It’s not like we need any more examples, but just in case you felt a more under the radar example was needed to prove that all of the best cinematic cheese came from the 80s, you really could do a lot worse than seek out Bulletproof, a robust chuckle-fest that, for some reason, thought that the future of action cinema would involve Gary Busey calling people “buthorn”. That’s right, following his impressive turn as the villainous Mr. Joshua in Lethal Weapon, some bright spark figured that in a world of Schwarzneggers, Stallones and Willis’, the next action saviour would sport the piano toothed leer of one of Hollywood’s most infamous maniacs. However, while Bulletproof actually was released before the infamous motorcycle crash that turned Busey into the buttered sausage gibbering human meme we know today, it turns out that he isn’t actually a bad fit for an action hero – providing the movie he did it in was absolutely out of its fucking mind.
Meet Frank McBain, a Los Angeles cop who has earned the nickname “Bulletproof” thanks to a strange quirk of luck that’s seen him survive multiple bullet wounds throughout his career and his previous life as an agent for the CIA. While we ponder whether having a talent for getting shot is far better than avoiding being shot at all (hint: it isn’t, but the film insists that it is), we watch him embark on a stakeout that reveals exactly what kind of crazed, devil-may-care officer he truly is when he single-handedly turns a meeting between some arms dealers into World War III.
Meanwhile, 300 miles south of the Mexican border, U.S. intelligence has discovered a secret camp that’s training all sorts of Latin American communists and Arabic insurgents to make up the decidedly anti-American People’s Liberation Army. Searching for a reason to wipe the camp from the face of the earth, the military bigwigs hatch a shifty plan in order to justify an attack and lure the PLA into action by having a prototype supertank accidently on purpose delivered close to their stomping grounds. Making the plan even more underhanded is that part of the escort is Devon Shepard, the woman who was a corner of a love triangle scandal that saw a disgraced McBain kicked out of the CIA in the first place and his love rival accidently shot by his hand. Unaware that she’s being used as bait, Devon does her best when the bullets start flying, but soon is captured and subjected to the brutal, woman-hating whims of the sadistic Colonal Kartiff.
Realising that maybe their plan could have used a bit more thought, the brass approach McBain in order to convince him to perform his typical, lone wolf-style shit in order to save the prisoners and salvage the supertank (codename: Thunderblast) before the PLA figure out how to turn the bastard thing on. Time for Bulletproof McBain to earn more holes, I guess.
While looking into Bulletproof (not to be confused with the Damon Wayans/Adam Sandler vehicle from 1996), I noticed that a lot of major movies sites such as IMDb have it labled as “action”, “thriller”, or even “drama” – but no one, for whatever reason, actually includes the term “comedy”. This proves to be somewhat misleading as this is one of those movies that’s so utterly ludicrous, it genuinely feels more like a latter-day spoof of 80s actioners than an actual movie released in 1988. Additionally, after spotting the name of arch trash king, Fred Olen Ray, lurking among the producing and story credits, I refuse to believe that this movie was supposed to be taken seriously by anyone even before we’re blessed with the sight of a wild-eyed Busey attacking a gun-running Danny Trejo in the opening, Lethal Weapon-esque sequence. Maybe I’m giving the filmmakers a bit too much credit, but thanks to the avalanche of goofy, action movie tropes shoveled onto a character that’s an embodiment of 80s macho wish fulfilment, I simply couldn’t fathom the type of person who would take this seriously.
Thankfully, Busey doesn’t seem to be taking it particularly seriously either, and while a lot of Bulletproof takes its cues from the bawdy, xenophobic stylings of a lesser effort from the Cannon Group, his unhinged brand of heroism and his ragged drawl make the movie feel like some sort of wonderful fever dream. The opening sequence sets the tone magnificently as our hero not only indulges in some of the worst police work I’ve ever seen, but opts not to get the drop on his target by instead hollering from the rafters like if the Phantom Of The Opera had scored some really bad acid. Things get even better after a subsequent gun battle sees rocker launchers deployed at a moment’s notice and a car chase involving an ice cream truck end in the expected conflagration. But from here things only get better (read: Weirder). Not only does McBain has a habit of getting shot, he also keeps all of the salvaged bullets in a jar and we soon get the distinct impression that Busey is opting to play this sexually irresistible, hyper-capable, yet sensitive super-spy as – Gary Busey. Why else would he foghorn out the fantastically odd insult of “butthorn” at three, completely separate, occasions? I’m willing to bet folding money that it wasn’t anywhere in the script, and the actor keeps inserting various other “Buseyisms” into the material that help tremendously with the feeling that the whole thing is some bug-eyed fever dream.
Surrounding Busey is an entire cast of weathered supporting players whose presence somehow make everything even more surreal. We get Henry (Alligator) Silva playing a Libyan as the main villain and a near unintelligible William (Maniac Cop) Smith as an evil Russian major. But beyond that, there’s the aforementioned appearance of Danny Trejo, a brief sighting of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and the grizzled likes of L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong and Thalmus Rasulala to really pack out the supporting cast while Busey destroys a quarter of Mexico with an experimental supertank that also dispenses coffee (not a comedy, remember). However, you can’t help but feel fairly sorry for Darlanne Fluegel, who seems to be the rare member of the cast who’s not only taking this shit seriously, but whose character ends up being both a victim of sexual assault and wooed by Busey in under a twelve hour period for her troubles. Still, when it comes to gloriously overblown 80s detritus that plays like you’ve had an allergic reaction to your medication, it’s tough to deny Bulletproof it’s flowers. If it came complete with a Canon logo at the start, we’d have been hailing it’s trash credentials along with Invasion USA and one of the sillier Death Wish sequels yonks ago, but as it stands, Bulletproof proves to be a deliriously fun outing of full-blown Buseymania. Try and keep that laughter inside when an escape plan to free a captured McBain involve using a genade to cause the spool his tied spread-eagle to to roll down a hill – you can’t, because it’s goddamn impossible.
Ridiculous, idiotic and downright dumb: these end up being virtually all of Bulletproof’s good points as it dedicates ninety minutes of your life trying to convince you that Gary Busey acting like a cackling maniac could make a convincingly indestructible spy. Yes it’s as culturally insensitive as a racist grandparent and it contains as much internal logic as an episode of Ren & Stimpy, but if you love your 80s cheese extra stinky, Bulletproof is also criticproof too.
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