I’m not competitive by
nature. I never have been. Even the times I have played sports, I really
couldn’t have given a crap whether or not my team won. Maybe that’s why we so rarely did. I always tried to have a sense of good
sportsmanship regardless of wins or losses.
I have noticed, however, that this isn’t the predominant disposition (or
it is the one given the least attention in the press and so on). I can’t fathom being reduced to a
teeth-gnashing, froth-mouthed ball of rage with regards to overpaid grown men who are more adept at running,
throwing, hitting, kicking, whatever than others. Am I being a little reductive about
this? Yes, I am, but all I have is my own
experiences and observations, so read that however you find comforting.
I don’t think this applies to all
athletes or sports fans, obviously.
Nothing applies across the board when it comes to personalities, and
there are people who treat games with the proper level of seriousness they
deserve. But this isn’t what we’re shown
on television and in newspapers (what are those?). We’re shown the absolute worst in human
nature with the fans that beat up the fans of the opposing team. We’re shown the riots that break out after
the home team wins or loses a big game. Naturally,
this implicates the media, and they are deserving of some of the blame, no
doubt. It’s only when they have space or
need to fill a couple minutes on a slow news night that we hear about the
players or fans who do good things like visit children in hospitals, raise
money for charities, and so forth. What
was my point again? Oh, yeah. I’d have probably been killed in the first
episode of the titular Endgame depicted
in Joe D’Amato’s film. Then again, maybe I’d have become as skilled
at it as Karnak (George Eastman,
whose vest I would like to have). But it’s
doubtful.
In the year 2025, after the big
nuclear holocaust everyone expected to happen back in the Eighties actually
did, the human population have taken to losing themselves in a television show
titled Endgame which depicts people
hunting and killing each other and taking Life Plus energy tablets (which have
the stench of Soylent Green about them).
Tops in the game is Ron Shannon (Al
Cliver), who recently defeated erstwhile buddy and fellow player
Karnak. Shannon is offered lots and lots
of gold by Lilith (Laura Gemser) to
deliver some mutants (including the young Tommy [Christopher Walsh] who is suggested to be a little more important
than the others) to a designated spot in the wastelands by December 25th. Being the callous, shallow prick he is,
Shannon agrees and assembles his team.
The first part of the film (and
surprisingly enough, only a short portion of it) is concerned with the
games. Coming four year before The Running Man (the film, not the
novella), this blocks out the basics of that film on the budget of a cup of
espresso. You have the colorful
characters that have to be defeated, each with a refined skill set (one has
swift reflexes, one is George Eastman,
and so on). They are personality-less,
but that’s okay, because we only need to deal with them on a very
surface/spectacle level. It mirrors
video games, where you battle through each level and have to beat a Level Boss
who has unique powers/patterns of behavior.
What is important is that they look visually interesting (and they
mostly do here) and that they die well (or are simply defeated). The same applies to the team Shannon gathers
to assist him in his trek, which consists of a strongman, a martial artist, a
one-eyed gunslinger, etcetera.
Of course, also like Paul Michael Glaser’s film, we have the
commentary on consumerism and on the television culture which has all but
overtaken modern society (and if they had the internet back when this film was
produced in 1983, it could have been really interesting). This isn’t new by any stretch, but I find humanity’s
endless capacity to indulge their morbid curiosity to be one of the more
fascinating themes in art. Thus, these
aspects appealed to me on a gut level.
We also get the idea of revolutionaries (or in this case, mutants) who
are working against their oppressive society to be free, although here, their
goal is freedom from persecution rather than the exposure of any of the
government’s dirty dealings and such.
This persecution is very clearly
delineated in the film as being racial.
The mutants are a stand-in for the Jews, and the military troops are
bluntly dressed as Nazi stormtroopers, right down to the “SS” insignia on their
uniforms (though here it stands for “Security Services;” oh so clever). Oddly, Colonel Morgan (Gordon Mitchell) is dressed more like a Soviet Russian officer, so it
mixes its tyrants, but I suppose you can’t have it all. The quest away from discrimination can also
be viewed from a biblical perspective, with Shannon playing Moses leading the
Hebrews out of Egypt. Tommy, then, is an
analog for Jesus Christ, though when he uses his powers it is interestingly for
mass destruction rather than peace (though you could argue just as hard that
this destruction is the only way they can find it). If you like, you can read that last statement
as religion (specifically Christianity) on the whole, but either way, the
religious aspects to the film are unmistakable.
Nonetheless, since this is an
Italian genre film, the waters have to be muddied just enough give the viewer
pause. Consequently, we get the other
mutants, the ones who have been living in the badlands. These are physically deformed to look like
mermen, apemen, and the like. They also
behave more like Lord Humungus’s raiding hordes from The Road Warrior than they do like the nice mutants here. This distinction is important, because it
draws a line between good mutants and bad, and the line is limned in
appearances. Were the bad mutants not
ugly to behold, would they be bad guys?
Most likely not, but you never can tell.
Yet this shows a certain shallowness (yeah, I know) in the story. We can infer that they have to act this way
in order to survive in the hostile environment into which they were born, but
that there is no sense that there could ever be solidarity between the ugly and
normal mutants struck me as odd. Like its
mutant characters, the film is a hodgepodge, and it meanders about quite a bit,
and it is contrived as all hell, but it’s never boring, and, in fact, is a
downright blast for much of the runtime.
That goes a long way in smoothing over some of the more painful moments.
MVT: Eastman
commands every scene he’s in, which is half due to his imposing, six-foot,
nine-inch presence and half due his acting opposite Cliver, one of the least emotive men in Italian cinema (though he
still has a charisma all his own somehow).
And did I mention that I really, really, REALLY want his vest from this
movie?
Make Or Break: The game show
opening to the film is everything you could want in a Pasta-pocalypse film and
then some. You have improbable
violence. You have even more improbable,
KISS-inspired facial makeup. You have
decimated locales. You have the greatest
leather vest in the history of cinema.
There’s really nothing here about which one can complain.
Score: 7.5/10
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