{"id":8980,"date":"2024-11-27T13:17:27","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8980"},"modified":"2024-11-27T13:17:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:17:27","slug":"hurricane-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/27\/hurricane-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hurricane Smith <\/strong>(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, nudity, sex, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Colin Budds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Kinloch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Brian May\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Stokes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 1992 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Carl Weathers, Jurgen Prochnow, Cassandra Delaney, Tony Bonner, David Argue, John Ewart, Louise McDonald, Suzie MacKenzie, Karen Hall, Johnny Raaen, Glenn Ruehland, Matt Keys, Wayne Parry, Ric Anderson, Charles Green.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a bona fide film geek, one of my greatest disappointments is Carl Weathers not becoming a huge action star on par with Stallone and Schwarzenegger. After years of playing second fiddle in movies like Rocky I-IV and Predator, he was finally given his own starring vehicle with the neo-blaxploitation actioner Action Jackson. It was a great movie that should have catapulted Weathers into the stratosphere, but it didn\u2019t and I don\u2019t know why. All I know is that I didn\u2019t hear of Weathers again until Hurricane Smith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Filmed in 1990, Hurricane Smith<\/strong> sat on the shelf for nearly two years before Warner quietly snuck it into theaters during a notoriously slow period at the box office. It was released without fanfare or advance screenings. I knew next to nothing about it when I went to see it one weekday afternoon after classes ended for the day. I was excited because I figured it had to be awesome with a title like Hurricane Smith<\/strong>. Oh, how na\u00efve I was! Action Jackson Down Under, it\u2019s NOT.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by some bloke named Colin Budds, Hurricane Smith <\/strong>is a slice of Ozploitation starring Weathers as the title character, a Texas construction worker who goes to Australia\u2019s Gold Coast to find his missing sister after their mother dies. Soon after he arrives, he learns she\u2019s mixed up with drugs and prostitution. His attempt to locate her gets him in trouble with a crime syndicate and its second-in-command, a sadistic little twerp named Charlie (Prochnow, Das Boot). His boss Fenton (Bonner, Quigley Down Under) wants the American out of the way before a big drug deal with a rival gang goes down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Smith is helped by his sister\u2019s bff Julie (Delaney, 1984\u2019s One Night Stand), a hooker with a heart of gold who wants to get out of the life and away from Charlie, a nasty piece of work who takes great delight in threatening and terrorizing her. Predictably, they become lovers. Who didn\u2019t see that coming? Uh, NOBODY! He\u2019s also helped by her pimp with a heavily tarnished heart of gold, a diminutive fellow named Shanks (Argue, BMX Bandits), and grandfather Griff (Ewart, The Quest), a disagreeable sort who refers to him as a \u201cseptic\u201d (derogatory term for Americans derived from \u201cseptic tank\u201d and \u201cYank\u201d). Who says you don\u2019t learn something new every day?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hurricane Smith<\/strong> is a perfect example of the kind of movie they just don\u2019t make anymore. I know it sounds weird to say this, but let me explain. It\u2019s the kind of movie made to play as a co-feature on a double bill with an A-list title like Lethal Weapon 3. Sadly, theaters stopped showing double features by the time it came out. Too bad, it might have gotten a little more attention than it did. It came and went in a week.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the most part, Hurricane Smith<\/strong> isn\u2019t terrible. In fact, it\u2019s pretty okay. Its biggest problem is that it doesn\u2019t have enough action, especially in the lagging middle section. There\u2019s some, like a cool chase featuring a bus crashing\/exploding through a food truck, but nowhere near as much promised by the tagline- \u201cThe man who put the \u2018Action\u2019 in Jackson now puts the \u2018Hurricane\u2019 in Smith\u201d.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t really get going until the final half hour when Smith and company finally go after Charlie. We get a gun battle, boat chase and climactic fight on a helicopter. It\u2019s fine, but Hurricane Smith<\/strong> still leaves something to be desired in the action department.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s strange seeing Weathers without a moustache, but it\u2019s his only distinguishing character trait here. You might think you know why he\u2019s nicknamed Hurricane, but you\u2019re wrong. It has nothing to do with a tendency to leave a path of destruction in his wake when called into action. The real reason is rather arbitrary. When he was 14, he rescued his sister from a hurricane and people started calling him that. Now you know. ANYWAY, Weathers makes the best of what little he has to work with. The makers would like us to think his character is the next Action Jackson. There\u2019s even a scene of him (shirtless and restrained) being beaten by Charlie\u2019s goons in order to extract information. Nice try, guys.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Prochnow fares a little better as the villain of the piece. He adds a measure of camp to the proceedings as a psychopathic gangster not so secretly planning a hostile takeover of the local drug trade. Like everything else in Hurricane Smith<\/strong>, it\u2019s completely predictable. Delaney is best described as a third-rate Nicole Kidman. The two Aussie-born actresses even resemble each other. Argue brings some comic relief as the reluctant sidekick with an inferiority complex. Ewart is also enjoyable as a cranky oldster who hates all things American except for Pontiacs.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As far as early 90s actioners go, Hurricane Smith<\/strong> has very little going for it. It\u2019s absolutely generic in every conceivable way right down to Brian May\u2019s score which he appears to have written in his sleep. To its credit, Budds makes nice use of its Australian setting with its sunny beaches, chic high-rise buildings and grimy back-alley gambling parlors where customers play the coin-toss game. Other than that, there\u2019s nothing especially memorable about Hurricane Smith<\/strong>. It\u2019s entertaining if you go into it with low expectations and I do mean LOW. Even then, it\u2019s instantly forgettable.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Smith (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, nudity, sex, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Colin Budds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Kinloch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Brian May\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Stokes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 1992 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Carl Weathers, Jurgen Prochnow, Cassandra Delaney, Tony Bonner, David Argue, John Ewart, Louise McDonald, Suzie MacKenzie, Karen Hall, Johnny Raaen, Glenn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Hurricane-Smith-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\/8980","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=8980"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9333,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8980\/revisions\/9333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}