The Hooked Generation (1968)
** (out of 4)
Three crooks decide that being the in-between for drug dealers isn't good enough so they end up killing and stealing some drugs from a Cubian drug-lord. After a shoot out with the Coast Guard the three try to make it to the top but things don't go as planned.
Here's another extremely low-budget movie from William Grefe that I really wanted to like more than I actually did. As I'm going through the work of Grefe it's easy to see that he had a strong talent even though the films themselves really weren't all that good. These movies have no known casts, no budget and very little else yet Grefe managed to make them somewhat entertaining and at least professional looking. Compare these films to various other exploitation titles from this era and you can see the talent.
With that said, THE HOOKED GENERATION starts off pretty good as we get into the double crossing and the ruthlessness of the three goons. None of them are what you'd call likable and I thought this was a good and entertaining approach. The film has some memorable moments but it's bad pacing and extended running time means that we eventually get bored and the final third of the movie is hard to sit through.