Excellent but underrated film

A Disappointing Continuation

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

I watched this film on a channel called Epix Drive In. This is a channel that usually has some really bad B movies. This film is almost worthy of an Oscar after one has sat through a film called Dinosaur Island which came on before this one did. Still, it is not a very good movie...it almost had something as it has a pretty good cast, a workable story and other nice factors, but it squanders it by having one too many plot holes and what the heck is going on here moments.The story has a killer on the loose killing strippers. At first he seems to only be targeting a guy and his buddy's ladies. These two buds manage the ladies and the mob is involved and a cop who cannot seem to track this killer down shows up and occasionally cusses before disappearing again. Why is the killer doing what he is doing? I am not sure, seems he is a vigilante who is into martial arts who wants to clean up the city and write a book or something about his exploits. Suffice to say he really is not developed as most of the movie focuses on a former boxer with a past who has a thing for a stripper who becomes completely forgotten for a long stretch of this film until the ending.Tom Berenger stars as the former boxer, Billy Dee Williams as a cop who can call an Italian everything in the book, but can't find a killer who strikes at the same places and Melanie Griffith plays a stripper who seems integral to the plot then forgotten for a spell. The film had some interesting points, but there are just a few too many flaws in this one to call it good. How to best summarize this film? It can probably be summed up as Rocky versus a martial artist.

Ah. The 80's; It had many movies I loved, but it also produced a lot of stinkers like this one. It's set in downtown Manhattan which is a good place for a setting, but what follows couldn't be more mundane if it tried. I liked the idea of strippers being knocked off. It's rather enticing and slightly controversial, but they didn't do enough about it for my liking. You know what really astounds me, though? The fantastic cast that this has assembled; how did Abel Ferrara manage this?! It's not like Abel is a bad director. He made this solid Mrs. 45, the excellent Bad Lieutenant, among others, this is just one of those misfires that doesn't work. Tom Bergenger & Billy Dee Williams are solid actors, but they bored me here. The chemistry is OK, but they just weren't that interesting. Stars like Melanie Griffith & Rae Dawn Chong do what they have to do adequately. Final Thoughts: Leave this where it belongs; collecting dust on some shelves, because that is where this turkey belongs. I didn't see the whole thing due to boredom, so good luck!2/10

Take Melanie Griffith, Rae Dawn Chong, and Maria Conchita Alonso, cast them as strippers and show them dancing topless, add a young Billie Dee Williams and Tom Berenger talking smack to each other with some stereotypical 80s-NYC lines, insert a psycho ninja slasher (played by an actor who, curiously, was never identified in the credits), and set all of this amidst slummy, early-80s Times Square (before the New 42nd Street cleaned it up). Now you've got a fun 80s-NYC classic. Don't get me wrong, this is not a good film in terms of actual quality (other than the acting, which I thought was awesome). The story is not that creative or unique, the script calls for over-dramatization at times, the soundtrack is wack, and the fight stunts are not top-notch (along those lines, Berenger, who plays an ex-boxer, punches a wall in one scene, and his wrist is positioned in an improper way that would probably result in an injury). However, the cast, the setting, and my nostalgia for 80s-inner-city movies made this film a good way to kill 96 minutes…and just because I strongly suspect that director Abel Ferrara didn't mean for this movie to be campy doesn't stop me from enjoying laughing at it.

Fear City (1984) ** (out of 4) Sleazy but pointless thriller has a man (Tom Berenger) whose job is to supply women to strip clubs coming under some heat when his girls start getting sliced by an unknown maniac. A cop (Billy Dee Williams) wants him to cooperate with them but he refuses as more and more girls end up dead. This is one of those movies where you sit there watching it and keep waiting for something to happen and then the end credits come up and you ask yourself what the point was. Having seen many pictures from Ferrara I know he's hit and miss but this thing here comes as a rather big disappointment. Apparently Fox gave the money for this picture but sold it off due to all the sex, nudity and violence but they should have sold it off just for the fact that it's rather pointless and goes no where. We learn that Berenger's character was once a boxer who killed a man in the ring. He just happens to be dating the best stripper in town (Melanie Griffith) who just happens to be having a lesbian affair with one of the victims (Rae Dawn Chong). Not only that but Berenger is having to deal with various crime figures, the police as well as strip club owners who aren't making any money. What's the point of all of this? You mention Ferrara on a message board and a fight usually breaks out as some think of him as nothing more than a bad exploitation maker while others see him as a talented filmmaker who refuses to play by the rules of Hollywood. I see him somewhere in between but with a picture like this I have to wonder if his only goal was to try and shocked people. The movie is full of nudity and most of the action takes place inside strip clubs except for when he wants a woman butchered and then we go outside to the dirty streets of New York. We go from one body to the next and in the end there's really no reason why. We don't get to know why the killer is doing this stuff. The Berenger character is never really explained either. Nothing in this movie gets explained and instead of any logic we just get nudity or violence. I like both of those things but after a while this thing just runs out of gas and has no place to go. For such a sleazy picture we at least get a nice cast with Berenger leading the way. I've always enjoyed him as an actor but I found him way too dry here. Griffith doesn't have much to do except show off her naked body but you have to give her credit as she also appeared in Brian DePalma's BODY DOUBLE the same year. Williams comes off pretty good and adds some sparks to the film as the hot-tempered cop. Ferrara is certainly someone you're going to either love or hate. While he's made a handful of good films I can't help but feel the majority are like this one. This certainly isn't the worst film ever made but it is a pointless one.