Something Recommended To Me On Netflix Instant: Revolt

Revolt (1985 or 1986); believe it or not, this movie is so obscure it is not on IMDb! No kidding.

Runtime: a lean 72 minutes

Directed by: J. Shaybany

“Starring”: Rand Martin, Fattaneh, Sepehrnia

From: Intercontinental Releasing Corporation

Here is something truly amazing: a movie available on Netflix Instant Streaming and yet it's not on IMDb. I can't believe such a thing is even possible. Only a few sites have talked about it and that's it. From what I can gather, this was made by Iranian Americans who wanted to show that their people aren't the type that are to be feared due to the whole Iran Hostage Crisis thing and in fact are just like you and me and they hate drugs too. It looked to be set in '79 or '80 as the aforementioned Crisis is actually shown on TV and they talk about Carter as being President. Judging by the fashions and cars, it looked to be filmed in the early 80's... and for rather cheap, given that I am pretty sure all of the audio was added in afterwards, from dialogue to gunfire to other sounds.

The plot... after a few minutes where you hear a narrator who pronounces his Sh's like Sch tell us that drugs are bad as you see random scenes of drug deals being made in such places as the most ghetto nightclub you'll ever see, you finally get to the main story. It revolves around the white Steve and his Iranian wife (Fattaneh, a woman who I understand was a legit popular Persian singer) who run a Persian restaurant in a nameless California town. His brother decides to become a driver for a drug dealer as the old one (Curtis) got fired and almost killed for being terrible. It turns out that the brother also isn't a good driver and he does get killed. Those two guys are no Ryan Gosling as the Driver, the romancer of Carey Mulligan and doing battle against Albert Brooks. Both guys don't deserve any sort of scorpion jacket! Steve gets mad at the drug dealer (a big guy in town; he practically runs it in some aspects) and he gets revenge.

I'll get to the highlights in a bit but this is some incredibly amateurish filmmaking. I mean, at one time you see a giant bug on the camera lens for a few seconds! It's edited in a rather haphazard manner and the musical score is all over the place. A few times it's total 80's synth and at other times it's as of it's from a 70's cop show. Yet, it mostly is a standard explotation faire movie, so it is not a painful 72 minutes. You'll be able to watch it and usually laugh at it's crappiness. I mean, there are credits including:

Still Photography: D. Victory

Screenplay: Shield

Assistant Cameraman: B / Boatman

This is all true.

Here are some highlights:

• The villain, Macintosh... oh man. He looks Iranian and yet he resembles a chubby Saddam Hussein and he proclaims himself to be anti-Iranian a few times throughout. The way he acts is over the top and his clothing is usually the goofy kind of clothes you'd see a bad country singer from the 70's wear. I heard him compared to Yosemite Sam and I'll go with that. A cowboy Yosemite Sam Saddam really is as great as it sounds.
• The hero... think 8^th grade science teacher, brunette middle-aged and sporting a giant mustache. In fact, most of the males you see here have big mustaches, which makes it hilarious in 2012.
• Steve's son and the villain's son are in the same grade and of course they are pals. The villain's wife is a cute blonde who is a teacher and yet right on school grounds she'll tell the two kids not to hang out with each other.
• Curtis's g/f is a rather hot blonde (at least in the early 80's way) who unfortunately ends up getting raped. It could have been worse but I still did not really need to see it.
• A few minutes are spent talking about the Iran Hostage Crisis and a big speech is given about how Iranian-Americans are still Americans so they shouldn't be afraid and they should act the same as everyone else, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the son gets called a half-breed and an “Iranian pig” and he ends up in a bad accident.
• There is a sheriff who looks like a miss between Tom Atkins and modern Kris Kristofferson who talks with a deep voice.

There is more but I don't want to spoil too much here. I just can't believe something like this is on Netflix Instant. It's terrible but it's a funny-terrible.

I'll be back tomorrow night.