An Eye for an Eye (1981) AVCO Embassy Pictures/Action RT: 106 minutes Rated R (language, violence, drugs) Director: Steve Carver Screenplay: James Bruner and William Gray Music: William Goldstein Cinematography: Roger Shearman Release date: August 14, 1981 (US) Cast: Chuck Norris, Christopher Lee, Richard Roundtree, Mako, Matt Clark, Maggie Cooper, Rosalind Chao, Professor Toru Tanaka, Terry Kiser, Stuart Pankin, Mel Novak. Box Office: $7.4M (US)
Rating: ***
An Eye for an Eye is your standard kung fu cop movie in which Chuck Norris tries to bust up the drug ring responsible for the murder of his partner. There’s nothing really outstanding about it, but it’s still reasonably entertaining, even if it is entirely predictable.
Norris (Missing in Action) plays Sean Kane, an undercover San Francisco narcotics cop whose partner Dave Pierce (Kiser, Weekend at Bernie’s) is killed after a drug buy goes horribly wrong. Kane’s commanding officer Captain Stevens (Roundtree, Shaft) blames him for the mess, so Kane quits the force and goes looking for the people responsible for his partner’s death. Things get worse when Pierce’s girlfriend Linda Chan (Chao, The Joy Luck Club), an investigative reporter doing an expose on San Francisco’s drug trade, is pursued by a group of thugs looking to retrieve evidence that could implicate the ones running the ring. They catch up to her and kill her.
Kane jump-kicks into loose cannon mode as he tries to get to the bottom of the situation without help from his former employers. Linda’s father James (Mako, Conan The Barbarian) and her friend/co-worker Heather (Cooper, Falcon Crest) get involved in helping Kane track down the bad guys and destroy the drug ring for good. You see, I told you it’s not much different from any other cop movie released in the 80s.
Is there a corrupt cop involved in the ring? You bet your sweet bippy there is! And I think that the viewer will identify the dirty cop pretty early on, before the script reveals this aspect of the plot. Is the drug ring run by somebody really powerful? Of course. You’ll be able to figure that out by process of elimination. Will Kane and Heather get romantically involved? What do you think? Does it end with a huge shoot out where lots of hoods in suits get killed? It certainly does! Director Steve Carver (Lone Wolf McQuade) never deviates from formula; it’s an action movie as by the book as Norris’ cop isn’t.
An Eye for an Eye still manages to be entertaining despite its refusal to deviate from formula. Norris gets to use his superior martial arts skills a lot, but the money scene is when he takes on an extremely large and seemingly indestructible henchman called The Professor (Tanaka, The Running Man). This man is so huge [HOW HUGE IS HE?!] he could use a tree trunk for a toothpick. He can break through any wall or door without effort. He also appears not to feel pain. However, these kung up cop movies always have some enormous bad guy who will eventually face off against the hero. It’s a great fight, but it’s a foregone conclusion who will win.
An Eye for an Eye has some well-mounted action scenes; unfortunately, most of them are shot in darkness rendering the action hard to see. Norris is a pretty one-note actor. He doesn’t really emote that much except for when he’s training with his punching bag. He keeps flashing back to his partner’s murder. You can tell that he’s POed because he keeps punching the bag harder and harder. Hammer horror vet Lee (The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula) makes an interesting addition to the cast as the owner of the television station who tells Kane that he will do anything to help solve Linda’s murder. That’s a BIG red flag right there. Roundtree is always good. He’s perfect as the grouchy commanding officer who disapproves of Kane’s methods. Mako fights very well, but his dialogue sounds like it came straight from fortune cookies at the local Chinese restaurant.
Okay, so An Eye for an Eye will never be recognized as superior action cinema, but it’s not horrible either. It’s just about what you’d expect from the genre. I like the score by William Goldstein; it sounds just like the generic music you would hear in a cop show from the 70s. The music lends a sense of nostalgia to the proceedings. It reminds the viewer of a time when cop movies were supposed to be entertaining throwaway stories, not the big, loud noisefests that get made today. An Eye for an Eye is a more than decent flick even if it does run a bit longer than it should. Get out the Coke and popcorn, guys!
