{"id":8166,"date":"2024-11-11T23:49:59","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8166"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:49:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:49:59","slug":"wanted-dead-or-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/wanted-dead-or-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanted: Dead or Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wanted: Dead or Alive<\/strong>\u00a0 (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World Pictures\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong graphic violence, terrorism, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gary Sherman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Patrick Goodman, Brian Taggert and Gary Sherman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Renzetti \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cinematography: Alex Nepomniaschy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 16, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Rutger Hauer, Gene Simmons, Robert Guillaume, Mel Harris, William Russ, Jerry Hardin, Hugh Gillin, Dennis Burkley, Robert Harper, Eli Danker, Joseph Nasser, Suzanne Wouk, Gerald Papasyan, Nick Faltas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $7.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>:\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\u00a0The hero of Wanted: Dead or Alive<\/strong> is Nick Randall (Hauer, Nighthawks) the great-grandson of Josh Randall, the hero of the 1958 TV series of the same name. Nick is an ex-CIA agent\/bounty hunter in L.A. content with receiving large sums of money for capturing wanted criminals. His past is about to catch up with him. Terrorist Malak Al Rahim (Simmons, Runaway) sneaks into the US disguised as a Hasidic rabbi and immediately makes his presence known by bombing a crowded movie theater (showing Rambo: First Blood Part II, no less). Randall\u2019s former CIA boss Walker (Guillaume, Benson) asks him to come back for one last job. Due to a previous connection, Randall is the best man to capture Malak and thwart his diabolical plan to strike a blow against America. For some reason, the FBI and CIA seem determined to hinder his efforts to get to Malak.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like all action heroes, Randall tries to balance his latest assignment with his “normal life”; namely, his romance with Terry (Harris, K-9), an airline stewardess and anthropology student who thinks her man is in the security business. Well, it\u2019s sort of true. He\u2019s also close friends with Danny Quintz (Russ, Dead of Winter), an LAPD detective who throws a lot of work his way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I realize Wanted: Dead or Alive<\/strong> is an exploitation movie, but damned if it doesn’t work. It is one kick-ass action movie, one that features Hauer in a rare good guy role. The actor endows his character here with unique traits like buttering toast by rubbing it against a stick of butter. Hauer makes a great villain AND a great hero. He\u2019s a total bad ass! Watch how he captures a cop killer in the opening scenes. Check out his arsenal of weapons; it would make any survivalist nut green with envy. He gets some choice lines too. The best, of course, is \u201cF*** the bonus.\u201d If you\u2019ve seen it, you know what I\u2019m talking about. BTW, his loft apartment is to die for. He can park all of his cars in it. Bounty hunters make good money.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Every once in a while, New World would release a movie with slicker production values than their usual low-budget efforts. Wanted: Dead or Alive<\/strong> is one of their best. It\u2019s well-written even if the plot is a little confusing with the CIA and FBI involvement. Jerry Hardin (Missing) plays the CIA head who we instinctively know doesn\u2019t have Randall\u2019s best interests at heart. In short, he\u2019s a real bastard. His actions lead to one of the movie\u2019s best lines when Walker angrily tells him “The next time you want to f*** me, kiss me first!” Director Gary Sherman (Vice Squad) keeps things moving at a fast pace with a few nicely executed action scenes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Simmons, also of the rock group KISS, makes a perfectly despicable villain. His character is cold and evil. He commits terrible acts with the cool manner of a suburbanite mowing his lawn. He gets increasingly hateful to the point where you want to see him die a horrible death. I\u2019ve always felt that Simmons should have been a bigger movie star. He ranks right alongside Lee Ving (Streets of Fire) as an effective movie bad guy. Harris, best known for the popular TV drama thirty-something, is quite good in her first big role. The writers actually take the time to develop her character beyond random love interest. She\u2019s an intelligent character. Her relationship with Randall is believable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The script also develops his friendship with Danny. Randall doesn\u2019t like cops; he won\u2019t even enter the station when delivering a fugitive. When he brings in the cop killer, he hands him over to Danny in the parking lot. In the role, Russ does a good job. I love that he hides his motorcycle from his wife at Randall\u2019s loft. It gives Randall leverage when he wants something from his friend.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When Wanted: Dead or Alive<\/strong> came out in January \u201987, I remember hearing a lot of complaints about its negative depiction of Middle Easterners. Any intelligent person knows NOT all Arabs are terrorists. It\u2019s just typical 80s-era Hollywood jingoism. Don\u2019t most action movies of the time feature villains from countries with which we didn\u2019t have good diplomatic relations? How many times has a Communist from the USSR been the villain? Too many to count. I say just sit back and enjoy the ride. There\u2019s no need to get political about it. It\u2019s entertainment, nothing more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wanted: Dead or Alive<\/strong> is one of my favorite action flicks; it’s something I never get tired of watching. It has a high repeat watchability quotient. It has plenty of action and violence. It has a cool cast that also includes Dennis Burkley (Mask), one of my favorite character actors. It\u2019s a B-movie with A-level aspirations. It works all around.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wanted: Dead or Alive\u00a0 (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World Pictures\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong graphic violence, terrorism, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gary Sherman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Patrick Goodman, Brian Taggert and Gary Sherman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Renzetti \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cinematography: Alex Nepomniaschy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 16, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Rutger Hauer, Gene Simmons, Robert Guillaume, Mel Harris, William Russ, Jerry Hardin, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wanted-Dead-or-Alive-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\/8166","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=8166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8354,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8166\/revisions\/8354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}