Frank "Bulletproof" McBain, a "one man suicide squad", is needed by his country, an LA Cop reinstated into the military to take on a most dangerous mission..to recapture a commandeered supertank equipped with impressive armor and weaponry, not to mention rescue his former girlfriend, Captain Devon Shepard(Darlanne Fluegel, pretty awful, but also rather amusing in how she sneers and spits venom at arch-nemesis Silva).
With Henry Silva and William Smith as two of many B-movie heavies Gary Busey will have to encounter if he is to succeed in his mission. This is the kind of action film I enjoy wholeheartedly. It has a ridiculous premise where one man, in this case the awesome, one and only, Gary Busey, is able to infiltrate enemy lines(in this movie, Mexico)and eventually get his hands on the Thunderblast(the boy in me grinned ear to ear when I first heard what they named the tank)which, sufficed to say, does some serious damage to the terrorists.
I would love to know the body count for this movie, because McBain certainly leaves quite a many scumbag Commies dead before all is said and done. You also have a delightfully slimy René Enríquez as General Brogado, Silva's superior, and Juan Fernández as Pantaro, the executioner who relishes gunning down American soldiers, under the command of LQ Jones(as Sgt. O'Rourke), in cold blood. RG Armstrong even shows up as Miles Blackburn, the one responsible for forcing McBain back into action.
If you are gonna start an action film, I prefer the way BULLETPROOF does, with Busey, and his poor partner(who just wants to call back up)halting a gun smuggling operation in progress with plenty of gunfire erupting, leading to an ice cream truck(used to carry the smuggled weapons!)tipping over and exploding. As you expect, done in flashback of course, Busey is haunted by a partner's accidental death, at the hand of Smith. Danny Trejo has a small part as one of the gun smugglers who attempts to stop Busey from arresting him, by firing a machine gun out the back of the ice cream truck at him while he was in hot pursuit.
I'm a strong supporter in opening a loud, dumb action flick with a reckless cop(with a death wish, it seems)exchanging rounds of ammunition with criminals resulting in dead bodies and explosions. You get the hilarious, but so stupendously radical, scene where Busey is bound to a wheel which is sent turning down a hill thanks to a grenade triggered by Fluegel, saving him from being Juan Fernández's target practice. Or, the town showdown as Brogado's militia, with something like four tanks and an endless supply of Arabs, against the Thunderblast which decimates everything in sight. Silva and Fluegel have spirited spats with one another(you gotta love Silva who snarls as well as any hissable villain)with the Captain getting even with him towards the end(he rapes her, determined to prove his point that all women are to respect him).
But, it's all about Busey..who gets to slide into the "one man army" role, and this fan, for one, had a grand old time seeing Gary at play. Busey sure seems to be having a ball as the hero, more often than not he's the one as a villain, not vice versa.
Hilarious how the Thunderblast can withstand not only four tanks and constant missiles, but also a Russian helicopter(a Soviet Mi-24 as mentioned by Busey while the Thunderblast is under assault by the aircraft machine) as well..we sure made one hell of a really impressive machine, this supertank. The plot and characters are silly, so if one enters BULLETPROOF expecting anything other than goofy action fare with tons of violence, you best stay as far away from this flick as possible. An 80's action movie after my own heart, it defies logic almost at every turn..as these movies are supposed to do, when Silva and company have Busey right where they want him, instead of shooting him immediately, they postpone which leads to his inevitable freedom from their clutches.
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