PROGRAMMED TO KILL
THE STORY: I thought Robert Ginty had hit an all time low with Warrior of the Lost World. But this movie runs a very close second.
Ginty is mercenary Eric Mathews. The "Agency'' hires him to rescue some American children who have been kidnapped in Beruit by Haseem a terrorist leader. Mathews successfully recovers the children and captures Haseem's merciless hitwoman girlfriend Samira. (Sandahl Bergman...she played Conan's girlfriend whatsername in Conan the Barbarian) Haseem evades capture. Samira, mortally wounded, is pronounced brain dead. The 'agency' gets Dr. Brock to use her in an experiment to create a deadly cyborg. Mathews is wounded also but makes a full recovery. He's told Samira is dead, and is very upset that he wasn't able to get information from her on how to get to Haseem. As a cyborg Samira is programmed to return to Haseem's hideout and kill everyone, which she does. But after she murders Haseem she breaks her programming and returns to the US to take revenge on the men who captured her and turned her into a cyborg. She hunts down all of them and kills them. Mathews manages to find out what going on and hides his family at a military base. Samira finds them however and after killing a lot of nameless soldiers she is run over by Mathews in a caterpillar tractor.
God, this movie was piss poor. You know its in the eighties too, because no american parents would be insane enough to let their kids go on a school trip in the middle east nowadays.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
1.) For terrorists Haseem's bunch are really lax. Mathews and his men ride up to their hideout in an old beat up truck. There's no foliage or anything to hide this truck. Magically, none of the lookouts saw it.
2.) While recovering from his wounds in the hospital Mathews wife tells him her son is writing about his exploits in the school newspaper. Aw, Come on! I don't think the families of mercenaries who work for the US government and kill middle eastern terrorists want this information to be common knowledge. Well, in this movie it is! Its in the freakin' school newspaper!
3.) Those big budget movies have it wrong! High level, Top security government experiments in cybernetics are carried out in the dirty sub basements of buildings by doctors who dress like a bunch of college students going to Disney World.
4.) When no one will tell Mathews the truth about Samira's fate, he breaks into Cybertron (Dr. Brock's government contracted organization) and steals the information. Now this movie was made in 1987, but the disk Mathews recovers is an old 5 1/2 inch floppy disk. Its all crumpled up, too. But Mathews buddy, Mike Hazard recovers the ENTIRE PLAN of how they turned Samira into a cyborg, etc. from it. Amazingly the disk isn't even marked! Imagine how lucky Mathews was to get just the vital Top Secret Info he wanted form one crumpled disk that isn't even labeled!
5.) The two dorks that take Samira back to Beirut so she can kill Haseem must have walked in from the "Revenge of the Nerds" auditions.
6.) The two dorks make sure you know how they hate terrorists by talking about it for five minutes!
7.) Samira puts on a wig to disguise herself and I couldn't help but think she's turned into Mega Peg Bundy.
NUDITY AND SEX: A very quick glimpse of Samira's boobies.
HUH?: Mathews breaks into Cybertron to steal info that the US government won't share with him and KILLS some guards! What a jerk! He's a mercenary, not a government agent! They don't have to tell him anything! Some hero.
The reason Mathews wants Samira is to find Haseem! But when Samira goes to kill Haseem he's in the very same hideout! All Mathews had to do was go back to Beirut and kill him! The movie VERY weakly tries to make you think Haseem is difficult to find. (Hell, the two dorks drove Samira right up to the hideout....but then, no one in Haseem's outfit notices approaching large vehicles!)
Somehow, without anyone telling him, Mathews knows Samira is out of control and killed the two dorks.
Samira catches up with Mathews after she kills his friend, Mike hazard, but runs away for no good reason when she was 2 seconds from killing him!
Caterpillar builds tractors that are immune to bazookas. Samira fires one at Mathews when he's about to run her down and it does nothing.
THE TALLY: This movie was ridiculous! When Samira kills people she just chokes them. She's supposed to be a super strong cyborg, but her kills are very unspectacular. Then again, you only see the doctors put a chip in her head, so I wonder how she got all the super strength. Sandahl Bergman looks pretty worn out through the whole thing, too....she didn't have hardly any lines either. I think she spoke about 20 words. Ugh.