Runtime: 101 minutes
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Charles Bronson, Lisa Eilbacher, Andrew Stevens, Gene Davis, Geoffrey Lewis
From: Cannon
Oh, the 1980's...
Recently I discovered that all the Cannon movies on Amazon Video which recently became free if you had Prime... they'll be leaving Prime already once March 1 rolls around. Henceforth, I reasoned I should watch at least one of those, and in some circles people still laugh at some of the most over the top moments in this picture; specifically, the surreal moment where Charles Bronson holds an odd sex toy and bellows at a suspect the immortal line, “IT'S FOR JACKIN' OFF, ISN'T IT?”
The plot: Bronson is a hard-nosed police detective (would you expect anything else) who has to team with young neophyte Andrew Stevens as a killer named Warren Stacey is slicing and dicing young women. When I say he's just like a Men's Rights Activist, I am not being trite; he's not a bad-looking guy and is in shape, but he doesn't know how to talk to women so he comes off like a real creep. Instead of saying horrible, incredibly dunderheaded comments on Reddit, he kills. Warren knows enough to wear gloves to avoid any fingerprints; to avoid further evidence, he... does the murders without any clothes on. That character was pretty chilling, especially considering he spoke in a whiny fashion and was sometimes a crybaby; like I said, a Men's Rights Activist.
The cops don't have enough evidence against him and as Chuck has a college-aged daughter, he decides to plant evidence; not that a cop would ever do such a thing... honestly, I am not anti-police yet I can easily admit that some are poor human beings, and for whatever reasons evidence has been planted, even if it's for what they think are noble reasons, as was the scenario here. As you can suspect from what has been said so far, the movie is high on the sleaze factor; plenty of women are seen nude and there is some pretty vile dialogue. This is obviously not for all tastes. Yet I was entertained by this trash.
10 to Midnight is at least well-made, there are some nicely done suspense scenes, shades of giallo and slasher are conspicuous, the acting is fine-familiar faces include Lisa Eilbacher, Andrew Stevens and Geoffrey Lewis-the final act is aces, and there's a synth score that is pretty rad; hell, the opening credits tune and the one right before the final scene sound like synthwave that was made a month ago by some guy in his basement at about 3 AM and uploaded to YouTube. I am sure some will find it obvious the Reagan-era political beliefs that too many criminals are being coddled and there are too many loopholes that set them free... some won't like such a viewpoint and I won't share my mine but in the context of this movie I can be amused as that's how many 80's flicks were. Those that love sleaze definitely need to give this a whirl.
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