Bullet Points: Deadly Breed

I don’t believe there is anyone on the planet that is going to confuse the movies we cover here on Bulletproof Action with the type of movies that are nominated for an Academy Award. Maybe Menahem Golan, but he is no longer with us unfortunately.

But that is not to say that the action movie genre completely insulates itself from movies that are nominated for Academy Awards. Case in point, a movie that was nominated for a total of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, 1988’s Mississippi Burning.

Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning is set in 1964 and centers around the FBI investigation of the disappearance of three civil rights workers in the deep south of Mississippi. Mississippi Burning could be considered a critical and box office success and it created a lot of buzz when it was released.

Less than a year after the release of Mississippi Burning, the action genre responded with two racially charged action flicks… Sam Firstenberg’s Riverbend starring Steve James and the subject of this movie review, PM Entertainment’s Deadly Breed…

• Smithploitation:  Despite being prominently featured on the cover of Deadly Breed and receiving second billing, veteran movie badass William Smith has very little screen time in the actual movie. It feels like PM Entertainment had Smith’s services for a day or two back in the late 80’s and shot as many things with him as possible to include him in as many of their movies as possible. But with all that said, Smith’s role as the police captain, while small, is also a catalyst for the entire plot of the movie. Captain (as he is credited) calls in one of his top detectives, Kilpatrick (Addison Randall, a PM Entertainment mainstay who starred in a number of their films including Chance, The Killing Zone and Maximum Force). At this meeting, Captain gives Kilpatrick the green light to recruit officers to be a part of an “off the books” operation that will target criminals who are getting a second chance in society. The Captain and Kilpatrick are sick and tired of criminals being put back on the streets, instead of rotting away in prison or being executed. This extreme stance against the justice system in the United States is made even more extreme when you realize that they are exclusively targeting minorities.

• Bleeding Heart: Blake Bahner (of Blackbelt II: Fatal Force infamy) plays Jake, the parole officer with a heart of gold. Jake believes in giving guys a second chance and goes above and beyond for all the parolees assigned to him. He finds them jobs, he listens to their problems, he loans them money and he even invites them into his home. Jake’s open mind is the antithesis to the closed mind thinking of Kilpatrick and his new deadly breed of soldier looking to start the second Civil War. When Jake’s parolees start showing up dead, the collision course between Jake and Kilpatrick is officially set! Jake starts snooping around and asking questions. This does not sit well with Kilpatrick or the Captain and plans are made to get Jake out of the picture so they can continue their KKK style policing.

• The Piano Man: Kilpatrick uses Jake being the common denominator in the deaths of his parolees to obtain a search warrant, which allows Kilpatrick the opportunity to plant one of the murder weapons at Jake’s place to paint the picture that Jake went all vigilante on the very men he was assigned to help make their way back into society. This puts Jake behind bars and allows Kilpatrick the opportunity to return to Jake’s home and rape and eventually kill Jake’s wife Lana (Michelle Berger) with some piano wire… a signature of the piano playing Kilpatrick. At this point there is only one thing left to do, Kilpatrick brought the fight to Jake and now Jake has to step up in a major way and bring the fight to Kilpatrick. Jake enlists the help of female police detective Alex (Rhonda Gray who can proudly say that 1991’s F.A.R.T. The Movie was her final film) to attack Kilpatrick and his men at their military style compound. Alex has her own personal reasons for helping Jake bring Kilpatrick to justice. Alex’s very troubled and very Jewish brother was killed by Kilpatrick’s men.

Deadly Breed was not a terrible movie, but it felt like it featured PM Entertainment’s C squad. Blake Bahner is not a really smooth action star. I think his awkwardness worked here because his character was just a parole officer and was not a super cop or former Navy SEAL/Special Ops guy. But compared to some of the other guys on the PM Entertainment roster during this time, Bahner is towards the bottom of the list. Addison Randall’s Kilpatrick is easy to hate because of what the character represents, not because of Randall’s acting prowess. Both actors would probably make for passable supporting characters in movies, but I don’t think either of them had any business in the featured roles they found themselves in in Deadly Breed. It felt like with some better actors in those key roles, Deadly Breed would go up several notches in quality.

And it always feels like any movie review I write on this site goes up a notch or two when I provide some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Terrible Poster Nominee: If the Academy Awards had a category for terrible poster art, Deadly Breed would have been nominated for the monstrosity above.
• What’s That Buzzing Sound?: Jake’s wife Lana is one horny woman. When she is unable to convince her husband to put his work away for the night and join her in the bedroom, she pulls out her vibrator and takes care of business on her own. The buzzing sound does get Jake’s attention creating one of the most awkward lead ups to a sex scene I have ever witnessed.
• Berger Time: The role of Lana would be Michelle Berger’s third and final acting role. This was probably for the best, because Berger was one of the worst.
• Montage Alert: Deadly Breed features a montage of shirtless Kilpatrick playing a piano while scenes of his deadly breed killing off criminals are interspersed.
• Best Weapon: A flaming 2×4 is utilized during the movie’s action packed climax.