The Executioner Part II (1984)

executionerIIFirst things first regarding The Executioner Part II: There is no part 1. Well, there is — it’s just that as a 1970 spy film starring George Peppard, it has nothing to do with this would-be sequel. And if it did, the Peppard picture would call for swift disownment, and be completely justified in doing so. I wouldn’t want a child who has been entirely redubbed, either.

The title character is Mike (Antoine John Mottet, Arctic Warriors), an auto repairman who is plagued by flashbacks of his tour of duty in Vietnam: “I came back, but I’m not home. … Charlie must die!” Fellow vet and best bud Lt. Roger O’Malley (The Day Time Ended’s Christopher Mitchum, son of Robert) doesn’t share Mike’s problem, but is forced to confront it while investigating a string of vigilante murders across greater Los Angeles. As reported by batty “news dame” Celia Amherst (Lady Street Fighter herself, Renee Harmon, who gets away with an oft-incomprehensible accent because she serves as the writer and producer), some masked figure calling himself The Executioner shows up at the scenes of crimes to beat up the bad guys and shove a live, pin-pulled grenade down their pants or somewhere about their person. Kablooey. (Cue the cartoon explosion, each and every time.)

executionerII1That said, I feel like none of these leads did much; O’Malley mostly sits in chairs. Not enough forward motion exists in this supposed main plot to justify referring to the rest as “subplots.” But what else to call them? The most prominent has O’Malley’s gap-toothed, cash-strapped high school daughter (Bianca Phillipi) jonesin’ so hard for “dope” that she follows her ever-giggling BFF (Marisi Courtwright) into part-time hustling. There’s also a street gang that seems straight out of Sharks and Jets territory, talk of a dreaded “Tattoo Man,” and a sex fiend with a bowl haircut and a habit of ripping open the blouse (sometimes the same one) of his lucky partner. Talk of The Executioner Part II isn’t complete without mentioning “Big Dan” (Dan Bradley, director of 2012’s Red Dawn remake), a villain forever dressed like a dinner-theater magician.

Squarely in the sludge section of his once-respectable career — he did Frankenstein’s Great Aunt Tillie the same year — The Green Berets’ Aldo Ray has a few scenes as O’Malley’s commissioner, but clearly shared no actual physical space with the other actors. That director James Bryan (Don’t Go in the Woods) doesn’t take great pains to conceal it is par for his misguided course. —Rod Lott

Get it at Vinegar Syndrome.

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