Killing Streets (1991) User Reviews

Killing Streets isn't bad, it's just too long.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 20 January 2012]

Chris Brandt (Pare) is a high school basketball coach from Ohio. His brother Craig (also Pare) is a Marine who was kidnapped by Lebanese terrorists. Running into a wall of red tape from the government, Chris travels to Lebanon to fight the baddies and rescue his brother. Once in Lebanon, he teams up with the classic wacky taxi driver to get results. He also finds time for a romance with government employee Sandra Ross (Runyon). But Charlie Wolff (Lamas) keeps telling Chris to go away and mind his own business. Will the Brandt brothers make it out of the middle east alive? Here we have some classic Michael Pare woodenness - times two! Anyone who's seen any of the five Van Damme movies where he plays a dual role knows that it's done in the classic "Patty Duke Show" way where you see the back of one's head, etc. Double Impact (1991) is probably the best example of that. But like we said for that film, "Double the Van Damme, Double the Running Time", and that's exactly the case here. Killing Streets is way too long at almost two hours. This extensive length not only tests the audience's patience, but we would care more about the proceedings if it was at a sensible running time. But our theory about this is, movies like Killing Streets are primarily made for overseas audiences, especially in depressed countries. These people don't want to go back to their miserable lives, so every second counts when they're sitting in a darkened theater trying to forget their troubles. So they demand longer movies as a longer escape. And Golan (of Golan & Globus fame) certainly delivers that.

Pare looks like Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, Lorenzo Lamas doesn't do all that much but he has a spiffy haircut and an unnecessary southern accent, and the wacky taxi driver is a little less wacky this time around. The main baddie should have been MORE of a baddie, and he also should have been played by Adrien Brody. Killing Streets is an exact cross of two other Pare vehicles: Deadly Heroes (1993) and Instant Justice. It has the same middle east locations as Heroes but almost the same plot as Justice. In Instant Justice (1986) he's looking for his sister. In Killing Streets he's looking for his brother. Did they think fans wouldn't notice the difference? Interestingly, BJ Davis of Laser Mission (1989) and White Ghost (1988) fame was the stunt coordinator and 2nd unit director on this film. And what action there is, is good - there should have been more of it. But they should have cut a lot of other stuff to make room for it. Don't get us wrong, there are some cool parts in Killing Streets, but it's an 85 minute plot stretched out to the breaking point.

Killing Streets isn't bad, it's just too long.

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The setting is Lebanon-The problem is terrorists!

[yatahaeshadai · 6/10 · 20 November 1999]

Michael Pare plays a dual role-Capt. Brandt who has been kidnapped by terrorists because he is getting to close to finding the hostages and twin brother Chris,a high school football coach who isn't buying the official story that his brother is dead. Lorenzo Lamas is the cold hearted state dept. official who wants Chris out of Lebanon. When he changes his silk suit for fatigues we begin to get a look at what is really happening. He intends to rescue the hostages but now he has two extra handicaps. Chris and a friendly cab driver who believes Lebanon can never be free til the Lebanese make a stand.He lets them go along for one reason. If anything goes wrong the US will claim Chris was on a private quest for vengeance.

The Kashmullah have him!

[sol-kay · 5/10 · 18 January 2008]

***SPOILERS*** Having this gut feeling that his twin brother, CIA undercover agent, Craig Brandt is in trouble and being held hostage in Beriut Lebanon Dayton Ohio high school basketball coach Chris Brandt, both twin brothers played by Michael Pare, travels there to rescue him.

Knowing that the odds are against him, even the US Embassy refuses to help, Chris goes solo and later recruits the both friendly and wise-cracking Lebanese taxi driver Gilad, Gabi Amrani, and US Emesssy secretary Sandara Ross, Jennifer Runyon, to assist him. It doesn't take long, with him killing one of the bad guys in a ferocious knife-fight, for Chris to track down his twin brother Craig and a number of US hostages in this hideout in downtown Beriut. Trying to be a Rambo Chris is a bit over-matched and sadly comes up short in the hero department.

As you would have expected Chris messes up royally in not only having his brother re-captured but those who are holding him and the US hostages, The Kashmullah,take them out of the city. The entire group of US hostages, including Craig Brandt, end up being held in the Kashmulla stronghold fortress of Bakarbadeh some 20 miles outside of Beriut. It's then when the US government get's involved in that Chris had made a mess of everything that they were trying to do, free the hostages and Craig Brant, with their top honcho in Beriut Charlie Wolff,Lonenzo Lamas, and his sidekick the grenade packing and rocket launching expert Harold, Michael Downs, going into action.

Overlong action film that just goes on and on with a number of totally unnecessary sub-plots that includes a ridicules kidnapping of Sandra Ross by non other then her contact in the Lebanese Secret Government Emile, Menahem Einy. There's also the head of the Kashmullah US educated Abdel, Alon Abutbul, who seems to be more interested in playing a silly cat and mouse game with both Chris and Craig Brandt then getting on to business and freeing 25 fellow Kasumullah members held in US and Israeli prisons.

The two really stand-out performances in the movie has to be the taxi driver Gilad who at least makes things interesting, compared to the brain-dead-like Chris & Craig Brandt, with his both wise-cracks and Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman-like action driving sequences and young and confused Kashmullah member Yahzi, Ishai Wureit. Yahzi in fact stole the acting honors in the movie with the most realistic and moving scenes in it.

Having his whole family massacred by the hated Phalangists in 1982 Yahzi was torn between leavening his war torn country of Lebonon for the USA where he wanted to start a new life. In the most telling sequence in the movie, besides the big shoot-out in the end, Abdel really gets to Yahzi in how the US mistreated both him and his family as well as his country Lebonon. This made the murderous Abdel & Co. for once seem human, to the audience watching the film, in explaining his hatred of the US and it's allies in what they did to his once peaceful industrious and neutral, of the violence in the Middle-East, nation. It's later that Abdel showed his true colors and feelings in what he really thought about the naive and impressionable Yahzi, as well as those Yahzi's who joined up with him, but by then it was a bit too late for Yahzi to realize that!

Plenty of "how did this movie ever get made" moments ensue.

[TheMovieMark · 17 June 2004]

Stephanie and I joined our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Shade, in a game of "let's test our threshold of pain" as we got together to watch the malodorous waste of celluloid known as "Killing Streets." As soon as Lorenzo Lamas appeared on screen with a HORRIBLY FAKE Southern accent we knew it was go time. "Whatchu doin' here, boyeee?" The moment he uttered his first line all four of us burst out in laughter. It was beautifully awful.

I must say this is one of the best "high school basketball coach travels to Lebanon to save his twin brother" movies I've ever seen. Oh wait, it's the only movie of that nature I've ever seen. Can you believe it?

I'm sorry to say that my plot description is completely accurate and not a figment of my imagination. This movie is all about originality! Honestly, how many other movies can you name that involve a high school basketball coach and his Lebanese cab driver taking on a huge armed-to-the-teeth terrorist group? What's that? You can't think of any? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I could go on and on about the aimless action, the stupid car chases, the implausibility of it all, the one-note "lead" actress whose function is to make out hot and heavy with the hero, but it'd be a waste of our time. I think a description of the end of the movie will sum up everything quite nicely:

One of the terrorists is holding a grenade in one hand and Paré twin #1 in the other. All of a sudden we hear the sound of a basketball being dribbled in slow motion. You read that right; there is actually an "action" movie out there that uses a dribbled basketball as a dramatic sound effect. Paré twin #1 then drops to the ground and Paré twin #2 blows away the terrorist. When Paré twin #1 asks Paré twin #2 how he knew which way he'd duck, Paré twin #2 (the basketball coach) responds with, "In basketball you always fake left and go right." Yeah.

THE GIST

If you're a masochist that, for some unknown reason, likes movies about high school coaches literally outsmarting a whole country full of Lebanese terrorists, then you might actually enjoy this movie. Otherwise, this is strictly for bad movie marks who want to get four or more friends together and create their own Mystery Science Theater episode.

Lame-brained racist turkey with great eye-candy!

[David-240 · 1/10 · 17 April 2002]

What a dog this one is! Poorly staged action sequences, lousy acting, terrible dialogue - and it's racist to boot. A ridiculous simplification of the political turmoil in Lebanon in the 1980s, this film would also have us believe that one American high-school basketball coach can defeat a whole army of Lebanese terrorists!!! And we are also meant to believe that the US Government would recruit this same basketball coach (and his friendly Lebanese taxi driver!!!) in an operation to rescue American hostages - a four man operation against hundreds of armed-to-the-teeth terrorists. The resulting rescue scene is almost as funny as the opening scene of "The Naked Gun". This sort of nonsense certainly does nothing to help US relations with the Middle East - and, as this was an Israeli-American co-production, it does little to help Arab-Israeli relations either.

On the plus side there is some excellent male eye-candy. Lorenzo Lamas, an even worse actor than his father (if such a thing is possible), is pretty easy on the eye. But even better we have no less than two Michael Pares - he plays twin brothers, and neither brother seems to be too fond of wearing shirts! It's a shame that Pare ended up in this sort of z-grade rubbish, particularly after such a promising start in "Eddie and the Cruisers".

With the hunk factor so high, maybe you could watch "Killing Streets" with the sound turned down, put something sexy on the stereo, and simply admire the view!

Third-rate action movie

[Maziun · 1/10 · 17 June 2018]

This is one of those low budget action movies that appear very late at night at cable TV. I like action movies (when they are done well - duh) and I had a bit of insomnia problem , so I decided to watch it.

This is a 90's action movie that is set in the 1980's Lebanon. Don't expect and thoghtful insight on the political turmoil. This is 100% clean action/thriller straight-to- VHS /DVD quality. It was made for the undemanding action junkies and only they will have some kind of fun with this movie.

Will they ? The movie is definitely overlong . There is relatively little action and only at the end it gets to be at least passable. The plot is ridiculously implausible, the dialogues are lame , the acting is lousy beyond belief and the characters could only live in the imagination of the screenwriter (the INCREDIBLY helpful taxi driver is my favourite).

There is a scene here that uses a dribbled basketball as a dramatic sound effect. You read that right. That scene is a poetry of bad movie making. Try to find it on YouTube . It's so bad it's good.This is also the only scene in the whole movie that is memorable. Well , it is an action movie where the main hero is a high school basketball coach who saves his twin brother from terrorists. Propably the lamest hero in action movie history.

This is a movie for masochists or people looking for male eye candy (Michael Pare almost the entire time of the movie is shirtless ! ) . I give it 1/10.

Bad middle eastern guys kidnapping good USA citizens... usual plot!

[fab_carpediem · 3/10 · 1 February 2022]

Typical propagandist plot of the "good USA" and the "middle eastern terrorists". The "honorable" US soldier, or civilian being kidnapped by the middle eastern "terrorists" and the hostage being rescued!

The true version of the story is that tyrant USA attacks or triggers war against countries which do not submit to US tyranny and control... a tradition of every presidential mandate. Except Trump. The middle east is so bad for not submitting to US control of their oil! So the true story is exactly the way around. The USA commits countless crimes around the world (see covid pandemics bioweapon). Some more originality in the story by shifting around the "good" and "bad" guys would have been nicer. I much prefer "Good Will Hunting". The answer of Will to why not to join the NSA was great! It´s the type of answer that makes me think: "this is what I call an educational movie"... which I cannot say about "Killing Streets" and all the other (USA) State propagandist movies.

Dumb!

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 12 September 2022]

Directed by Stephen Cornwall (who also made Philadelphia Experiment II), who co-wrote this with Andrew Deutsch (Mercenary Fighters, Platoon Leader, River of Death) from a story by Menahem Golan, Killing Streets is about Chris Brandt (Michael Paré), who learns that his twin brother Craig has been possibly killed in action in Beirut. The government - in the form of diplomat Sandra Ross (Jennifer Runyon) and operative Charlie Wolff (Lorenzo Lamas) - has done nothing, so he decides to head over there himself and get answers.

Now, Chris is just a basketball coach, so he's going to need some help. Luckily, Wolff comes to his side and he has an amazing cab driver named Gilad (Gabi Amrani) who is really going all out for that 5 star review. Oh yeah - being twins, Chris and Craig have a mental connection, so he knows his brother is still alive. So there's that.

This is no Streets of Fire. But I mean, really what is? Paré is kind of wooden and double Paré means twice the wood. The last ten minutes, once everything starts blowing up real good and guns get shooting and terrorists begin to pay for their crimes, well, that's what we wanted all along.

It *does* actually lead to the slaughterhouse, though that's by sheer coincidence

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 4/10 · 21 April 2010]

This is the fourth Paré flick I catch, the others being Bad Moon(a crossbreed of Lassie and your typical sub-par werewolf story), Deadly Heroes(that reuses part of a so-so car-chase in this, and is pure camp) and Village of the Damned(where I must have been basically fine with him, as I don't recall him standing out as poor). Here, he's playing two(I think; it is difficult to determine, as the only thing that sets them apart... *at all*... is that one has a patch of blood over his left eye, as evidence that he's been tortured) identical cousins(they walk and talk alike)... no, wait, twins. Yeah, they feel each other's pain(well, once, when it's required for this thing's excuse for a plot)... has that *ever* been a compelling idea? Whether or not such a thing is just a little bit realistic, it is corny as all hell. Anyway, where Double Impact had split-screen shots, we don't even get *that* here. Chris Brandt wakes up one morning, certain that his brother(in Lebanon, engaged in the conflict) is alive(he dreamt it, you see; at this point, the producers remind the writers that they are, in fact, not currently doing a script for My Little Pony). There is relatively little action, and only near the end does it get to be at least decent. This is one of the stupidest protagonists I've encountered. For some reason, he sure can fight, in spite of being a mere basketball coach. This is not that exciting or entertaining. There is hardly any tension. It is definitely a B-movie, with the acting "talent" to match. The score is fine, nothing special. Same goes for the dialog, with the occasional exception that is concentrated pain in audio form. As another person already put it, this is put together by Americans and Isralies, and offensive to everyone but those groups. There is a little sexuality/eye-candy and moderate, bloody violence in this. Flat, one-sided, and will probably give you constipation... similar, I suppose, to a pizza, albeit without the appeasing scent and taste. Yeah, watch the JCVD film instead. I recommend this solely to those looking for a fix in the genre. 4/10

Parè deserves credit

[loulou1992 · 8/10 · 28 February 2022]

It's better then most films I've seen and to be honest it is a good action film... Most of Parè's films have less then 700 votes and I don't undrstand why. He should of been a bigger star, he has more charisma then Tom Cruise. It's a decent action films with some good action sequences. The film does deserve better attention.

Worst 150 Contender

[fugu_286 · 20 February 2002]

I was surprised that there was only one comment on this film. This is definitely another example of an American-Israeli co-production which is completely offensive to anybody other than Americans or Israelis! Stereotypes abound, historical inaccuracy, blatant racism, jingoism galore, this movie is painful to watch. Other than that, it's your typical low budget action film. Worth a watch on late night cable.