Here we have another jewel from Iranian director Amir Shervan (Samurai Cop, Killing American Style). The story about revenge, family strings and cleaning up neighborhood. If you ever had a chance of watching any of abovementioned movies then you’ll know what to expect in this one.
Young Rebels is about a crime boss Mr. Vincenzo (played by G. Alexander Vidrion), who deals drugs and hates everything and everyone (which is not a surprise at all since he is an old man). His son Joey (played by Robert Z’dar) is one of his enforcers. The Crime boss hates him too. With a reason, since Joey had managed to fuck up drug deal which can be seen in the opening scene. If you pay close attention you’ll notice that one of the goons attending this drug exchange was played by none other than legendary Eric Freeman. Anyway, they wanted to keep both drug and money and now they are left empty-handed. That is why they need a plan B (as in B movies). That’s when we get to the main story. Our hero of the film Charlie (played by John Greene) has a younger brother Ben (whose name is listed wrong on the IMDB and I can’t tell which non-photo, never-acted-again) who borrowed money from the boss and he owes big time. The only way he can get out of debt is if he has Charlie fly a helicopter to Mexico to transport two drug kingpins to the states. Charlie shrugs his shoulders and agrees despite the risk. Meanwhile, Mr Vincenzo solved a problem when his workers went on strike action by killing them all. Simple and efficient!
A possible solution for the immigrant crisis?
Of course, the deal goes sour with the two kingpins ending up dead. Now the crime syndicate is after the brothers. So Joey and his thugs make an ambush at Charlie’s girlfriend place. Ben rushes is and manages to warn Charlie, but both him and the girl end up dead. Some cowboy style showdown occurs, followed by funk music playing in the background, from which only Joey and few goons manage to come alive, while Charlie ends up hiding and wounded. His friends find him and now they are plotting a revenge against Mr Vincenzo since every single one of them had some quarell with the crime boss.
And he got shot to his back moments ago
Meanwhile Joey spends some relaxing time with his stripper girlfriend (played by Delia Shepard) when he gets interrupted by one of his goons. His father wants to see him. Apparently they found a lead about Charlie’s whereabouts with a help of crooked Judd (played by Dale Cummings) who is a deputy to senile old Sheriff (played by Aldo Ray). They now bust some Mexican party, trying to extort any info about Charlie but their attack once again got repelled by Charlie, his friend Genza (played by Tadashi Yamashita) and others. So everyone have gone back to doing what they like. Charlie’s girlfriend’s corpse didn’t even gone cold properly and yet he is already onto her sister Liz (played by Christine Lunde). Meh no point living the past, I guess. And Joey went back to his girl so she can finish striptease in peace.
Hello ladies
But Joey can’t catch a break. Charlie interrupts their little show. Joey then heroically uses his girlfriend as a living shield and manages to escape. Meanwhile Mr Vincenzo once again visits immigrants farm and kills Chico (played by David Kinder), in a chainsaw torture scene which manages to produce very little blood, after refusing to give him info about Charlie. Charlie arrives to the place just in time to be accused of Chico’s murder by crooked Deputy. Again, he manages SOMEHOW to escape and long car chasing scene occurs, in which Charlie managed not only to outsmart police but even to locate Joey after and execute him. It is worth mentioning that like for any other action scene in this movie sudden location changes are characteristic for this scene as well.
A perfect example of knighthood
Mad with death of his son Mr Vincenzo goes after Charlie for revenge. Liz joins the fight too. With her help and help of his friends Charlie disposes of goons and crooked cops one by one in several ridicolous action scenes. Eventually, he corners Mr Vincenzo at some house and we get to see some fistfight with more sudden location changes and punches that don’t connect. Now, I have to point out shameless way in which Charlie came victourious out of this duel. Although Mr Vincenzo was kinda 30 years older than Charlie he beated a living crap out of our “hero”. Charlie was forced to reach out for less honorable measures. While Mr Vincenzo wasn’t looking Charlie kicked his butt (literally), pushing him away just enough to have a time to shoot him from his gun (somewhere near the end of that scene the producers suddenly realized they should have added some blood). Meh what can you expect from a man who sleeps with a sister of his girlfriend just couple of days after she was killed? Sheriff arrived just in time to conclude that he has absolutely no idea what is going on here. And that conlcudes this movie too.
Conclusion: First thing wrong about this movie is its title. There are no particularly young people in this movie, nor could they be said to be rebelling against anything. Sidetracked again! I have already mentioned confusing sudden location changes. This isn’t quite all. There’s some of the worst acting I can remember, primarily from Ben but also from Joselito Rescober, who you’ll remember as the ultra-camp waiter from “Samurai Cop”. There’s the way that punches sound like a bomb going off and are so ludicrous that I can’t even imagine a late 80s no-budget action movie seriously going “yes, this is effect we’re going for”. But the most confusing were cuts from one scene to another with no particular order. Of course, this results in many continuity and plot holes (like the one when Ben’s fiancé turned out to be Charlie’s girlfriend couple of minutes later). Still, just like other Amir’s movies, this one is a hella lot of fun to watch.
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