Director: Sidney J. Furie
Cast: Lorenzo Lamas, David Carradine, Gary Busey, Roy Scheider

Although the focus of my website is for unknown movies and unknown filmmakers, I would like to start this particular review by discussing a filmmaker who is definitely not unknown - Steven Spielberg. Specifically, I would like to talk about the movies he's directed during the past nine years or so: Bridge Of Spies, The BFG, The Post, Ready Player One, West Side Story, and The Fablemans. Of those six movies, only one (Ready Player One) ended up being a true box office success, at least when you look at the worldwide gross. As for the other movies, Bridge Of Spies and The Post did each make profits (but not huge ones), and the remaining three ended up being either financial disappointments or outright bombs. Now, I am not knocking the artistic quality of any of these movies - some of these movies did manage to generate a number of rave reviews - but as you probably know nowadays, Hollywood studios more than ever are desiring the directors they hire to make not only box office successes, but HUGE box office successes. I kind of understand the studios' thinking; after all, movies today more than ever cost a huge amount of money to make, and when a studio is making a number of extremely expensive movies every year, the desire for every movie to be a box office smash is bigger than it's ever been. Fortunately for Spielberg, the Hollywood studios still seem to be very willing to hire him despite those times when his movies didn't generate huge amounts of box office dollars, though probably for the fact that in decades earlier, hiring Spielberg to direct a movie was almost always a license to generate HUGE amounts of money at the box office. No doubt the studios feel there is still some box office magic within him.

Though while Spielberg is still chugging along from one prestige movie after another, it makes me wonder what would happen if someone else in his shoes had directed those six movies and achieved the same box office results. I feel that if that particular person hadn't had a fabulous past track record like Spielberg's, I think it would be very likely that director might at that point start to be offered lesser movies to direct, or might find himself working in television and/or streaming services. I say this, because in the past there have been a good number of directors who hit critical and commercial gold with their movies earlier in their careers, but after just a few missteps, they were paired up with lesser movies for the remainder of their time behind the camera. Let me give you a few examples. There is Richard Fleischer, who managed in the early part of his career to make great movies like Compulsion, Narrow Margin, and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. But when the 1970s came around, although he managed early in the decade to make a few good movies like Soylent Green, The Last Run, and The Spikes Gang, his movies' box office grosses just ranged from okay to poor. This subsequently resulted in him being considered in the industry someone to direct lesser movies top tier directors wouldn't direct. Then there is the case of J. Lee Thompson. In the 1960s, after the one-two punch of The Guns Of Navarone and Cape Fear, he was considered to be hot stuff - for a short time. But after the subsequent big-budgeted box office failure Taras Bulba, plus a few other subsequent box office stiffs, Thompson often struggled to get prestigious film projects to helm. In fact, in the twilight years of his career, he directed eight movies for Cannon Films (though 10 To Midnight was without doubt a solid thriller, and The Ambassador was an underrated drama.)

However, the director I really want to talk about is Canadian director Sidney J. Furie. In 1965, he made a mark with the Michael Caine-starring The Ipcress File, which introduced the world to the character of Harry Palmer, a kind of antithesis to James Bond. With the movie being a critical and commercial hit, Furie seemed to be on the way to other prominent movies. However, by the time the 1970s started, Furie had somehow lost his momentum, and from that point up to the present day, the additions to his resume were for the most part not impressive, some of them being Gable And Lombard, Ladybugs, and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. In fact, Furie's career went so downhill that he actually (gasp!) had to return to Canada a number of times to get work. And with some of his Canadian films being dreck like Detention, Iron Eagle II, and Iron Eagle IV, you may understand that when I came across his Canadian movie The Rage, I was at first reluctant to watch it. However, when a loyal reader of this website recommended the movie to me, and my subsequent deep research uncovered further claims that it was a decent movie, I decided to give it a look. The events of a movie center around an FBI agent by the name of Nick Travis (Lorenzo Lamas, Terminal Justice). He is paired up with a new partner by the name of Kelly McCord (Kristen Cloke, Black Christmas), because Travis' superiors, one of them being John Taggart (Roy Scheider, Executive Target), think that while McCord is new in the field, she may be able to help Travis with his current assignment. That assignment is to track down and capture a serial killer by the name of Art Dacy (Gary Busey, Hex), who is proving to be quite slippery despite Travis being more than willing to bend the rules, and also despite the help of friendly local sheriff Glen Dobson (Brandon Smith, Jeepers Creepers). What Travis and McCord don't know is that Dacy is actually the leader of a group of disgruntled Vietnam war veterans who are helping Dacy with his serial killer-like ways, which are leading up to a big plan for them to get revenge against the government and the VA. With so much backup, Dacy isn't much fazed by the fact that two determined FBI agents are after him. In fact, Dacy decides to sweeten up his kill list by adding Travis and McCord to it!

As you see, mainly due to the presence of Lamas, Scheider, and Busey, The Rage certainly has a memorable B-movie cast. Even David Carradine (P.O.W. The Escape) shows up in a cameo (though all his footage has him either in a wheelchair or lying on the floor, no doubt due to his severe alcoholism at the time that frequently incapacitated him.) Do you want to know which of the cast makes the most positive impression? Surprisingly, it's none of the big stars, but instead supporting player Kristen Cloke. Although her role is ostensibly that of a sidekick to Lamas' character, she all the same manages to overshadow Lamas and become the lead despite getting less footage than Lamas. She's lively, showing a lot of enthusiasm without going overboard with it, but also showing a vulnerability (such as one moment when her character cries) that gives her character extra and believable dimension. Plus, to her credit, when she's paired up with Lamas, she actually ignites a few sparks. Which is amazing, if you have seen Lamas "acting" in other B movies before this one. To be fair, Lamas is slightly better here than I have seen him in other B movies. He's a bit less monotone and irritating in tone, though all the same in a number of scenes he looks extremely unsure of himself, and that results in him often awkwardly moving his body and expressing his dialogue in a way that suggests a fish out of water. As for the rest of the main cast, Scheider is, well, Scheider in the same way he was in other B-movies of the time like The Peacekeeper and Executive Target; serviceable, no more or less, just there to say his lines and pick up his paycheck while wondering how he lost the A-movie actor status he had just a few years earlier.

As for Gary Busey, well, without much of a surprise, he plays his character as a crazed nutzo. But in this particular movie, well... although he rants and raves, there's something phoned-in about its presentation, as if he didn't have any idea how to make this crazed role unique among his many others, or was hampered by outside forces. Thinking about it, it seems to be the latter theory. The script for The Rage doesn't give Busey much of a chance to do anything else than act stereotypically psycho. Indeed, we learn more about his character from other characters than we do from Busey's character himself. The screenplay also doesn't give much insight into some of the motivations and actions by many of the characters, not just Busey's. If Busey and his followers have an ultimate major criminal goal they want to execute, then why the heck along the way are they busy killing innocents that subsequently bring the heat of the law upon them? If the investigation is designated one with the FBI, why is the FBI allowing the local law enforcers to get so heavily involved with it? I guess questions like those aren't supposed to be pondered if you don't want to be branded an especially picky audience member, but there are some questions that lead to such confusion that even the most forgiving viewers won't be able to overlook. Most of these are in the first twenty or so minutes of the movie, which starts off after the opening credits with Travis at a stakeout. As this scene plays out, you'll be asking: Who is being staked out? Why is this person being staked out? How did Travis and the law enforcers know to be there at that right time? Is this all tied to the main investigation? I was so confused by this opening sequence (as well as the pre-title sequence) that after both sequences played out, it took me additional time to piece together what was happening and why. Some viewers less patient than I was might very well stop watching out of confusion before the first twenty minutes are over.

Thinking about what I've just told you, it seems the blame for this opening confusion can be blamed on director Furie. These two opening scenes go by so quickly that there isn't any chance for the movie in these portions to explain what exactly is happening. Mercifully, after the first twenty minutes, the movie does gain footing and subsequently unrolls at the appropriate pace. However, there's still subsequently a lot of blame to be placed at Furie's feet. There's a flashback sequence that appears so incompetently, that at first I thought it was an event in the present day. There's also later a kidnapping where just previously to it there is some Strum und Drag... and suddenly the kidnapped victim is in the back of Busey's van. How was the person captured? We never get to see how. It's odd that The Rage has some incompetence behind the camera, because there is at the same time a lot of professionalism. Although a Canadian production (despite being shot in Utah), Furie manages to give the movie a fairly expensive look and feeling, unlike the cold and cheapo look and feel of most other Canadian movies of this period. Clearly, the movie had a budget and considerable resources, which explains why the action sequences are almost totally top notch. The vehicular work, explosions, and shoot-outs are for the most part extremely well staged and contain some stunts so hair-raising and elaborate that I am amazed that no stuntpeople were apparently killed or hurt; those craving high quality and hard-hitting action will certainly be satisfied by what's offered here, though they may laugh at the scene when Scheider engages in mixed martial arts (!) with Lamas, especially since Scheider manages to hold his own longer than you might think. Though if action fans remember what else I've said about The Rage, they will realize that in order to witness the great action, they will have to go through the chaff in order to get to the heart of the wheat. If they are willing to go through all that, they will probably find The Rage worth sitting through. Those just wanting to sit back and let the movie do all the work for them, however, may think differently, so much so they will get the title emotion before hitting the stop button on their remote.

(Posted January 24, 2024)