Exterminator 2
(1984)
Director: Mark Buntzman
Cast: Robert Ginty, Mario Van Peebles, Deborah Geffner
One of the
biggest problems that can come up in the middle of shooting a movie is
when one of the principle actors suddenly becomes unavailable for one
reason or another. There have been a number of times in Hollywood
history when the reason for that is that the actor died. Each time that
has happened, it's been interesting to see what the makers of the movie
do about it. No doubt you know about the case of actor Paul Walker, who
was killed in an off-set traffic accident while he was making the movie
Furious
Seven. Universal Pictures decided to complete the movie anyway, using CGI, body
doubles, stunt doubles, and Walker's real-life brothers in the place of
Walker. These techniques to complete a movie after the death of an
actor is not really all that new. Take the case of the 1937 movie Saratoga.
The movie's female lead, Jean Harlow, had about ninety percent of her
scenes shot before she suddenly got extremely ill and shortly after
died. Metro Goldwyn Mayer decided to use a double (shot from behind)
and used a Harlow sound-alike to dub in the dialogue the real Harlow
was to have spoken. Yes, all this sounds very complicated and risky,
which is why some studios in the same situation have gone for an easier
route. When the 1959 movie Solomon And Sheba
was being filmed and its star Tyrone Power died from a heart attack
midway through, United Artists was offered the choice of either scrapping the
project and collecting $2.5 million from insurance, or start over with a new
star and get about half of that amount from insurance. They opted for the
latter option, getting Yul Brynner to play the lead. With all three of those movies I mentioned, the
gambles the studios paid off; every movie ended up making a lot of money.
But there are certainly other cases when a movie has not
been completed when its star suddenly becomes unavailable when the
reason isn't that the star has died. Take the case of the movie I am
reviewing here, Exterminator
2.
It's an interesting story, one that actually starts several years
before the movie started to be filmed. It starts in 1980, when the
movie The
Exterminator
was released to theaters. Starring Robert Ginty, the movie became a box
office smash and is today loved by many B movie fans... except me. (I
thought the movie was too cold, too cruel, and too slimy even for my often
depraved tastes.) Naturally, with the movie making a mint at the box
office, it didn't take long for its producer, Mark Buntzman, to start
thinking of a sequel even if he couldn't get writer/director James
Glickenhaus to return in any of those two roles. So Buntzman shopped
around the sequel project, and eventually found backing for it.
Buntzman was still producer this second time around, but that wasn't
his only role on the movie - this time he was also acting as the
screenwriter and the director. But when shooting started, it did not
take long for some serious production problems to come up, largely due
to Buntzman's inexperience as a director and being unable to take firm
control. The budget started to balloon much past the $1.5 million
originally slated for the project. And the studio backing the film, Cannon Films, was not happy with
how the movie was turning out to be upon seeing the rushes back in
Hollywood. So Buntzman was eventually removed from the director's
chair, and William Sachs (Hot Chili),
who had been another producer working on the movie, was told by Cannon
to finish the movie, in a way that would fit Golan and Globus' tastes.
Sachs
accepted the request by the studio to finish the
movie, but there was a problem - a big one. The movie's star, Robert
Ginty, had shortly before left the project after completing his
contract to the letter. And by the time Sachs was ready to start to
complete the movie, Ginty was already on another movie project and
either couldn't come back or was holding out for more money. (Reports I
uncovered vary on this.) Sachs thought fast about the footage that had
been
shot up to this point, and came up with an idea. There was one shot in
the movie of Ginty wearing a welding mask and using a welding torch.
Sachs decided to make Ginty's character one that would wear a welding
mask and fry criminal scum with a modified welding torch acting as a
flamethrower. This way, another
actor could play Ginty's character in these scenes and the audience
wouldn't know the difference. Sachs managed to complete the movie this
way, helping to make yet another wacky story to come out of Cannon
Films. The fact that Menahem
Golan and
Yoram Globus were behind the movie was the main reason as to why I decided to sit down
and
watch this sequel, since their often-goofy touch promised to make this
sequel more cheerful than the original movie. Exterminator 2,
like the original movie, is set in New York City, with Ginty reprising
his role as John Eastland. Since the events of the first movie,
Eastland has managed to get a girlfriend (Geffner, Star 80),
and has a job working with his old army buddy Be Gee (Frankie Faison, C.H.U.D.).
But one thing hasn't changed in Eastland's life, and that is his
penchant to be a vigilante. Nowadays, he goes around the city with a
flame thrower and roasts various people he catches committing crimes.
One day, he roasts a member of a street gang, not knowing that his
victim is actually the brother of a powerful street gang leader known
simply as "X" (Peebles, Rappin').
When X finds out his brother has been killed, he is determined to get
revenge, and Eastland soon finds out that not only is he in danger, but
also the two people in his life he cares about.
I strongly suspect many of you long time readers of The Unknown Movies
who have at least a fair knowledge of Cannon Films under the reign of
Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus are wondering if the troubled history of
this movie produced the same kind of insane results as the later
equally troubled Cannon movie Journey To The Center
Of The Earth. Well, Exterminator 2
doesn't get to that level, but the troubles on the shoot are very
apparent. While original director Buntzman shot on location in New York
City, the reshoots happened in Los Angeles, and the different
architecture does show at times. Robert Ginty's character is clearly
played by a double on several occasions, not just the time when the
character is wearing a welding mask. Even worst is that Mario Van
Peebles' hair style changes dramatically throughout the movie. When it
comes to the story portion of the movie, the central plot isn't too
incoherent, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any problems with
it. For example, the movie completely ignores how things were at the
end of the first movie with The Powers That Be, despite the fact early
on in this sequel the press loudly announces that The Exterminator is
back again and is continuing to kill criminals. Why those powers don't
immediately jump back into action to try and stop him is never
explained. Another problem is that there are several moments when
important story details go by so quickly (such as the less than ten
second scene at the hospital after one character gets severely hurt)
that linking footage or complete scenes don't seem to have been filmed.
What's worse about the movie, however, is how much more of the plot
unfolds at a really slow pace. The movie frequently seems to be making
things up as it goes along, with an incredible amount of padding, such
as when Ginty's character observes several breakdancers in the park
doing their thing for a very long time.
Even
despite all this padding, the movie barely gets
over the 80-minute mark before the end credits begin to roll, with the
first credit proclaiming Sachs as shooting "additional scenes". Despite
the story being ruined in this forced collaboration between two
different directors, the Buntzman footage and the Sachs footage do
pretty much have the same core feeling to them. It's often a somewhat
cartoony type feeling, which may not be very realistic, but it doesn't
drag the movie to the scummy depths that the first movie found itself
in. This includes the action sequences, which do on occasion deliver
some of the goods that grindhouse audiences at the time were expecting,
including some surprisingly graphic depictions of burnt corpses (Golan
and Globus reportedly couldn't get enough of this particular kind of
"crisp direction".) But
there are also some action moments that are really botched up. Some of
the action scene problems are with the aforementioned problem of
linking footage being missing, like how the gang on a robbery scheme
managed to stop an armored car and drag the driver out of the vehicle.
Some action scenes have no definite ending, such as when a woman is
kidnapped by a gang member on roller skates and is started to be chased
by her boyfriend... and then suddenly the movie cuts to the next scene.
The biggest flaw I found with the action sequences, however, is that I
thought most of the action was sluggish and boring. One reason for that
is that many of the action sequences center around a garbage truck. If
you have seen garbage trucks in real life, no doubt you know that
although they look mighty and strong, they are very slow vehicles. So
seeing the garbage truck in this movie creep along really slowly
dragged the energy level down considerably. But even when the action
moves away from the garbage truck, there is a very tired and routine
feeling, and I started to think more about those previously seen messy
corpses instead of concentrating on what was happening at that
particular moment.
With there being a definite lack of good action in Exterminator 2,
as well as a slow and somewhat sloppy plot, there's really not many
other ways that the movie might have saved itself. In fact, the only
other angle I can think of to deeply examine the movie is with the
characters and the actors, so I'll finish up with looking at all that.
I never considered actor Robert Ginty to be either charismatic or
talented, with this effort of his continuing the trend. To be fair, he
was saddled with a character showing no real depth, which may explain
why he appears bewildered so frequently when not sounding really forced
when shows anger. Even worse is the portrayal of his girlfriend.
Actress Deborah Geffner shows a little spunk, but she gets very little
to do because the movie seems clueless what to do with her; her
character only has about two minutes of footage in the movie's first
thirty minutes, for example. For his villain character, Mario Van
Peebles brings some charisma, and he does try to put some pep into his
line reading on occasion, but the writing gives his character no
insight, content just to say empty and tired lines of dialogue like, "I
am the streets!" while basically shrugging off bad events like the
death of his brother. On a more positive note, actor Frankie Faison as
Ginty's best friend manages to be upbeat and full of energy throughout
the movie, and ends up being the one solitary likable character in the
movie. But even his best efforts can't save Exterminator 2 from
being anything except a viewing experience for only the most die-hard fans
of Cannon Films. The only other possible positive thing to say about
the movie is that unlike the first entry, it didn't want me to take a shower
afterwards.
(Posted January 9, 2023)
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See also: Outlaw Force, Self Defense, 10 To
Midnight
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