Fighting Mad (1976)

Memorable, crazy movie

Fantastic!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Henry Fonda should have been--appalled, that is--with his counter-culture son playing the hillbilly-vigilante-avenger who goes after the eee-vill mining company in Jonathan Demme's Fighting Mad.Peter Fonda got off to an interesting start with Easy Rider, but it didn't take a lot of acting skill to cruise around on a Harley, stoned out one's gourd, so he wound up doing junk like this for producer Roger Corman.I'm not going to give a synopsis of this thing, lest I start thinking about the time I wasted watching it. I just wanted to warn you 70s action fans out there to steer clear of Fighting Mad the next time Fox Movie Channel shows it. For the life of me, I can't understand why they chop up other movies for broadcast, but they slapped a TV-MA on this one because . . . Hearing a couple "f-bombs" and seeing some boobage so helped advance the story. Don't get me wrong, boobs are just fine and a couple "fungoos" don't offend me. It's the fact that having the love interest of Peter Fonda scold him not to go out there and get hisself dead while airing out her mommy parts after sex isn't worth my time. I must be getting old. In 1976, I would have elbowed my best friend to make sure he was grooving to the boobs on screen, the orangey blood being spilled, and the bad words that the three networks would hack out for broadcast. Now. Now, I look for things like originality, dialogue, depth and breadth of visuals, and intellectual stimulation. You know . . . the stuff you would never find in anything like Fighting Mad.

Just like the westerns of the olden days, we see unscrupulous land developers desperately trying to squeeze out the owners of land in Arkansas so that they can develop.There is a tendency for a lot of violence to develop in these films, especially when the action takes place down south. This film falls right into line.It would have been better to see the court proceedings instead of statements just being read out loud. By the picture's end, the bodies are really starting to pile up in an area that seems to thrive on violence, especially when the people are pushed. That's not to say that the developers weren't exactly lovers of peace either.Peter Fonda does an adequate job of the son who returns home with his young son and soon is caught up in this mayhem.

It would be easy to dismiss Fighting Mad as exploitation fodder, but there's something just a little too slick about the direction for such a dismissive description to be apt. Jonathan Demme is the man behind the camera, and although he is not a director to shy away from violence (he did, after all, go on to make The Silence Of The Lambs) he does not favour exploitative excesses. So, even though the plot resembles various other vigilante movies - Straw Dogs, Death Wish and Billy Jack especially - Fighting Mad at least makes some attempt to rationalise its on-screen mayhem. There is a reasonably well-made revenge melodrama lurking here, with character who make sense and a narrative that follows an earnest, if simple, story to its logical conclusion.Tom Hunter (Peter Fonda) returns, with his son from an unsuccessful marriage in tow, to the rural Arkansas farmland where most of his family still live. He soon discovers that things are not well at the old home - his father Jeff (John Doucette) and many of the neighbouring farmers are under threat from a mining corporation that wants to acquire their land. Having refused to accept the financial offer made by unscrupulous business bigwig Pierce Crabtree (Philip Carey), Jeff and his family find themselves at the mercy of hired goons who have instructions to intimidate them into submission. Tom is not a man of violence, so he tries to get the local police to deal with the problem through the proper channels. But the sheriff, Len Skerritt (Harry Northup), proves so ineffectual that Tom quickly realises that a tougher approach is needed. Following the death of his brother, sister-in-law and father, Tom finally snaps. Armed with a bow and arrow he single-handedly takes on the bad guys. Like the tagline says: when you push too far, even a peaceful man gets fighting mad!Fonda spent much of the 70s churning out exploitation movies (Dirty Marry Crazy Larry, Open Season, Race With The Devil to name a few) and this is probably the best example of his output at that time. That's not to say this is a particularly good movie; just that it rises above the usual standard of pictures of this ilk. Demme's script builds believable relationships among the characters, especially Tom and his father, and manipulates us into despising the bad guys so that it feels right to cheer the hero on as he strikes back against his enemies in the film's violent climax. It is a lean and fast-paced story, not burdened with any needless extras. The actors give OK performances by genre standards - Fonda registers well as the bespectacled hero; Lynn Lowry is believable as his girlfriend; John Doucette has good moments as the fatally proud father; there's even a brief role for Scott Glenn as Tom's brother (years before he would find genuine stardom). Add to that the evocative score by Bruce Langhorne, and it's plain that Fighting Mad has enough positives to be worth a look. The real audience for these sort of movies is the Friday night beer-and-pizza brigade - on its simple blood-and-thunder level this film gives its target audience exactly what they're looking for.

This standard but reasonably diverting revenge/action drama is an early effort from writer/director Jonathan Demme, who would go on to Oscar greatness years later with "Silence Of The Lambs." The movie delivers all the ingredients one would expect from B-Movie producer Roger Corman PLUS a quietly effective performance from Peter Fonda as a family man who is pushed to the limits when a strip-mining tycoon tries to bully his way into taking over Fonda's father's stretch of farm land. It's nothing you probably haven't seen before, but it's solidly done and Fonda makes for a great low-key hero worth rooting for. *** stars