lost-in-limbo I never really understood the title of the film, but I guess having Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" and its instrumental riffs finding its way in was good enough. That aside this Gary Busey vehicle was a predictable action programmer, but at the same time rather likable nonsense. I'm so use to seeing Busey playing some type of bad guy in action features, so this was a complete change of pace and quite a courageous, if collected turn. Although it was not hard to cheer on his character, as he takes matters into his own hands by tackling two hissable villains; an excellent Seymour Cassel as the town's corrupt sheriff and the imposing William Smith as an notorious biker who leads a large group of thuggery biker drug-runners. While it was Smith who was the main villain, for me it was actually Cassel who stole the limelight with his detestable turn. The confrontations between Busey and Cassel's character added spice and their shady history engaged. While Smith seems to stay in the background (posing on his bike, standing about looking important and playing stare offs), that's up until to the brutal climatic showdown beat-down with Busey. It's out-and-out bruising.Buck Matthews is a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who has just been released from prison and returns to his home town hoping to settle down with his wife and daughter. But that's not the case for Buck. As the town Sheriff has it in for him and he gets involved with some drug- running bikers, which sees him losing his wife and his child being hospitalised. But his alone in seeking revenge, as on one else wants to get involved. The lead-up is slow and routine in it's well worn plot mechanics and revenge format, where moments of heart-ache and reflection is broken up by explosively violent and over-the-top mayhem. Wait to you see the new pick-up truck. What actually occurs is ridiculous and at times too convenient in the tit for tat game, therefore the harrowing impact it created in the beginning stages doesn't have the same affect by turning into a live-action comic book. Just think of the one man army chaos that erupted at the end of "Death Wish 3". Setting it in a small isolated rural town gave it a western approach and crafted some atmospheric encounters. Also showing up in the cast is solid character actor Yaphet Kotto playing Buck's good friend and Bert Remsen as the town's priest. Standard, but entertainingly trashy b-grade vigilante action fare.

Coventry "Eye of the Tiger", as sung by Survivor, must be one of the most recognizable and overused 80's songs ever released. The song itself is pretty much an 80's phenomenon, as it's still a classic regularly to be played at dance parties and served as theme song for at least two authentically 80's action flicks. Originally the theme song for the third (and coolest) film in Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" cycle in 1982, but a couple of years later it also became the title and theme song for this obscure but sweet and exhilarating mid-eighties revenge movie starring the underrated Gary Busey in a rare heroic role. "Eye of the Tiger" is clichéd and heavily derivative stuff, but it's just a simply irresistible action flick with stereotypical small townsfolk and over- the-top cheesy bits of violence. Around that particular 80's period, it was extremely popular in movies and TV-shows for the hero characters to move around in hi-tech vehicles chock-full of hidden armory and mechanical gimmicks. So, yes, Gary Busey also has one: a beautiful black bulletproof Dodge pick-up truck with enough artillery to armor a middle-sized ghetto! Buck Matthews is a former Vietnam veteran and ex-convict (why choose just one clichéd background if you can have two!) who returns to his beloved hometown, only to discover that a lot of things have changed. The little town is overrun by a gang of criminal bikers, who are running a drug lab in the nearby desert, and they cause amok and raise fear among the villagers. The local sheriff is as corrupt as the pest and even the rest of the police force is too afraid to make an arrest. When Buck prevents the bikers from gang-raping a nurse one night, he involuntarily declares war. The bikers respond by destroying his house, killing his wife and traumatizing his 6-year-old daughter. The only thing for Buck left to do is wipe them all out, with the help of his old friend J.B. and some useful four-wheel-driven donations from his rich and influential former prison buddy. Admittedly this is just another action/revenge movie like there are thirteen in a dozen, but it's nevertheless great fun to watch. "Eye of the Tiger" is full of raunchy sequences that you've seen numerous times before, but remain awesome, like biker-decapitation through wires across the road and dynamite sticks up someone's pooper. The film is very mundane, cheap and trashy- looking, but you're still likely to have a great time. Director Richard C. Sarafian also made "Vanishing Point", which is arguably the coolest and most brilliant 70's car chasing movie ever made, and could here rely on a pretty solid cast. There's Busey, obviously, but also stellar performances from Yaphet Kotto ("Alien", "Across 110th Street") and super-creep William Smith ("Nam's Angels", "The Swinging Barmaids"). My favorite role comes from Seymour Cassel as the Sheriff. He's a sleazy, arrogant and utterly corrupt racist bastard and Cassel depicts him wondrously.

Vomitron_G Gary Busey is the man and this time he's even granted a leading role as an ex-Vietnam veteran, ex-convict and reborn family man forced into a position that leaves him with nothing left but... revenge on his mind. Sounds cool, doesn't it? But jeez, I thought this flick would be at least a bit more fun. Turns out it's nothing more than an average watch, really. I kind of anticipated it to be a FIRST BLOOD (1982) rip-off, given Busey's character and the local sheriff antagonizing him and all, but it's not. Probably would have been more fun if it was. Now, the main evil-doers are some motorcycle gang who've taken on the role of drug-runners near a small town. During one of their nightly pillage & rape routines, they run into Gary Busey who will not have this type of misbehaviour. He rescues some nurse and the biking gang-bangers are not very happy about this. You can pretty much guess what happens next. There's some fun stuff in this film (decapitaing a biker while riding his motorcycle, dynamite up someone's naked ass,...), but the movie drags too much in places. And when Gary Busey does get his act together, it's basically just him and the bikers teasing each other with various acts of the disturbed. Fair enough, only EYE OF THE TIGER lacks a lot in graphic violence. The climax near the end (as implausible it may be, bombing the desert hideout, automated bazooka's coming out of Busey's truck and such) was silly fun, but the 'end-bossfight' was short and highly unmemorable. Also, the film lacks a true villain. The Boss of the gang was shown too little and just didn't do anything remotely menacing. It all turns EYE OF THE TIGER into an average time-waster, nothing more. Have low expectations and you might not mind having seen it. Obviously, it's still a better accomplishment than Lamberto Bava's BLASTFIGHTER (1984), a rather similar film, but EYE OF THE TIGER simply can't compete with stuff like COBRA (1986), COMMANDO (1985) or the aforementioned first RAMBO film. Even MALONE (another 80's Burt Reynolds action-vehicle and pretty much the same film) was better in most ways.

RTheManF89 I recently purchased this, well not purchased, but my dear mom was nice enough to buy this DVD at Ross today for the low price of just $4.00. At first, I actually had no freakin' idea that this was on DVD to begin with. I thought the only available copy was the OOP VHS from USA Home Video (Which is now Lions Gate). It had a cooler cover than the DVD, but before I get back to the movie, I would just like to make a little rant about how the big Hollywood studios (And the greedy sharks that own them) keep changing the cover art (Or force the art department to do so) for DVD releases. This one's a good example. The cover art for the original VHS of this movie made it look fun and imo, somehow dramatic, but this cover looks like it's been made over at MGM using Photoshop. It just doesn't make the movie look good to a buyer. It seems like these studios could really care less about nostalgia and just only care about making it appeal to today's youth. I guess you could also say that the cover for this made it look like a Transporter Rip-Off or a John Woo- type movie from 2001. Anyway, back to the movie. It's about a Vietnam Vet/Ex-Con (He had been convicted for a crime he didn't commit) named Buck Matthews (Played by Gary Busey in as I stated, quite possibly his best role.) who had just been granted parole and he goes back to his hometown to move on with his life and his family, his wife Christie (Played by Denise Galik) and Jennifer (Played by Judith Barsi from the awful "Jaws 4: The Revenge", may god rest her poor soul). We then see Buck at the police station, where he meets the corrput sheriff (Played by Seymour Cassel) and meets up with J.B. (Played by Yaphet Kotto) Also, Buck encounters a biker gang (The leader Blade, being played by the always awesome William Smith from "Maniac Cop") attacking a nurse, and saves her life and he becomes a town hero. However, it isn't long before the gang attacks Buck's house and kills Christie. Then, the movie starts to move into Death Wish territory. I do not feel like going further for the moment (I really don't want to spoil anything for anybody), but I will say the rest gets more exciting every minute. That's just my opinion though. As for the DVD itself, there really isn't much, although MGM did do a good job with the very beautiful widescreen quality. There is a trailer, but that's pretty much it for extras. There could have been like a director's commentary or even a commentary by either Busey or Kotto or all 3, but I really don't know.