A Man Called Rage (1984) User Reviews

Surprisingly watchable

[HaemovoreRex · 6/10 · 2 November 2006]

With the name Tonino Ricci connected to this, one could be quite forgiven for initially fleeing in horror at the very prospect of sitting through it in its entirety.

Ricci is widely considered to be one of if not THE most consistently inept director working in the Italian film business and has the ignominy of boasting a long list of inane and poorly made action films to his name.

Having viewed a fair few of these undistinguished titles I would certainly concede that the allegations made against Ricci are mostly well founded; His works are generally mind numbing affairs containing lacklustre action and poor acting in addition to the conspicuous absence of anything remotely resembling plotting.

It was with this somewhat ominous factor in the back of my mind that I sat down to view the film in question here which stars Ricci regular Luigi Mezzanotte (billed here as he very often is as Conrad Nichols)

And my verdict? Well, much to my pleasant surprise it actually wasn't half bad.

OK so it's admittedly no masterpiece, it's obviously been shot on the cheap, the acting is hardly stellar and it's been entirely overdubbed throughout (despite the fact that the actors are clearly speaking in English beneath the dub anyway!!!) In fact this is unmistakably a Ricci made film, comprising a typically aimless storyline with plenty of his trademark padding to bump up the movies running time (in this case comprising our protagonists driving incessantly around in a jeep for most of the movies duration) But…….much like the same director's Thor The Conqueror (again starring Nichols) and despite its many flaws, this actually proves to be quite a watchable affair.

The post nuclear war story has Nichols, who stars as Captain Strike (what a cool name!), code name: Rage (what an even cooler name!!!) being hired by a group of fellow survivors (including Italian B-movie regular Werner Pochath) to obtain a stash of uranium which they desperately require in order to power their generators in this hostile and baron world. Rage reluctantly agrees to undertake the mission but the path turns out to be fraught with danger as he and his small group face various perils along the way in addition to being pursued by an old enemy named Slash (no, not the former Guns & Roses guitarist!) Cue some fairly decent action sequences and a surprisingly happy albeit sloppily conceived ending and you have an undemanding and mildly enjoyable watch for 90 or so minutes.

I must make special note of two things here which certainly up'ed the rating I have awarded this: One is an absolutely hilarious scene in which our hero's are beset by some radiation infected mutants. How is this hilarious you may well ask? Well as Rage is giving the attackers a jolly good beat down we are treated to what must surely rank as some of the most bizarrely inappropriate music ever put to any scene in any film – ever! The sensation of watching a violent sequence backed by some incredibly 'happy' sounding music proves to be almost surreal and had me in absolute hysterics.

The second point of special interest, and forgive me if this sounds at all sexist, but the female lead in this is a MAJOR HOTTIE!!!! Not only that, she dresses in tight denim shorts and a revealing vest for most of the movies running time! WHOA!!!

Ahem…..anyway to summarise, the film is certainly worth checking out if you have a fondness for the post nuke genre and is without doubt one of the more dignified highlights of its directors much maligned career.

an odd footnote in post-nuke B-movie history

[Aylmer · 6/10 · 6 October 2012]

What can be said that wasn't covered by the other comment? This movie is a truly surprising delight, especially considering that it's a sequel to a quite droll and lifeless film, the previous year's cash-in RUSH with largely the same cast and crew. What RAGE has that RUSH lacks is a lot of kinetic energy - our heroes are constantly on the move encountering new obstacles and it's not too predictable, only weighed down by the episodic nature of everything.

The film really is a showcase for the abilities of editor Vincenzo Tomassi, who manages to breathe a lot of life into the action scenes and a shockingly powerful pre-credits intro with some spectacular stock footage of New York, Nuclear Tests, and impoverished children of the 3rd world into a representation of World War 3. On top of that you have some solid musical work by Stelvio Cipriani who was easily one of the best composers in the world working at the time. However I have no idea what's going on with the music choice during the battle with the nuke mutants mid-movie. It sounds like music out of a Jamaican cabana. Had director Ricci lost his mind or was he going for some sort of brain-bending juxtaposition? I don't get it.

Most bizarrely of all is how this film premeditates a lot of elements seen in the next year's MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME and even a little DAY OF THE DEAD (a chase involving a locomotive, whimsical old adversary out for revenge, survivors driving jeeps around underground bunkers), rather than straight-up ripping off MAD MAX 2 like so many of its peers. It reminds me of how the similarly cheaply made Italian JAWS knockoff KILLER CROCODILE feels like practically the same movie as ANACONDA which came out almost a decade later. I really doubt George Miller or George Romero saw this film, but I suppose with this material there's only so much one can do.

A surprisingly watchable post-apocalyptic Italian flick.

[MonsterVision99 · 6/10 · 23 September 2017]

A surprisingly watchable post-apocalyptic Italian flick.

I wasn't expecting much from it and I had a decent time while watching it. Its not as good as something like Escape from the Bronx or 2019 After The Fall of New York, but Rage still manages to be entertaining.

Quite exploitive and mindless but really fun and somewhat interesting. I would recommend it for fans of the genre, even if I don't like that many post-apocalyptic films.

Despite all the flaws, the movie is still watchable

[bensonmum2 · 5/10 · 18 August 2017]

In a post-apocalyptic future, people have banded together for survival. One group who would like to see the old world restored to all its glory believes they know the location where uranium was once housed. They hope to power their cities with it. Another group would like to get their hands on the uranium for their own, more destructive purposes. Who will get there first?

First, what's with the character names in these post-apocalyptic movies? Rage? Slash? Trash? Ratchet? Bronx? Hammer? One? Why not Roger or Fred or even Bill? I think the Italian filmmakers tried to outdo each other with their names. Rage and Slash from A Man Called Rage are perfect examples.

As far as this kind of movie goes, A Man Called Rage isn't overly original. There are only two scenes I can think of that stray from the standard playbook - the seeds at the end (nice touch) and the train. The rest is derivative filmmaking at its finest. A noticeable lack of budget doesn't help. Costuming is often as uninspired (and cheap) as tying a t-shirt around an actor's head. There's a lot of driving that serves as inexpensive padding. I can't tell you how many scenes begin with the good guys' jeep coming into frame, stopping, and someone pointing and saying, "Look". It happens over and over. Finally, the best (or worst) example of the film's budget limitations has to be earthquake. A few pebbles thrown across the surface of a larger rock while the camera shakes doesn't make for an effective natural disaster. Throw in some poorly choreographed fight scenes, iffy acting, and ridiculous special effects and you've got the makings of a real stinker.

However, despite all the flaws, A Man Called Rage is still watchable. The main actors playing the good guys are likable enough. Bruno Minniti is oddly enjoyable in the role of Rage. The chief baddie is appropriately over-the-top. Even though there's padding galore, there are some nice action sequences sprinkled throughout. Like I said, I especially enjoyed the scenes on the train. Finally, the ending worked for me. The use of the seeds was something completely different from what I was expecting or what I've seen before in one of these movies. It's a nice, restrained, upbeat moment.

Oh, I almost forgot another big plus for The Man Called Rage. Those painted-on jean shorts worn by lead actress, Taida Urruzola, are the real star. Wow!

URanium? This is MYranium!

[Coventry · 4/10 · 5 June 2022]

The opening minutes state immediately clear what kind cheap, trashy, and derivative piece of action/Sci-Fi fodder this will be. "A Man called Rage" starts with a montage of clichéd archive footage, primarily of nuclear explosions intermixed with images of crying children in 3rd world countries, and dense traffic in metropole cities. This should be enough information for the experienced viewer to deduct that the entire world was destroyed, and only small groups of people still roam around in a post-apocalyptic landscape. What comes next is a very mundane and unexciting story of a lone warrior (the titular Rage) teaming up with a few others and trying to find a cave full of uranium before another posse (led by a guy named Slash) does. I still don't fully understand why they are looking for uranium, though. Do they intend to blow up whatever is left of the world as well?

Instead of uranium, they find a cave full of old books and philosophical messages, which makes this flick a bizarre crossover between "Mad Max II" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Makes sense as Italian exploitation-directors were never too ashamed of ripping off several blockbusters at once; - and Tonino Ricci was one of the most shameless ones of them all. "A Man called Rage" is a weak film, with as main defaults uninteresting lead characters and a severe shortage of extreme & gratuitous violence. There are also positive notes, namely the outfit of the heavenly beautiful actress Taida Urruzola, the dazzling score by Stelvio Cipriani that deserved a better screenplay, and an ingenious battle sequence of an old train wagon verses a bunch of dune buggies and motorcycles.

Lousy sci-fi from Italy

[lor_ · 15 March 2023]

My review was written in October 1986 after a screening at Liberty theater on Manhattan's 42nd Street.

"Rage" is a tedious 1984 followup film to the modest sci-fi opus "Rush", featuring the same director and star. As with the original, pic is a cheap mishmash of leftover costumes and vehicles from a World War II actioner.

Opening montage of nuclear explosions stock footage sets tale after World War III. Star Conrad Nichols, a beefy Sylvester Stallone type, is assigned to head a mission to find Alpha Base, from which a persistent radio signal has alerted the holocaust survivors that the base still exists, with a treasure trove there of technical info and needed uranium reserves.

Nichols (known by the nickname "Rage") takes along an old army chum (Werner Pochat), a beautiful girl (who insists on wearing short shorts and a revealing top during the dangerous mission) and an electronics/weapons expert. They visit an evil warlord named Slash (though his facial scar is a victim of continuity sloppiness) to get a map to Alpha Base and spend the rest of the film playing cat and mouse with Slash's violent henchmen and women. Boring pic climaxes with a lengthy battle chase involving a locomotive.l Plot ends up like "On the Beach"{, with the base found to be deserted, its signal being automatic. There's no uranium, but the heroes bring back an elegant edition of the Bible, just the ticket to rebuild Western Civilization.

Dubbing is poor, as are technical credits.

Rush 2

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 24 April 2022]

Tonino Ricci - often using the Americanized name Anthony Richmond - was an Italian exploitation director and you know what that means. He jumped genres. From mob films (The Big Family), westerns (Bad Kids of the West) and White Fang ripoff after doing second unit on the original (Zanna Bianca alla riscossa) to sharks (Cave of the Sharks, Night of the Sharks), horror (Bakterion), post-Conan peplum (Thor il conquistatore), aliens in the Bermuda Triangle (the baffling and wonderful Encounters In the Deep), war (I giorni dell'inferno), sexy romance (Pasión, Storia di arcieri, pugni e occhi neri), Raiders of the Lost Ark remix (I predatori della pietra magica) and a family-friendly dog movie (Buck and the Magic Bracelet), he really did it all. And then he made two post-apocalyptic movies, this one and the mocie that inspired this, Rush.

Working from a script by Jaime Comas Gil (A Fistful of Dollars, the insane Adam and Eve vs. The Cannibals) and Eugenio Benito, this starts with stock footage of modern life that's soon blown asunder by b-roll and stock footage, signalling that the end times have come and gone*. Soon enough, Rage (Bruno Minniti, who was the hero in just about every Ricci movie from Thor the Conqueror on; he used the name Conrad Nichols in nearly all of them) must lead Werner, Omar and Mara through the Forbidden Zone to get uranium and battle the man he gave a scar - and the name Scar - and an entire army of his motorcross soldiers and you know what this is all about? A cryo chamber with a Bible in it. Can Rage and his team take a train across the wasteland and deliver the Good News from Alpha Base to Gamma Base?

They do it all to the jazziest post-nuke boogie you've ever heard by Stelvio Cipriani. The rest of the movie may look dingy and a bit boring, but man, that cat can swing.

*One of those nukes is really the Friendship-7 launch, because we can still hear mission control say, "God speed, John Glen."

A post-apocalyptic cheesy delight

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 22 October 2016]

Tonino Ricci follows up his cheese classic RUSH THE ASSASSIN with RAGE, a movie that is just as cheesy if not more so! Now RUSH wasn't exactly what you would call a "big budget" movie but RAGE has half of its predecessor's budget, if that! Thankfully Ricci never lets lack of money get in the way of making a crowd-pleasing movie and this is no exception. For all fans of Italian trash I would say that this pair of post-apocalyptic epics are a must-see! Once again Conrad Nicols returns in the leading role, and despite a name change, a new hairstyle and a new black vest, he's still an all-round hero and indestructible guy.

After what seems like an age of stock footage showing various nuclear explosions, RAGE begins proper with what seems like a re-run of the first film's opening scene. In fact I'm sure it's the same set! A group of soldiers search through a series of abandoned buildings in search of Rage, who is of course kicking their backsides big time. Then again, it's not much of a challenge, as these soldiers must be some of the dumbest I've ever seen! Example: they break and climb through a window when a door is right next to it! Talk about making work for yourself! After seeing a dozen corpses inside the doorway, the soldier's leader says "be careful now - he's armed!". Now he's one to state the obvious.

Despite his gung ho tactics, Rage once again ends up being captured and taken to the soldier's base. Along the way they stop in what looks like a quarry and are attacked by a band of roaming cut-throats, leading to a small shoot-em-up scene packed with shots of people pole-vaulting over sand dunes! After this they make their way through some dry ice which is apparently the "radioactive zone", and are forced to wear masks. You've got to laugh at the soldier who decides to take his off and chokes to death! Rage is taken to the leader, a Burt Reynolds lookalike who asks him to help mankind by travelling to the Alpha Base and locating life-restoring stores of Uranium. Being a good chap Rage complies soon enough.

Assembling a rag-tag bunch, Rage makes his way by jeep into the uncharted territory. Accompanying him are the tough soldier leader, an overweight electronics expert guy who packs a mean punch and, of course, an Italian female beauty for glamour's sake. Here the fun begins. Rage and his team discover a cheesy disco (!), are menaced by a "magnetic hurricane", a no-budget landslide (which consists of a few pebbles rolling down a hill, accompanied by the camera shaking) and an attack by fur-clad primitives played out to some jolly '80s music! Of course, it wouldn't be a MAD MAX 2 rip-off without the chases, and Rage and his team are followed by a gang of bizarrely-fashioned misfits, lead by a guy who looks like an old hippy. Some guys follow on BMX bikes! After reaching the base, finding it empty apart from some seeds and a Bible, and accidentally destroying it, Rage escapes by train as the following gang close in. The finale is a direct rip-off of the chase from MAD MAX 2 as the bad guys board the train, lots of bullets are spent and loads of vehicles explode. Suffice to say it's highly entertaining and hilarious to watch.

You have to admire Ricci. He doesn't have the budget to blow up moving vehicles so intersperses scenes of people throwing grenades with shots of stationery (probably hollow) vehicles exploding in the desert. Not only once does he do this once but about half a dozen times. Protective clothing has gone up in the world too; instead of the cling-film in the first film we now have plastic sheeting as a way of blocking radiation. There are lots of weird and unexplained bits in this movie, like the radioactive man who appears to gurn at the lady and then runs off into the night.

Conrad Nichols shows that his acting hasn't developed at all from the first film, but hey, at least he looks good. The supporting cast is an interesting one, with the underrated German actor Werner Pochath as a fellow soldier of Rage's. Taida Urruzola also makes for a fetching female lead. What more can I say? Ricci proves that you don't need a budget to make a good film and I was mightily impressed with the unexpected train chase at the film's finale - very well executed on the cheap with lots of inter-cutting and fast editing to disguise the cheap vehicles/action, and it seems a bit of imagination was put into it as well. This movie is a cheesy delight.