Bullet Points: Return Fire
If I had a dime for every time somebody said “you need more Ron Marchini on your site” I would have exactly no money, but that didn’t stop me from checking out 1988’s Return Fire, the sequel to 1987’s Jungle Wolf…
- Previously on Jungle Wolf: I should point out that even though both Jungle Wolf and Return Fire were streaming on Tubi and even though I had never seen either movie previously, I still chose to watch the sequel instead of the original. It turns out that was a wise decision since the opening credits of Return Fire feature highlights from Jungle Wolf with Steve Parrish (Ron Marchini, Karate Cop) successfully rescuing a United States Ambassador being held by rebels in Central America, only to find himself left behind.
- I Left My Son in San Francisco: Steve is on a boat making his way home to San Francisco, where he is looking forward to being reunited with his son and ATV enthusiast Zak. I enjoyed the fact that Steve pointed out the Golden Gate Bridge in his inner monologue for anyone not in the know. Once Steve gets on dry land, Steve heads to a mall to make a call to Jim (his friend that had been watching Zak, while Steve was off on his Central American mission. But when Steve notices there are some not so friendly looking guys making a bee line for him, he ends the call he was making at the mall and heads to the men’s room where he hides in a stall… and when the bad guys find him, he throws a flaming roll of toilet paper at them and makes his escape… next thing you know he’s running through the mall, the bad guys have their guns drawn. Steve gets outside just as a cop shows up… the cop gets shot by one of the bad guys and Steve hops in the cop car and drives off, leading to a high speed chase. I should point out that Teri, a woman who works for the same Agency as Steve had him under surveillance the entire time.
- Like Father, Like Son: While all this is going on, some guys show up at Steve’s home and kill Jim… when Zak sees that something is up he takes off on his ATV, which leads to his own high speed chase… one that includes one of the cars pursuing Zak to drive off a bridge and explode. Zak eventually is thrown from his ride and picked up by some guys… when Steve finally arrives home, he notices blood coming from under the garage door and that’s when he finds dead Jim. He then looks for Zak but comes up empty. Steve then makes a call to the Agency and talks to his buddy Hartman and he sets up a meeting for 2100 hours (that’s 9pm for those in the know)… after that Steve buries Jim in the backyard, takes a shower and then meditates outside before truck loads of bad guys show up to eliminate him… they are unsuccessful as Steve thins out their ranks before escaping via motorcycle.
- Grave Danger: It is time for Steve’s meeting with his superior Carruthers (Adam West, Batman) at a graveyard. Carruthers tells him that a man name Petroli, who runs a guns for drugs operation has put a hit on Steve since some of Steve’s activity in Central America disrupted Petroli’s business… Carruthers also tells Steve that Petroli has Zak! This gets Steve’s interest, but he doesn’t want any help from Carruthers, he’ll take care of Petroli and get Zak back on his own! Later Steve breaks into Agency headquarters to get some information and he gets even more information (and a free show) when he shows up at Teri’s place and is waiting for her when she gets out of the shower. Teri tells him where Petroli’s base of operations… this is where the story started to lose me a bit. Why did Steve have to break in if he was on an Agency assignment? Why wouldn’t Carruthers have shared Petroli’s whereabouts when he pitched the mission to Steve to begin with? And as a father who wanted his son back, why wouldn’t he have demanded to know where Petroli was holding Zak? And is it really doing it on your own if you just go to someone else in the Agency to get the information you didn’t want to get from Carruthers?
- Don’t Trust Anybody: Turns out that Steve was right to be leery of his boss (I suppose getting abandoned in Central America was an eye opener for him) as Zak was actually being held by the Agency and Carruthers is in cahoots with Petroli. Zak was being kept in a room just down the hall from Teri’s office. Teri busts Zak out and reunites father and son… which scores her some major brownie points with Steve and it isn’t long before Steve is tucking in Zak and then Steve and Teri are bumping uglies in the adjoining motel room. Teri is absolutely infatuated with Steve for whatever reason and ends up sacrificing herself to allow The Parrish Boys to escape the next day when they are tracked down.
- Short Staffed: With multiple attempts to knock Steve off going up in smoke, I guess Petroli was so short staffed by the end of the movie that Steve managed to get to Petroli’s cement factory base when nobody but the guard at the gate was there and ends up setting up traps and turning the enemy turf into his own making it easy to dispense of the rest of Petroli’s forces. Petroli is easily my favorite character in the movie, he is an eccentric and emotional man, who makes a much more believable villain than Adam West. By the end Petroli is absolutely losing his shit when Steve has made the cement factory his own and is totally outclassing Petroli and his men… but after Petroli is dealt with there’s still the matter of Steve stopping the dirty Carruthers before he skips the country.
I don’t know Ron Marchini. But I would not be shocked to find out that he is a wonderful human being and well respected individual in the martial arts community. But as an action movie hero he is seriously lacking in the charisma and personality department and he didn’t look like a star… although he tried to make up for it with confidence.
Even with my limited Marchini experience (I have now seen two of his movies), I can confidently say that he seems to specialize in the kind of bad action movies that people who love bad action movies love to watch.
If you love to read Bonus Bullet Points you’ll love these…
- AKA: Return Fire is also known as Return Fire: Jungle Wolf II and as Jungle Wolf II.
- If You Ever: …wanted to witness a father teaching his son how to thrown a hand grenade, then Return Fire is the movie for you. It was moments like this that made Zak my second favorite character n the movie and I wish he had his own teenage Rambo spin off movie… move over Toy Soldiers!
- Reunited: Ron Marchini and Adam West would work together once again in 1990’s Omega Cop.
- Montage Alert: Speaking of Marchini and West, they are in a dueling montage towards the end of the movie with Steve preparing for the final fight and West preparing for his final flight.
- Soundtraxx: The music in Return Fire is eclectic to say the least, there’s two rocking anthems used which were exactly what I would expect from an action movie released in 1988… but I was not expecting the out of place music that sounded like it came from a late 60s/early 70s crime drama series that pops up through out the movie.
