Bulletproof (The 80's Film)

Bulletproof (1988)

Runtime: I did not see the full version, as explained below

Directed by: Steve Carver

Starring: Gary Busey alongside many B-movie actors

From: Cinetel Films

Butthorn!

Once again this was an example of a movie revisited due to messageboard discussion. In short, I mentioned the 1996 movie Bulletproof and how it was hated as a teen & no viewings will take place as an adult to determine/remember why it is so bad. A pal mentioned this movie that was enough for me to see this for the first time since before the Letterboxd days.

80’s nonsense, this undeniably was. The opening sets the tone: Gary Busey (our hero! For once he’s not the villain. Amazingly, Frank McBain is his name) is a loose cannon cop who leaves his partner Thalmus Rasulala on a stakeout to stop the bad guys in a warehouse, one of them a young Danny Trejo. This is the first although not the last occasion where McBain uses the insult BUTTHORN. There’s no doubt in my mind the star adlibbed that word instead of it appearing in the script. This ends in explosive fashion. As McBain is ex-CIA (!) he is involved w/ the main plot, and what a whopper it is.

There is a preposterous setup involving a prototype tank known as THUNDERBLAST, insurgents in Mexico, and McBain’s military ex Darlaane Fluegel that doesn’t deserve much scrutiny nor description here. Point is, Busey goes to Mexico to kick ass, but not before having flashbacks to his ex, including a moment where he literally plays sax on the beach! The 80’s-riffic soundtrack includes wailing sax a la Lethal Weapon. The stacked cast of B-movie faces helps. Besides the names already listed there’s also: 

Lincoln Kirkpatrick
Henry Silva as the vile villain
L.Q. Jones
R.G. Armstrong
Rene Enriquez
William Smith
And even Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa for a minute

Bulletproof (a name that has several meanings in the film) is not the best of its type-80’s action cheese-although I did make a mistake in presuming that the versions on YouTube 85 minutes in length are the complete version… they aren’t. Expect to see some awkward edits that remove the most graphic kills; this was confirmed after finding the full version-almost 10 minutes longer (!) in The Bowels of the Internet. Don’t ask me which cut I saw the first time all those years ago.

In any event, I’d like to think I’d rate that longer version the same. It’s not essential although 80’s action fans that desire for something new & less familiar… as long as you can track down the full version, this may be cheese that will be a tasty if not entirely fulfilling meal.