High Risk (1981) American Cinema/Action-Adventure-Comedy RT: 94 minutes Rated R (language, violence, drug use) Director: Stewart Raffill Screenplay: Stewart Raffill Music: Mark Snow Cinematography: Alex Phillips Jr. Release date: May 1981 (US) Cast: James Brolin, Anthony Quinn, Lindsay Wagner, Bruce Davison, Cleavon Little, Chick Vennera, James Coburn, Ernest Borgnine, Douglas Sandoval, David Young, Richard Young, Ana De Sade, Josephina Echinoa, Udana Power, Stephanie Faulkner. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
I suppose one way to beat inflation is to go to South America and rob a Colombian drug lord. That’s what four regular guys from California do in High Risk, an entertaining actioner from writer-director Stewart Raffill (The Ice Pirates) featuring a stellar cast. It’s one of the last titles to be released by American Cinema Releasing (Good Guys Wear Black, A Force of One) before they went under in ’81. It’s yet another older movie that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
Four friends- Stone (Brolin, Night of the Juggler), Tony (Vennera, Thank God It’s Friday), Dan (Davison, Willard) and Rockney (Little, Blazing Saddles)- tell everybody they’re going away for a weekend fishing trip. It’s only a cover. What they’re really doing is taking a plane to South America to rob drug lord Serrano (Coburn, The Magnificent Seven) of $5 million. You know what kind of movie you’re dealing with when one of the men parachutes from the plane holding a poodle that miraculously doesn’t get sucked from his hands.
Sneaking into Serrano’s supposedly well-guarded house isn’t a problem. Neither is forcing him to reveal his safe’s combination at gunpoint. The guys even manage to evade his men in the jungle. Getting back to the plane that will take them home proves to be a big problem. Tony and Rockney get captured by Serrano’s men and thrown into a jail cell by corrupt local police. Stone and Dan are unknowingly tracked by a gang of rebels led by Mariano (Quinn, The Guns of Navarone) who try to steal the money for themselves. That is, after they capture and tie up the Americans.
Most of High Risk centers on the guys’ efforts to escape their captors and make a clean getaway. Tony and Rockney ally themselves with Olivia (Wagner, Nighthawks), the woman in the adjacent cell who claims she was framed for her crime. At one point, the two men find themselves running half-naked through the village after a kid helps them break out of jail. It results in Little’s character boarding a bus dressed in women’s clothes. At the rebels’ campsite, Stone and Ben have to listen to Mariano explain how much worse his people have it and need the money more than rich Americans with houses, cars and food. It’s the closest High Risk comes to making a relevant point about the economic woes of the early 80s. Thank God for that. Why spoil the fun?
Some will invariably draw comparisons to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and while the two movies may be alike in theory, High Risk has nothing to say about the corrupting influence of greed. It would have been too easy to have the friends turn on each other for a bigger piece of the pie. No honor among thieves doesn’t really apply here since the four heroes aren’t career criminals. Sure, they commit a crime- several, in fact- but to them it’s just a weekend adventure albeit one with real bullets, real dangers and the real possibility of dying.
RIDDLE TIME! What does High Risk have in common with The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Geese? They all have cool all-star casts! This one has a nice line-up that also includes Ernest Borgnine (Escape from New York) as Clint, the gun seller who hooks up Stone and his buddies with some serious hardware. He has only one scene, but it’s enough to up the movie’s cool factor a few points. He’s one of three Oscar winners in the cast (he got it for Marty), the others being Coburn (Affliction) and two-timer Quinn (Viva Zapata and Lust for Life). Also, Davison was nominated for Longtime Companion. He’s good as Dan, a guy with doubts about what they’re doing and why. The whole cast does a fine job with Brolin bringing plenty of macho to his character. Little adds a nice amount of humor. As the only significant female character, Wagner more than holds her own against the guys.
High Risk has plenty of exciting action and thrilling adventure. It has shoot-outs, chases, escapes and one awesome sequence that finds two of the guys hanging from a rope bridge high above a raging, rocky river. It moves at a quick pace. And it has a poodle too. I guess I should explain. The guys bring her along to distract the guard dogs at Serrano’s house. Prostituting an innocent little dog, can you beat that? SPOLIER ALERT! She makes it to the end unharmed.
In any event, High Risk is a forgotten gem. I remember Gene Siskel raving about it on Sneak Previews at the time of its release. I finally got to watch it in fall ’85 when we rented it for Pop Pop from The Video Den. I’ve seen it a few times over the years and always enjoy it. It’s not a bad way to kill a dull weeknight during rerun season.
