STONE (1974)

Watchable biker movie about a undercover cop who's ridin' with a motorcycle gang to see who's been picking them off one-by-one assassination style.  As far as biker movies go, STONE is fairly lightweight.  The main thing these bikers do is just lay around in their hideaway all day and night smoking weed and talking about how cool they are.  Occasionally they drive down to the bar to get a drink and talk about how cool they are.  That's about it.  Still though, I kinda enjoyed it, the music was especially awesome.  I just wish that they did something!

I appreciate the cultural/cinematic significance of STONE (and the hard work that went into making it) but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't hold up very well.  Yeah, the characters are all likeable, but the whole thing is just too tame.  There's barely any violence, only a few quick glimpses of nudity, lightweight drug use, light cussing.  If you're into cult movies, biker movies and/or 70's Australian cinema then you'll probably enjoy it but most other people would just see it as dated and lacking.

I do want to give a shout out to whoever the stunt person was that jumped off the cliff into the water.  That was amazing!!!  It was also cool to see a pre-MAD MAX Toecutter. "The Nightrider. That is his name...the Nightrider."

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

NO ESCAPE (1994)

"...death is the only way out."

Ray Liotta is a military dude who murders his commanding officer.  He's sent to a top secret island prison for some unexplained reason.  There's like 700 dudes on this island.  Six-hundred of them are in the "bad" gang and the remainders in the "good" camp.  The bad guys live in the jungle and are lead by some fruity fellow with three bridge piercings.  The good guys live on a walled-in farm and follow The Father, played by Lance Henriksen.  As expected the good guys and the bad guys fight a lot and there's various attempts to escape the island.

I remember seeing NO ESCAPE back when it originally came out and only being mildly amused.  Watching it again now, for the first time in 20 years, I enjoyed the nostalgia of it, the filmmaking style, the quick pace, the strong cast, the pre-SAW torture collar and the island locations, but overall it's a pretty "Meh." movie.  Mainly thanks on the sheer amount of plot holes (there's too many to even list here), the horrible miscasting of the bad guy boss (he's completely non-threatening and there is absolutely no way he could keep 600 psychos in line...the filmmakers should have made Lance Henriksen the leader of the bad guys), the lack of any gritty violence (if these guys are the worse of the worse then this island would just be a non-stop Hell of raping, mutilation, perversion and twerking) or memorable action scenes (how could the producer behind ALIENS, TREMORS, THE TERMINATOR & T2, THE ABYSS and the future director of  GOLDENEYE and CASINO ROYALE not realize the importance of awesome, jaw-dropping action scenes???) and the unsatisfying ending (I'm not going to spoil it, but that ending was lame).  And it looks like audiences thought the same, because after debuting at the #1 box office position on 1,763 screens, NO ESCAPE quickly dropped off and didn't even make it's $20 million budget back!  Yikes.

Worth a watch for fans of 90's action films.  Would make an interesting double-feature with 1993's FORTRESS.  I'd love to see a remake or even a video game.