in state prison, with the possibility of letting him under parole after 3 years. And all of that had happened 3 exactly years ago so Mike gets free.
Good times!
Now he is back at his fiance Lisa (played by Nancy Mulford). They have much to talk about, eventually ending up in argue. To get things smooth Lisa invites him to sex. But instead of accepting sex invitation, Mike goes to toilet in order to play a sax while sitting on toilet seat. I guess those are the consequences of prison life. Tho, he did accept second invitation and there we have sex scene. But, scene of a man making gentle love with his beloved fiancee has been interrupted by scene of filming porn movie!!! What a twist!!! From softcore to hardcore! And not just the any hardcore. No, in this hardcore a Rambo look alike takes the knife in a middle of sex scene, wanting to kill his partner. So, this is sick hardcore! Thankfully, police raid had busted in, thus interrupting this sick act of having sex-murder.
Rambo quits fighting and starts his porn career!
The producent of this snuff film is Tyron Richardson (played by Sean Taylor), one of the Jack Fisher’s men. Instead of reading him his rights, which is tradition at any normal arrest, Detective Marsh (played by Norman Anstey) said to Tyron: “I’ve been wanting your ass for a long time.” Could this mean their future cooperation in making some sort of homosexual snuff film? Only time will tell.
Tyron, Tyron, I’ve been wanting your ass for a long time!
Fisher and his men believe that Mike still has their missing money so he kidnaps Lisa. Mike decides to call upon his old Vietnam friend Harry Crawford (played by Jeff Celentano), to help him rescue his beloved fiancee. As it always happens Mike Keller turns out to be an ex-Marine. This movie is boring and full of cliches so I’ll make this short. In rest of the movie we are treated with numerous cliches like : Saving Lisa (which they did pretty fast), Fisher raping Zags’ fiancee for entire 3 seconds (after several previous unsuccessful attempts to get erection – keep in mind that he is old) almost getting heart attack while doing that, Zagarino falling through tent into toys, crippled man miraculously walking again, finding porn makers hideout in 5 seconds, wooden leg of one of Fisher’s man, shooting porn actress, corrupted cop, Fisher’s nervous breakdown after his bitch got killed, house set on fire….
Old wood heats best!
Conclusion: This film is a boring, dumb, cheap, below average action movie. Also, very predictable, you always know what will happen next. Oliver Reed gives decent performance here, even in his career descend period, thus stealing the movie from Zagarino (which again isn’t that hard). If you are bored, and have a lot of free time and bag of popcorns, this movie is a good choice for passing time. And nothing else.
Worsemovies 