American Hunter (Indonesia, 1989)

If there were ever an action movie hall of fame, I imagine that there would be a hall dedicated to the humble microfilm, that tiny macguffin that has served as the catalyst for countless car chases, fist fights, acrobatic heists, and scenes of prolonged torture throughout film history. So long is its shadow that nothing in our current technological age has come close to replacing it. The flash drive was a brief contender, but lost its sexiness once people started making them in the shape of teddy bears.

Take, for example, the first scene of American Hunter, in which the mere mention of a microfilm causes a man to pilot a jeep through a top floor window of a high rise office building. From there begins a squalid free-for-all in which various competing interests try to get their hands on the film by any means necessary. Among theses are Adam, played by kick boxer Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, who is later revealed to be a criminal mastermind by the name of Judas, an identity shift that is accomplished simply be people calling him Judas instead of Adam. Then there is mustachioed muscle farmer Frank Gordon, played by Mike Abbott and, finally, "Mr. Selleck" played by The Stabilizer star Peter O'Brian.

If a star with as thin a filmography as O'Brian can be said to be cast against type, the snarling uber-yuppy he plays in American Hunter is definitely that, standing as it does in sharp contrast to the stonily inexpressive engines of justice he plays in other of Rapi Films' Indonesian actioners like The Stabilizer and Rambu, the Intruder. Any cognitive dissonance you might suffer as a result will be shortlived, however, as Selleck is among the first of the baddies to be gorily dispatched by one of his competitors.

In fact, so chaotic is the activity that erupts around the microfilm that no one ever manages to give us a satisfying explanation of what is on it, other than a reference, in one scene, to it's contents allowing its owner to "rob and blow up Wall Street." This is something I am wholeheartedly in favor of, because, honestly, who gives a shit? As long as we are a supplied with an endless parade of over-the-top-action sequences, that microfilm could contain a recipe for kombucha or a collection of "babies scared by their own farts" videos for all we care.

And given this film is well served by the "all machine gun fire all the time" aesthetic of Stabilizer and Special Silencers auteur Arizal, an endless parade of over-the-top action sequences is exactly what we get. This despite the fact that most of the car chases--which, I'm assuming, were filmed without permits on the busy streets of Jakarta--are markedly sedate, as if the participants were driving their parents' cars. Of course, this lethargy does not prevent these chases from ending in cars going airborne and erupting in flames. It should also be noted that a lot of the machinegun fire on display is used toward practical household ends, such as opening drawers and cabinets.

And what vaguely defined hero stands at the center of all this mayhem, you may ask? Well that would be Jake Carver, a principled everyman played by the perpetually acid-wash clad Chris Mitchum, who starred in many of these low budget Asian-backed action films during the 80s. Mitchum is, of course, one of the actor sons of noir icon Robert Mitchum, and he bares a striking resemblance to his dad--with one crucial difference: While Mitchum senior's laconic exterior tended to belie a smoldering inner intensity, Mitchum the younger's laconic exterior doesn't appear to belie much of anything beyond an equally laconic interior. Yet, despite this muted charisma, Mitchum has a good natured vibe that makes him nonetheless appealing. This everyday Joe quality is underscored by the dad-joke quality bon mots he spouts whenever faced with danger, such as when, faced with two goons fitting live electrodes to his temples, he says "I don't think I'm gonna like this." Such a gambit would probably confound any central casting supervillain, whose only reply could be, "No, Mr. Carver, I expect you to... well, yes, you're not going to like it, are you?"

Among film enthusiasts, American Hunter--like other of its brethren in the Indo-action genre, such as The Stabilizer and Lady Terminator--is the kind of film that really separates the scholars from the pleasure seekers. By this I mean that it is totally meaningless, yet yields great rewards to anyone who comes to it unburdened by demands for coherence, thematic content, or character motivation. As a director, Arizal trades a lot in the lizard brain pleasures of seeing motor vehicles where motor vehicles are manifestly not meant to be, such as when a motorcycle hops onto a train car and continues down the center aisle as passengers frantically scramble out of the way. There's also a lot of joy to be mined from the exuberant back flips executed by the somewhat slouchy Chris Mitchum's stunt double, as well as the actually competent brawling of heavies Wallace and Abbott.

Would it be a spoiler to say that, at the end of American Hunter, Chris Mitchum's Jake Carver rescues his love interest, played by Netherlands-born Indonesian starlet Ida Lasha, from the villain's fortress, which is then consumed by a spectacular explosion? It would? Okay, well let's just say that this film will leave you satisfied, though perhaps with the type of vaguely undernourished feeling that might lead you to binge watch BBC historical melodramas in its wake.