Aka Breakout on the prison planet

THE STORY: I wonder if actors....especially actors that at one time had some degree of success, know when the movie they are in is piece of crap. I'll admit I know little of Richard Farnsworth, but I'm sure he's played in westerns or something. I'm sure because of the way this movie was built around him. Michael Pare, though, after his stint on The Greatest American Hero, was in The Philadelphia Experiment and Streets of Fire. Hey, they aren't classics, but I'm sure Pare thought he was going to be a big action hero in the 80's. Hahahahaha. Right.

Pare is Grange, a rather stupid criminal. He robs a bank, by himself and with no mask and gets caught. He is sentenced to the prison planet, New Botany Bay. The settlement on this planet is pretty simple, frontier like. One of the settlers is called "the Colonel" (Farnsworth). The colonel is a retired lawman. He used to be a real badass. You can be sure of that because Quinn and Billy Boy, two officers come to see him to fix Billy Boy's weapon. The Colonel shows his expertise with weapons by hitting a few moving targets with the weapon. The Colonel has recurring dreams of when he was on the job...he dreams of trying to stop a mugging and getting knifed because his weapon was unloaded. There's also a young badass guy, Walker, his wife, Maggie and their son. Walker is the Colonel's close friend.

Grange doesn't wait too long to kick ass when he arrives at the prison. He attempts one escape right away and is caught right away by Walker. Later on he establishes himself as the big head honcho of the prison population and enlists the aid of a guy called "Brain Surgeon". They engineer an escape that works. All of the prisoners are loose on the planet now. Grange and his cronies go to the governor's house where Maggie is visiting. The kidnap the governor and kill Maggie. Her son escapes. By the time the police arrive its too late. Walker goes after the criminals alone, like an imbecile and is fatally wounded after a long chase scene with blaring 80's rock music. Then Grange takes his men into the small settlement and threatens to blow up the town and execute the townspeople if he isn't allowed to board the shuttle that will arrive the next day. The Colonel gets his gear and goes into town. Quinn follows him. Quinn gets killed however, which comes a relief since his fake irish accent was driving me to madness. The colonel basically shoots all of the prisoners and then faces Grange. Like his in dream, his gun is empty and Grange pulls a knife. But the Colonel reloads it just in time to shoot Grange. With Grange dead he walks off into the sunset.

Hmmmm.....this movie is, well, stupid. I can see Walker wanting revenge, but going off on his own after an army of criminals. Suprisingly, Billy Boy and Quinn let him go! You'd think someone would try and stop him from a suicidal idea like that! Billy Boy (I hate that name) is the token black character in this. He really doesn't have any lines...maybe one sentence. Theres another minority, Bryson, but his character is superflous.

Best Lines: "Old man...I tried, I couldn't stop them."- Walker before he dies. The dumbass went after an army of hardened criminals by himself. What'd he think would happen?

"I'll help ya...you sorry son of a bitch!"- The Colonel. He kills a guy hanging of off a railing.

1.) When Grange robs the bank he takes off running at a...slow pace. You'd think a guy that robbed a bank would try to haul ass. There are absolutely no people outside when he leaves the bank. I guess there was absolutely no money for extras.

2.) The police on this planet don't have their own armorer or weapons maintenance? They have to go to the colonel to get their guns fixed?

3.) When Grange tries to escape the first time no guards use their weapons. They all attack him one at a time, hand to hand and get beat up. What kind of guards are they? (Well, dumb guards, apparently) Why didn't they just shoot him?

4.) This is a damn lenient prison. The prisoners have access to women, drugs and the like. Hell, its a criminal's paradise! I know people that would commit a crime to go to a place where they can get laid and get drugs easily. What else bad can happen? You're already in jail. This jail is easier than  Army boot camp! It's ridiculous!

5.) Get the [unwrite] outta here! Duffy, a prisoner, escapes and tries to hijack a truck. The colonel shoots the tire off of a truck from a considerable distance with a bow and arrow! Who is this guy, Hawkeye?* Robin Hood? Even more, how did the colonel know where the truck was and that Duffy had escaped from prison? And if the Colonel went through that much trouble to find out Duffy had escaped and track him down, why didn't he just shoot Duffy with the arrow?

6.) The "Blood money" song, and to be honest all of the blaring music in this movie will make you wretch!

7.) Oh, Come on! There's a scene with Grange waving a machine gun like he's firing, but its clear that he's not...still the scene has the dubbed in 'machine gun' sound. Oh, Michael Pare, how stupid you must have felt. What the director say? "Just look mean and wave it around!"?

8.) OOPS! sloppy editing! The colonel faces two prisoners, fires one shot and both guys die. Its obvious that the the editing was screwed.

NUDITY AND SEX: None

HUH?: Duffy, a prisoner supposedly escaped by hiding in a tanker with 2000 gallons of sewage in it. He doesn't look that dirty though when Walker recaptures him.

We're told that if Grange blows up the landing site the shuttle will not be able to land and all of the people on it will die in orbit. This is the future? Who would build a spaceship with that limitation? Why can't the shuttle land on the ground? We can build ships now that can land from orbit! Someone smack the scriptwriter!

Let me get this right....there's no policemen left hardly since there weren't that many to begin with and Grange gunned most of them down in the escape....so old ass "colonel" goes into town and kills an army of armed prisoners by himself? Hey, it looked like there were more guys in the breakout than we saw him kill. Arnold Schwarzenegger I could see doing this...Stallone could have pulled it off....even Van Damme. But Richard Farnsworth?

THE TALLY: Y'know I recommend this movie. I want someone else to see it and be as perplexed as I was that it was even made. With the exception of Quinn's phony Irish accent and the stupid music its not hard to watch. But if you want to see a western type standoff in a futuristic setting rent "Outland". If you want to crack some jokes and see zero budget film making rent this. Its worth a few chuckles.

*Hawkeye is comic book hero, sort of like Green Arrow, another hero you may have heard of. They both use a bow and arrow to fight crime. (Of course they have special arrows, like Freeze arrows, and bomb arrows), but the point is, they never miss!