Perfectly adorable

A Brilliant Conflict

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

This movie was corny but it's some much fun at the same time. The film definitely get's better after repeated viewing by the way, the story is very simple but I feel for a low budget film sometimes that's best.I found this one at a video store back in 2012, I have to admit the first time I watched this I thought it was OK at best, but on repeated viewing it just got better and better. The movie is your average direct to video action fair, but it's fun for what it is. Now, on to the action; the action scenes are pretty cool, the explosions are good and the fire fights are fun too. This film is mostly a shoot 'em up type, so they're no real good hand to hand brawls, I mean David Carradine does punch a few guys around but we don't see him use his martial arts.The characters are mostly quirky types and the tone is sort of campy but I like that the film knows what it is, and there are funny one liners too.Overall a fun campy action b-movie that I really liked.I give it a 6/10. Just have fun with this one, you know, have some beers with friends and have a great movie night.

The Roth clan gets wrapped up in underworld double and triple crosses after youngest son Clay (David Goss) is shot by his P.I. partner Cory (Ross Hagen). Seems the duo was hired by Tanaka (Mako) to reclaim a jade statue from some thieves (Dick Miller and Laurene Landon) and Cory felt it was the perfect ticket to good life. So ex-cop/drunk Papa Roth (Lee Van Cleef) corrals his two remaining sons Jim (David Carradine) and Tommy (Brent Huff) to get some family revenge. This action flick was technically my first Fred Olen Ray film as I remember my dad renting it back in the day. I don't know why, but knowing that FOR pulled one over on my pops with the allure of Carradine and Van Cleef makes me smile. Anyways, I barely remembered it so tonight's revisit was almost like watching it anew. This moves fast and is actually better made than some of the films Ray made right after it. It is simple stuff plot wise but I enjoyed it and there are a few good shootouts here and there. The biggest surprise is that the leads are really there for the whole film and Carradine and Van Cleef really give it their all. Trying to swallow Lee as David's dad is kinda funny though as they were separated by roughly 11 years in real life. Lots of great character actors in supporting roles like Michael Berryman as a fortune cookie giving hit-man, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as a long-haired torturer, Bobbie Bresee as a stripper (who stays clothed), Michelle Bauer as a stripper (who doesn't stay clothed), Conan Lee in the first five minutes, and Dawn Wildsmith (aka Mr. Olen Ray at the time) as a barroom tough girl.

"Armed Response" qualifies as one of B-movie director Fred Olen Ray's better crime thrillers. David Carradine plays Jim Roth, a Los Angeles barkeeper in his own bar who suffers from Vietnam War flashbacks. Interestingly, the Vietnam sequences in his memories emerge as much as an indictment of the historic American-Asian conflict as the after effects that the fighting inflicted on his psyche. Unfortunately, the helmets and the uniforms don't contribute to the authenticity of the action, though everything else about this sequence passes muster, especially the choppers. Carradine dons the smallest possible helmet imaginable and looks too old. Meanwhile, spaghetti western star Lee Van Cleef minus his hair piece is effectively cast as Carradine's crusty, ex-detective dad Burt Roth. Japanese actor Mako of "The Sand Pebbles" does a credible turn as ruthless Yakuza boss Akira Tanaka. Last, but not least, horror movie icon Michael Berryman of "The Hills Have Eyes" registers a memorable appearance as one of Akira's more sinister henchmen. The scene where Berryman blasts one of expendable members of the Roth family with a shotgun will stick in your mind because he wears a jump suit with a yellow smiley face on the left breast pocket. Chiefly, the predictable but entertaining T.K. Lankford screenplay pays homage to the 1940s mystery thrillers that starred Humphrey Bogart, particularly "The Maltese Falcon." The Yakuza wants a valuable statue back, so they hire an unscrupulous gumshoe Cory Thornton (B-movie veteran Ross Hagen of "The Devil's 8") who dresses the part persuasively from fedora to trench coat) and his honest partner Tommy Roth (Brent Huff of "I Spy Returns") who is also Carradine's younger brother to collect it. Carradine has yet another younger sibling who gets involved in the plot later and suffers horribly at the hands of the Yakuza. Initially, at the rendezvous to exchange the stature for the money, treacherous Cory double-crosses bad guy Steve (Roger Corman stock player Dick Miller of "Small Soldiers") and his sexy, pistol-packing sidekick Deborah (Laurene Landon of "Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold") at a remote spot in the desert. Cory makes it look like Steve and Deborah pulled the double-cross, when in fact he engineered it and his gullible partner fell for it. No sooner have they apparently dispatched Steve and Deborah than a carload of thugs careen toward them out of the nearby hills. Tommy takes them out with a Vietnam era M-16. Cory wounds Tommy, but Tommy manages to escape in a bullet-riddled car with the statue. Tommy makes it back to older brother Jim's residence, dramatically smashes through the window and falls on Jim's wife (Lois Hamilton of "The Electric Horseman") as they are quarreling about the night-sweating flashbacks that have made Jim so irritable. Of course, neither Burt nor Jim tells the police anything about the statue. They decide to launch their own investigation. Fred Olen Ray keeps the action moving at a fast clip in this trimly-paced 85 minute melodrama. He sets up the plot in about 30 minutes then has Akira and Jim tangling with each other over not only the statue but also his $100 thousand dollars. Moments of humor are few and far between in this straight-laced Chinatown shoot-em up. You'll hate Ross Hagen's deceitful private eye, but you'll cheer his just comeuppance in the final scene. X-rated porn star Michelle Bauer has an eye-spinning turn as an exotic dancer in what ranks as the only semi-nude scene in "Armed Response." Mind you, "Armed Response" is NOT a classic, but it doesn't waste time telling its formulaic, hard-edged story. Olen Ray maintains more than a modicum of credibility while he adheres to the conventions of the genre. Lee Van Cleef gets to trade shots with the bad guys, but he plays more of a sidekick to Carradine than a leading player. If you look hard enough, you'll spot Fred Olen Ray as one of the bad guys. Atmospheric locations and film noir style lighting enhance this respectable actioneer.

"Armed Response" is one of Fred Olen Ray's earliest directorial efforts, and it also less schlocky than some of his other ones, closer to an actual legitimate action film (it's hard to believe he would make a film as unbelievably bad as "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" only two years later). It has a fairly complicated plot, which would be hard to summarize in a single paragraph, and a cast that's a B-movie fan's dream (where else could you find Lee Van Cleef and Michael Berryman together?), though it must be noted that David Carradine is particularly awful in this movie. (**1/2)