HIGH RISK (1981)

Early 80's actioner about four Americans who think that it would be wise idea to fly down to South America and rob a drug lord (James Coburn) of 5 million dollars cash.  That makes absolutely no sense, but whatever, I'll watch it.  Who knows? Maybe it'll be exciting...it's not.  HIGH RISK is about on par with an episode of "The A-Team", except that it's 94 minutes long and lacks the chemistry of Hannibal and crew.

Within the first 25 minutes, our four have arrived in Columbia and successfully stolen the money, but now comes the hard part: getting back to their plane.  Not only do they have the drug goons after them but they also have to fight the harsh environment and a trigger happy group of rebels lead by Anthony Quinn.

Bland action scenes, silly story, mild pace...my biggest question is how they hell did the filmmakers get such an impressive cast for what turned out to be a pretty mediocre story?  If you're into these type of films then you might like it, but it just wasn't my bag.

If you need me I'll be in my room watching COMMANDO.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972)

A fancy cruise ship is just innocently sailing along, minding it's own business, when BOOM! out of nowhere a nasty ol' wave flips it upside down and kicks sand in its face.  Now, all of the surviving passengers have to figure out how to escape this sinking tub of shit before they end up at the bottom of the ocean.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE advertises itself as having an all-star cast (and it does), but I'd wager most modern audiences have zero clue who Shelley Winters or Ernest Borgnine is, let alone somebody like Red Buttons.  But no matter, the adventure through the capsized ship is what I'm most interested in and...it's not very impressive.  Actually it kinda borders on boring.  After the boat flips upside down, it's decided that they need to journey to the engine room where the hull is the thinnest.  They head in that direction, but not a whole lot happens.  Water splashes about, fires burn and stuff is upside down, but I never got a real feel of danger or even a sense of where the hell they where.  In DIE HARD, when Bruce Willis was traveling around inside (and outside) the skyscraper that was super exciting, but here it just looked like a bunch of actors flopping about on a film set.

Dated special effects, an all-star cast, exciting premise that never pays off, lots of yelling, weak female characters, boring action scenes, under-cooked character development, hippie band singing an annoying song, Shelley Winters swimming underwater, Ernest Borgnine saying "Holy fuck!", Gene Hackman holding his breath for over 3 minutes, random heroics.  Good for a guilty pleasure, but that's about it.  That said, I probably watch this wet turkey a few times a year.

Part 2 - Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)
Remake 1 - The Poseidon Adventure (2005)
Remake 2 - Poseidon (2006)

 Interesting how the ship is flipping over, but yet the ornaments are still falling to the floor.