Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

American spy John Manston (insipidly played by John McKay) goes to Moscow to find out about the Russian missile program. He discovers that the Russians have amassed the necessary data they need to make a nuclear weapon. Boy, does notorious schlockmeister Barry Mahon totally fumble the ball with this hopelessly dull clunker: The blatant use of grainy stock footage, lousy (far from) special effects, blah acting from a lame no-name cast, sluggish pace, the talky and uneventful script, a drippy narrator working mad overtime to keep the plodding and barely coherent narrative on course, infrequent and flatly staged action, cornball film library score, a crippling paucity of tension and momentum, static cinematography, and a complete fizzler of a would-be "shocking" climax all ensure that this dreadful stiff qualifies as an absolute grueling chore to endure. Only familiar character actor Art Metrano as a jolly truck driver manages to inject some much-needed life into this lethargic dud. A dismal yawner.

...but it comes close. At least it isn't too long. There are some dragged out parts, mainly in the beginning when the "agent" meets the "spy", and they focused quite a bit of time on the belly-dancer. Though, compared to the whole of the film, that is worth a watch by itself. Much of it seems to be stock footage. The funny thing is is that if the U.S. successfully launched a satellite first, the world may have reacted with certain paranoia as the U.S. did. Perhaps not on the same scale. It seems, overall to be like one of those "after school" educational programs except this one filled in fear. As I stated: it isn't the worst out there. But it's close.

Rocket Attack U.S.A. is film-making at its most abysmal. There is absolutely nothing positive I can come up with to say about the movie. Both artistically and technically the movie is horrible. When you watch something this bad you at least hope to have a laugh or two along the way. Rocket Attack U.S.A. is so deathly dull that it's not even "so bad it's good". The movie seems to have been made as a propaganda piece in the wake of the successful launch of a Russian Sputnik satellite. But I cannot imagine this movie did anything to get the people behind a U.S. missile program.I'm not sure how much anyone should expect from a no-budget movie with Barry Mahon as director. Take a look at some of his other directorial credits - The Adventures of Busty Brown (1964), Hot Skin, Cold Cash (1965), or Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico (1967). Is there any real surprise that Rocket Attack U.S.A. is as bad as it is?

In 1986, SNL alumni Laraine Newman starred in a 13-installment series called "Canned Film Festival", in which she and regular customers in a phony theater snackbar setting would talk about the bad movie that was playing in that night's schedule. What the writers failed to realize was that the irritating "comic relief" offered up by this stock pile of wannabes was nowhere nearly as funny as the films they showed... that took themselves seriously!Cue ROCKET ATTACK USA. This typically lethargic Barry Mahon epic (remember CUBAN REBEL GIRLS?) is nonetheless a real scream. It is an outrageous piece of grimy slop. This is the kind of Grade Z espionage flick which heavily relies on stock footage, people reacting to offscreen cut-ins, and the principal cast "emoting" in front of those great nondescript black backgrounds. This is the kind of movie where a person gets mowed down by machine guns, and says, "You go ahead- I'm all right."I haven't seen this film since, but I would love to have another look at it. However, in light of the atrocities of September 11, no-one would dare program it. After all, it does feature rockets attacking New York City. In today's climate, pictures like this and SHACK OUT ON 101, can no longer be viewed as hilariously outdated, naive pieces of Red Scare Propaganda. Suddenly, we understand how our ancestors felt back in the 1950's... being on the verge of disaster. Who knew that a Barry Mahon film would be topical?