How can a movie starring Martin Kove (John Kreese), Ronny Cox (“Dick” Jones), Bernie Casey (Colonel Rhumbus), Sela Ward (Jo Danville) and the illustrious Shannon Tweed (Nudity) be bad? Well… It took some doing, but the cast as well as the production team managed to pull it off.
Steele Justice
Steele Justice follows the story of John Steele, a “man on a mission”. Back when he was in Vietnam, he and his partner Li went on a mission and were tasked to destroy a cache of weapons. When they arrived, they found that they had been setup by their commanding officers. In a rather strange and anti-climactic fashion, they all end up going home happily, though the only two that kept up with each other were Li and John.
Flash forward to present day (which at the time was the mid to late 80’s) and John is now an out of work ex-cop trying to make ends meet. Li is still with the police and heads up a task force charged with taking down the local Vietnamese gangs. After a bust goes bad, Li’s informant turns on him and rats him out to the gangs. Li and his family are murdered, dragged out in the middle of the street and shown as an “example” to other Vietnamese not to snitch on each other. John — who happens to be staying with Li at the time — witnesses the murders and only manages to save Li’s daughter. After that, “the only law is Black Tiger law” and “the only justice, is Steele.”
In a post-Karate Kid pre-Rambo world Martin Kove was, much like his character, just trying to make ends meet. Steele Justice is meant to be this over the top action thriller, but it ends up being more of a comedy version of Commando. Besides the fact that they managed to cast three people in key roles that had lisps, the unintentional comedic moments in this movie are everywhere. As someone who reviewed the movie before me said “Steele Justice isn’t designed as a comedy, but it does earn high marks for inadvertent humor… Mr. Kove wears a Band-Aid across the bridge of his nose during much of the film, and it is by far the most expressive thing on his face…”
The “Action” in Steele Justice is almost as laughable as the rest of the film. In the middle of one of the bigger gun fights, one of the Vietnamese gang members decides to use a blow dart to take down Steele, and, wouldn’t you know it, amidst the hail of gunfire the dart is the only thing to hit him. Later on at the very end there is a tense sword fight between Steele and his ex-General-turned-bad-guy Kwan. I only say “tense” because neither of them wanted to attack each other, and when they did it was like two children flailing at one another with broomsticks.
You would think that having given this movie a decent bashing I would say it’s best to stay away from it, but you’d also be wrong. This actually is a movie worth seeing. However, see it with the intention of watching a great unintentional comedy, not the action movie it so sorely wants to be. Martin Kove has a very difficult time emoting, Ronny Cox ISN’T the bad guy, and Shannon Tweed keeps her clothes on… mostly. There is an 80’s music video, a very brief training montage, and a load of bad acting all around. Just be glad that there were movies like Robocop, Rambo, Revenge of the Nerds, and Cinemax after this one. I am holding onto the hope that should Expendables get another sequel Martin Kove will make his triumphant return to the big screen. Sweep the leg, Johnny. Sweep the leg.
Also, there was this scene (pictured below)… I don’t care if I went to war with a guy and he saved my life, a little privacy is not to much to ask. Consider this your “stinger” image from Steele Justice.
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