You have to hand it to Italian maestro of mayhem, Enzo G. Castellari. Why even give the slightest of shits about such things as an actual plot, polished production values or anything even resembling subtlety when you’ve got flamethrowers, stuntmen hurtling through the air and all the the cameras set firmly to film on slo-mo? If, like me, you are the kind of filmgoer who has soft spot (possibly in the top of your skull) for 80s exploitation trash, this derranged tactic worked for the director’s bizarre action epic, 1990: The Bronx Warriors that took – read: stole – the basic framework of Walter Hill’s The Warriors and added a fascist, flame thrower waving, police force; a scenery chewing Vic Morrow; Fred Williamson using Tigar Style and a main hero with all the charisma of a stale Pot Noodle.
The result was a gold mine of unintentional laughs as Castellari’s sledgehammer style spun every aspect of the film into histrionic extremes. Well guess what, the mad bastard only went and made a bloody sequel and I don’t think it’s any real surprise to discover it’s just as fucking mental as the first one.
It’s still apparently still the not too distant future and the Bronx is still a rubble strew shit hole, but the remnants of all the various, warring gangs have now all joined forces and taken refuge underground thanks to the genocidal efforts of the General Construction Corporation. You see, in an effort to clear any remaining lingering people living there who haven’t taken the dubious offer to be relocated to New Mexico, the corporation has recruited maniacal ex-prison warden Floyd Wangler to form a death squad named the Disinfectors to bash, burn and blast the stragglers into oblivion.
But where is the loner-hero known as Trash while all this is going on? Well, he’s busy being a loner, of course, but as he makes his way in the world by trading stolen ammunition, his parents are the Disinfectors’ latest victims and are rendered extra crispy for their defiance and after a distraught Trash kills some corporation goons, he retreats underground to take shelter with Dablone and the rest of the gangs. But when a crusading reporter, Moon Gray, shows up with a plan, Trash teams up with Crazy Strike, a derranged mercenary, and his equally destructive son, Junior, in order to kidnap the president of General Construction and make him pay for his crimes.
One swift abduction later and Trash, Crazy Strike and Junior are making their way through underground tunnels with their captive while planted explosions obliterate anyone dumb (or expendable) enough to follow. However, Wangler wasn’t hired because he’s a cuddly wuddly teddy bear inside and as he prepares to make a typically cold-blooded sacrifice play, a battle will erupt that will decide the fate of the Bronx once and for all.
I really can’t stress just how ludicrously fucking dumb Escape From The Bronx truly is, so if you’re the sort of person who strives to collect 100% of the Cannes Palm d’Or winners on Letterboxd, there’s a 100% chance this movie ain’t for you. I’d be tempted to add “anyone who is sober” to that list too, because Castellari is so obsessed with blowing shit up, cracking skulls and setting stuntmen of fire that any sense of traditional narrative evaporates like smoke while leaving everything stinking of cordite and blasting caps. Amusingly, even though the plot of 1990: The Bronx Warriors was as thin as wet tissue, it still plays as dense as Lord Of The fucking Rings compared to Escape From The Bronx and the majority of the run time literally involves ragdolling underpaid stuntmen while Mark Gregory’s Trash continues to remains as defiantly vapid as a hero can get.
Yes, taken on conventional standards, Escape From The Bronx is pretty awful and not only the addition of a leering Henry Silva can pull this raggedy-ass action flick out of its no-quality nose dive. However, when you get this many laughs from an action movie as absurd as this, why the hell would you want it to? Simply put, much like the majority of Castellari’s chaotic catalogue, if you put yourself on the same wavelength you are virtually guaranteed a gutbusting ninety minutes as the film somehow ramps up the silliness with every passing moment. In fact, it’s impossible to pick a winner in this cascade of camp bullshit. Is it the curious sight of Gregory’s non-performance placed directly alongside Antonio Sabato’s Dablone who attacks every line like Ricardo Montalban balls out on angel dust? Is it the hilarity inducing realisation that Trash’s parents have a full length poster of their son pinned up in their living room? Is it the genuinely startling moment when Henry Silva suddenly starts delivering his lines directly to camera for absolutely no reason (best not to be on drugs during that moment)? Is it the moment where Trash is introduced by making an attacking helicopter explode after shooting four bullets at it from a revolver? The answer is all of them plus so much more.
OK, so Castellari is trying to include a smidge of politics here, but his themes of corruption as a corporation owned police force murder the poor is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel if the barrel has no water in it and it’s mostly scuppered by the fact that this ruthless squadron of jack booted thugs are dressed in shiny silver suits and space helmets. Also, it’s tough to discern what message the film could possibly have when its heroes don’t actually manage to make anything better. Not only did Trash somehow manage to save a grand total of zero people in the previous movie, but he somehow manages to fare even worse here, and only with him, Crazy Strike and Junior being the last ones left standing, you can’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about if all the poor people were going to all end up dead anyway. Maybe the film – which obviously is stealing liberally from Escape From New York – is trying to go for the same kind of ambiguous ending John Carpenter could do in his sleep, but it’s bungled so completely, it seems like the screenwriter is literally doing it in his sleep as it’s more laughable than thought provoking.
And yet, as utterly off its trolley as Escape From The Bronx is, Castellari went even weirder with the third episode of his extraordinary loose post apocalypse trilogy by ditching Mark Gregory, bringing back Fred Williamson with a bow with exploding arrows and teaming him with Giancarlo Prete (Crazy Strike from this film) to fight genocidal homosexuals in a dystopian Mad Max ripoff that has no relation to the previous films whatsoever – so he didn’t even begin to scape the crazy ceiling with this movie….
While 1990: The Bronx Warriors is the “better” film and The New Barbarians is just caca for Coco Puffs, Escape From The Bronx technically may be the lesser entry of the three, but for bursts of sheer, unrestrained belly laughs, escaping the bronx proves to be more fun than you’d expect.
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