{"id":6966,"date":"2024-10-25T11:23:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6966"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:23:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:23:58","slug":"mcbain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/mcbain\/","title":{"rendered":"McBain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"McBain<\/strong> (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SGE\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong war violence, language, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Glickenhaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Glickenhaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Christopher Franke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert M. Baldwin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 1992 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Christopher Walken, Maria Conchita Alonso, Michael Ironside, Steve James,\u00a0 Jay Patterson, Thomas G. Waites (as \u201cT. G. Waites\u201d), Victor Argo, Hechter Ubarry, Russell Dennis Baker, Chick Vennera, Nigel Redding, Luis Guzman, Karen Duffy, James Glickenhaus.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $456,127 (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0CHRISTOPHER WALKEN IS McBain<\/strong>! It has a nice ring to it, don\u2019t you think? It would have made a good tagline, not that the one on the poster isn\u2019t effective- \u201cHe fought one war. Now he\u2019s fighting another. This time he won\u2019t lose.\u201d Sure, it\u2019s cliched, but isn\u2019t that part of the fun of 80s\/90s action flicks about Vietnam vets taking the law into their own hands when pushed too far? In this case, it\u2019s the murder of a friend by a South American dictator that sets off the eponymous war vet played by Christopher Walken (The Dogs of War). Only he doesn\u2019t do it alone; he gathers his old platoon to aid him in his mission of justice and revenge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0McBain owes his life to Roberto Santos (Vennera, High Risk) for rescuing him from a POW camp in the final days of the war. It\u2019s a debt he promises to honor should he ever receive the other half of the torn $100 bill given to him by Santos. Now a freedom fighter in Colombia, Santos and his small army attempt to overthrow Presidente Mendoza (Argo, Taxi Driver), a brutal leader heavily involved in his country\u2019s drug trade. He keeps everybody hooked on coca leaves (used to make cocaine) to guarantee their non-resistance. Mendoza\u2019s army helps him gain the upper hand and he executes Santos on the spot. McBain sees it on TV back in New York so he isn\u2019t surprised when his late friend\u2019s sister Maria (Alonso, Predator 2) shows up asking for help.<\/p>\n

\u00a0McBain, in turn, reunites his old squad- Eastland (James, American Ninja), Gill (Waites, The Thing) and Dalton (Patterson, Street Smart)- who are only too willing to join him on his mission. Their other comrade, wealthy weapons dealer Frank (Ironside, Total Recall), isn\u2019t so eager. He can get them what they need for only $10 million (oh, is that all?!), but wants no further involvement. In order to get the needed funds, the foursome first tries robbing a crack house before shifting their attention to a mob boss who they kidnap and dangle from a crane high over the ground below until he agrees to pay them off in the amount they\u2019re after. McBain and company not only get their arsenal and transport (a plane), they also get Frank who\u2019s changed his mind about helping them. Well, you knew that would happen, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is where the action really kicks in. After a US military pilot Daly (Baker, True Colors) helps the guys take on a couple of fighter planes, they land in Colombia where Maria has already begun a ground assault on a coca plant field. It\u2019s all out war as McBain and his squad make their way to the Presidential palace in Bogota to get Mendoza and help Maria free the people. I didn\u2019t get an accurate body count, but I think it\u2019s bigger than the average Rambo movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What really compelled me to see McBain<\/strong> when it came out was James Glickenhaus, that purveyor of violence behind grindhouse classics like The Exterminator and The Soldier. He writes and directs McBain<\/strong> with the same storytelling care as his previous efforts. That is to say, he\u2019s not the strongest storyteller in the world. His screenplays are generally filled with plot holes. Take Maria\u2019s trip to America and back home. We never see her cross the border either way. How does she manage it? Also, how can she afford it? Right before she leaves, she collects a few dollars and trinkets from her fellow villagers to fund her efforts. It\u2019s barely enough to buy dinner at a fast food joint.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then there\u2019s the believability factor. I know that plausibility isn\u2019t exactly a priority in dopey action movies, but McBain<\/strong> borders on ridiculous. To call Glickenhaus\u2019 films implausible would be a gross understatement. Look at the stuff the heroes get away with here. They raid a crack house with guns blazing. Many gang members get shot; one guy goes out a window and lands on top of a parked car. Where are the police during all this? They kidnap a major crime figure with alarming ease. Nobody comes looking for them, not cops or mobsters. And how do they manage to get to the top of a tall building under construction and operate machinery without attracting attention? Then, of course, there the whole idea of six Americans- at one point, they refer to themselves as \u201cThe Dirty Half Dozen\u201d- staging a coup in a foreign country without the CIA knowing about it first. It makes no sense since they\u2019re usually right on top of such things in Glickenhaus\u2019 movies. Look how quickly they dealt with the vigilante situation in The Exterminator. It may not sound like it, but I really do enjoy the filmmaker\u2019s work, narrative deficiencies and all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Walken is a good leading man, we already know that. He\u2019s a good actor in general. He can also sing and dance, two skills not on display in McBain<\/strong>. What is on display is his bad assery. He makes a solid action hero. Hey, he\u2019s McBain! He doesn\u2019t do it alone however. He\u2019s helped by a cool supporting cast that includes the late, great Steve James, Ironside in a rare good guy role and Alonso who trades in sexy for tough as Maria. Waites and Patterson are also good. Argo makes a truly despicable villain. It\u2019s one of the baddest casts I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When McBain<\/strong> hit theaters in early \u201992, cheap exploitation movies were being transitioned from theaters to video stores. It\u2019s the last Glickenhaus movie that played in theaters. He made two more films, Slaughter of the Innocents (1993) and Timemaster (1995), before hanging it up as a director. I\u2019d like to see him make a comeback someday. As for McBain<\/strong>, I like it. It\u2019s a neat Saturday night action flick. It has plenty of action and violence. It\u2019s pure silliness, but how is that different from any other B-level actioner?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McBain (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SGE\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong war violence, language, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Glickenhaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Glickenhaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Christopher Franke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert M. Baldwin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 1992 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Christopher Walken, Maria Conchita Alonso, Michael Ironside, Steve James,\u00a0 Jay Patterson, Thomas G. Waites (as \u201cT. G. Waites\u201d), Victor Argo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/McBain-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\/6966","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=6966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7246,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966\/revisions\/7246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}