‘There are more ways to die down here than in a Bruce Lee film.’
The Bronx has been declared uninhabitable and scheduled for demolition to make way for a new development. Residents are being forcibly evicted with deadly force until a small group begins to fight back…
Action-packed sequel to international hit ‘1990: The Bronx Warriors/1990: I guerrieri del Bronx (1982). Director Enzo G Castellari returns with star Mark Gregory, and a supporting cast that includes Henry Silva, Timothy Brent and Ennio Girolami.
Ten years after the Manhattan Corporation’s misguided attempt to infiltrate the urban wasteland of the Bronx, the borough is scheduled for redevelopment. President Clark (Girolami) of the G.C. Corporation sees it as the perfect location for his flagship’ city of the future’ project. There is no place in his plan for the current residents, and, officially, at least, they are being offered relocation to New Mexico. However, the truth is that professional mercenary Floyd Wrangler (Silva) is wiping them out with his Disinfestation Squads. The press and public are being kept out of the region by a bogus epidemic, but reporter Moon Grey (Valeria D’Obici) smells a rat and infiltrates the area. The gangs who run the borough have moved underground and rallied around charismatic leader Dablone (Antonio Sabato).
Alongside his mission to clear out the borough, Silva also seeks the head of the notorious renegade, Trash (Gregory), who runs ammunition to Sabato and his followers. Determined to operate as a lone wolf, Gregory is forced into the fight when the squad murder his parents (Romano Puppo and Eva Czemerys). Gregory and Sabato concoct a plan to kidnap Girolami when he arrives for the new development’s ground-breaking ceremony. To pull off their outrageous plan, they recruit D’Obici, famous bank robber Strike (Brent) and his 8-year-old son, Junior (Alessandro Prete), an expert with high explosives. The snatch is successful, but they find themselves trying to navigate the ruined streets and underground tunnels with Silva’s men in hot pursuit.
After the surprising international success of the first film, which ranked fifth in the U.S. on its first week of release, a sequel was almost guaranteed. Keen to replicate the original’s box office take, producer Fabrizio De Angelis arranged for a practically identical filming schedule: a couple of weeks of shooting on location in New York and the remainder of the filming taking place in Rome. Unfortunately, the creative side of the enterprise also boasted little variation. Instead of opening up the world established in the first film, Castellari opts for what’s little more than a remake but on a slightly bigger scale. So there are more stunts and action, bigger explosions and a higher body count. There are also further nods to John Carpenter’s original inspiration, ‘Escape from New York’ (1981), with a kidnapped President and that rather obvious title.
The good news is that the stunt work and pyrotechnics are all delivered with a cool, professional efficiency, and the second half of the film goes pedal to the metal with the action. The stunt crew have an absolute field day, flinging themselves off high buildings, getting set on fire by flame throwers and somersaulting through the air as the world explodes around them. Not only does Veteran Castellari know how to deliver their efforts to the best advantage, he also knows how to use slow-motion, saving it for occasional moments to give it a lasting impact. However, the bad news is that there’s so much of this mayhem that it soon becomes repetitive and quickly takes the place of any significant plot development. There’s not even any resolution to the story at the end, as by the time we hit the third act, everything has just boiled down to who’ll be left standing when the smoke clears. It’s no spoiler to reveal that whoever makes it to the end credits won’t have much in the way of company!
There’s also disappointment for fans of the first film who appreciated its quirkier aspects. Sure, the presence of roller hockey thugs, blaxploitation gangsters and tap-dancing martial artists was all very silly, but it did give the original a unique flavour that’s mostly absent here. Sabato’s underground community does contain some of these characters, but they’re little more than set dressing, with only Carla Brait and her gold bowler hat getting any screen time at all, and that’s far too brief. The few fresh ideas that Castellari and Tito Carpi offer up in their script are also discarded very quickly: the fake quarantine that provokes a media blackout and the apparent interest of the U.N. in the cleansing operation. Given the breakneck pace of Italian genre film production at the time, it’s almost inevitable that such world-building takes a back seat. However, it still feels like a disappointment as such elements might have led to some interesting story points.
Instead, we get a roll call of characters who are little more than slight variations on those that appeared in the first film. Sabato takes the place of Fred Williamson’s ‘King of New York’, Silva’s ruthless ground forces commander stands in for Vic Morrow’s ‘Hammer’, and Girolami returns to play a different evil CEO of a different evil corporation! Fortunately, all the actors give good value on the screen, particularly Silva, who was adept at this kind of dark role. There’s also a brief appearance from Puppo, who had a much more prominent role in Sergio Martino’s semi-bonkers post-apocalyptic romp ‘2019: After the Fall of New York/2019 – Dopo la caduta di New York (1983).
Best of all, there’s a starring part for Brent (real name Giancarlo Prete), who led the line as ‘Road Warrior’ lookalike Scorpion in Castellari’s ‘The New Barbarians/I nuovi barbari/Warriors of the Wasteland’ (1983). He brings a lighter touch to the material amidst all the violence, which is welcome, and performs some of his own stunts. Although I can find no supporting evidence, screen son Alessandro Prete was probably his real-life offspring, as this was the youngster’s only featured acting role in the 1980s. This contention seems all the more probable, given Castellari’s habit of casting members of his own family in his films. Girolami was his older brother, and Massimo Vanni, who plays gang member Big Little Man and worked on the stunts, was a cousin.
Silva was not quite a native of the Bronx, but was born in nearly Brooklyn in 1926. In 1955, he joined the prestigious Actor’s Studio as one of only five selected from over 2,500 applicants. After starring on Broadway in the group’s production of ‘A Hatful of Rain’, Silva repeated his role in the successful film version directed by Fred Zinnemann in 1957. Concentrating on film, he began sharing the screen with stars like Richard Widmark and Gregory Peck and was featured as one of Frank Sinatra’s gang in ‘Oceans Eleven’ (1960). A standout performance in John Frankenheimer’s classic cold war thriller ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (1962) promised bigger things, but his only subsequent lead was in the independent gangster drama ‘Johnny Cool’ (1963). After being offered a memorable villain in the Spaghetti Western ‘The Hills Run Red/Un fiume di dollari’ (1966), Silva relocated to Europe and began a long association with genre cinema that included the leads in crime dramas like ‘Assassination’ (1967) and ‘The Boss/Murder Inferno/Il boss’ (1973). He was also a regular on U.S. Network T.V. for more than 40 years, taking guest slots on multiple hit shows, including ‘Mission: Impossible’, ‘Tarzan’ with Ron Ely, ‘Hawaii Five-O’, ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ and ‘Buck Rogers in the 25th Century’ to name just a handful. Other American pictures included ‘Alligator’ (1980) and ‘Megaforce’ (1982). In later years, he did voice work for animations, including playing Batman villain, Bane. He passed away in 2022 at the age of 95.
There’s plenty of bang for your buck in this action-packed sequel, but if you’re looking for a good story, it’s better to search elsewhere.
Mark David Welsh 