The Death Merchant (1991) User Reviews

The Death Merchant

[skullfire-96621 · 5/10 · 16 December 2022]

The Death Merchant is a very low budget movie. The only good things to be said about it are it has a short run time and Lawrence Tierney.

The sound production is horrendous, I am not sure how it recorded, but it sounds as if the microphones were all held in a metal cargo drum.

I could only recommend this film to viewers seeking to watch all of Lawrence Tierney's filmography.

The Death Merchant is typical to lower budget movies filmed in this particular time period.

Thankfully, Lawrence Tierney had greater highlights toward the end of career than this, and can still be remembered for his filmography as a whole.

It's a Thriller B-Film - it's Supposed to be Trashy; Give It A Chance ! (Besides, it has some Cute & Stunning Girls in it !)

[alleywayambush · 5/10 · 30 May 2023]

So sure, you can't expect too much from these trashy 80's/early 90's B-Films, be horror/splatter, fantasy or thrillers.

Sure, the plot is sloppy and hard to follow (or maybe we just tune off out of boredom !) and otherwise quite generic (probably both !).

However, there sure are some cute and stunning girls throughout ! (the evil 'sultry' sidekicks !) The dark 'continental' one at the start in the lace miniskirt and black tights; real elegant beauty ! The white-clad one innocently bending over showing off raised miniskirt, lace-top stockings and knickers; cute and angelic ! Not to forget the good and innocent young blonde stunner at the start & end.

Give it 5/10 for the cute and stunning girls, the superficial entertainment (hard to follow as it is) and the feel-good, trashy-but-classy 80's/early 90's aesthetic & cultural style.

PROTECT THE URN!

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 11 June 2019]

The film opens with a cliche scene in an old warehouse. Ivan (Lawrence Tierney) and Natasha (Melody Munyon)...I kid you not...are holding at gunpoint the Doctor (Ivan J. Rado) and his daughter (Monika Schnarre) demanding the missile control microchip. Ivan is a "death merchant" who has respiratory problems and smokes.

The movie then flashes back "8 days earlier" and separates the two subplots which we just saw come together. The Doctor is an archeologist which really has nothing to do with the film other than a head fake. The microchip was hidden in a burial urn he discovered. Martina (Martina Castle) is the consort of Ivan and is jealous of his hit-woman Natasha. We already know from the first scene she will betray him, and that was the major plot twist.

The acting was bad. There were a number of things happening in the background in the outdoor scenes which made me go "huh?" At no time does one feel any intensity. Exactly how goes one transfer gold to a Swiss bank account? The movie has a lot of MST/camp value, plus 1 star.

PARENTAL GUIDE: Sex, No f-bombs but other adult language, nudity? rear male, obscure shower, Munyon's back.

Perhaps The Most Risible Mess That One Will Have Viewed.

[rsoonsa · 1/10 · 9 June 2006]

A sensate audience will probably prefer a struggle with typhus than having to watch more than once this remarkably shoddy attempt at making a crime melodrama; a strong reaction to the film, it shall be admitted, yet from its beginning frames until its ending, there is no moment of able craftsmanship in it, but rather substandard performances from among members of its cast and crew. Ludicrous Lawrence Tierney is dusted off to play in the lead role as Ivan Yates, a powerful dealer in illicitly obtained nuclear arms who has sold an advanced missile guidance system microchip that he has managed to garner, only to have it stolen from him before he can make delivery to a "terrorist" buyer, the latter having already transferred funds to Ivan's Swiss bank account. Yates, made grumpy by this embarrassing incident, begins to murder United States Naval Intelligence agents, and others, for no especial reason discernible from within an essentially incoherent screenplay. To accomplish his felonious deeds, Yates relies in the main upon a duo of homicidal as well as pulchritudinous female assistants. An understandably bewildered young man, accompanied by an almost awake girl friend, and supposedly holding some sort of law enforcement position with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, is assigned to solve the multi-jurisdictional killings instigated by Yates. That Department, the City's smallest, has no enforcement function or capability, this being typical of the grotesque inaccuracies that riddle a cartoonish production. The work is witlessly opened with its climactic storyline scene, after which comes what leads up to that point in the narrative, including the climactic scene repeated in toto. Direction is unskilled, editing is inefficient, camera-work is amateurish, but it is the execrable sound quality that is the very worst element of the movie (guns that fire with mismatched sound, or no sound at all!; consistently sloppy synching; oft unintelligible dialogue; an intrusive and overloud score) including a great deal of mumbling and bumping about in the background by crew members. Special effects are comically inferior with atrocious use of squibs. A few capable players are here who ostensibly had no other casting choices available (it is, after all, a job) but there is nothing of merit for them within the script. There is, however, a modicum of pleasure gained by recognizing several veteran stuntmen who are on board during one sequence, seen tossing one of the principal characters into a trash dumpster, a location into which the print of this draff (overstretched after its initial few minutes) should also have been deposited.

The Death Merchant is a no-sale.

[tarbosh22000 · 3/10 · 1 May 2018]

"History has shown us that death merchants have always attempted to close the "ultimate deal". Let us hope that their evil endeavors continue to fail." - Closing words of The Death Merchant



Ivan Yates (Tierney) is some sort of death merchant. What is a death merchant, you ask? Well, in the case of Yates, the answer appears to be an elderly and ailing black marketer who wants a special microchip so he can control the world's nuclear arsenal. In addition to that, he wants a priceless urn containing the ashes of the ancient Egyptian Shohamen. Also he talks to his pet fish named Seymour.

When an archaeologist, Dr. Farraday (Rado), and his daughter Amanda (Schnarre, of Peacekeeper fame) get tangled in the web of Ivan Yates, only one man can help them out of their predicament: one David McKinley (Singleton), from the Cultural Affairs Department of the U.S. Government. Realizing he needs more power because he is somewhat of a nerd, McKinley turns to 1991-era coolguy Jason Cardwell (Viharo). So now McKinley, Cardwell, Farraday and Amanda have to come up against the conniving and duplicitous Death Merchant, who also has as backup baddie-esses Martina (Castle) and Natasha (Munyon). Who will come out victorious in the battle between the Death Merchant and the entire U.S. Navy?

James Winburn is known primarily as a stuntman, but he has directed three movies in his career: One is The Death Merchant, another is Evil Altar (1988) starring Robert Z'Dar, and the final movie in his trifecta is Miami Beach Cops (1992). While, taken together, that is impressive, if you must see one Winburn movie, see Miami Beach Cops. The Death Merchant appears to suffer from some technical problems, as the sound is horrendously shoddy, and the picture isn't so hot either. The fact that the movie has audio issues is especially egregious because the movie stars the late, great Lawrence Tierney. Tierney's inimitable voice CARRIES this movie. If it wasn't for Tierney and his voice, this movie would be nothing.

We were worried that, though the movie features Tierney, it would be a mere sit-down role. Thankfully, it's not. Tierney gets a lot of great screen time, and in not all of it is he sitting. Winburn used the man to his full potential, as far as rock-bottom budget AIP movies shot towards the end of his life would allow. Tierney is truly "America's Angry Grandpa" as he barks and growls his way through the muddy and muddled proceedings. This 'Merchant must think it's "Of Venice" because of all the highfalutin and pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue. It's a clumsily written film, and the lines are delivered awkwardly by a cast of inexperienced actors (except Tierney and Rado, of course).

Our main "hero", McKinley, is played by Andrew Singleton, and, oddly, this is his one and only movie role to date. He has a penchant for skinny ties and he has a curly mullet. So, obviously he's the hero. Martina, on the other side of the Death Merchant/anti-Death Merchant divide, was last seen in Total Exposure (1991), released the same year as 'Merchant. What a year it must have been for her.

There's a car blow-up and some very weak gun-shooting, but despite its release on ACTION International Pictures, there's not really any action here to speak of. Most of what we see is a lot of nonsensical "intrigue" that the limited means of the production didn't really have the wherewithal to support. Perhaps that is best evidenced by the fact that the opening of the film is the exactly the same as the climax. Literally it's the same footage we already saw. Granted, there's some McKinley footage spliced in during the second go-around, but come on. In general, though, we give the filmmakers points for trying, and Tierney is fantastic, but The Death Merchant is a no-sale.

A lamentable production

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 26 October 2017]

THE DEATH MERCHANT is an indie thriller from 1991 which stars former Hollywood great Lawrence Tierney. The whole thing is shot on video, so it looks very poor indeed, and the story is a near plot less mess about the hunt for a stolen computer chip. The direction is so unremarkable that this is a literally point-and-shoot story. Characters are murdered, others recite some gangster-style dialogue, and it all adds up to one low budget mess of a film which is all but unwatchable.

Lawrence Tierney Film

[whpratt1 · 10/10 · 11 March 2008]

Always enjoyed seeing Lawrence Tierney in the film, "Dillinger" and how evil he looked and cold blooded as he portrayed John Dillinger. In this film, Tierney plays the role as Ivan Yates who is involved in trying to secure a computer chip which involves nuclear power and he is constantly having people killed who get in his way. Ivan has problems with breathing and needs oxygen whenever he gets upset or has an attack and he also manages to have very sexy young women around him at all times. I must mention the fact that Ivan is carrying around a great deal of weight and he is completely bald and ugly. Lawrence Tierney played these types of roles because he really was a man who grew up in New York City and grew up with rough and tough kids. When Lawrence Tierney's career was at an end in the 1960's I use to see him in a local bar on Broadway wearing a hard hat after working in construction. In this film, Tierney was 72 years of age and did an outstanding job as the star of this picture. Enjoy.

Drew Singleton was My High School Principal...

[samuelgott · 10/10 · 8 September 2020]

...and now I've seen him get blowed up from shooting a crippled gangster's oxygen tank: 10 stars.