{"id":4045,"date":"2024-09-14T16:50:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T16:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4045"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:57:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:57:08","slug":"blind-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/14\/blind-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind Fury"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Blind Fury <\/strong>(1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Action-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Phillip Noyce\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Robert Carner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J. Peter Robinson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Don Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 16, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rutger Hauer, Terry O\u2019Quinn (as Terrance O\u2019Quinn), Lisa Blount, Brandon Call, Randall \u201cTex\u201d Cobb, Noble Willingham, Meg Foster, Nick Cassavetes, Rick Overton, Charles Cooper, Sho Kosugi.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $2.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I do not understand why Blind Fury <\/strong>didn\u2019t get a wider release. It only played at 353 theaters when it opened on March 16, 1990, the same weekend as the infamous Lambada movie dance-off- The Forbidden Dance (637 theaters) vs. Lambada (1117 theaters). It didn\u2019t play at a single cinema here in Philadelphia. I was bummed because I really wanted to see it. The trailer was cool. Keep in mind that in 1990, you still had to go the cinema to see trailers; you couldn\u2019t just look them up on YouTube like you can today. I saw the trailer a couple of times before its scheduled release date came and went. I had to wait until it came out on video later that summer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Aussie filmmaker Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm, Patriot Games), Blind Fury<\/strong> stars Rutger Hauer (The Hitcher) as Nick Parker, a blind Vietnam vet who also happens to be an expert swordsman. He was blinded in a mortar explosion and probably would have died if he wasn\u2019t rescued by local villagers. It\u2019s there where he learned how to handle a sword without the aid of sight. His training mainly consists of slicing melons in mid-air. If he can do that to produce, imagine what he can do to bad guys.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Twenty years later, Nick makes his way to Florida where he hopes to find his old war buddy Frank (O\u2019Quinn, The Stepfather). He finds the right house, but his friend doesn\u2019t live there anymore. Instead, he meets Frank\u2019s ex-wife Lynn (Foster, They Live) and young son Billy (Call, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane). He\u2019s told that his old pal now lives in Reno. That\u2019s about all the socializing they get to do before trouble comes knocking at the door in form of a hulking thug named Slag (Cobb, Raising Arizona) and a pair of corrupt cops. They work for crime boss MacCready (Willingham, The Last Boy Scout) who\u2019s forcing Frank to manufacture drugs to pay off a huge gambling debt. The plan is to hold Frank\u2019s family hostage in order to ensure his compliance. He didn\u2019t count on Nick Parker.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nick deals with the dirtbags, but not before Lynn is fatally shot. She makes him promise to take Billy to his father in Reno before dying. Now it\u2019s up to him to watch over and protect Billy until they reach their destination. Slag, the only surviving baddie from the Florida attack, is on their tail the whole time. At one point, he and a squad of gun-toting redneck goons pursue Billy and Nick through a cornfield. Rather, they go after Billy while Nick goes after them. Any way you slice it, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I like Blind Fury<\/strong> a lot. It\u2019s an action-comedy with plenty of both things, but it also has a heart. The part of the movie dealing with Nick and Billy is actually kind of sweet. Here\u2019s a blind guy who\u2019s presumably been on his own since returning home from Vietnam. He can take care of himself just fine, but deep down he misses that human connection we all need even if we think we don\u2019t. Then we have Billy, a kid who\u2019s been without a father for a while. Initially, he\u2019s an insufferable little brat who thinks it\u2019s funny to flip off a blind man, the same one he has to rely on after his mother is killed. The bond that develops between the two is nice. Nick comes to really care about the boy and vice versa. At the end when they have to part ways, Billy\u2019s reaction resembles the final scene of Shane with him calling out to Nick after he loses sight of him. To his credit, Noyce never lets Blind Fury<\/strong> get too maudlin. He injects the right amount of sap.<\/p>\n

\u00a0WOW! What a cast! The late Hauer was always an amazing actor. He carries Blind Fury<\/strong> quite well, but it wouldn\u2019t have been as great if not for an awesome supporting cast. The late Lisa Blount (Prince of Darkness) plays Annie, a casino cocktail waitress who\u2019s romantically involved with Frank. She\u2019s a big help to Nick. Cobb is one of my favorite character actors. He\u2019s a rough and tough type with a sense of humor about himself. He\u2019s perfect as the main henchman, one of those hard to kill types that keeping coming for the hero. Willingham is a great bad guy. Nick Cassavetes (The Wraith) and Rick Overton (Beverly Hills Cop) play a couple of dimwitted thugs hired to bring the boy to their boss. They\u2019re funny. Sho Kosugi of Cannon\u2019s Ninja Trilogy shows up near the end as an assassin brought in to deal with Nick. Their fight is AWESOME!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Loosely based on Zatoichi Challenged (about the blind swordsman Zatoichi), Blind Fury<\/strong> is a fun, cartoonish, martial arts actioner with a simple plot and nicely staged action scenes. The best part is a car chase through the streets of Reno. One of the vehicles is driven by….. yep, you guessed it, Nick. At one point, the driver of the car next to him asks, \u201cAre you blind?\u201d to which Nick replies, \u201cYeah. What\u2019s your excuse?\u201d Now that\u2019s funny!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Blind Fury<\/strong> isn\u2019t perfect. It\u2019s a bit choppy and Noyce struggles to find the right balance of action, comedy and heartwarming drama. It\u2019s too silly to be taken seriously as an action flick and too violent to be a flat-out comedy. Yet it somehow works out just right in the end. I had a blast revisiting this flick after more than 30 years. It\u2019s fun and the fun doesn\u2019t feel forced. That\u2019s a big plus right there.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Blind Fury (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Action-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Phillip Noyce\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Charles Robert Carner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J. Peter Robinson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Don Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 16, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rutger Hauer, Terry O\u2019Quinn (as Terrance O\u2019Quinn), Lisa Blount, Brandon Call, Randall \u201cTex\u201d Cobb, Noble Willingham, Meg Foster, Nick Cassavetes, Rick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-hidden-treasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Blind-Fury-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4565,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions\/4565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}