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I was lucky enough to see this great and goofy action flick starring Lou Ferrigno and Reb Brown a couple of nights ago. I work at a theater and there've been a couple of film cans sitting on a shelf for years now. The print was delivered by mistake about 4 years ago I was told, and somehow fell through the cracks and never found its way back to where it came from. After having been at this location for about 3 years and ignoring it for whatever reason, I decided to look it up and after reading the synopsis I thought, "I need to see this!" So I built the print and threw it on screen, and I'm glad I did.
The film starts during during the Vietnam War, 1969, and after a long battle sequence, Billy (Lou Ferrigno), is shot in the head while saving his friend Scott (Reb Brown). Somehow he survives, but suffers permanent brain damage and after physical and mental therapy he's left in a sort of child-like state (never thought I'd see Ferrigno play with a yo-yo). Cut to modern day 1989 and Scott runs a bar and looks after Billy (and the two look just like they did in '69). One day some hoodlums cause some trouble and Scott and Billy beat the crap out of 'em, catching the eye of some low-lifes who owe money to the head of a group that runs underground cage matches. Basically they wind up snatching Billy and taking advantage of his lowered mental capacity and force him to fight in the cage.
There are some other plot points involving the bar being destroyed and some undercover cops, but I don't want to spoil all the details. It's an entertaining movie if you like cheesy 80's action, and it's got a lot of great one-liners ("I'm lookin' for an a**hole with a devil tattooed on his arm!") and lots of very un-P.C. elements. I felt kind of bad during the scenes with Billy, 'cause even though he's basically mentally handicapped, there's somethin hysterical about seeing him act like an innocent little kid.
This isn't safe for work due to some bad language, but here's a clip with some very stereotypical Mexican hoodlums in the bar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42ZX7kD9HaE
I think I'll rewatch it soon, and I may actually try to write a real review. Oh, and it spawned a sequel with Cage II: The Arena of Death!
very odd story... I've actually thought CAGE was one of those movies that was made straight to video... It would be cool if your theater actually played the movie for a weekend (or a double feature) just for fun... :)
This trashy exploiter was first released on video by Orion, the same company that gave us Silence of the Lambs :teddyr:
I guess they thought Ferrigno playing the mentally handicapped (I am avoiding the "R" word as it appears to be as controversial as the "N" word these days) was Oscar worthy or something.
Cage II is similar bad but offers more solid camp. Both deserve a decent DVD presentation for sure.
I reviewed this one a while back on my old site. It was a good cheeseball action film. I think wrestler Tiger Chun Li is the bad guy Ferrigno is straddling in the pic.