Fighting Back is a movie that board member Fat Elvis mentioned in the infamous B Action Movie Thread as being on Netflix Instant. I don’t have the service myself, but via someone I know, I was able to go to their place and watch it. As this movie has never even been released on DVD by Paramount (who put it out on the big screen), it was a nice find by Fat Elvis. This movie was from the recently departed Dino de Laurentiis, so that has to be why it was put on Instant.
This movie could be seen as Dino’s take on Death Wish II. After all, he produced the 70’s classic but all the sequels weren’t from him. The actual Death Wish II came out only a few months before this movie did, also. In this case you have a cast of familiar faces (Tom Skerritt, Patti LuPone, Michael Sarrazin, David Rasche, and in a small but memorable role, board favorite Yaphet Kotto as the greatly named Ivanhoe Washington; in one scene he wears a spandex top and grey pants as he practices with dancers in an "ethnic" dance that will be presented in a theatre for a local crowd) and a button-pushing and manipulative but still entertaining yarn.
It’s all about John D’Angelo, a simple man who operates the family deli in a rough area of Philadelphia. Stuff happens and via his neighborhood being so full of rapscallions and knaves, not only does his wife and unborn child get hurt in an incident, but not more than a day or two after that, so does his mom get harmed. She walks in on thieves in a store and they try to take a ring off of her finger. When they can’t get it off, they use shears to cut the finger off! The recent Daniel Powter song "Bad Day", a staple on soft rock stations, certainly applies to poor John D'Angelo.
After that, he gets MAD and he forms a neighborhood “citizen’s patrol” to protect the good people who happen to live around there. Needless to say, there’s friction with the likes of police, the mob, a black figurehead of the area (Kotto) who thinks there is racism going on, and even local government. Meanwhile, things get out of hand and D’Angelo starts to become revenge-driven.
The movie is more than just the lowest of the low-brow exploitation fodder. Still, there’s enough action and even sleaze to keep you entertained, from the likes of a pimp slapping around his ho (which is how the whole deal started for John) to a horrific act against the family dog; from the likes of arm-breaking via a baseball bat to a face in the grill of a ripoff Kentucky Fried Chicken joint, and even a boy who looks about 12 using heroin (!) there’s no lacking in cheap thrills. Like I said, manipulative, but still entertaining.
Also noteworthy is some of its dialogue. The highlight being, "a man who can't control his woman can't control his bowels - he shits his pants." Furthermore, the soundtrack is part orchestra, and part funky goodness, as if it was leftover from some 70's film. Even the end credits tune turns into what sounds like a riff on Hot Chocolate's classic "You Sexy Thing".
Has anyone else seen it on Instant or before on VHS, and if so, what did you think? It really does deserve a DVD release from Paramount. There's no reason for it to languish in obscurity.
