Quiet Cool (1986)

Saw this way back in the 80s on a rented VHS. Revisited it recently on a DVD. Quiet cool was an enjoyable film. The action is plentiful, the movie moves quick, offers gunfire and explosions. There's a funny little twist at the end as well. It has 80s written all over it. Bad music, lousy dialogues, bad acting. Plenty of action, gory death scenes n 80s hairstyle. Definitely one time watch for fans of 80s action. Really good action film. The Movie is only 81 minutes and a lot of action is crammed into that. The chase scenes alone make this movie an essential must-see. The highlight is the Motorcycle chase scene man. Ther is this one scene wher our lead actor gets up from sleep in a torn shirt, he picks up a heavy dumbbell, does one rep that too on one arm only. By the way he ain't muscular at all.

Joe Dylanne (Remar) is an NYC cop on the edge who always gets his man. One day, he gets a call from his former girlfriend Katy (Ashbrook), asking for his help. It seems some of her relatives have disappeared and she wants Joe to investigate. He agrees, and he travels to a very, very rural town called Babylon somewhere in the Northwest (the movie doesn't specifically say what state, but it was filmed in California). It turns out that evil marijuana growers and dealers are taking over the town, and Katy's family ran afoul of them. The only survivor was Josh (Adam Coleman Howard). Now the city cop with the bad attitude and the rural survivalist boy must team up in order to get revenge on the baddies, led by Prior (Martin) and Valence (Cassavetes).Quiet Cool is a highly entertaining and solid film that deserves more attention. God bless the 80's, when movies like this were being made by the boatload. The only problem is, the quality was coming so thick and fast back then, it was hard to keep up and a lot of movies that should get more recognition fell through the cracks. That's yet another reason why video stores are so important. Quiet Cool is one of those movies. It's 80's awesomeness through and through, from its sax-drenched soundtrack to its Western-style ending. Remar is perfect as Dylanne, the guy that doesn't go anywhere - ANYWHERE - without his motorcycle. He plays the country mouse/city mouse role but with an edge. He's a law and order kind of guy, but realizes that these villains are ruthless and evil, and this is now the law of the jungle, or at least forest. His conversion to the ways of revenge will have you cheering. Howard as the boy who shows a surprising aptitude for killing people is a worthy foil. Cassavetes as Valence strongly resembles Elvis.It's important to remember that back in the 80's, pot dealing was thought of as a much more serious threat than it is today. Now all the pot stuff you see is played for dumb laughs, so, when viewing Quiet Cool through 21st century eyes, you might say "what's the big deal", but that's incorrect. You have to think back to Nancy Reagan and "Just Say No". Here, the pot dealers are EVIL and that's perfectly valid. In many ways, Quiet Cool resembles The Devastator, but it had the power of the burgeoning New Line behind it, so it just has a more professional look.Naturally, there is a title song, and this one's very impressive. It's rockin', it says the name of the film, and is unbelievably catchy. "Quiet Cool" (the song) by Joe Lamont should have been a huge hit on the charts. Quiet Cool (the movie) has some good violence, and doesn't waste a minute of your time. With a schedule-friendly running time of less than 80 minutes, there's no excuse for not checking out this fine film.for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Quiet Cool is not what one would call a quality film. The plot is contrived and often stupid, the characters are pretty one-dimensional, and some of the editing is a bit choppy. However, what the picture lacks in story, character development, and coherency is almost entirely made up for with the presence of great character actor James Remar in the lead. The guy isn't given much of a role to play, just to act tough and look angry, two actions he puts to maximum effect here. Normally stuck in supporting roles, Quiet Cool demonstrates that, had he been given the chance, Remar could have been become a solid action hero icon. It is very easy to seeing his role in Quiet Cool being played by Stallone, Bronson, or Schwarzenegger. It follows the 80s action formula of one man taking on an entire gang of bad guys, with little to no help from anyone else. What separates this particular action-adventure from the likes of Commando and First Blood is the mix of genres. Director/co-writer Clay Borris incorporates a distinct western style not shown in many action pictures of the decade. In addition, Borris also mixes in elements of the buddy genre, the revenge genre, and the cop genre in a way that doesn't seem forced or uneven. Adding to that a couple of decent one liners and some humor, Borris leaves his own stamp on what could have been just a boring, routine story that the audience had seen a hundred times before its release in 1986. This one deserves more attention than it gets. 7/10

**SPOILERS** Beautifully photographed in the Redwood country of Northern California "Quite Cool" has to do with this ruthless gang of pot or marijuana grower who are anything but the peaceful hippie type that were so used to seeing in movies about the subject.Lead by this, what's obviously, Elvis impersonator the unemotional Valance, Nick Cassavetes,this group of pot growers run the entire town of Babylon, pop.163, including the towns police chief Mike Prior, Jared Martin, with an iron hand. Things got a little wild when the young and rosy cheeked Joshua Greer, Adam Coleman Howard, happened to spy on Vanance and his boys gun down an FBI informer who was set up by a member the town's corrupt police.Wanting no witnesses to their crime the Valance gang end up murdering both of Joshua's parents Mr. & Mrs. Greer, Gregory Wagrowski & Pulette Walsh, who were picnicking in the woods. Joshua, the person that Valance & Co. were really after, got away by falling down a 100 foot cliff and almost drowning in the rushing stream below.Getting a collect call from California NYPD undercover cop Joe Dylanne, James Remar, is told by Joshua's sister Kathy, Daphna Ashbrook, who' also Joe's ex-girlfriend to come quick and find her lost brother whom she hasn't seen or heard from in over a week. Joe taking an emergency vacation drives out to Bablyon to get to the bottom of what's going on there. It turns out that Joe ended up getting involved, up to his neck, with the both Valance gang and the real Mr. Big of Valance's operation some dude only known as "The Man".Joe a man of the law is anything but law abiding when it comes to dealing with the bad guys in the movie. Finding Joshua hiding in the woods around Babylon conducting a guerrilla war against the Valance Gang Joe chides him on not letting the law do its work in putting Valance and his boys behind bars. Nice talk on Joe's part but it turns out that he doesn't practice what he preaches. No one in the movie that Joe ends up putting away, for breaking the law, are as much as read their rights. Thay all, with the exception of the either mindless or lobotomized roller skater at the beginning of the film, end up being blown away by Joe & Joshua without as much as a thought of the law being allowed to do its job!The Valance Gang seem to be either stoned out of their heads or just plain brain-dead in how they go about in doing things in the movie. There are times when Valance & Co don't as much as say a word to each other but just move around zombie-like and communicate with each other not by talking but by some kind of telepathy! Joe soon gets the drop on the Valance gang who are so deeply involved in a card game at their pot compound that they don't even notice, after failing a number of times to blow them up, Joe planting a stick on nitroglycerin right under their feet!By the time the movie is almost over we get the big surprise, or better yet non-surprise, in just who both Valance and police chief Prior's boss, the mysterious "The Man", really is. The surprise of "The Man's" true identify is that you forgot that he even existed, he was only mentioned up to that time only once in the entire film, and had no idea just who he was and what he had to do with anything going on in the film!