Lance Henriksen - Action Hero

[Fearless Freep]

I am, of course, talking about "Savage Dawn", which Lance managed to squeeze in between outings in two very good 802 sci-fi action movies:"The Terminator" and "Aliens". Talk about career ups and downs.  The film also includes  a few other well known B actors like  George Kennedy and Robert Lynch and others.

Well..the idea for this movie is a biker gang called "The Savages" invades a small Arizona town, to be rescued by "Stryker" (Lance) who has just arrived in town.  Stryker is aided by his old friend "Tick" (Kennedy).  Apparently they were partners doing some sort of secret operations for "The Company".  Apparently, following some sort of scorched-earth policy.  Stryker and Tick manage to destroy most of the town in saving it from the Savages.

The major problem with the movie is that it seems like many of the scenes were shot because they would look cool or have a cool atitude, without much connection to much else in the movie.  In one bar scene, the leader of the Savages seems to recognize Stryker and warns his gang rather stringly not to mess with him. This apparent fear/respect of Stryker plays no part in their later actions.  Similar is some of the conversation between Stryker and Tick which alludes to a past  which you thinki would come back to play in the movie, but it doesn't.  It's like some scenes in the movie seem to be setting up situations for later in the movie that never happen, and in the end you are wondering why the ideas were ever brought up.

It was interesting seeing Lance in a leading action role, but although he does a professional job with the role, there doesn't seem to be much to latch on to for him to work with. Ironic that when you have action stars like Van-Damme and Segal  trying to be actors with mor dramatic roles, you have Henricksen wasted because he's too good an actor to want to see him held back by a shallow role like this

[nshumate]

Oddly enough, that's right near the top of my "movies to review" stack.  (Tell me -- does the front cover look like another "Rollerball" ripoff or what?)

[Fearless Freep]

Oddly enough, that's right near the top of my "movies to review" stack.

Cool, I look forward to hearing your take on it

Tell me -- does the front cover look like another "Rollerball" ripoff or what?

Yeah, guy's face in a motorcycle helmet. Scars on face, spikes on helmet...not a lot of connection to the movie either... :)

[Steven Millan]

                  You've got that entire movie perfectly summed up,Freep.
                  One question,though:what ever happens to that evil rapist fat guy biker,who you just await to be delivered an exploding guy death,but instead just disappears off the screen. What was up with that?!

[Fearless Freep]

One question,though:what ever happens to that evil rapist fat guy biker,who you just await to be delivered an exploding guy death,but instead just disappears off the screen. What was up with that?!

Yeah, that was strange.  I had to rewind a few times to make sure I hadn't missed something .  I guess from the sound effects you can kinda infer what happened but...that coulda been done a bit better

[kriegerg69]

Mr. Henriksen should ALSO be mentioned in the thread below about having shamelessly acted in just about anything!

[Fearless Freep]

Mr. Henriksen should ALSO be mentioned in the thread below

He was.

[tooshea]

Cool, I mentioned this foilm a few weeks ago  heheh one of my favourites of his, Karen Black and midgits and tanks whoa what else do ya need.  anyone else excited about the new sci-fi series he's starring in???  Its on Sci-fi but cannot remember the name.