In honor of his new film, Hobo with a Shotgun, opening in theaters this Friday, I have officially declared it Rutger Hauer week. For those of you who already know and love him, enjoy. For those of you not as familiar, welcome to a new world! You will be getting 3 great films this week starting with "good guy" Rutger in Blind Fury. You will also be getting "good guy" Rutger in another of my personal favs, Wanted: Dead or Alive. Rounding out the trio will be "bad guy" Rutger in one his more widely known roles in The Hitcher.
This brings back memories of weekends with Dad watching all the great 80s action flicks: Rutger Hauer, Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, Rambo, etc. Good times!
Anyway, Blind Fury. Blind Fury is a 1989 flick directed by Phillip Noyce and is actually a re-write of a Japanese film about a blind samurai called Zatoichi Challenged. In it, Rutger Hauer plays Nick Parker, a blind Vietnamese vet with kick-butt sword skills. The movie opens in a war zone with Nick wandering wounded and blind through a swampy jungle calling for someone named Frank. We then transition to a small Vietnamese village where the locals have basically adopted the injured Nick and, after nursing him back to health over what is obviously an extended period of time (he looks a bit like a Chris Elliott character by this time), also teach him to use his other senses, most specifically his hearing, to compensate for his lack of sight. On top of that, they teach him some serious sword skills.
Flash forward 20 years to Miami, FL. We see Nick now walking along the Florida highway with his walking stick. One of the tongue-in-cheek moments is when Nick stumbles upon an alligator while walking and tells it "Nice doggie." Next is our first chance to see Nick's skills really in action. He heads into a local bar/restaurant where some bullying local types, after realizing he is blind, decide to mess with him a bit and then transition their "charms" to a lady that walks in by playing "keep-away" with her purse. The purse lands on the floor at Nick's feet and when he refuses to hand it over to the bad guys, he does a great job a playing up his blindness and "stumbling" into a beat down of all 5 guys.
Now we switch over to Reno, NV where a new group of unsavory types are hanging one Frank Devereaux (played by Terry O'Quinn) out of a casino window and threatening his family in Miami (hint, hint) if he refuses to use his skills as a chemist to make designer drugs to pay of his gambling debts.
Back to Miami. Nick arrives at the Miami home of Frank's ex-wife Lynn (Meg Foster) and son Billy (Brandon Call). While Nick is there, aforementioned Reno bad guys show up including Slag (great name for an 80s bad guy!) played by perennial favorite Randall "Tex" Cobb - trust me, you'd recognize him if you saw him! Here we find that Nick's trusty walking stick is actually a cane housing a crazy-sharp samurai sword. Nick proceeds to kill a couple bad guys with it but not before Slag knocks out the kid and shoots and kills Lynn Devereaux. Slag gets away and Lynn's dying words are to make Nick promise to take Billy to his father in Reno.
Bus ride and we find out that Nick is actually blind because Frank. They were best friends from boot camp. Frank was supposed to be covering Nick on a mission in Vietnam but ran off and left him when things got dicey. Nick took some shrapel to the face trying to get away on his own.
Next stop Kansas. They get all the way to Kansas before Nick finally breaks it to Billy that his mother is dead. Billy is predictably upset and takes off into a cornfield across the street. Nick goes to try to get him back. (Enter Slag and a truck full of gun-toting redneck bad guys.) Why no one at the gas station bats an eye at said truck full of gun-toting redneck bad guys I have no idea but that is beside the point. Nick savagely dispatches most of the gun-toting redneck bad guys and rescues Billy from Slag and they head onward. Unfortunately, Slag is still not dead!
This is a turning point in the relationship between Billy and Nick. They are both a bit snarky and sarcastic which provides some comic relief throughout the film. At this point however, Billy finally accepts that Nick is the only "family" he's got for the time being and the only way he'll ever make to his Dad.
They make it to Reno where Frank has started making the drugs although they don't know any of this yet. Nick and Billy show up at Frank's place only to be ambushed by a NEW set of gun-toting redneck bad guys and these two are funny. The Pike brothers are played almost slapstick-style by Nick Cassavetes and Rick Overton and just crack me up. They capture Nick and Billy with the unwilling help of Frank's girlfriend Annie (Lisa Blount). Nick, Billy and Annie get away and Nick goes to rescue Frank. Nick heads to boss bad guys MacCready's (Noble Willingham) casino and creates a diversion to get up to the penthouse to find out where Frank is being help (he exposes the casino's cheating to the gambling masses!). So Nick and Frank get out of the casino only to find that Annie and Billy where kidnapped again by Slag and MacCready!
Frank agrees to bring the drugs he has made to MacCready at Winter Haven ski park. Nick and Frank head up the ski lift, Frank armed with Molotov cocktails in his pockets, Nick with his trusty cane. They make it into the building safely but get corned once again in a narrow hallway. Next thing you know, Frank runs for it leaving Nick behind!!! Has Frank abandoned Nick yet again? Will Nick, Billy, Frank and Annie get away? Well, Nick is going to have to fight his way through one of the most diverse gangs of bad guys ever to make it happen. He's got to fight through a couple big Samoan dudes, another couple of probably even bigger black guys, a Japanese samurai AND all of the gun-toting rednecks!
In summary, this is just a really fun flick. Yes, it's an action flick and there are a lot of shooting and slicing and body parts flying, but there are some really fun comedic moments throughout from both the good and the bad guys. Again, the Pike Brothers just crack me up (Nick Cassavetes reminds me of Joe Bob Briggs in this movie). Rutger Hauer's acting is so underrated. Everyone knows he plays a great villain but he is also really funny! I mean, his Buffy the Vampire Slayer role is a classic!
Anyway, check it out!
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