It's been over three months since I last reviewed a Charles Bronson film (that was 10 to Midnight) and I've been wanting to review this movie shortly after my review of 10 to Midnight however I never got around to it.
The movie is based on a novel written by R.Lance Hill who published the book in 1978,the screenplay adaptation was done by John Crowther and David Lee Henry and it stars Charles Bronson,Theresa Saldana and Joseph Maher.
Charles Bronson plays a former assassin named Holland who comes out of retirement to avenge the death of his friend a journalist who was tortured and murdered at the hands of Joseph Maher's character Clement "The Doctor" Molloch and he happens to work for various dictatorships across the world particularly those of Operation Condor.
When it came to development film rights were purchased in 1980 by a company consisting of Bronson his then wife Jill Ireland,director J.Lee Thompson and producer Pancho Kohner. So they arranged to have the script written. Kohner came close to setting up the movie at Cannon Films who had a success in making "Death Wish 2" but the people at Cannon Films refused to reimburse the cost of screenplay and rights option. So because of that Bronson went to start in "10 to Midnight" for Cannon directed by Thompson. Kohner succeeded in getting a deal financed with ITC Entertainment and the film's budget was at $4.6 million,this film would be the final picture Bronson would do with ITC the first two being "Love and Bullets" (1979) and "Borderline" (1980) As far as writing went R.Lance Hill wrote the first draft but the production company was unimpressed,so David Crowther was hired to re-write the script along with David Lee Henry.
And as far as Filming went the cast and crew went to Mexico to begin the filming the movie in March of 1983. Shooting the movie in Mexico saved producers alot of money even though there was no soundstage and everything was shot on location Producer Pancho Kohner and Executive Producer Lance Hool were on set for the entire shoot. The film was originally supposed to be directed by Fielder Cook,but he was gone after a week so J.Lee Thompson was brought in to finish directing the rest of film.
My overall rating for this movie is a 70/100 I felt that the movie it was good on all the action,but it felt short as the film's runtime was clocked at 90 minutes. Something else I noticed in most of these Bronson films it's like a theme he avenges the death of a friend or family member by killing the main antagonist in the end. Dating way back to when he starred in "Death Wish" back in 1974.
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