HAMMERHEAD!!!! (1987)

The exclamation points are mine. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is one of three films in Paul Cooke and David Zuzelo's book Tough To Kill Vol. 1. Go to the previous post and check it out and order the damned thing already. Sheesh! I gotta do all the thinking around here.
Anyway, this flick is fantastic! It starts off with a bang with our hero, Hammer (played by Daniel Green) meeting up with an old war buddy. They were in a unit called The Storm Riders and now someone is eliminating them one by one. It's up to Hammer to avenge his old friend and see if he can save the rest of his squad in the process.
This thing is so full of action movie staples that it might be physically impossible to fit it all in, but director Enzo G. Castellari manages to pull it off quite nicely.
We get a car chase to start things off that turns into a motorcycle vs. car chase that ends with two men on a train platform trying to shoot each other and managing to nail a large number of innocent passerbys instead.
Of course Hammer is taken off the case by his boss which leaves him the freedom to go to Jamaica to avenge his friend. While he's there he finds his old buddy, Carlos, who is driving a souped up cab. They tear across the island looking for clues to who could have killed their friend.
Take this pretty basic premise and sprinkle it with lots of chases whether they be cars or jet skis. Add a liberally amount of fight scenes and shake with some of the tamest love scenes on the planet and you have the wonderful hodge podge that is HAMMERHEAD!
Director Castellari knew what he was doing with this one. He keeps throwing so much action and violence that you don't have time to complain about some of the worst acting you will ever come across. But that's what makes the movie that kind of great, mindless action picture. It's not about the leading man's acting chops. It about him chopping someone across the throat and getting his face sliced by a table saw in the process.
speaking of the table saw, the guy who gets whacked by it was one of the better effects I have seen in any movie. If nothing else, the movie is inventive in it's fights and kill scenes.
And when it comes to an end it's just over. We don't need a bunch of that arty farty exposition. We know that the hero will win and get the girl and all will be well in the world of HAMMERHEAD!
My thanks to David Zuzelo for giving me the opportunity to see this flick. You people really need o order the book. The one unfortunate side effect of reading it is that it will compel you to watch as many of these things as you can get your hands on. But, hey! That's not a bad thing.