A group of evil no-good terrorists from the Middle East abduct the president's daughter Margaret (an irritatingly shrill portrayal by Lisa Hayland Heslov) while she's out shopping on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (they even blow up a car as a distraction). It's up to erstwhile special forces agent and ace martial artist Hack Stone (the almighty Frank Stallone in peak two-fisted macho form) to save the day.
Boy, does this uproariously awful clunker possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: We've got ham-fisted (mis)direction by John Myhers (who also wrote the gloriously asinine script), ineptly staged action set pieces, the terrorists are all crude stereotypes (their ruthless leader who naturally has some kind of personal beef with Hack Stone is even named Abdul!), clumsy use of strenuous slow motion, pathetic (far from) special effects, a mechanically bouncy synthesizer score, plain cinematography, tin-eared dialogue ("Don't you worry about anything -- that Hack don't kill that easy"), lots of excessive and blatant product placement for Pepsi, and even some tasty gratuitous female nudity thanks to a scene that takes place in a strip club. The fact that legendary B-pic god Big Bill Smith's voice as the president was obviously dubbed by another actor who sounds absolutely nothing like Big Bill further adds to this flick's considerable cheeseball charm. Moreover, Cameron Mitchell contributes a hilariously cranky turn as the supremely irascible Captain Stills, who curses like an angry truck driver throughout and complains a lot about how he's on the cusp of collecting a full pension. An absolute craptastic hoot.
Boy, does this uproariously awful clunker possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: We've got ham-fisted (mis)direction by John Myhers (who also wrote the gloriously asinine script), ineptly staged action set pieces, the terrorists are all crude stereotypes (their ruthless leader who naturally has some kind of personal beef with Hack Stone is even named Abdul!), clumsy use of strenuous slow motion, pathetic (far from) special effects, a mechanically bouncy synthesizer score, plain cinematography, tin-eared dialogue ("Don't you worry about anything -- that Hack don't kill that easy"), lots of excessive and blatant product placement for Pepsi, and even some tasty gratuitous female nudity thanks to a scene that takes place in a strip club. The fact that legendary B-pic god Big Bill Smith's voice as the president was obviously dubbed by another actor who sounds absolutely nothing like Big Bill further adds to this flick's considerable cheeseball charm. Moreover, Cameron Mitchell contributes a hilariously cranky turn as the supremely irascible Captain Stills, who curses like an angry truck driver throughout and complains a lot about how he's on the cusp of collecting a full pension. An absolute craptastic hoot.