Despite the presence of a chuckling Axel Foley smart-talking his way through Beverly Hills or Lethal Weapon’s grizzled Roger Murtaugh, 80s action movies rarely sported an African American as the lead. Oh, there were plenty of sidekicks, to be sure – with Steve James colliding with assassins in the American Ninja series being a fun example – but there was a noticable gap in black leading men after the Blaxploitation explosion during the 70s.
In an attempting to address this, we got Action Jackson, an all-but-forgotten action romp that saw Apollo Creed himself, Carl Weathers, step out from the supporting cast duties of Rocky and Predator and flex those bulging pecs from above the movie title for a change. The results were…. shall we say, very 80s, that, despite being a Joel Silver production, lacked some the polish of his previous efforts that included the likes of Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Predator.
Jericho “Action” Jackson is a detective sergeant in the Detriot police department, who, despite his hulking, God-like physique, is a smart, sensitive guy who has been going through a rough patch over the last couple of years. The cause of his woes is powerful businessman Peter Anthony Dellaplane, who caused Jackson to be demoted in revenge for the arrest and imprisonment of his sex criminal son and as a result, the detective has seen his career stagnate and his marriage has crumbled.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Jackson from cracking heads on the Deroit streets and his reputation has become so imposing, the very mention of his name causes hoodlums to spaz out like a fainting debutante – but salvation may be at hand in the form of sweaty informant, Tony, who has gotten a sniff of some sort conspiracy that’s leaving a string of executions in its wake. It seems that Dellaplane has got himself the mindset of the kind of narcissistic crime boss seen in Sin City and has assembled a crack team of murderous psychotics named the Invicible Men to obliterate members of a trade-union in order to consolidate power – or something.
When Tony is predictably killed by the very visible Invisible Men, Jackson’s next tip comes from a source that’s incredibly close to the machiavellian Dellaphane in the form of his young, pretty, second wife Patrice, who stumbled across his plot – but after being framed for her subsequent murder, Jackson teams with full time singer and full blown heroine addict, Sydney Ash – who also happens to be Dellaphane’s mistress – in order to get to the bottom of such a unnecessarily complex chain of villainous events. Inbetween slugging the bad guys, denying Sydney’s requests for another fix and ducking explosions so violent they look like they could vaporize solid steel, Jackson has to unravel this nefarious scheme by killing as many badniks as he humanly can.
So, the fact that Action Jackson hasn’t been as fondly remembered as other Joel Siver epics such as the majority of other movies I’ve already listed just goes to show that it hasn’t got the innovation behind it like a John McTiernen or a Richard Donner to really make it stand out. However, director Craig R. Bexley had around six episodes of The A-Team under his belt before embarking on his feature debut, so what he lacked in subtlety (there’s virtually none), he made up for it in raw, 80s carnage.
As a result, the movie rockets along like an out of control missile in its mission to try and serve up an 80s version of a Blaxploitation flick with all the exaggerated coke-fueled bells and whistles you’d expect from the decade of excess. The sneering group of assassins that the villain employs ironically call themselves the Invisible Men when the methods they use could probably be seen from the fucking moon. When they’re not shooting their cowering victims with grenade launchers that send their flaming corpses sailing out of a skyscraper window like a firework with a circulatory system, they’re killing Silver regular Ellen Trainor with a single punch that sends her ragdolling through a plate glass window. However, even these guys tread softly compared to Craig T. Nelson’s power crazy bad guy and it’s tremendous fun watching the dad from Poltergeist work overtime in the dastardly bastard stakes, be it murdering his wife (played by an embryonic Sharon Stone, no less)in their own bedroom with impunity or fist fighting with his nemesis with a string of devastating spin kicks that are obviously being delivered by his stunt double.
In the face of such cartoonish brutality, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Action Jackson would be your stereotypical, badge waving, brick shithouse whose gargantuan shoulders match the sheer size of his righteous bloodlust. However, in a neat twist, Jericho Jackson is none of those things – well, except the brick shithouse bit – and not only is a reasonable kind of guy, he’s also law-school educated and an eloquent, former star-athlete which is a refreshing switch from some of the stereotypes action movies usually heap on black characters. While the late, great Carl Weathers held enough weapons grade charisma within his huge frame to be a standout opposite such co-stars as a stogie chewing Schwarzenegger or a mumbling Stallone, it’s still fucking neat to see him get his own action movie, even if it has far less brains than its star.
Still, as forgotten, weirdly maligned, dumbass actioners go, you could do a lot worse and while it doesn’t achieve the cheesy nivana of, say Commando or Road House, when Action Jackson takes the breaks off, it kicks some amusing ass. Behold as our hero races to the rescue in the final reel by driving a 1986 Pontiac Fiero into Dellophane’s mansion, takes a minute to crush his butler to death, drives up a flight of stairs, along his oddly wide hallways and crashes through the door of his nemesis’ bedroom in time to save Vanity’s drug-sodden female lead.
Ah yes, Vanity. While the actress doesn’t put in what you’d call a bad performance, I’d to see any actress who could make a female lead likable when she spends every waking moment either mewling about her next fix or angrily demanding to know why Jackson hasn’t up and fucked her yet. The female lead of any 80s exploder may have been a thankless role at the best of times, but Jesus Christ…
What Action Jackson lacks in smarts, it make up for in a truly impressive B-list cast of supporting actors who frequented some other, harder hitters of the decade. There’s Predator’s Bill Duke and Sonny Labdham as Jackson’s superior and a bug eyed drug dealer respectively, there’s Die Hard’s Robert Davi and Al Leong, there’s Lethal Weapon’s Ed O’Ross – christ, even Thomas F. Wilson (Biff from Back To The Future) is there as a goofy beat cop.
It may not be anywhere near as memorable as some of its peers and it may be the epitome of a dumb cop movie, but Weathers charisma and some choice 80s one liners (“You almost tore that boy’s arm off!”, “So? He had a spare!”) means that you’re in guaranteed plenty of action – Jackson.
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