Review: Terror in Beverly Hills

Behrouz Vossoughi leads a group of Iranian terrorists who kidnap the daughter of the President of the United States (William Smith!). It’s the usual ‘release 55 of my brothers currently held as Israeli prisoners’ deal. The president calls upon ONE MAN, special forces op and martial arts trained Hack Stone (played by you guessed it…Frank Stallone) to resolve the situation. Actually, more precisely to…assist the FBI and LAPD (the latter represented by Cameron Mitchell) in resolving the situation. Adding a personal touch to the story, Stone and the lead terrorist used to be comrades in arms at one point when Stone worked for the CIA. However, things soured when Vossoughi’s family were murdered in an incident he blames Stone for. He wanted the bad guys killed, Stone wanted them to face judicial process. They escaped custody…

 

Clearly a better musician than actor (‘Far From Over’ kicks arse), Frank Stallone has nonetheless managed to use the family name to help carve out a relatively prolific career in the direct-to-video/DVD realm over the years. He even managed to headline several low-budget films, mostly horror or action vehicles like this 1989 John Myhers (vastly more prolific as an actor) terrorist action flick. Based on a story by Simon Bibiyan (the film’s EP, a role he’s also much more prolific in), Myhers basically has Stallone the Younger make like Chuck Norris in a blend of “Invasion USA” and “The Delta Force”. In theory, casting (Frank) Stallone in an action film in the late 80s was pretty shrewd. This film was made the same year Frank’s more successful brother was in “Tango and Cash” and “Lock Up”. Unfortunately, it wasn’t released in the U.S. until two years later. It’s pretty pathetic stuff, though veteran Iranian actor Behrouz Vossoughi isn’t bad as the villain, if a touch dour perhaps. Long-serving Hollywood character actor Cameron Mitchell (no stranger to shit low-budget films) is apparently enjoying himself immensely, throwing out the profanities as the cranky police captain. It’s not a good performance by any stretch, but he at least keeps you awake.

 

Outside of those two performances however, this one’s a real slog and not even recommended for Ed Wood-ian value. There’s only a couple of moments of unintentional humour. For instance, miscasting gruff-voiced B-villain William Smith as the non-villainous American President is bad enough. However, it’s another level of ineptitude to have him dubbed by someone who doesn’t sound a damn thing like him. They make him sound like J. Peterman from TV’s “Seinfeld”, it’s bizarre. The dialogue is terrible, with the film’s terrorist villain being referred to as ‘a character’ so often that if you made a drinking game out of it you’d die of alcohol poisoning before the credits roll. The film has also been dreadfully edited, with some scenes being over-edited and others running far too long without any edits. There’s also one scene featuring Mitchell clearly being made up of several different takes shot at obviously different times. Was no one paying attention or did they not care that it looks so sloppy?

 

It’s incredibly sluggish, by the time the plot really kicks into gear (30+ minutes into a less than 90 minute film!), you’re already bored. It’s only after 15 long minutes that our All-American, martial arts-trained hero turns up…Hack Stone. Yep, the lesser Stallone plays a guy named ‘Hack’. I’m gonna let you finish that thought yourselves. Stallone actually isn’t the worst actor in the world (or the movie), but he’s nowhere near good enough let alone charismatic enough to save this poorly scripted and directed shit. He’s got practically no screen presence, which for an action hero is pretty critical. Part of that isn’t Stallone’s fault, however. Despite Hack Stone being our leading man, he only gets one brief scene in the first 30 minutes (!), whilst some poor man’s Andrew Stevens (an actor named Ron Waldron, I believe) does most of the work. So it doesn’t even commit to being a one-man army action film like it seems to set out to be. It’s only after about 50 minutes that he finally gets the call to get involved in the situation. Unbelievable. With so few scenes and being so far apart, one wonders if Stallone (the late Norm MacDonald’s second favourite “SNL” punchline after O.J. Simpson) was busy filming another turd at the same time.

 

Only marginally less shit than the slightly similar “Invasion USA”, this cheap, sluggish action movie doesn’t have enough of the right or wrong stuff to make it watchable on any level. Behrouz Vossoughi isn’t bad, Cameron Mitchell is amusing, but the film is just a dreadful chore for the most part.

 

Rating: D-