kapelusznik18
***SPOILERS*** Crazed and possibly insane New York City sewer worker Gus "The Mole" Soltic, Cliff Gorman, seeks revenge against the city's top real estate mogul, not Donald J. Trump, who destroyed his family's home and neighborhood in the now-1980-bombed out South Bronx by having the area block busted with welfare and unemployed minorities who turned it into the crime infested slum that it became. In an attempt to kidnap the slumlord's 15 year old daughter he kidnaps the wrong girl who turns out to be the daughter of an ex-policeman Sean Boyd, James Brolin,little Kathy played by Abby Bluestone.It's Boyd who's also on the outs with his former fellow cop Sgt. Otis Barnes, Dan Hadaya, who refuses to help him. It's Sgt. Barnes who's job it's to find and rescue little Kathy but instead is out for revenge against Boyd who's accusation of him screwing around behind his wife's back had him transferred out of his police precinct. So it's now left out to Boyd to go out on own in trying to get little Kathy back from Soltic who demands a $1,000,000.00 ransom or as he tells him he'll send her back to him in bits & pieces! With Soltic not knowing that he kidnapped the wrong girl there's no why that Sean an unemployed and part time truck driver can come up with the cash. This leads to a number of wild car and on foot chase scenes all across the city of New York with Boyd ending up almost a cripple by getting hit by cars and trucks and fighting off a violent South Bronx street gang.***SPOILERS*** The final showdown that's place-where else-in the sewers of New York City that the dwelling Soltic knows like the back of his greasy hand. By then despite Boyd getting the $1,000,000.00 ransom, from the city treasury, that Soltic demanded he falls madly in love with his 15 year old hostage Kathy who in fact want's nothing at all to do with him. Gritty and well photographed in the burned out South Bronx and sleazy Manhattan Time Square District makes you forget what a totally ridicules movie it really is. It's Cliff Gorman who really takes the cake as well as acting honors in at first his explanation of why he's become so unhinged over what happened to him in being burned out of his family apartment house by the roving street gangs that were introduced into the neighborhood by the greedy and block busting real estate moguls. But his kidnapping and holding hostage of the totally innocent Kathy who had-that he later found out- nothing at all to do with his problems that lost him any sympathy he first had with the audience. P.S Check out 23 year old porno actress Sharon Mitchell as Suzie who works in a Times Square peep show who gives Boyd an important clue to whom his daughters kidnapper's identity really is.
Scott_Mercer
A great yet undeservedly obscure entry in the New York as Urban Wasteland cinema genre of the 70's and 80's. Put this one in there along with "Fort Apache: The Bronx," "Taxi Driver," the "Death Wish" series, "Escape From New York," Roberta Findlay's "Tenement," and "The Warriors." Recognizing that from the perspective of 2010, our collective image of New York City is no longer like this, after over two decades of sprucing the place up, you young'uns who don't have any memory of that period can get a good snapshot of the rampant fear and paranoia of those days in this film. It gives that same added emotional frisson you would get watching a fictional World War II movie that was made during the War itself, realizing how seriously both the filmmakers and the audiences at that time would have looked upon this fictional presentation as a representation of reality, knowing that lives were still on the line and the whole crappy situation was very much in full effect.The film's intentions are made clear as within five minutes into the movie, we get terrorism, a woman trying to kill maurading rats with a broom handle, and a hot dog vendor telling the hero, Jim Brolin, "Did you know that 10,000 people left New York last month?" The Psycho of the Hour, the "Juggler" of the title, a racist and a scumbag, kidnaps a little girl and holds her for ransom. Her father is a rich real-estate developer, who Psycho Pants blames for destroying his South Bronx neighborhood by "letting the N*****s and the S****s move in" and destroy all the buildings. Or, so he thinks.But dummy has kidnapped the wrong girl: she's really the daughter of James Brolin, an ex-cop with an anger management problem and a total lack of fear. Now in order to track down the Psycho, Brolin is unleashed on an apocalyptic Manhattan landscape, where he careens around like a pinball in a pinball machine (contemporary reference there), crashing trucks, stealing police cars, getting in fights with peep show booth bouncers and Puerto Rican gang members, and beating the tar out of all of them. Brolin also gets hold of a psycho cop on his tail, played with eye-bulging glee by Dan "Noon O Clock Shadow" Hedaya, and pushes Hedaya into a pen of vicious, snarling attack dogs, who then proceed to bite him a new one! Yowch! Meanwhile, character actor great Richard S. Castellano is the lead cop on the case(s), who doesn't have contact with Brolin's character, but is sort of watching him from afar. It's all building up to the final conflict between Brolin and the psychotic kidnapper in an underground bunker full of steam pipes. Yeah, just like every other movie ever made (Terminator 2, Commando, Robocop...I could go on, but I won't).This is REALLY sleazy and action-packed for a major studio release and I loved it! Plus you get to see some great footage of Manhattan in its grimy prime and the devastated South Bronx landscape.Sure, the plot is over-the-top and ridiculous; Brolin attacks almost everyone he comes into contact with, including his ex-wife, and he's supposed to be the Good Guy; his daughter is not the most appealing character; and the Police are all portrayed as barely competent idiots. I didn't care. I still enjoyed this movie immensely.That title does bite the big one, though.
Nick Marino
This movie has it all if you love raw b-movie action. Brolin plays an ex-cop turned trucker who's on a personal manhunt to catch the maniac that kidnapped his daughter on her birthday. This sets Brolin's character on a chase across NYC from the subways to strip clubs to dog pounds and beyond.This movie was a legend back in the day for my friends and I. We caught it on late night cable, but never managed to grab the full name of the film or the stars. What we did catch was the INCREDIBLE chase scene that takes the characters from cars to buses to trains to on foot as they crisscross Manhattan. Yeah, Bullitt and The French Connection are good and all, but the Night of the Juggler chase scene makes the action in those films seem average, if not unambitious.This movie is sort of like the pinnacle of 70s/80s street-style film making. It has the intense, raw camera work of Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris flicks, paired with a vision of New York City akin to Wild Style (and maybe even just a hint of the Warriors). The characters here are a bizarre amalgam of clichés that still excite despite being retreads in many ways.The bottom line - score this movie if you can! Far as I know, VHS was the final destination for this film in terms of home video. I bought my copy off of the Internet years ago and the tape was so old that it was broken. But I was determined to watch this flick (because it's so good!), so I cracked the case opened and and spent hours repairing the tape myself. It's just that awesome.
mickey dripping
This is truly awful. The plot is confusing. The characters are unsympathetic. The story is unbelievable and very very dated after 20 years.I could not figure what was going on. It is hard to believe incidents could ever occur in real life. For example a kidnapped 16 year old girl allows herself to be led through a crowded New York subway car without struggling, resisting or calling for help. Her father is chased by a Puerto Rican gang for the flimsiest of perceived insults and they are prepared to risk life and limb to maim him.After watching this film I felt confused and angry that the makers had insulted my intelligence.
