Dead Man Walking (1988)

Absolutely the worst movie.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

but instead of one man on death row, it's half the people of Earth. It's basically a typical apocalypse flick, without the zombies, They all have zombies now but in the 80s they didn't. This one stars Wings Hauser, who doesn't play a zombie and who's real name probably isn't "Wings", Brion James, who thinks it's cool to spell Brian with an "o", Jeffrey "Puff Daddy" Combs, who played an Andorian in star trek, and Tasia Valenza, who played a Vulcan in star trek, and who I went to High School with. (small world).In summary, this movie is not very good but it needs more reviews, so I wrote one and I think everyone should write one, whether they've seen this film or not.

In the far distant future of 1997, the world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland (yes, another one). Many survivors have a deadly plague and their quarantined area is known as "The Plague Zone". When super-evil baddie Decker (James) and his minions, including Snake (Richardson) kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman, his chauffeur, Chaz (Combs) goes into the plague zone to try and rescue her. But he brings along a mercenary, Luger (Hauser) to help him. The devil-may-care Luger and the skittish, nerdy Chaz are the original odd couple - but will they use their combined mixture of brains and street-smarts to outwit the baddies, rescue the girl and defeat Decker once and for all? Anyone who reads this site regularly knows we try to always find movies that are set in "the future" but are now the past. Dead Man Walking certainly qualifies, but sadly this movie is nothing more than a programmer, a Sunday-afternoon time-waster that adds nothing new to the already-tired "Post-Apocalyptic" movie so prevalent in the 80's. We all know the Italians mastered the genre; it was fairly presumptuous for Gregory Dark to assume he could outdo them. This is a director known for his porn movies, "erotic thrillers", music videos and wrestling stuff. And Street Asylum (1990). It seems his heart was not in this project. There is only so much actors can do with mediocre material, and talented men like James, Wings, Richardson and Combs are fighting an uphill battle here.Mix Neon City (1991), Maniac Warriors (1988), and Omega Cop (1990) with the news reports inspired by Robocop (1987) and the "wacky", "futuristic" set design in the vein of Shredder Orpheus (1990) (especially prevalent in the "Cafe Death" scene) and that should give you some idea of where we are here. Brion James stands out as an especially psychopathic bad guy, whose "evil clown" appearance makes him even scarier. Wings has shorter hair than usual, and plays a game we can only describe as "Chainsaw Chicken" while listening to jazz music. Apparently this is what goes on in the future. But the closest companion of all to this movie might be Nightmare at Noon (1988), which also featured Wings and Brion James, and it shares other similarities as well. But Nightmare at Noon is better.Sadly, Dead Man Walking seems like it's missing something. It's hard to say what it is, perhaps some kind of verve or energy. As stated earlier, it's an overdone idea, and something would be necessary to make it stand out from the pack. The real problem is that there's not nearly enough action. This can barely qualify as an action movie. As it stands, this movie is okay, standard fare, but you'd think the cast would elevate the dull material and unfortunately that does not happen.Clearly Tim Robbins is either a thief or just ignorant as evidenced by his 1995 movie of the same name. Perhaps the only good that the 1988 Dead Man Walking has done in the world is confuse video store patrons looking for the Susan Sarandon vehicle, only to accidentally rent this one instead. We'd love to see the look on their faces.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

Obviously, this "Dead Man Walking" is not to be confused with the 1995 Susan Sarandon movie of the same name. That movie was a quality production, for one thing, and this movie isn't. I should mention that I don't automatically look down at B movies - I watch them all the time, and I find some of them to be enjoyable. But there's pretty much nothing to enjoy in this movie. It's very cheap - it looks like it was filmed in junkyards and boring desert locations with nothing done to spruce these locations up. The low budget also means a lot of stuff happens off camera (check the scenes where someone gets shot, for example.) The screenplay doesn't feel like much thought was put into it - it seems at times they were making it up as they went along. The movie does boast a somewhat impressive B movie cast - Hauser, James, and Combs - but they all seem to be running on autopilot. The only moment of interest in the movie is the sequence where two people play Russian roulette with a chainsaw, but the promising consequences of that are spoiled by the movie's previously mentioned habit of stuff happening off camera.

I thought this movie looked kind of geeky, but I'd heard good things from a friend, and it had Jeffrey Combs, so I gave it a chance. I was pleasantly surprised. The story held my interest and the dialogue was fun and interesting. There is a touching scene (thanks to Mr. Combs' fabulous acting skills) with the main character that made me almost want to cry. It was sort of like "Blade Runner Lite." The news casts interspersed between the action are worth the rental fee alone. They're really hilarious and some are right on target! Brion James was great as the evil Decker and Wings Hauser did well as the Zero Man hero. I might be just in a really, really good mood, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's fun afternoon viewing.