Bronx Warriors **** Italy 1982 Dir: Enzo G Castellari. 86 mins

In the distant future year of 1990 (gulp!), the Bronx is (naturally) declared a No Man’s Land, the authorities have given up, and The Riders rule the streets, looking like some long forgotten homoerotic 80’s rock band with their switchblade-equipped motorcycles and tough-but-fair leader Trash (Mark Gregory).
Teen runaway Stefania Girolami, daughter of the city’s most affluent industrialist, joins Trash’s gang, so emotionless, shotgun-toting “Hammer” (Vic Morrow) is sent to retrieve her. “I oughta unscrew that leg of yours and shove it down your throat!” Once considered edgy enough to warrant a censored 18-rated UK release (now uncut and “15”!), Castellari’s riff on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK sports another suitably grim future vision of the pre-Giuliani New York, with plenty of local colour (gotta love the honky-baiting drunk black dude) and endless reams of quote worthy dialogue: “It could be a pile of shit out of someone’s asshole!” Production value is gained from the many money shots of Manhattan skyline and the frequent action set pieces, with Fred Williamson enthusiastically lopping off heads while Morrow steals it as the biggest sonofabitch in the world, who completely loses it during the bravura, fiery finale, manically laughing en route to his own doom.

Review by Steven West

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