Starring: Peter Fonda, Gino Franco, and Harry Northup
Reviewer: Brett Gallman
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Reviewer's Rating: **½ (Two and a half Stars)
Producer Roger Corman cashes in on the rural vigilante craze ignited by Walking Tall and its ilk as Peter Fonda battles a group of crooked land developers who have their eyes on mining a nearby mountain. A typically rugged and often languid affair follows, as the film devolves into simplistic conflict beset with gratuitous violence. I did like Fonda, who is a bespectacled (and often flannelled) man on a mission; he doesn’t seem so much pushed to violence as much a he’s just a guy who just enjoys kicking the crap out of people. His introduction sees him passing through a town on his way home, but not before he stops to pound on a guy for wrecking another man’s car.
He obviously becomes a bit of a hero to the bumpkins he associates with (the plaque on the sheriff’s desk reads “Head Fella,” just to give you an idea of how quaint these people are). One of them is 70s beauty Lynn Lowry, who affects a charming southern accent and gets naked (let us never accuse Roger Corman of not giving an audience what they want). This cartoon world is made further ridiculous by the villains, who we know are bad because they maim and murder old guys on bicycles, plow over family grave plots, and threaten poor old John Doucette (who plays Fonda’s achingly noble father). Real sparks rarely fly, though, as the film is quite limp despite its obvious exploitation trappings; this is perhaps best exemplified by a long montage sequence that sees the evil corporation destroying the countryside to the beat of a light rock tune.
This was the third feature for writer/director Demme and his last collaboration with Corman; after graduating from the “King of the B’s,” he would go on to bigger and better things. Though Fighting Mad is “his” film, he still only seems like a hired gun to show off Corman’s fetish for wild stunts (there’s a great car chase) and demolition footage (if there was any explosive stock footage in the New World vaults, it was used here).
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