L.A. Bounty (1989) I.V.E./Action RT: 85 minutes Rated R (violence, nudity, language, drugs) Director: Worth Keeter Screenplay: Sybil Danning and Michael W. Leighton Music: Howard Leese and Sterling Cinematography: Gary Graver Release date: August 10, 1989 (US) Cast: Sybil Danning, Wings Hauser, Henry Darrow, Leonore Kasdorf, Robert Hanley, Van Quattro, Frank Doubleday, Bob Minor, J. Christopher Sullivan, Tegan West, Max Wasa (as Maxine Wasa), Blackie Dammett, Robert Quarry, Frazer Smith, Craig Hamann, Branscombe Richmond. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
The straight-to-video actioner L.A. Bounty is something of a treasure trove for lovers of cinematic junk. It has a bevy of B-movie stars led by the power duo of Sybil Danning (Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf) and Wings Hauser (Vice Squad) as heroine and villain respectively. It also has Henry Darrow (The Hitcher), Leonore Kasdorf (Missing in Action), Bob Minor (Foxy Brown), Robert Quarry (Count Yorga), Blackie Dammett (9 Deaths of the Ninja), Max Wasa (Scarface) and Branscombe Richmond (Hard to Kill). AND it has the late, great Frank Doubleday who made villainy an art form in films like Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York and Avenging Angel. Color me impressed by this lineup. The movie isn’t too bad either.
Maybe I ought to clarify that last statement. L.A. Bounty isn’t too bad for a cheap action movie that bypassed theaters where it no doubt would have played as the bottom half of a double bill with a bigger A-list title like Lethal Weapon 2, Next of Kin or Tango & Cash. I bypassed it a lot myself while perusing the shelves in the action movie section at West Coast Video. I didn’t realize at the time the bonanza of B-movie gold sitting right in front of me waiting to be unearthed. Fortunately, Tubi gave me the opportunity to correct this mistake.
Directed by Worth Keeter whose list of DTV cinematic achievements includes Trapper County War, Illicit Behavior and Snapdragon, L.A. Bounty stars Danning as Ruger, an ex-cop/bounty hunter going after the drug dealing scumbags that murdered her partner some years before. Their leader is one Timothy Cavanaugh (Hauser), a psycho who might very well be the result of mixing the DNA of Gary Busey and Willem Dafoe’s character from To Live and Die in L.A. Side note, am I the only one who notices he has the same name as one of the horny teens in Porky’s? ANYWAY, this guy is a purebred loon! He spends most of time painting something on a canvas while a sexy model (Wasa) poses half-nude for him. Quick, sound the boobie alert alarm!
Ruger jumps into action one night when Cavanaugh’s guys kidnap mayoral candidate Mike Rhodes (Hanley, Days of Our Lives) from his mansion. She appears and takes down two of the masked intruders while the rest of the gang absconds with the politician. Their boss is perturbed when he finds out the wife, ex-model Kelly (Kasdorf), saw the face of one of the kidnappers (Quattro, Silent Night, Deadly Night 5). This means she can give a description to the police. Therefore, she must die. Good thing it’s easy for bad guys to get around insignificant obstacles like round-the-clock police protection.
Naturally, the LAPD, represented here by Lt. Chandler (Darrow), is no help. They don’t know what Ruger knows, but why would she help them after they fired her from the force and let her partner’s killers walk? Now she’s on her own and free from police procedure; she’s going to get Cavanagh and his cohorts her way, to hell with their rights. She waits until they make a move on the wife which they do and that’s when she moves in for the kill, taking out two more dirtbags and taking the wife to….. well, not quite safety. Ruger has other plans for her. She plans to use her as a bargaining chip to get close to Cavanaugh so she can waste him. Of course, Kelly is nowhere close to down with this.
Cavanaugh may be crazy, but he’s no criminal mastermind. Somebody else is behind the kidnapping. He’s just the guy hired to do the dirty work. So who’s the bad guy behind the bad guy? Most people seem to think it’s the current mayor (Sullivan, Critters 2: The Main Course) looking to eliminate the competition. It’s not. WAIT! Before you break out the tar and feathers, this is so NOT a spoiler. You know as well as I do it’s never the obvious suspect. That’s Screenwriting 101. You also know there’s no way I’m going to tell you who orchestrated the crime. What I will tell you is that it’s easy to figure it out if you think about it a little. Remember, politics is a game if nothing else.
Sybil Danning is B-movie royalty with titles like Battle Beyond the Stars, Chained Heat, Hercules (the one with Lou Ferrigno), Jungle Warriors, Malibu Express, Reform School Girls and Warrior Queen under her belt. Who knew L.A. Bounty (which she also co-wrote) would be her last starring role? She sustained a serious back injury in 1990 while rehearsing a stunt for her next movie. It left her unable to do the things she used to do. She took a hiatus from acting until 2007 when she appeared in the faux Werewolf Women of the SS trailer in Grindhouse.
Sybil keeps her clothes on the entire time in L.A. Bounty which I’m sure will come as a great disappointment to those familiar with her body of work (see what I did there?). Who can ever forget the end credits of Howling II? Her one topless shot is shown 17 times! Sybil keeps her boobs under wraps this time. She’s in serious mode here playing a strong silent type action heroine. Like many of her male counterparts (e.g. Stallone in First Blood), she doesn’t have a lot to say. She speaks a grand total of 31 words throughout the film’s entire 85-minute running time. Then she goes on to show it’s true what they say about actions speaking louder than words. She’s a bad ass!
Hauser is always fun to watch. Nobody does crazy like he does. Have you seen Tough Guys Don’t Dance? No? Then surely you’ve seen Vice Squad? You have? Good. He’s so convincing in those roles, one might suspect he’s certifiable in real life too. He devours the scenery in L.A. Bounty as Cavanaugh, a loquacious psycho who typically punctuates his rambling monologues with bullets. Hauser steals every scene he’s in. He even outdoes Doubleday which is no easy feat. Don’t forget, he’s the same guy that shot a little girl (right through her ice cream cone!) in Assault on Precinct 13. Dammett and Richmond are only in it for one scene each, but it’s great to see them nonetheless. I only wish the ubiquitous Al Leong had shown up at some point.
There’s a fair amount of action in L.A. Bounty including one scene right out of a Clint Eastwood western. In it, Ruger shoots it out with five thugs on an old movie set. When she shoots somebody, she literally blows them away. The way they go flying backward is both cheesy and cool. The warehouse finale is also neat with Cavanaugh trying to fend off Ruger with flying explosives.
I’m not going to claim L.A. Bounty is some kind of lost B-movie classic. It’s NOT! It is, however, an entertaining little action flick that helps pass the time quite nicely on a dull Saturday night or afternoon if you prefer matinees. It’ll take you right back to the early 90s when visiting the local video store looking for something good to rent was a weekend ritual for some. Not all of the DTV titles were gold, but some were definitely worth the rental price.
