The Destroyers

Yes, Deathstalker himself, Rick Hill headlines in this mildly enjoyable OTT action affair brought to us by the ever dependable Cirio H. Santiago. The 'plot' concerns a bunch of particularly hostile and overly protective weed growers who don't take kindly when our hero turns up in town and starts to interfere with their horticultural plans. Yep, somewhat predictably from here on it's gun fire and explosions galore as our boy gets together some of his old Nam buddies and starts up a miniature war against the miscreants. Whilst far from Santiago's best effort in the genre this nonetheless serves as a fairly enjoyable affair throughout with some pretty cool action scenes including one where Hill does a spot of truck hopping and the finale wherein our man leaps bravely onto a helicopter, hurls in a grenade and finally drops about 80 feet into the lake below(!) What a man!

Ok, if you're going to pick a Cirio H. Santiago movie to watch, this should be it. Granted, the acting is weak and the plot needs some work, but you'll guaranteed to laugh at the amazing one liners occasionally spouted off. The movie is quite entertaining and it definately teaches everyone to beware of those hard-core, ruthless, killing marijuana growers. In Devastator, they are a force to be reckoned with.

The recently deceased Cirio H. Santiago was a prolific director who usually worked with low budgets and made some enjoyable B-movies. "The Destroyers" AKA "The Devastator", however, is one of his dullest films. Not that it lacks action - in fact quite the opposite: it is almost non-stop action, with the "talking parts" largely shortened or eliminated (example: a girl, who thought the hero was dead, suddenly sees him in the front door of her house; before they exchange a single word, the next scene shows them in bed together!). The action, though, is totally mindless - not just because four men, even with military experience, go up against about a hundred, but because it is never explained how a drug dealer operating in a small town is able to assemble a hundred men and so much hardware. Rich Hill, of "Deathstalker" fame, doesn't show much personality an a lead; the sweet Katt Shea does, but her part is largely thankless. * out of 4.

if you like action/revenge movies and 80's cheese, this one will be fun. It seems that not 5 minutes goes by without some machine gun fire in this movie. there's lots of guys getting beat up, the bad guys (pot warlord & goons) being really tough & bad, explosions, funny dialouge & one liners, and an outrageous amount of machine guns! A total guy flick, real macho and unrealistic, but funny as heck if you're in the mood for it. Some parts of the soundtrack are real weird too, not in the "Liquid Sky" amazingly well-done weird way, but more like a 5 year old randomly programming a drum machine & keyboard. it just sounds real off. If you like Blastfighter and Commando, check this out for butt-kicking & laughs! it starts a lil' slow, but is all action for the last half of the movie. I got this the same day I got the dubbed version of Zu (Warriors from...), which I would recommend about 200 times more, but for certain occasions, this stuff rocks!