Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Am I Missing Something?

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I think it's best that I watch some movies by myself. Like this one. That's because the minute George Eastman showed up on screen, I let out an audible cheer of pure bliss. No one needs to hear me screaming like that.2025. A nuclear war has left New York City in ruins, populated by scavengers and telepathic mutants who are hunted and killed by the elite. To keep the people of this world from revolting, the reality game show Endgame has been created, where hunters and gladiators battle to the death in the place of warfare. Lilith (Black Emanuelle herself, Laura Gemser, credited as Moira Chen!) is a psychic who wants protection for her band of mutants. She hires the best Endgame player ever - Ron Shannon (Al Cliver from Zombi and The Beyond!) - to help. Shannon has his own problems, as he's in the middle of Endgame and facing off against professional killers like Kurt Karnak (the much loved Eastman, who also co-wrote this film), who was Shannon's childhood friend and has now become his greatest rival. The last time Shannon and Karnak battled in an Endgame, time ran out before they could determine which man was the best player.Lilith helps Shannon defeat Karnak, at which point his sponsor and the cameramen show up and ask him to drink Lifeplus on screen. Lilith reaches out to him and he rushes to save her. That's when he agrees to help her and the mutants she protects.Karnak has lost his mind due to losing, shooting targets obsessively. Colonel Morgan and his men try to recruit him to their cause while Shannon tries to recruit his own team, including Ninja (Hal Yamanouchi, who in addition to playing Silver Samurai in 2013's The Wolverine also appears in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, 2020 Texas Gladiators and 2019: After the Fall of New York as the Rat Eater King!) and Bull (Gabriele Tinti, who was married to Gemser and appeared in nearly every Black Emanuelle movie) ."You're too famous to disappear in a city that grows smaller every day," says Colonel Morgan when he catches up to Shannon, asking him to give up Lilith. This leads to a firefight where he's saved by Karnak! George Eastman as a good guy? YES!If you haven't guessed by all the shouting and exclamation points, this movie is the perfect combination of everything I look for in film - it's a ripoff, it's post-apocalyptic, it shares Italian genre favorites and it's in a ridiculous world where everyone either dresses like a viking or Dump Matsumoto (1980's Japanese women's wrestling bad girl supreme).Meanwhile, in the wasteland, our heroes come upon mutants, which Professor Levin (oh yeah, he takes care of the telepaths) explains have combined man's primordial caveman past with feral instincts. Which means, in layman's terms, that they look like human fish or apes.Think that's crazy? They then come upon holy monks who have blinded themselves so that they can be guided by psychics and kill anyone who offends their conception of God. What follows is a scene of black-robed maniacs fighting with machine guns and grenades and knives and motorcycles and man...a cast of hundreds gets killed until Shannon finds the captured psychic and instead of saving him, tosses an axe at his head. All the monks have no idea where they are, wandering around yelling that they are blind as our heroes make their escape. If you think they aren't going to drive over the head of one of the monks, well, you haven't been watching Italian genre cinema!Meanwhile, Lilith explains to Shannon that she keeps one of the young psychic kids basically autistic, because if he starts to experience emotions, he's liable to wipe out everyone around him.Then, the professor gets killed in a trap, but asks Shannon to save all of them. But that means Bull discovers that she's psychic, which means that the entire team learns that everyone is a mutant. Everyone starts arguing before Karnak shows up to let them know that more enemies are on the way. Monkey-faced enemies! And a fish-faced leader who has two women with roped up bare breasts on his modified golf cart! What is going on with this movie?Ninja and Kovack get killed and Lilith is captured. Karnak offers to help Shannon save her. Lilith reaches out to Shannon, telling him that Karnak only wants gold and then to kill him. Then, the fishman leader tears off Lilith's clothes, yelling "Look at me while I rape you, dammit!" Shannon asks if she's OK because he's seeing flashes and she's all like, "Yeah, I'm fine," while a fish mutant slobbers all over her. Umm...When the guys get there, Lilith is fully clothed and the mutant is passed out on the bed. So are we to believe that she enjoyed it? Or that she just went with it? I guess if you're looking for woke feminism, a Joe D'Amoto movie is probably the last place one should root around.Then they find Kovack, who the mutants have left inside a wall. They can't help him escape and he wants to die, so Karnak breaks his neck. He faces off against an entire room of mutants while Shannon and Lilith escape. She can tell that Karnak is in trouble, but not dead, to which Shannon replies "Fate decides the winner of Endgame, not me."Lilith reunites with the children and everyone celebrates that they are only ten kilometers from the rendezvous. Of course, the government is waiting to take everyone out. SS logo adorned stormtroopers show up and just start shooting, but Shannon talks Tommy, one of the mutant children, into creating wind storms and telekinetically using a machine gun and an avalanche to kill all of the soldiers. He even levitates a car that crushes several of them and sets a fire that wipes out even more. Then, he forces Colonel Morgan to kill himself.Lilith asks Shannon to come with them, but he says "She is the future and he is the past." She leaves while he stays behind in the wasteland with the gold. As he goes to pick up his gold, Karnak comes back and tells him they haven't played the final round yet. He throws away his gun as we get an awesome long shot of both men, like something out of a western. They rush at one another with knives and the credits roll.The poster for this film promises "For An Endgame Champion In The Year 2025, There's Only One Way To Live. Dangerously." And this film more than lives up that. If you only know D'Amoto from his adult work or gorefests like Beyond the Darkness and Antropophagus, you should totally check this one out. Movies like this are why I went from worrying about the end of the world to wishing that it would happen!

Endgame - Bronx lotta finale (1983)** (out of 4)Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Ron Shannon (Al Cliver) is a warrior who has won a television show, which puts one strong man against others for a title. He is asked by a group of mutants (led by Laura Gemser) to guard them and transport them to a location where they can live on. Shannon takes the job and recruits some other men but soon it's clear that Col. Morgan (Gordon Mitchell) will stop at nothing to make sure all the mutants die.ENDGAME - BRONX LOTTA FINALE is another Italian film that rip-offs MAD MAX. Who knows how many of these films were made but this one here comes from cult director Joe D'Amato and for the most part it's mindless entertainment and you should find it somewhat entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious.In all honesty, the plot it somewhat of a mess and it's probably more complicated than it should have been. The biggest problem with the movie is the fact that the dialogue scenes are so deadly boring that you can't help but wish they had been edited out all together. After all, how many people come to a movie like this to hear any sort of talk? The film's entertainment comes from the non-stop action and this is where people can have some fun. There are all sorts of action scenes with shoot-outs, fights with blind people and more non-sense. The action is pretty fast and furious and makes for a much better time.Genre fans will certainly enjoy the cast that they have lined up even though the dubbing, as you'd expect, was pretty bad. Cliver might always be remembered for his role in Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE but he's always fun to watch. Gemser had already made several film with D'Amato but she really isn't given too much to do here and yes boys, she keeps her clothes on throughout the film. George Eastman also appears in a small role and when you add in Mitchell you've got four likable actors.D'Amato does a pretty good job in the director's chair and in fact I was surprised to see how well he handled the action scenes. These scenes are what makes the film so ENDGAME - BRONX LOTTA FINALE will appeal to fans of the genre.

Kick arse! Big Al Cliver and even bigger George Eastman go head to head (sometimes) or join up to go head to head with others (sometimes) in a film that's like the film Running Man for the first half hour before they get a squad together and take on the visually impaired! Both George and Al are contestants in Endgame, a TV s how where Hunters hunt the prey (usually a Hunter that's volunteered to be the Prey). This time, champion Shannon (Cliver) is the prey and he's got three hunters on his tail. One seems to be a member of Kiss, one is Bobby Rhodes from Demons, and the other is twelve foot tall childhood friend George Eastman. Shannon runs around kicking everyone's head in while it's filmed for TV, but things get complicated when on the set (which is the post-nuclear wasteland of New York – forgot to mention that), Shannon meets Laura Gesmer, a psychic mutant who needs a guide to help her and her son and some other mutants escape the city and the Nazi-style army led by the aged but still pretty ugly George Mitchell.After sparing Eastman's life and bolting from the gameshow which seems to involve him 'dissapearing' back to his caravan where everyone should know where he is, Shannon gets together a crew to help out, including an eye-patch guy, Al Yamanouchi, who kills a guy with his bare hands for no real reason, a guy who looks like a Viking and the guy whose name I can never remember even though he's in about 50% of the Italian films I own (like Mad Dog and Arizona Colt). They set off into the wilderness and almost immediately get into a massive battle with loads of blinds monks, whom you might have guessed can see via a poor telepath they have tied up somewhere.That's what I loved about this film. Gameshow aside, whenever there's a battle there's always about eight billion (give or take) extras willing to be shot, blown up, speared, or knocked off of motorcycles. I also loved how Shannon and co would wait until the enemy had surrounded them before launching an attack. Every battle seems to turn into all out war. That's what post apocalyptic films need more of: the good old fashioned Pagga.As this is an Italian film, you've got mutant fish men drooling on Laura Gesmer, Michelle Soavi turning up in a cameo, and a freaky scene at the end with flying rocks, fire, and one character being forced to blow his own brains out. The soundtrack to this also at time sounds really similar to the soundtrack of Blade Runner while being no where near as depressing as Blade Runner.Some say this is the best of the Italian post-apocalypse films, and I wouldn't argue with those who say that, but I think that Raiders of Atlantis, New Barbarians, Bronx Warriors 1 & 2, 2019: After the Fall of New York are all just as good (and mostly have George Eastman in them). These films are so much fun from start to finish. I can't wait till these films become reality, because I'll be there on my talking motorbike with my hermaphrodite ape man sidekick and a Mohican, ready to wander the wastelands.

Fifty years after the Nuclear holocaust of World War Three, New York is one of the few cities still intact. It survives in isolation catering to the craving of it's population for violence. There is live T.V. coverage of the 'Endgame Championship' that is based on the gladiator duels of ancient times. 'Endgame' began in 2012 and is now the most popular show on T.V. The show's host (David Brown) recaps the rules for the listening millions. Three 'hunters' are set loose to track down and kill the 'prey'. All the contestants receive one firearm and two additional weapons of their choice, if they are found with anymore the contestants are automatically disqualified. The 'prey' is given a 30 minute head start and is allowed to surrender but will lose points if he does so.. The 'zone' chosen to hold the contest lies between 22nd and 33rd Street. The hunters this time are Woody Smith (Bobby Rhodes), Kid Hitchkoc (Al Waterman) and Karnak (co-writer George Eastman). The prey is Shannon (Al Cliver). Shannon manages to kill both Woody and Kid. During a fight with Karnak a telepathic mutant named Lilith (Laura Gemser as Moira Chen) helps him to win. The films bad guy, Colonel Morgan (Gordon Mitchell) is a high ranking official in the SS which stands for security service. They see Shannon on T.V. with Lilith who he recognises as a telepathic mutant and wants them both, for some reason I really don't know as it's never explained properly. Lilith introduces Shannon to Professor Levin (Jack Davis) who asks Shannon to lead him, Lilith and a group of telepathic mutants out of New York City and to a rendezvous with a helicopter that will fly them to safety, in exchange for lots of gold. Shannon agrees and assembles a team of men to help. A guy with an eye-patch named Bull (Gabriele Tinti as Gus Stone), a ninja called, well Ninja (Al Yamanouchi), a big fat man named Kovack (Mario Pedone), a guy with really fast reflexes and is quite useful with a knife named Kijawa (Nello Pazzafini as Nat Williams) and lastly a driver called Stark (Franco Ukmar as Frank Ukmar), these guys wouldn't exactly fill me with confidence but there you go. The men and mutants set off. During their travels they come across blind telepathic monks, various general low-life's, deformed mutants, Shannon's old friend Karnak returns for seconds plus Colonel Morgan and his team of heavily armed SS troops! Will Shannon be able to lead the unfairly persecuted telepathic mutants and Professor Levin to safety? Will Shannon be able to stay alive long enough to collect his gold? You'll have to watch it if you want to find out. This Italian production was co-written and directed by Joe D'Amato under the rather unimaginative pseudonym of Steve Benson, and it's easy to see why he wanted his name off the credits as this film is consistently awful. The script by Amato and Eastman as Luigi Montefiori brings nothing new to the genre. It's tediously slow and dull as well as being very unambitious. The film as a whole left me with the impression no one associated with it was the least bit interested in creating a good film. The New York settings look like they were filmed under seedy railway bridges and in abandoned factory's. No effort is made to include any props or even make the locations look like a futuristic Manhattan, I'd be very surprised if this was actually filmed there. Once they leave Manhattan it's just fields and more industrial factory's that look very contemporary! The weapons, cars and costumes are bland and forgettable, once again I just felt very little effort or money was put into the look of this film. There isn't much gore or violence in it, a brief shot of an axe in someones head is about it. There is a sequence where a blue half man/half fish mutant (Pietro Ceccarelli as Peter Brighton) rapes Lilith, while doing so he says "look at me while I rape you damn it!", need I say more about how tacky and cheap this film is. The action scenes are poor to say the least. They basically consist of people shooting guns and then the camera cuts to stunt people falling off motorbikes or just falling over. There is little variety in them and they become extremely boring very quickly. There are a couple of fight scenes but they aren't that well choreographed or particularly exciting. Acting and dubbing is poor all round, Al Cliver makes for a very bland and uninteresting hero and Laura Gemser isn't much better as the leading lady. Big George Eastman is fun to watch though, as usual. And check the ending out, one helicopter lands and about 10 people get inside and take off, after the two pilot's it's a two seater at most and it's tiny! There's no way on Earth that all those people got into it and it took off, absolutely no way. Please do yourself a favour and avoid this, watch Sergio Martino's 2019-After the Fall of New York (1983) instead, believe me you'll be glad you did as it's far superior to this in every department possible. Total rubbish.