Non-Horror Exploitation: Thunder II (1987)

I have yet to see part 1, but since these films are not known for their complicated plots it's really not a big deal. Thunder II is also my first Fabrizio De Angelis movie (apart from his two other Thunder movies i'm also planning to see Deadly Impact, Mad Dog, Cobra Mission and Killer Crocodile). 

Indian sheriff Thunder is transferred to a small town in the desert. He learns that the corrupt deputy is paid by the drug mob. To protect himself, the deputy sets a trap for Thunder and gets him convicted as dealer. Thunder manages to break out of the brutal prison camp and takes bloody revenge. However he cannot sufficiently protect his pregnant wife. 

Thunder II starts off promising with a cool barfight between Thunder and a group of biker thugs. Relitively shortly after there's a very cool chase scene, in which the ''crashes'' do look pretty awesome. Unfortunately after that, the movie turns a bit dull. The prison sequences are just not interesting at all and take all the pace out of the movie. Even after he escaped the prison the movie takes a while to heat up again. I guess you could call it a bit boring. There's for example a cool scene where Thunder hangs on the bottom of a chopper. Cool stuff, but not when you continue it for literally five long minutes. 

I'm pretty surprised by the decent acting in this one. Bo Svenson does a decent job, although his role in this one isn't a huge one. It's also Mark Gregory's best role I have seen of him so far. He was too feminine in the Bronx Warriors movies. This disappeared a bit in Warbus 2, but he was still a little bit stiff. He does a pretty decent job in Thunder II though. Fortunately his pretty imposing physique is finally used properly here as well. The award for best actor in this one goes to Raimund Harmstorf though, who is brilliantly entertaining as the crooked cop. The music by the way, done by Walter Rizzati (House by the Cemetery & 1990: The Bronx Warriors), is modest but certainly does the job.

Back to the movie. After a dull middle part It finally starts to heat up again when nearing the end. A la Rambo First Blood, Thunder goes completely berserk and shoots his way to the police station, where obviously his main villain is hidden. It's a bit unfortunate that this only lasts for about 10 minutes. I wouldn't have mind another 10 minutes of exploding cars and native American bad-assery.  

So so far still no mindblowing action movie with Mark Gregory as the lead, but they are starting to get more entertaining. The somewhat dull and boring middle part of the movie is really unfortunate. De Angelis shows he knows how to do action scenes, but he doesn't do them often enough.