Action U.S.A. (1989) Review

“Action U.S.A.” Theatrical Poster

Director: John Stewart
Cast: Gregory Scott Cummins, Cameron Mitchell, William Hubbard Knight, Ross Hagen, Barri Murphy, William Smith, Ross Hagen, Hoke Howell, Gary Beal, Rod Shaft
Running Time: 97 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

As a fan of action, in the last 10 years it’s been immensely satisfying to witness the rise of the stuntman to fully fledged director. From Chad Stahelski’s John Wick flicks, to David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde (who also co-directed the original John Wick), not to mention Sam Hargrave’s Extraction. Before any of those guys though, before even the likes of Vic Armstrong would helm Joshua Tree, there was John Stewart. Having started a career in stunts in 1980, by the time the decade was closing Stewart decided to try his hand at directing, and the result was the wonderfully titled Action U.S.A.. If there’s an award out there for a movie title that’s both blatantly vague, while also telling you everything you need to know at the same time, then this may well be it.

Essentially Stewart aimed to create a movie that, in the words of director Brian Trenchard-Smith, “goes through every stunt in the stuntman’s directory” (a line he says while casually interviewing Stewart with a generously filled glass of red wine in the extra features of the Vinegar Syndrome release!). A modestly budgeted affair, the bombast of the title may set expectations a little too high, when in reality a more accurate title would be Action Waco, Texas. Made 4 years before the infamous Waco siege (or 24 years before the home renovation show Fixer Upper, depending on your perspective), Stewart found a town that was all too happy to be used as an action movie location. An almost endless supply of cars to be smashed up? Check! A whole house that could be blown to smithereens? Check! A request to fly a helicopter with someone hanging out of it down the middle of a main street in the middle of the day? Go for it!

As Stewart himself confesses, once Waco was decided on as the shooting location, the willingness and enthusiasm of the local government and its residents resulted in him almost completely re-writing the script, taking advantage of just how much further their budget could go now that they wouldn’t be shooting in L.A. But what exactly is Action U.S.A. about? In the opening we meet a couple behind the wheel of a speeding open top Corvette, the kind custom fitted out with nitrous oxide tanks more than a decade before The Fast and The Furious would popularise them. In the driver’s seat is stuntman Rod Shaft, gun tucked into his waist, one hand on the wheel, a beer in the other, looking like the ultimate 80’s guy. In the passenger seat is his girlfriend, played by Barri Murphy (Armed for Action), and naturally when they arrive home they get straight down to it on the couch set to a series of lines added in post-production like “yeah” and “get on top”.

Sadly their sofa shenanigans are interrupted by a pair of thugs (one of whom looks disturbingly like a heavily tattooed, bulked up version of Freddie Mercury), who promptly kidnap Shaft by throwing him into the trunk of their car, drive to an awaiting helicopter, and proceed to hang him out of it. It’s a thrilling sequence, and only ends when he falls from a great height into the water below. But that’s only the end of the helicopter part, he then swims to shore, is picked up by his girlfriend, and the sequence segues into a ridiculous car chase involving Murphy hanging on for dear life, people on the pavements running for cover, and a ridiculous airborne vehicular jump. After all that though, Shaft still can’t catch a break, and ends up shot dead at point blank range. Thankfully for us, because he’s a stuntman, even this involves him gratuitously yelling “MOTHERF*#$@R!” in slow motion while enthusiastically throwing himself backwards.

What might be the entire action quota in some other flicks is crammed into Action U.S.A.’s opening sequence, after which we learn the plot is actually going to be about a pair of FBI agents, played by Gregory Scott Cummins (Cliffhanger, Desert Heat) and TV actor William Hubbard Knight. Clearly riffing on the Lethal Weapon template of Riggs and Murtaugh, together the pair are sent to protect Murphy, who now finds herself as the only witness to her drug dealer boyfriend’s murder. It turns out only he knew where a stash of diamonds has been hidden away, and now a variety of unsavoury characters are out to get their hands on them, believing Murphy to be the only one left who knows where they are. 

The plot is undeniably straightforward genre fare, and as expected is clearly not the component of the production Stewart was most interested in. Thankfully the cast do a stellar job of raising the barebones story above its pedestrian trappings, with Cummins and Knight sharing a likeable chemistry, despite the script lumbering them with some clunky lines. Murphy exudes a contagious amount of energy as the third member of the trio, perhaps because it was her unintended debut. She was only due to play a minor role, however after the original actress disappeared after 3 days of filming, she was offered the part, and its difficult to imagine anyone else in it. Despite her obvious screen presence, she has a criminally shot filmography. The villains are played by tough guys Ross Hagen, a stalwart of many a Fred Olen Ray and Al Adamson movie (look up Wonder Women!), and the ridiculously deep voiced William Smith (Maniac Cop, Red Dawn).

Hagen in particular came up with many of his own lines which are frequently hilarious, imbuing his bounty hunter with a Forrest Taft-level of bad assery. When one character questions how he’s still alive, he barks back “They don’t build a bullet big enough”, in another he threatens a character by asking the question, “How do you want to be buried? Ass up or head down?” The spontaneous nature of some of the lines also result in some of those priceless bizarre moments that can never be intentionally created, such as in one scene when Hagen and another aging mob enforcer bond over a mutual love of their mothers. While there’s never any doubt that Action U.S.A. is there to deliver on the first part of its title, in-between the many carpark shootouts, vehicles flying through the air, and explosions, Hagen’s banter with his two other mob members keeps things entertaining.

The stunts themselves are of course why anyone is clocking into a movie called Action U.S.A., and to that end it delivers through a series of entertaining set pieces, many of them involving vehicular mayhem. In one car chase an innocent bystanders (played by Stewart himself in a brief cameo) vehicle is forced off the road, crashes through the corner of a house where the residents are enjoying a beer in the yard, before moments later the whole building goes up in a massive fireball (presumably engulfing the front yard drinking session, but Action U.S.A. isn’t there to worry itself with such details). Bear in mind this isn’t even a part of the main chase, it’s just a little aside thrown in since they were given a house to blow up. Of course they’re then left with the task of needing to have the conclusion of the actual chase go one bigger, so a collision with a propane tank subsequently results in the mother of all explosions joyously filling the screen.

For the rest of the time we’re graced with a steady stream of car flips, bodies on fire, and motorbikes speeding off bridges (often also with the rider on fire). Special mention should go to stuntman David Sanders, playing an inexperienced villain who often finds himself being berated by Hagen. While he hasn’t got much to do for most of the runtime, Sanders eventually gets his chance to shine (and show why he was hired) when he goes smashing through the window of an upper floor in a high-rise building, resulting in a classic fall stunt that we definitely don’t see enough of these days. In retrospect I think the car he lands on is the only one that doesn’t explode on impact in the entire runtime.

I’m sure Stewart and Indonesia’s Arizal (The Stabilizer, Final Score) must be spiritual brothers, as their movies share a lot of similarities and come from the same era, placing the focus squarely on painful looking stunt work. Sure we can sometimes see the helmet adorned stuntman behind the wheel, or the police cordoning off traffic in the background, but personally I’d take these little moments of movie magic unintentionally caught on camera any day of the week over yet another CGI filled spectacle. Mixing high impact stunts entirely devoid of any CGI or tricks, a comedic streak that keeps things light and breezy (look out for a genuine laugh out loud moment involving illegal Mexican immigrants), and a script that was clearly a distant second to crafting the action scenes, Action U.S.A. is an entertaining relic of an era long since passed, but one that’ll always be there to re-visit. 

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10