ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX (1983)

ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX (1983)

Tagline: The year is 2000. Two savage armies battle for supremacy over a shattered wasteland!

(Action, Sci-Fi, Let’s Blow Up Everything) [R]

Note: This movie is part of the Italian “THE BRONX WARRIORS TRILOGY”. It’s actually the 2nd installment in the series. 

No sugar you idiot! How many times do I have to tell you, no sugar! It makes me CRAZY!

In this one, a corporation is having to remove the habitants of the Bronx so they can build high-rises and give people jobs. However, the area is controlled by freakin maniacs who will stop at nothing to destroy progress and protect the piles of rubble and excrement they call home. One of the rebellious leaders named Trash decides he can do even more damage to “the man” if he teams up with a psycho bomb maker and his son. Will their plan to kidnap “the President” of the corporation save the slums, or will everyone be forced to relocate to better schools in a more decent part of town while the Bronx is given a makeover? 

First off, this movie follows the first movie in the trilogy 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS. I think maybe I would be a little more sympathetic to the cause if I saw the first movie and got to know these characters, but in this one, I really just want the corporation to win. The bad news about the corporation though is that they went to extreme lengths to get these people out of the Bronx, rather than just knocking them on the heads with bats, a lot of them were burned alive. So you know, that doesn’t help with the corporation’s image, no matter how good their intentions were. 

One thing this movie does really well is the stunts. Nothing is CGI, so every explosion is real and there are tons of them in this movie. This is a lot like ROBOCOP II without ROBOCOP. It’s just massive mayhem for the entire movie. They did actually shoot for two weeks in New York to make this movie, but a lot of it was also shot in Rome. The main character is Trash, played by Mark Gregory but the movie has several background characters that are actually quite a bit more awesome. Gregory starred in 11 movies and was most famous for the “THUNDER” trilogy. This movie also stars Henry Silva who plays Floyd Wrangler. Silva was in over 139 productions in his career and was probably most famous for playing Kane in BUCK ROGERS OF THE 25TH CENTURY. 

The thing this movie did badly for the most part was the acting and crazy storyline. I mean we are given the choice between terrible and more terrible ultimately when you consider the corporation’s tactics and in that regard, I really didn’t find myself rooting for anyone. Not even Trash, he was a massive jerk. So then at that point, we are just waiting to see which side gets blown up first and there is just so much massive chaos in this movie, that it seems like everyone should just be dead. 

After 174 deaths it feels like nothing in this movie was really solved and I am not sure I really care. This is a pretty crazy one. Go into it expecting a halfway decent “MAD MAX” rip off and you will probably be fine. This one is not as good as WARLORDS OF THE 21ST CENTURY which was a similar movie only with cool vehicles in it, rather than just guns and bombs and fireproof suits. It also feels like we got a storyline in that one. This one, not so much. 

Overall I have to give this thing a 3 out of 7. It’s being celebrated a bit more than I feel it should be. Then again, if I saw the other installments in the series, I might feel differently. 

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