Band of the Hand (1986)

Good movie but grossly overrated

best movie i've ever seen.

As Good As It Gets

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

1986 wasn't just responsible for the much stylish but less substance hit, Miami Vice. As a bonus, this cheesy delight, which had a one week release in Adelaide with only a one nightly session, hit the screens, then suddenly disappeared. It's poster and tagline were fascinating, and still today, looking back on this film, is one of the reasons, 86 was a great year for cheesy movies. BOTH is a good movie, very well directed, by Starsky and Hutch's, Paul Michael Glaser, who went onto to make on to make that unique Arnie pic, The Running Man. The premise is great, and in reality, it's something that actually should be operating with re offenders. Five juvies are taken out of jail, two of different races, going off at each other like savages, another one, a drug dealer who likes to dress good, caught in a sting operation, his girlfriend (a young unknown Lauren Holly) getting away, but coming back into the picture later. The other two are hard cases, unstable you might say, the youngest, only a kid, from an abusive childhood, who shot his old man. These five are taken out into the croc infested waters of the everglades, and dumped there, not the most appropriate place. They're met by a mentor, Joe (an always reliable acting talent, Stephen Lang) who teaches them the basics, how to survive and fend for themselves. They overcome many obstacles, the racist hating two, finally coming to a truce. This is the first half of the movie, that's slightly interrupted by the chief baddie, James Remar as a vicious drug lord Nestor, who's doing Nikki (Holly) and keeps real skeletons as trophies in his closets. He ever so nicely, orders Holly to go upstairs and take her clothes off, where back then, she was pretty hot looking. To the second, part of the film. Our juvie five, having passed the survival test, set up house, in Miami, giving a whole new revamp and colourful paint over. But remember they're here to do a job, which later becomes personal, but the band come through. I like movies with different premises, which is why I very much liked this. Mister Misters's 86 hit, Broken Wings, appears, but somehow doesn't work for a scene involving a squabble between Holly and Mr Slick dressed, juvie, boyfriend. It just didn't feel appropriate. But you can't fault the originality of the movie, where the strong performances of Remar and Lang, keep the film in check. This is one eighties flick, you must check out + a scene of Bikini clad Holly sunbathing on Nestor's boat, where he childs her on covering herself when black guys are around.

Dylan's song was called "band of the Hand" not hell time or it's hell time now. which are lines out of the song but not the songs title. The song was recorded in sydney Australia in 1986 with the heartbreakers whilst they were on tour together. it was released as a single on 45, through mca which was the label the heartbreakers were with at the time. it was also on mtv with a video.that was a pretty good tour and it's a shame Dylan's video of that tour "hard to handle" didn't include petty & heartbreakers who were the opening act before bob took stage and became his band when he was onstage.

Ladies and gentlemen, afficionados of the '80s, fans of Michael Mann, allow me to introduce a movie most of you probably have never heard of."Band of the Hand" came and went in 1986 like the millions of other movies of the '80s, some with more plot and less style, others vice versa. But what makes this any different than the rest of its ilk?Well, for starters, it was produced by Michael "Miami Vice" Mann (which accounts for the Miami setting and the Don Johnson clothing styles), it was directed by Hutch from TV's "Startsky and Hutch" (Glaser), a LOT of familiar faces are featured in the cast (Holly, Fishburne, Remar, Graham and Ferrero and Smitrovich from "Vice") and has that old "hey-let's-get-the-kids-together-and-clean-up-the-neighborhood" plot transplanted into Reaganomic drug-enforcement sensibility.On the down side, there is little to nothing in the ways of personality in the characters; they act just about the way you'd expect TV characters to act. Thing is - THIS IS A MOVIE! And while there are a lot of stretches where people say nothing and just do their thing while music plays on the sound-track for "emotional emphasis", there are a few dozen of these scenes too many for my taste (hey guys, a little dialogue so we'll know what people are thinking would be nice...you know, once in a while?). And WHY, in the name of every holy being you could possibly think of, did Mann think he had to ape EVERY SINGLE nuance from "Miami Vice"??? You know, Michael, you are allowed to do something different every once in a while.Thank god he learned his lesson later on and actually did better movies like "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Heat". Even 1981's "Thief" with James Caan was done better in style as well as story. Of course, "Miami Vice" wasn't on TV yet, either.As it is, just a reminder of everything that was pastel in the '80s. Other than that, this is a "Hand" that should be banned.Four stars, mostly for the look. Maybe "Band of the Hand" would be better if you watched it with the sound turned off? I'll have to try that sometime.

This is one of those movies that you had to see when it first came out. It also helps I think if you were the same age as the kids in the movie. The locations were magnificent. And some of the performances were not too shabby either I might add. This was an atypical 80's movie, set in Florida (do you think that a Miami Vice relation was intentional?). When I was a kid I loved this movie, and upon watching it again recently, I didn't even remember how cheesy it was. I just remembered these 5 deadbeat kids, forced to work as a group to survive, and everyone thinking that it would never work. Even now that I've seen it and know how cheesy it is, I still just remember it the way I used too.