Really Surprised!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Steel Frontier brings us to a stereotypical post-apocalyptic future of sorts. It conjures up a man without a name or title (Joe Lara) beyond that of a "drifter," similar to Clint Eastwood's versions. A gun-wielding vagabond on a spiffy motorcycle who facially resembles Jesus Christ wandering through a toxic wasteland of society reduced to rubble and sand. At first glimpse, he finds a dying man with both legs torn off left to die in the middle of desert. This dying man pleads to the stranger to quickly end his life, as the stranger ponders over him for a few brief moments and decides...As the film's introduction continues, a recovering town by the name of New Hope shows a community of people ambitiously moving around tires, which now are being used as a natural resource (film does not elaborate on that, it does not really need to in the given context), as a harbinger of Mad-Max styled vehicles (seemingly gang members) approach the timid town of citizens.Once the vehicles arrive, we start to see all sorts of random odd-balls armed with rifles and pistols step out of the vehicle and ensure their grandiose of chaos on these innocent people, while the supposed leader of the outfit, General J.W. Quantrell (Brion James) casually enters into a barber shop with a rather frightened barber.The town's police force enters the scene, and is obliterated in mere minutes. After the General's done with his shave in the barber shop, he comes out to proclaim the town, as a (self) designated military outpost under the United Regime. Later, we see him discussing plans for new leadership for the town, as he dresses down the cowardly Mayor Kissmich (Quinn Morrison) who was nowhere to be found, during the siege. The General appoints his son as the #1 leadership of the town a little to the chagrin of Ackett (Bo Svenson).A few of the town's henchmen ride out onto the dusty roads to find runaways, and more or less runs into their possible Grim Reaper...the long-haired vagabond on the motorcycle. The henchmen taken by surprise to find someone crazy enough to be hanging out in such dangerous and desolate desert all by themselves with no care in a doomed world. One can observe fairly quickly that stranger is very much toying and play childish games with them. A stereotypical, but yet very excellent choreographed action car chase takes place. The stranger slips up... or does he? He enters the town as a man that no one has seen, before and the chaos really hits up. The film borrows elements from The Man with No Name and the Mad Max series, but it holds its own water very well. The ending actually turns out be a bit of surprise, and kind of ironic ... not quite as it seemed at the beginning of the film. The action scenes remain top-notch and exhilarating, as usual like with most PM action produced films. The characters are actually well-written for what most would consider to be a run-of-the-mill B-movie.

In a post-apocalyptic future, survivors live in a dirty makeshift town named New Hope. It seems tires are valuable so workers toil away in the tire yards. One day, a band of marauders known as "The Deathriders" roll into town. Through violent tactics, they sack the town of New Hope and institute J.W. Quantrell (James) as leader. Quantrell then makes his son, Julius (Victor) Mayor. Their plan is to institute what they call the "United Regime". But a savior arrives in the form of a gunfighter named Yuma (Lara). He pits various factions against each other (not forgetting about Bo Svenson as Ackett, Kane Hodder as Kinton and Brian Huckeba as the immortal and show-stealing "Chickenboy"). Yuma attempts to save the lives of Sarah (Foster) and her young son as she is a widow trying to make it in this tough world. But there are many pitfalls along the way, not the least of which are desert-dwelling cannibals named "Roach Eaters". Will Yuma save the day and ride off into the sunset?PM attempts to marry two genres here: the post-apocalyptic actioner (in the vein of the Mad Max series but perfected by the Italians) and the Spaghetti Western (started and perfected by the Italians) with generally entertaining results. Like in the Italian post-ap's, cars have wacky contraptions glued to them and people wear wacky outfits. But because this is a PM, it has much more action than the usual slog. There's pretty much non-stop shooting, chases, stunts, fights and blow-ups. There's even minimal dialogue at the outset of the movie, telling the story mainly visually, which is difficult to do. But this is a PM synthesis of Yojimbo (1961), hence For A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For A Few Dollars More (1965) (and any number of Clint Eastwood's 60's/70's output - including a bus chase reminiscent of The Gauntlet, 1977) along with a futuristic twist. So you get what's going on here.Even the name "Steel Frontier" indicates what you're in for: "Steel" indicating the future and "Frontier" indicating the Western. There's also some biblical symbolism worked into the storyline, a lot of which revolves around Joe Lara looking especially like Jesus this time around. He puts in an especially charming performance - this really is Lara at his absolute best. A location in the movie is even reminiscent of fellow Lara vehicle American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993). Maybe he lives in that industrial wasteland for real. You know Kane Hodder because he wears a hat with a Jason logo on it, and the guy who plays Julius has orange hair, making him, naturally, "Orange Julius". Svenson puts in a standard performance. Brion James should have been more involved.Because there is terminology such as "The Drylands" and the tire farmers are derisively known as "tire suckers", this would seem to be PM's Neon City (1991). But Steel Frontier is far better than that movie. To see PM's take on not one, but two classic genres together in one film, don't hesitate to see Steel Frontier. And did we mention Chickenboy?For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

Lots of action and violence in the Mad Max genre of things with a western twist. While all the acting was great, the best performance in the film is given by Brian Huckeba as the character "Chicken Boy." Much better than Vanilla Sky!

Ok, when I rented this several years ago I had the worst expectations. Yes, the acting isn't great, and the picture itself looks dated, but as I sat there, a strange thing happened. I started to like it. The action is great and there are few scenes that make you jump. Brion James, maybe one of the greatest B-grade actors next to Bruce Campbell, is great as always. The story isn't bad either. Now I wouldn't rush out and buy it, but you won't waste your time at least watching this good b-grade post apocalyptic western.