Bullet Points: Warriors (1994)
For every awesome movie that Gary Busey made he also made fiver stinkers. Especially in the early 90’s. Busey had returned to the film word in 1990 after his motorcycle accident and had pretty much been pumping out half a dozen action flicks every year after that for some time. Warriors came out the same year as Surviving the Game and Drop Zone. I don’t think I need to tell you that both of those movies were really cool. The statistics alone should tell you what I think of Warriors… prepare yourself for some really poor quality pictures.
Synopsis: A government-trained killing machine must turn his lethal skills against his top-secret squad’s AWOL leader.
- One Wedding and a Dozen Funerals: The film starts out with Gary Busey and his team of black knit cap wearers shooting up a wedding and killing a whole bunch of people. It’s hard to tell at first who this team of guys are but we soon learn that they’re essentially a black ops team. They obviously don’t care much about innocent civilians as one of them blasts a young kid.
- Prisoners: The same team is now shown in their barracks of sort; a prison being guarded by the American military. We finally get to see that Busey’s character, Frank Vail, is very much not thrilled with being a part of the team. Some of the men are enjoying the idea of killing people and getting hookers thrown their way on their downtime but it isn’t long until a message delivered to Vail by a working girl sends Vail on a mission to escape the prison.
- What is the Rehab Group: The team of men are called “The Rehab Group”. They’re all former military men who were “killed in action” and allowed to work for the government on these black ops missions. Essentially, they don’t exist. It’s nothing new. I thought that Extreme Prejudice did it much better in 1987 but it’s something that I could totally see the Gov’t attempting.
- Paré on the Job: Vail escapes the prison in one of the most ridiculous scenes I’ve seen in a while. Possibly the easiest prison escape in history. They end up sending for a former protégé of his named Colin Neal. Played by the always cool Michael Paré, Neal is the trained killing machine that Vail used to be but Neal isn’t all in on killing Vail just yet. The two men used to be friends and Neal isn’t exactly the gov’t stooge that many of the men in The Rehab Group are. It’s also one of the more interesting things about that movie that Neal is slowly becoming the same man as Vail. His home life is starting to clash with his job in a way that is making him rethink this whole “government killing tool” gig that he has going on .
- Eat your Heart out KITT: Paré has what might look like the lamest vehicle for a government assassin. It’s one of those oddly shaped Chevy minivans from the early 90’s. But what you don’t know is that it’s a heavy-duty secret weapon in itself. Not only is it bulletproof, have some cutting edge video phone on board, and have a whole bunch of buttons and switches inside, but it also has plenty of seating in the back in case Neal decides to pull off at a rest stop and take a nap.
- Hooker with the Heart of Gold: Wendii Fulford plays a prostitute who is the one that originally delivered the message to Vail that caused him to run from the prison. She also becomes and unwilling participant in his escape and continued chase. She doesn’t serve much of a purpose for most of the film but as her and Vail continue to run from Neal, they reveal more and more details about one another and slowly begin to care for one another. There isn’t any frisky business, though, as Vail puts a stop to it.
- Message: As the movie builds to a climax, it becomes more and more apparent that it’s telling us just how awful the government has been. Vail was put into a terrible position during the war, suffered PTSD, then sent off to The Rehab Group to become an assassin. Neal’s career is all but following his path and an appearance by Vail’s father at the end of the film shows us just how much we should all hate Big Brother. We’re given one final attempt at a redeeming action sequence at the end but I’m sorry to say that it couldn’t revive the ending for me.
The Verdict: Warriors certainly has something to say about war. Hell, they even utter the line “There is no honor in war, sir.” As bad as war and what follows can be to the soldiers who fight, this movie isn’t doing it any favors but not being any good. It has a bunch of half-realized characters who never actually accomplish anything. Most of the movie is Paré chasing Busey around but never actually stopping him. Neither man had enough meat on their lines to make the characters memorable and as much as I love Michale Paré and Gary Busey, you’d be better off watching any number of films from these actors.
