When CHiPs originally aired (from 1977 to 1983), it was clear early on that
co-star Erik Estrada was the
lynchpin around which this televisual universe spun. His Frank “Ponch” Poncherello was a
swaggering ladies’ man who was adept at his job but also wasn’t above being
taken down a peg when he acted like an ass (which was at least once per
episode). Contrasted against his
straitlaced (nay, torpid) partner, Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox), it’s little wonder why Estrada garnered the majority of the popularity from the show. He had charisma and looks (including a smile
usually reserved only for grade school class photos), and sometimes that’s
enough. Of course, part of CHiPs’ fame also rested on the fact that
it showcased some truly beautiful ladies being beautiful in tight uniforms,
like Randi Oakes and Brianne Leary, and sometimes that’s
enough, too. Add to this the comedic
relief stylings of Grossman (Paul Linke)
and Harlan Arliss (Lou Wagner), and
you get a recipe for success. But television
series don’t last forever, and Estrada rode
his popularity as far as he could, appearing in a slew of direct-to-video films
that varied in quality from middling to piss-poor. He also gave a great turn as Marco Rodrigo
Diaz de Vivar Diego Garcia Marquez on the animated Sealab 2021, prominently displaying his funny bone (though
honestly, the show was only good up until the fantastic Harry Goz passed away, in my opinion). So, where does Enzo G. Castellari’s Light
Blast (aka Colpi Di Luce aka Neonkiller), a film which I believe
actually had a theatrical release (but I’m not one hundred percent on that) fit
on the Estrada spectrum? I’d say it sits at the higher end of the
curve, but it’s still not very good, and I believe that Estrada himself has very little to do with its quality, regardless.
A randy couple are melted (in
imitation of the Nazis being melted at the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark) during Yuri Svoboda’s (Ennio Girolami) testing of his new light-based
superweapon. Cut to: Detective Ron
Warren (Estrada) taking out a couple
of bank robbers wearing nothing but his gotchies and a turkey (with fries on
the side). Ron and his partner, Curtis
Swann (Michael Pritchard, in the Jon
Baker/Grossman role), are assigned to track down Yuri and his goons after the
physicist (NOT a physician as stated on IMDb) threatens to destroy San
Francisco if he’s not paid five million dollars (and then ten million, and then
twenty million).
Light Blast is very much a conservative film in how it views the
world, particularly with regards to the criminal element. This is underscored in the sequence of Ron’s
introduction. The bank robbers are
filthy scumbags, cackling with glee at their vicious misdeeds. They even shoot a hostage in the back a few
times just for kicks (and to make the audience detest them all the more). An older woman watching this goes positively bloodthirsty,
demanding that the cops murder the bad guys outright. Naturally, Ron is happy to oblige, taking out
the robbers and stating, “It’s maggots like you that make me like my job.” Crime is not to be tolerated, and its
perpetrators cannot be allowed to live (one has to wonder how Ron would deal
with, say, a jaywalker?). This is a
black and white world, populated with black and white characters. The film this most resembles in this respect
(or at least the one I kept referencing in my mind) is Cobra which opens in a similar fashion (and to be fair, a great
many films of this ilk contain prologue/hero intro scenes in this vein), but
was released the following year. Could
it be that for once the Italian film industry were leaders rather than copycats? Well, no, not really, since Light Blast’s attitude towards criminals
is an extension of films like the Death
Wish and Dirty Harry franchises,
and certainly there were other films in between with a similar outlook
(typically with a vigilante hero rather than a cop, but the two quickly
intermingled and became a third thing), but the Light Blast/Cobra
comparison really sticks out to me.
Further to this is the idea that
Ron is a man for whom his job is his life (killing’s his business, and business
is fine). Sure, we’re given a few token
scenes of “domestic” life with his girlfriend Jack (Peggy Rowe), but they are totally joyless. There is absolutely no chemistry between
these two characters, and Jack is essentially an expositional tool and a motive
for vengeance only. In the middle of a
miserable dinner, Jack races to the phone when it rings and then jets out when
work comes a-calling. He gets more
excited investigating a crime scene than he does spending time with his lady
friend. Ron is so myopically intent on
taking out bad guys, he neither blinks nor shows any sense of loss when his
colleagues are killed or hurt (actually, he is further encouraged to go on the
warpath by a wounded co-worker [“get those son of a bitches”]; Ron’s
sensibility is the only correct one). He
doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on an adversary. He has no compunction about using innocent
bystanders to aid him in tailing one of Yuri’s henchmen rather than using the
skills we assume he should possess as a police officer. He is a sociopath, a characteristic remarked
upon explicitly by Yuri, who claims that he admires Ron’s “cold
efficiency.” And that’s coming from a
guy who liquefies human beings for a living.
This brings us to the character
of Yuri himself, an equally forbidding character and the one interesting
concept in the film. Yuri is a pure
comic book supervillain. He employs a
super-science weapon to hold power over the masses (the fact that it only
affects people in proximity to liquid crystal display time pieces is a flaw, to
be sure). He has numerous henchmen, a
notion I’ve always simultaneously loved and questioned, because for how
marvelous it would be to have them, the practicalities of recruitment and
retention make them extremely implausible (so let’s just take them on face
value). He has an underground lair in an
unusual location. But most of all, he
believes that he’s doing all of this horrible stuff with the noblest of
intentions driven by a personal tragedy.
Yuri understands that “money buys power,” and that his invention will
make him “more powerful than God” (assuming God wears a digital watch; most
likely a Casio Databank). Nevertheless,
he declares that his ultimate goal is world peace, might making right and all
that. He is a monster with a cause, just
like Ron. The only difference is that
Yuri is indiscriminate in his choice of victims, while Ron is only slightly
more discerning.
MVT: The film’s action
sequences stand out for being both multitudinous and well-executed. They are the glue binding the film together, but
I think they ultimately struggle to do so because the non-action scenes are so
incredibly hollow, it makes sitting in one spot in anticipation of the next car
chase/shootout/et cetera something of a chore.
Unless you enjoy reaction shots without reactions.
Make or Break: The first
body melt piqued my interest, and Castellari
doesn’t shy away from the gore. If only
there had been just a few more of them.
Score: 5.75/10
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