Am I Missing Something?

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Only one witness left to testify against Rosewald (Patrick McCullough) and that is Finely (Bernard Kirby) an over weight accountant with all the stereotypes. There is only one man who can safely bring him to LA to testify and that is Jesse Crowder (Fred Williamson) expert in slow motion martial arts, avoiding bullets, and not much of an auto mechanic.The whole idea was unconvincing. Bad guys are waiting for the duel about every 100 feet or so of the journey.Bad VHS to DVD transfer. Available on multi-packs. Maybe the worst Fred Williamson film out there.Guide: No swearing or nudity. Blurred sex.

Death Journey (1976) * 1/2 (out of 4)Former cop Jesse Crowder (Fred Williamson) is hired to transport a witness (Bernard Kirby) from the West Coast to the East Coast so that he can testify. The only problem is that a lot of people want the witness dead.I'm really not sure what the hell DEATH JOURNEY is or is supposed to be. I started watching the movie and thought it was something made that went straight-to-VHS but then I was shocked to see that it was an actual theatrical movie from 1976. For the life of me I can't imagine how small the budget must have been and how few drive-in screens would actually play it. The film was directed by Williamson and you can honestly tell that wasn't his strongest field.There are all sorts of problems with this film but the biggest is the actual screenplay, which is just downright silly at times. There's not a single second where you actually care about anything that is going on and to be quite honest you don't care if the witness lives or dies. With that in mind, there's really no suspense to anything that you're watching as you simply don't care what happens. It certainly doesn't help that the film manages to contain some of the lamest action scenes that you'll ever witness.Williamson is at least mildly entertaining in his role, which of course requires him to bed several women, kill a few bad guys and deliver some one-liners. It seems they were trying to make him a DIRTY HARRY like character but it just doesn't work. The film is poorly made and just doesn't really have anything good going for it.

5 minutes into the film: Fred Williamson's character, an ex-cop, is described by two other guys as "a man who doesn't play by the rules, but gets the job done" (does that remind you of anyone?).10 minutes into the film: Fred beds his first woman.15 minutes into the film: Another woman sees Fred naked and stares appreciatively at his "thing". He beds her too.In the rest of the film, Fred beds two more women, gets hired to protect a stupid fat guy and is pursued by a lot of slow-witted, harmless villains whom he easily beats or kills. Throughout this "death journey", he wears the same black shirt, which is constantly unbuttoned, so as to give everyone a good look at his fit body.Fred may be a lot of things, including "cool", but a convincing fighter he is not. The fight scenes are clumsy and the shootout scenes are laughable. The budget is so low that the film can't even show a car or a house explosion! All the supporting actors are so awful that it's hard to believe any of them ever worked in another film. (*1/2)

Much as I am a Fred Williamson fan, this is the a very poor man's action film. Barely played as a main feature in Los Angeles area (mostly second feature runs with no ads), this movie has Jesse Crowder assigned to protect an overweight accountant across the state line to testify against a mobster. What could've been a blazing non-stop action films, this film takes the low ride and become very boring fast. The movie poster promised a top of the train running chase sequence which wasn't in the film. In fact, the video box claims he has to protect a girl (!). I am suprised Williamson didn't get any name stars to appear in this film, for most of his past works do have familar character actors (maybe they all turned it down!). The film is so non-budget that when Crowder's chauffer get out of car to open the door for Crowder, it was a two door car and not a limo (!). I love the Jesse Crowder series and Fred Williamson will always be a icon of the 70's action scene, and it's too bad I didn't enjoy this one.