February 12, 1988 | Faster than a speeding hit man, more powerful than a ninja killer, and able to leap over careening taxis in a single bound: Jericho Jackson is his name, and kicking butt is his game. But he’s better known as Action Jackson, the title of the rousing new adventure-thriller that extols his exploits.
This hard-charging hero is a role tailor-made for Carl Weathers, the formidable ex-football player whose robust swagger and cocksure charisma served him well as Apollo Creed in four Rocky melodramas. Here, freed from the restraints of being Sylvester Stallone’s second banana, Weathers firmly establishes his credentials as an above-the-title star who can carry a whole
movie on his muscular shoulders.
Especially, it should be noted, when he’s not wearing a shirt over those shoulders.
Action Jackson — do his buddies call him Act? Shun? Ackie? — is a two-fisted Detroit police sergeant whose street smarts have been enhanced by his studies at (no kidding) Harvard Law School. Unfortunately, despite his sterling academic background, not to mention his ability to jump over taxicabs, Action is a source of considerable unhappiness for his superiors. And that’s because, yes, Action is our old friend, the maverick cop.
His captain, upset by Action’s indelicate approach to making arrests, complains: “You nearly tore that boy’s arm off!” “So?” Action replies, resolutely unapologetic. “He had a spare!”
It’s a good thing Action has such a sense of humor. He needs something to keep his spirits up while he investigates the killings of several top-ranking auto union officials. It turns out the boy who nearly lost his arm has a father who has lost his mind: Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson), a fabulously wealthy auto tycoon, is the man behind the murders. No, he isn’t trying to save himself a few dollars at contract-negotiation time. Rather, Dellaplane is laying the groundwork for winning friends and influencing people in high places.
Don’t worry if the plan doesn’t make a lot of sense: It’s merely a convenient excuse for our man Action to crash through doors, smash through windows, punch out bad guys, and take his shirt off.
Under the enthusiastic direction of Craig R. Baxley, whose credits include several episodes of TV’s The A-Team, Action Jackson has the breakneck pacing and, occasionally, the surreal goofiness of an animated cartoon. There is plenty of violence, some of it quite brutal, but the camera rarely lingers on the carnage. (One glaring exception: The sudden murder of Dellaplane’s unsuspecting wife.) More often than not, the rough stuff is rendered in almost comically broad strokes — mayhem as slapstick. People die, but their deaths are no more consequential than the demise of a yellow orb in a Pac-Man game.
Vanity, the sexy singer-turned-actress, has her best movie role to date as Sydney Ash, an ambitious nightclub performer who will do anything, even sleep with a slimeball like Dellaplane, to get a recording contract. You might think a virile hero like Action Jackson wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her. But guess again: Action is too high-minded to sleep with just any bimbo, particularly when the bimbo is a heroin addict. Only after she proves herself as a heroine, and goes cold turkey, does she have a chance with our all-American hero.
Craig T. Nelson, usually cast as a straight-arrow Mr. Nice Guy, has a good and nasty time being a rich sleazoid. And the incredibly huge, amusingly self-possessed Prince A. Hughes is extremely funny as a mountain-sized bodyguard who abhors violence. “It goes against my Muslim beliefs,” he explains.
That line, incidentally, is one of the very few references to race in Action Jackson. (No one — except Dellaplane, of course — makes any mention of Action’s being a black hero.) Even funnier is a scene where Action confronts a jive-spouting, fast-rapping black thug, a stereotype since the heyday of ‘70s “blaxploitation” films. Action listens intently to the young man — but, for the life of him, he can’t understand a word the guy is saying.
It’s a small touch, but one that suggests the people who made Action Jackson are not about to respect all the clichés of the action genre.
Even so, you clearly aren’t supposed to take anything in this movie too seriously. Long before the delirious climax, when Action drives a sportscar through the door and up the stairs of the bad guy’s mansion, Action Jackson has shrugged off any concern for credibility, or social enlightenment, or even simple logic. This is slambang escapism, rude and rambunctious, impure and simple. As such, it’s the best Saturday night movie since Lethal Weapon.
