KNIGHTS OF THE CITY is an incredible ‘80s b-movie fever dream that’s still only on VHS, and so up my dark, garbage strewn alley that it’s amazing I never knew about it before. Gives me hope for what else could still be out there.
It involves gangs, breakdancing, and a battle of the bands. It was released in 1986, but filmed in 1984, starring and written by Leon Isaac Kennedy, between PENITENTIARYs II and III. He plays Troy, leader of a street gang and also lead singer of a band. I never caught the name of the gang, and they wait until the final act to reveal that the band is called The Royal Rockers. They’re violent tough guys who collect protection money from area businesses, and participate in gang rumbles using canes, bats, chains and switchblades. Their band rehearses in a trashed, graffiti and mannequin filled punk apartment, but their music is danceable synth-based R&B love songs.
The unspecified Florida city’s street culture is like a collision of BREAKIN’ and DEATH WISH 3, so we see endless varieties of sleeveless shirts, headbands, leather jackets, fingerless gloves, sunglasses, studded belts, raised collars, mesh tank tops, berets, wristbands, armbands, camouflage, marching band jackets, New Wave blazers, and many types of mohawks. The villain Carlos (Jeff Moldovan, BLOODSPORT: THE DARK KUMITE), leader of the Mechanics, is introduced wearing a red vest over a red Hawaiian shirt tied up Daisy Duke style. His trademarks are a fedora and a cheap fake mustache cut in two with each half glued to the side of his mouth. When he takes off the fedora it reveals that he too has a mohawk. (read the rest of this shit…)
Long ago, before the rogue Finn Renny Harlin’s Samson locks were shorn, he was not the director of DEEP BLUE SEA. He was the director of DIE HARD 2. Or DIE HARDER as everybody thought it was called then. (This was before the internet, so I couldn’t explain to them that it was called DIE HARD 2.) Well, CLIFFHANGER is another movie from that o.g. Renny Harlin, or Renny Harlin Classic. And from where I stand this may be his finest McClane-free picture.
