Delivery Boys (1985) New World/Comedy-Musical RT: 92 minutes Rated R (language, crude/sexual humor, nudity) Director: Ken Handler Screenplay: Ken Handler Music: Ken Handler Cinematography: Larry Revene Release date: April 1985 (US) Cast: Josh Marcano, Tom Sierchio, Jim Soriero, Nelson Vasquez, Yayo Gonzalez, Sammy Luquis, Richie Pineiro, George Ovalle, Rodney Harvey, Deckard Fontanes, Jody Oliver, Mario Van Peebles, Naylon Mitchell, Ralph Cole Jr., Lisa Vidal, Kelly Nichols, Jerome Bynder, Boy, Kuno Sponholz, Frank Canzano, Anthony Mateo, Veronica Hart, Scott Baker, Samantha Fox, Yvonne Edelhardt, Galli Horacio, Jo-Ann Marshall, Naima Eriksen, Charlie “Rock” Jimenez, A. Bobby Fields. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
Most movie geeks are familiar with Body Rock, the 1984 breakdance movie from New World Pictures, a low-budget studio that never passed up an opportunity to follow up a popular major movie with a cheap knock-off of their own, Breakin’ and Beat Street in this case. HOWEVER, few know that New World threw their hat into the ring a second time with Delivery Boys, an even cheesier flick with an added ingredient, crude R-rated humor. It’s a breakdance musical-comedy with a dirty mind courtesy of executive producer Chuck Vincent, a filmmaker who does both kinds of dirty movies, hardcore (Roommates) and softcore (Hollywood Hot Tubs).
I don’t recall Delivery Boys getting any kind of theatrical release. I didn’t even hear of it until I saw the box on the shelf while browsing through a video store where I wasn’t a member. It wasn’t available at the Video Den. I didn’t get to watch it until it aired on cable in summer ’86. I tuned in expecting a straight-up breakdance movie. That’s NOT what I got. It was more like one of those naughty sexploitation comedies that regularly aired on late night Skinemax. I didn’t make the Chuck Vincent connection at the time. If I had, I wouldn’t have been taken so aback.
I wasn’t surprised by the quality of the movie however. Delivery Boys is a bad movie. It’s bad on so many levels. It’s badly made, badly acted and badly directed. Although there’s plenty of blame to go around, the criminal mastermind behind this cinematic felony is writer-director Ken Handler whose main claim to fame has nothing to do with film. His parents invented the Barbie line of dolls and toys. The Ken doll is named for him. Based on the evidence captured on grainy film, he should have taken over the family business instead of wasting his time on making movies. Delivery Boys makes Body Rock look like Singin’ in the Rain. It’s that level of badness that makes me a fan.
The plot centers on a NYC dance crew called “Delivery Boys” because their three best guys- Max (Marcano), Joey (Sierchio) and Conrad (Soriero)- work at a pizza joint as guess what. They’re prepping for a big dance contest with a first prize of $10,000 courtesy of the sponsor, a woman’s underwear company. They have a real shot at winning which worries rival dance crew leader Spider (Peebles, Exterminator 2) enough to intimidate the boys’ boss Angelina (Oliver) into keeping them busy so they miss the contest. He backs up his threat by showing her the shrunken heads and ding-dongs of the crew that beat his Devil Dogs the year before.
So it is the trio of pizza delivery boys get stuck with some truly strange customers. Max is seduced and held hostage by a promiscuous girl (Nichols) with a vicious guard dog (Boy) outside her bedroom door. Conrad, a rich kid posing as a poor one, is subjected to weird medical experiments by two mad doctors at a hospital. Whatever they inject him with leaves him with a huge erection. Joey goes to an art gallery where the mad artist (Matteo) forces him to be a human statue after one of Spider’s dumb goons causes him to break an expensive piece of work. Will the guys get to the contest on time? If you have to think about it for even a second, you’ve obviously never seen ANY movie EVER.
If it’s drama you seek, you’d better look elsewhere. The one dramatic arc in Delivery Boys involves Max’s older brother Izzie (Vasquez), a former crew member who quit for unexplained reasons and won’t dance again. It’s introduced only to be dropped early not to be picked up again until the finale when…. well, I think you can guess what happens here.
Delivery Boys is an odd duck for sure. It’s ostensibly a breakdance picture, but the only dancing we see is in the opening titles sequence and the finale. The dancing itself is fine, but it’s nothing spectacular. The real problem is none of these guys can act. The cast is primarily made up of unknowns that stayed unknown. There’s no discernible talent on display here. Oliver is especially annoying as the guys’ boss. That voice, YIKES! I recognized two of the actors, Mario Van Peebles and the late Rodney Harvey of the 1988 Cannon musical drama Salsa. If you’re into porn, you’ll spot adult film actresses Veronica Hart and Samantha Fox in brief, fully clothed cameos as art patrons.
If I had to single out the worst performance in Delivery Boys, it would be Mario. His character Spider, a lame-brained, grill-wearing, voodoo-practicing wannabe thug with a faux Jamaican accent, is a joke and a bad one at that. He’s never without his two henchmen whose vocabulary appears to consist solely of uttering “S***!” in unison whenever their boss says something that requires a response. When viewed through the prism of the 21st century, this aspect of Delivery Boys could be seen as offensive, an argument supported by the two goons getting clobbered with watermelons in the finale.
Most of the screen time is devoted to the nutty situations the protagonists find themselves in thanks to their boss. This is where the comedy enters into the equation. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I laughed at Delivery Boys more than I should have. I couldn’t help it; it’s just so silly and wrong. Max tries to escape his predicament by dressing in drag only to be waylaid by the girl’s perverted dad (Bynder) who tries to seduce him/her by way of a glory hole between his “playroom” and the maid’s room. Here’s my question. Why doesn’t Max just look for his own clothes instead of getting all dolled up? He goes all out. He even puts on earrings, heels and a long blonde wig! There aren’t too many places the crazy girl could have hidden his clothes in the confines of her bedroom.
Meanwhile, Conrad can’t get rid of his boner (which he hides with a pizza box) until he encounters a female passenger on a crowded, standing-room-only bus. Oh, the things that can happen when you stand too close to a stranger. Joey’s mother shows up at the art exhibit and immediately recognizes her son’s derriere. That’s after he relieves himself in a few champagne glasses. Of course, they end up in the hands of a couple of snooty patrons.
One of the best things about Delivery Boys is the out-of-nowhere coda in which star Josh Marcano belts out the power ballad “Ain’t No Place to Go But Higher” while sitting around a blazing fire with his friends on a rooftop. It’s a nice song, but it’s just so random. The soundtrack, which has never been released as far as I know, is okay. It has a few good songs, but the generic hip-hop played during the dance scenes is a bummer.
Delivery Boys is shabby looking and clumsily edited. Scenes are assembled haphazardly. Gags stop for songs and songs stop for no reason at all. It positively reeks of amateurism. It’s a low point even for New World. It’s so bad, it’s GREAT! What, too much? What about good? Yeah, that’s more like it. For all its sheer awfulness, I enjoyed Delivery Boys, mainly as a relic of 80s-era urban life when teens danced on street corners to hip-hop music emanating from large ghetto blasters. It’s also a relic of a time when bad low-budget movies got made with the reasonable expectation of theatrical release. Alas, it didn’t happen for Delivery Boys, at least I don’t think it did, but it still found its way into my bad movie-loving heart.
