According to Wikipedia, Cannon Group films launched in 1967 and lasted until 1994. For those of us who consider ourselves fans, Cannon Group began in 1982 with the release of Charles Bronson’s Death Wish II and ended in 1989 with the release of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Cyborg.
In-between was a glorious run of movies with only one goal in mind: make a few bucks by providing entertainment, which mostly meant gratuitous violence and nudity. Raise your hand if you miss gratuitous violence and nudity.
Oh, my, and it was glorious. Over those eight years, Cannon released around a hundred movies. Sure, there was a lot of crap (Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Tough Guys Don’t Dance), a few successful stabs at serious drama (Hanoi Hilton, Barfly, 52 Pick-Up), a ton of entertaining action movies, and a handful of classics. Here are five of the classics…
- Runaway Train (1985)
Based on a 1960 story by Akira Kurosawa, Runaway Train is a textbook edition of an existential thriller that examines Man v. Machine, Man v. Nature, Man v. Confinement, and Man v. Man.
Manny (Jon Voight) and Buck (Eric Roberts) are escaped prisoners who end up on a train made up of only four monster engines with no outside catwalks. After the engineer has a fatal heart attack, the train becomes a runaway with no brakes. They soon realize they are not alone after Sara (Rebecca De Mornay) is discovered on board.
Great performances, an exciting script, and a theme about finding the humanity in the seemingly inhuman Manny result in a true masterpiece with an unforgettable ending.
2. Death Wish II (1982)
The original Death Wish (1974) is not a revenge movie. The muggers who annihilate Paul Kersey’s (Charles Bronson) family are never seen again. To work through his helpless grief, Kersey baits and shoots any mugger who makes the mistake of attempting to rob him.
Death Wish II, which reunited director Michael Winner and Bronson, is all about revenge. Kersey has relocated from New York to Los Angeles. His daughter is still recovering from her trauma when she is kidnapped, raped, and dies trying to escape. This time Kersey hunts the actual bad guys and the results pure pulp.
At age 60, Bronson is at the peak of movie star presence, which Winner uses to great effect in one iconic shot after another. All of this is backed up with a dynamite score written and performed by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.
3. Street Smart (1987)
A passion project for the late and still-missed Christopher Reeve, this is the uncompromising story of a New Yorker-style journalist who runs out of ideas and does what all “journalists” do — makes something up out of whole cloth. In this case, he manufactures a story of a street pimp who doesn’t exist. The complications (both moral and professional) that follow are beautifully scripted by David Freeman and eventually involve a real-life pimp Fast Black (Morgan Freeman), who’s looking to get out from under a murder rap.
Everyone is great in this thriller, including Reeves, who never got his due as an actor. Street Smart is most famous for launching the careers of Kathy Baker (who plays one of Fast Black’s girls) and Freeman, who is terrifying and won his first Oscar nomination.
This being a Cannon production, you expect a cathartic ending. Nope. Instead, this is real life, where the villains always win, and by “villains” I mean the media.
Street Smart is directed by Jerry Schatzberg, the genius behind Panic in Needle Park (1971) and Scarecrow (1973). And once again, he proves impeccable at capturing a place and time — in this case, New York in the late eighties (even though much of the movie was filmed in Canada).
4. Cobra (1986)
A beautifully ridiculous police thriller written by and starring Sylvester Stallone as Marion “Cobra” Cobretti, one of those cops who plays by the same rules as the bad guys. There’s a murderous cult out to kill Stallone’s then-wife, Brigitte Nielsen. Cobra must protect her, so we get romance and sex mixed in with plenty of violence and one-liners aching to achieve iconic status. For example, Cobra pretty much destroys a grocery store to end a hostage situation. His superiors are not happy with the property damage. “I don’t shop here,” is his reply.
Cobra is the ultimate in 80’s machismo, something today’s movies could use more of, and it’s no accident that the movie reunites actors Andy Robinson and Reni Santoni from the original Dirty Harry (1971).
5. Invasion U.S.A. (1985)
What a 1985 Chuck Norris had. The underrated Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (also a Cannon film), Code of Silence, and this pulp masterpiece (co-written by Norris) about the world’s terrorists uniting to invade America and spread chaos in the hopes of manipulating Americans to wage war against Americans by using our own freedoms against us.
It’s a ridiculous idea, the kind of concept that sounds unworkable, but work it does, and then some, by focusing on Hunter’s (Norris) hunt for the key villains as all hell breaks loose throughout the country. Highlights include a shopping mall shootout and car chase (in the mall) and a truly harrowing scene watching terrorists fire rocket launchers into a half dozen suburban homes (a little kid staggering out of an exploded house still shocks). Richard Lynch as the arch-villain (Rostov) is an inspired piece of casting. His presence gives the movie a serious boost.
Action-packed, cathartic, and a Christmas movie. Who could ask for anything more?
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
