{"id":3393,"date":"2013-04-11T20:46:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T20:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3393"},"modified":"2013-04-11T20:46:46","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T20:46:46","slug":"mad-mex-the-blackfighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/mad-mex-the-blackfighter\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Mex, the Blackfighter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mad<\/a>
Mad Mex, the Blackfighter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wow, here\u2019s a prime slice of out-and-out trash, directed by and starring French wannabe Fred Williamson Max H. Boulois.\u00a0 Boulois was a fascinating character, an actor and writer who, having featured in a forgotten Spanish B-Movie Cabo di vara <\/strong>(78) <\/strong>and Sergio Garrone\u2019s Italo-Turko-Spanish poliziotteschi Killer\u2019s Gold<\/strong> (79) decided to start making his own movies.\u00a0 In doing so, he did something that was almost unknown in Europe; he made blacksploitation movies.\u00a0 Black actors had appeared in European cinema for many years, with stars like Earl Cameron and Harry Baird appearing in racially conscious movies in the UK in the 1950s, John Kitzmiller becoming something of a star of the neo-realist movement and the likes of Woody Strode, Harry Baird (again) and Wilbert Bradley becoming familiar supporting actors in Spaghetti Westerns and peplums.\u00a0 Valerio Zurlini\u2019s Black Jesus <\/strong>(68) has even been cited as an influence by the makers of Superfly TNT<\/strong>. But Boulois did something slightly different, he was a half-penny auteur who made films that, unlike Black Jesus<\/strong>, Burn!<\/strong>, Pais\u00e0<\/strong> (46) or Senza piet\u00e0<\/strong> (48), had no artistic intent, they were targeted firmly at the flea-pits and second run cinemas.\u00a0 Although his execution can be questioned, he certainly can\u2019t be faulted for his ambition.<\/p>\n

Vietnamvet Jo Johnson (Boulois) is about to lose his cherished gym and, what\u2019s worse, he\u2019s in hoc to some dastardly loan sharks who are about to call in his debts.\u00a0 But he has an idea!\u00a0 What could it be?\u00a0 Oh yes, to gamble (achem, lose) all his remaining cash in a desperate attempt to make the readies. Unsurprisingly he loses, which means that when he receives an anonymous phone call offering him a cool million bucks he has little option but to listen.\u00a0 And what does he have to do in return for this fortune?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s not an easy gig: he has to act as the prey in a big game hunt for two wealthy sportsmen; if he wins he can keep the money, if he doesn’t, well\u2026\u00a0 Despite the risks, he accepts.<\/p>\n

Dropped off by a helicopter in the middle of night and god knows where, Jo prepares himself by running around like a nutter, changing into a gym vest and shorts that have appeared out of nowhere and guzzling on some wild roots.\u00a0 When the sun rises \u2013 back in his trademark army fatigues, because Jo\u2019s a dude who likes to face the freezing night in less <\/em>layers \u2013 he sets about laying some false trails and creating some ad hoc traps. Before long, and with a frankly tedious degree of ease, he\u2019s worked his way though all the safari suited hunters, managed to single-handedly bring down a helicopter full of killers and has made his way back to the big apple.\u00a0 Quite rightly distrusting the villains, he plans to grab his cash and escape out of the country; but he\u2019s up against a well-funded, well equipped organisation that will stop at nothing to keep him quiet.\u00a0 Fortunately, he has a couple of allies in FBI agent Jim (Dan Forrest), who has been charged with putting a stop to all this nonsense, and Pentagon representative Mary Ann (Virginia Mataix) (\u2018Hmm, military women\u2026 I\u2019ve seen this in Playboy\u2019); although whether they can really be trusted is another matter entirely.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0cheapjack riff on The Most Dangerous Game <\/strong>and The Deer Hunter<\/strong>, for the first 40 minutes or so at any rate, I guess this could charitably be said to have anticipated First Blood<\/strong>, which was released two years later.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it loses track as the narrative progresses, lacking confidence in its own central idea and changing tack to become a standard revenge scenario.\u00a0 This second half is actually better made, from a technical point of view, but it\u2019s less interesting and much less amusing.\u00a0 During this second half of the film the succession of fist fights and shootouts becomes wearing, especially as none of the characters – with the possible exception of Jo and his Tomas Milian-lookalike friend Bob (William Anthon) – are developed in any way and, furthermore, there\u2019s little effort made to generate atmosphere or tension.<\/p>\n

Mad Mex<\/strong> is riddled with glaring continuity errors, although in its defence some of these might have been less apparent in the longer Spanish version.\u00a0 Nonetheless, it appears to have been edited together without much in the way of care or attention to detail, and not all of this could be attributed to post-production tinkering.\u00a0 The production values are extremely low: some of it looks to have been filmed in America, no doubt guerrilla-style by Boulois and a cameraman without any kinds of licenses, but for the majority it\u2019s either shot in a Spanish park or a succession of indistinguishable rooms.\u00a0 The running time is made up by lengthy flashbacks to Jo\u2019s time in Nam (which are mainly composed of him carrying his mate through some long grass or sitting in a room being debriefed), shots of him sitting on a bed while dialogue is played back over the soundtrack and either walking or driving around aimlessly.<\/p>\n

Boulois directs it all in a rudimentary fashion, utilising a firmly nail-down-the-camera style and displaying absolutely no understanding of how to handle an action sequence.\u00a0 He does attempt to play on the racist nature of the villains, who refer to him as a monkey (or other terms) and at one point they seem unable to distinguish one black man from another.\u00a0 As a performer, he doesn’t exactly exude charisma, but he does have a solid kind of presence, kind of like a less charming, black Bud Spencer.\u00a0 But he ain’t no actor; his lack of expression is staggering and at times he doesn’t even seem aware of where in the frame he should be.<\/p>\n

The main villain is played by the debonair looking Tom Hern\u00e1ndez, a Spanish actor who spent most of his career working in American TV, but much of the rest of the cast is made up of unknowns.\u00a0 Boulois went on to direct two more films: Black Jack<\/strong>, a caper movie with a comparatively a-grade cast including Peter Cushing, Claudine Auger and, achem, Brian Murphy and Black Commando<\/strong>, with the equally weird combination of Tony Curtis, Joanna Pettet and Fernando Sancho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, here\u2019s a prime slice of out-and-out trash directed by and starring French wannabe Fred Williamson Max H. Boulois. Boulois was a fascinating character, an actor and writer who featured in a forgotten Spanish B-Movie Cabo di vara (78) and Sergio Garrone\u2019s Italo-Turko-Spanish poliziotteschi Killer\u2019s Gold (79).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1075],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3393"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3454,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393\/revisions\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}