(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A telepathic mutant recruits a post-World War III TV game-show warrior to lead her band of mutants to safety.”
Low-budgets Italian genre knock-offs – of which there are many – do tend to be somewhat myopic. In other words, storytellers invested in recreating – for a vastly lower price – what worked in a blockbuster outing like George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977) generally only tapped one or two elements that ultimately made the source picture such a hit with audiences, sacrificing a great deal of subtext, tone, aesthetics, and characterization. Instead, they’d capitalize as much as they could on the relative ‘shock and awe’ of the dumbed-down and less-frenetic spectacle.
For example, Luigi Cozzi’s Starcrash (1978) retained Lucas’ evil Galactic Empire and the concept of space smugglers working on the fringes of legality while amping up the campy humor, robotic sidekicks, and those forever spiffy glowing laser swords. Similarly, Enzo Castellari’s Warriors Of The Wasteland (1983) largely riffed on George Miller’s phenomenal The Road Warrior (1981) as a vehicle to talk about life after the Apocalypse but left out the overall conceit of claustrophobic isolation forcing Miller’s characters, settings, and circumstances to grow larger-and larger-and-larger-than-life against the backdrop of insurmountable desolation. While these films might occasionally look like their respective inspirations, it doesn’t take a savvy viewer to conclude that – other than being shot on film roughly in the same era – these derivative projects remain worlds apart artistically and commercially.
Now what distinguishes Joe D’Amato’s Endgame (1983) – a project that arguably looks as though it was intended motor in tandem with Mad Max – from its predecessors is that the script layers perhaps too many ideas into its 98-minute run-time. Frankly, there really wasn’t quite enough room to explore everything that gets dropped in here, from the surviving totalitarian government trying to entrance what was left of civilization through creative television programming all the way down to the various evolution (or de-volution?) of our species into freaks, fish, and more. A stronger director and a better script (this one credited to Aldo Florio and supporting star George Eastman) could’ve given what remains some greater nuance instead of the vicarious thrills and spills of gunplay, fisticuffs, menacing stares, and car crashes. Most likely, the producer (also D’Amato) got exactly what he was willing to invest in its making, which doesn’t appear to be all that much. (A quick search of Google.com suggests the picture’s budget tallied up to about one million dollars.)
After its opening credits superimposed over nothing more than the expanding mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion, Endgame opens looking like it’s going to be reasonably similar to director Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (which, incidentally, wouldn’t even see silver screens for a few years yet). The city’s Security Service – a fiery S.S. is even emblazoned on their black helmets – are clearing the streets of feeding, hungry, scab-covered mutants. The reality show Endgame is set to begin, a live action-adventure where competitors hunt one another for sport. The game is sponsored by the self-imposed military dictators, and they use these bloody serials to placate the masses-at-large with such find-and-kill entertainment not unlike how the Romans distracted their unruly citizenry with gladiatorial arenas in days of yore. Gameshow veteran Ron Shannon (played by Al Cliver) looks to continue an impressive run of success, but his screen nemesis Kurt Karnack (George Eastman) hopes to bring an end to his opponent’s time in the spotlight. Shannon’s luck prevails – despite some rather lackluster throwdowns – yet rather than kill Karnack he shows the fighter mercy, sparing his life so that they may prolong their last match-up for another day.
While out and about in the ruins of New York being hunted, Shannon meets Lilith, a mind-reading mutant who seeks to hire the folk hero to transport her and her people – mutants all – beyond the walls of the city to a potential sanctuary far away, an act that’s a violation of the existing martial law. Among these survivors is a young boy named Tommy (Christopher Walsh) whose powers have grown beyond mere telepathy and are now venturing into telekinesis. This suggests that Lilith and her group believes that Tommy might be the next evolution of humans, and he’s needed to usher what’s left of the world into a better future. Naturally, Shannon has a price; so when the woman offers him a fortune in gold (though I kept wondering where he was going to spend it) the fighter agrees.
At this point, Endgame kinda/sorta transitions more into a futuristic Spaghetti Western than a trope-laden Science Fiction and Fantasy feature. Shannon goes about assembling a team of individuals, each with a special skill set or attributes which might come in handy in making a crusade across the Wasteland. It’s a fan-friendly formula similar to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and the American equivalent, John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (1960). Joining Shannon on this quest, Ninja (screen veteran Hal Yamanouchi) brings his cunning with martial arts to the squad; and Bull (Gabriele Tinti) agrees to ‘ride shotgun’ seated atop their van-sized hauler in a machine-gun turret. Kovack (Mario Pedone) is an absolute bear of a man, serving as the necessary muscle; and – believe it or not – even Karnack manages to squeeze himself aboard the crew once the time is right. Basically, the Endgame competitor only wants his shot at Lilith’s promised gold fortune, but who can blame an opportunist for joining the fight?
Sadly, there isn’t all that much speed to Endgame’s second half as D’Amato assembles likely the slowest moving caravan of screen record. These vehicles’ top speed appears to be in single digits, and these rebels bumble through the rather plain countryside when they should’ve been racing for their lives. While the film sports a handful of frenzied altercations staged between Shannon’s group and the allegedly vicious Wasteland dregs, the action is poorly staged – it’s likely that most of the them were shot once with very little preparation much less rehearsal – leaving no sense of palpable tension anywhere to be found. Engines are revved, shots are fired, and the victims aplenty fall hither and thither. Lilith is eventually kidnapped by a mutant gang – the principal heavy is a blue-faced, scaly fish-freak who crudely barks “Look at me when I rape you!” – which essentially gives our mortal enemies Shannon and Karnack a chance to engage in a bromance-style team-up to rescue the maiden from the clutches of doom. Trust me: it sounds more interesting than it was rendered.
Because Endgame’s structure feels a bit disconnected – what starts as a high stakes life-and-death bloodsport essentially morphs into a turgid road movie – D’Amato pretty much allows the action to coast from one modestly-interesting but sometimes confusing sequence to another, some on wheels but most not. Clearly, the narrative set-up serves as a metaphor for what this ragtag band of survivors – mutants included – are enduring; and the picture works efficiently enough on that level to be entertaining if not occasionally bloated. The chases – if you can call them that – aren’t nearly as elaborate or ambitious as anything in The Road Warrior or even Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and far too much of it feels like it was filmed in an abandoned factory (which it was). Filmmaking’s biggest rule – you get what you pay for – is never at risk of being proven wrong. At no point does Florio and Eastman’s script ever grow bigger than the modest weight of its ideas, though there are many; and yet – as I said above – there are threads in here which could’ve been tugged a bit to produce a stronger tapestry.
It’s passable enjoyment, filmed mostly in a no-passing zone.
Endgame (1983) was produced by Joe D’Amato. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been handled by the fine folks at Severin Films.
Recommended ... but this one is really only for fans of B-Movies, at best.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that I’m beholden to no one for this review of Endgame (1983) as it springs from a home video purchase I made entirely on my own accord.
-- EZ
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A telepathic mutant recruits a post-World War III TV game-show warrior to lead her band of mutants to safety.”
Low-budgets Italian genre knock-offs – of which there are many – do tend to be somewhat myopic. In other words, storytellers invested in recreating – for a vastly lower price – what worked in a blockbuster outing like George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977) generally only tapped one or two elements that ultimately made the source picture such a hit with audiences, sacrificing a great deal of subtext, tone, aesthetics, and characterization. Instead, they’d capitalize as much as they could on the relative ‘shock and awe’ of the dumbed-down and less-frenetic spectacle.
For example, Luigi Cozzi’s Starcrash (1978) retained Lucas’ evil Galactic Empire and the concept of space smugglers working on the fringes of legality while amping up the campy humor, robotic sidekicks, and those forever spiffy glowing laser swords. Similarly, Enzo Castellari’s Warriors Of The Wasteland (1983) largely riffed on George Miller’s phenomenal The Road Warrior (1981) as a vehicle to talk about life after the Apocalypse but left out the overall conceit of claustrophobic isolation forcing Miller’s characters, settings, and circumstances to grow larger-and larger-and-larger-than-life against the backdrop of insurmountable desolation. While these films might occasionally look like their respective inspirations, it doesn’t take a savvy viewer to conclude that – other than being shot on film roughly in the same era – these derivative projects remain worlds apart artistically and commercially.
Now what distinguishes Joe D’Amato’s Endgame (1983) – a project that arguably looks as though it was intended motor in tandem with Mad Max – from its predecessors is that the script layers perhaps too many ideas into its 98-minute run-time. Frankly, there really wasn’t quite enough room to explore everything that gets dropped in here, from the surviving totalitarian government trying to entrance what was left of civilization through creative television programming all the way down to the various evolution (or de-volution?) of our species into freaks, fish, and more. A stronger director and a better script (this one credited to Aldo Florio and supporting star George Eastman) could’ve given what remains some greater nuance instead of the vicarious thrills and spills of gunplay, fisticuffs, menacing stares, and car crashes. Most likely, the producer (also D’Amato) got exactly what he was willing to invest in its making, which doesn’t appear to be all that much. (A quick search of Google.com suggests the picture’s budget tallied up to about one million dollars.)
After its opening credits superimposed over nothing more than the expanding mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion, Endgame opens looking like it’s going to be reasonably similar to director Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (which, incidentally, wouldn’t even see silver screens for a few years yet). The city’s Security Service – a fiery S.S. is even emblazoned on their black helmets – are clearing the streets of feeding, hungry, scab-covered mutants. The reality show Endgame is set to begin, a live action-adventure where competitors hunt one another for sport. The game is sponsored by the self-imposed military dictators, and they use these bloody serials to placate the masses-at-large with such find-and-kill entertainment not unlike how the Romans distracted their unruly citizenry with gladiatorial arenas in days of yore. Gameshow veteran Ron Shannon (played by Al Cliver) looks to continue an impressive run of success, but his screen nemesis Kurt Karnack (George Eastman) hopes to bring an end to his opponent’s time in the spotlight. Shannon’s luck prevails – despite some rather lackluster throwdowns – yet rather than kill Karnack he shows the fighter mercy, sparing his life so that they may prolong their last match-up for another day.
While out and about in the ruins of New York being hunted, Shannon meets Lilith, a mind-reading mutant who seeks to hire the folk hero to transport her and her people – mutants all – beyond the walls of the city to a potential sanctuary far away, an act that’s a violation of the existing martial law. Among these survivors is a young boy named Tommy (Christopher Walsh) whose powers have grown beyond mere telepathy and are now venturing into telekinesis. This suggests that Lilith and her group believes that Tommy might be the next evolution of humans, and he’s needed to usher what’s left of the world into a better future. Naturally, Shannon has a price; so when the woman offers him a fortune in gold (though I kept wondering where he was going to spend it) the fighter agrees.
At this point, Endgame kinda/sorta transitions more into a futuristic Spaghetti Western than a trope-laden Science Fiction and Fantasy feature. Shannon goes about assembling a team of individuals, each with a special skill set or attributes which might come in handy in making a crusade across the Wasteland. It’s a fan-friendly formula similar to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and the American equivalent, John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (1960). Joining Shannon on this quest, Ninja (screen veteran Hal Yamanouchi) brings his cunning with martial arts to the squad; and Bull (Gabriele Tinti) agrees to ‘ride shotgun’ seated atop their van-sized hauler in a machine-gun turret. Kovack (Mario Pedone) is an absolute bear of a man, serving as the necessary muscle; and – believe it or not – even Karnack manages to squeeze himself aboard the crew once the time is right. Basically, the Endgame competitor only wants his shot at Lilith’s promised gold fortune, but who can blame an opportunist for joining the fight?
Sadly, there isn’t all that much speed to Endgame’s second half as D’Amato assembles likely the slowest moving caravan of screen record. These vehicles’ top speed appears to be in single digits, and these rebels bumble through the rather plain countryside when they should’ve been racing for their lives. While the film sports a handful of frenzied altercations staged between Shannon’s group and the allegedly vicious Wasteland dregs, the action is poorly staged – it’s likely that most of the them were shot once with very little preparation much less rehearsal – leaving no sense of palpable tension anywhere to be found. Engines are revved, shots are fired, and the victims aplenty fall hither and thither. Lilith is eventually kidnapped by a mutant gang – the principal heavy is a blue-faced, scaly fish-freak who crudely barks “Look at me when I rape you!” – which essentially gives our mortal enemies Shannon and Karnack a chance to engage in a bromance-style team-up to rescue the maiden from the clutches of doom. Trust me: it sounds more interesting than it was rendered.
Because Endgame’s structure feels a bit disconnected – what starts as a high stakes life-and-death bloodsport essentially morphs into a turgid road movie – D’Amato pretty much allows the action to coast from one modestly-interesting but sometimes confusing sequence to another, some on wheels but most not. Clearly, the narrative set-up serves as a metaphor for what this ragtag band of survivors – mutants included – are enduring; and the picture works efficiently enough on that level to be entertaining if not occasionally bloated. The chases – if you can call them that – aren’t nearly as elaborate or ambitious as anything in The Road Warrior or even Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and far too much of it feels like it was filmed in an abandoned factory (which it was). Filmmaking’s biggest rule – you get what you pay for – is never at risk of being proven wrong. At no point does Florio and Eastman’s script ever grow bigger than the modest weight of its ideas, though there are many; and yet – as I said above – there are threads in here which could’ve been tugged a bit to produce a stronger tapestry.
It’s passable enjoyment, filmed mostly in a no-passing zone.
Endgame (1983) was produced by Joe D’Amato. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been handled by the fine folks at Severin Films.
Recommended ... but this one is really only for fans of B-Movies, at best.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that I’m beholden to no one for this review of Endgame (1983) as it springs from a home video purchase I made entirely on my own accord.
-- EZ
RSS Feed