Ruckus (1981) (original) (raw)
Synopsis
The chase was on! Him against them. Well, so much for them.
Madoc County is a quiet and peaceful place until vagrant Kyle Hanson arrives. The people of Madoc County are repelled by his appearance and want to chase him out of the city. Unfortunately for them, Kyle Hanson is a former Vietnam elite soldier and he uses his skills to fight back.
Cast
Popular reviews
Trash Fire of 2024/2024 33/89
33. 01/22/24 Watch a Linda Blair movie to celebrate her birthday
A "pre Rambo" themed movie although supposed to be serious, was almost a laugh a minute. A number of familiar faces and names in the cast. You can’t go wrong with a hicksplotation film with Face from the A-Team as a low budget Rambo. Stuntman Dar Robinson's jump from the grain elevator is awesome. There’s a lot in Ruckus that’s just mindlessly enjoyable to sit down and watch. There’s car chases, dirt bike chases, dynamite, cars blowing up, cars crashing, homemade bow and arrows, and goofy hillbillies. Plus, it’s kind of fun to see Dirk Benedict stretch his acting talents to play a character like Kyle Hanson; even if the performance proves why he probably shouldn’t have been cast to play a character like Kyle Hanson.
I Can’t Believe This Macho Bullshit – The 80s Action Films Month
Judging by the evidence presented in Ruckus, Dirk Benedict really should have played Murdoch in The A-Team.
If you didn't quite have your dates right, you could be forgiven that Ruckus owes a huge amount to First Blood - the only thing is that Sylvester Stallone's Vietnam vet drifter going up against some hopeless hicks happened a year later. And I would be mightily astonished if this was an influence on Ted Kotcheff's classic even though there are marked similarities.
What First Blood doesn't have though, is a touching moment where our hero goes stunt bike riding with Regan from The Exorcist. It also doesn't have Stallone doing…
Damaged soldier Kyle Hanson (Dirk Benedict) blows into town looking for some steak tartare, triggering the ire of most of the unwashed local populace. After all attempts to capture him are thwarted by his competence and their ridiculousness, he ends up running into local widow Jenny Bellows (Linda Blair), whose father-in-law is desperate to find his missing son, and is sure that Hanson has information about what happened to him.
It's First Blood, sort of, except it employs mostly Looney Tunes violence and the local sheriff (Richard Farnsworth) kind of washes his hands of the whole thing pretty early on, for less than altruistic reasons. The villains are an endless gaggle of goofy hicks who'd be the comic relief in…
Da hat wohl jemand David Morrell's Roman "First Blood" gelesen und war dann aber nicht willens die Lizenzgebühren bezahlen zu wollen. Zu offensichtlich sind die anfänglichen Parallelen vom traumatisierten Veteranen der in ein kleines verschlafenes Südstaatenkaff kommt um sich dort erst einmal einen rohen Burger zu gönnen.
Leider ist sein Trauma, zumindest am Anfang, doch etwas schwerer als sowieso schon vermutet, so dass die erste unhöfliche Anfrage der ortsansässigen Rüpel mit ein paar Fingern im Auge und über die Brückenbrüstung geworfenen Stuntmen beantwortet wird. Auf der Flucht gönnt man sich noch ein schnelles Frühstück bei Südstaatenschönheit und Veteranenwitwe Linda Blair, und nachdem man mit den Motorrädern ein paar zünftige Runden durch Gebälk gegönnt und eine ordentliche Dusche samt Rasur über…
Serviceable shitkicker is a more accurate read than agreeable timewaster, though this is both. Dirk Benedict plays a troubled Special Forces POW who rolls into a dirt patch county, filthy and mute, immediately arousing suspicion (and Nam widow Linda Blair) while evading the motley crew of rednecks trying to mess with him. As much free-spirited romp as it is action grinder, with lots of fights, stunts and explosions, and probably got Benedict on the radar for “The A-Team.” Richard Farnsworth elevates the handful of scenes he’s given.
Viet Nam veteran Dirk Benedict shambles into town one day, and rednecks being rednecks, his mere existence whips them into a murderous fuckwit frenzy. He finds an ally in Linda Blair, a young mother whose husband is MIA from the same war, as the townspeople keep closing in on him.
When this started out, I was pretty much onboard. Yeah, Dirk Benedict isn't the first person I would imagine in this sort of role, but he handles it well, playing it mostly quietly brooding, except for occasional berzerker rages. It was about twenty minutes in, when the blasting banjo music and Dukes of Hazzard/Smokey and the Bandit logic started to kick in, that I realized this had been badly mishandled.…
Well, now we know what First Blood would have looked like if it was directed by Hal Needham and starred Face from the A Team. What's interesting is not so much that the premise of the movie—Vietnam vet with PTSD gets hassled by the police in a small town and fights back—predates Rambo's debut by more than a year, but that such stories were in the air to begin with. This is a very PG version of the story, so there isn't a lot of thrills or action, but in keeping with the hicksploitation aspects of the story there are a ton of car stunts and explosions.
This is a movie I saw once as a kid and just loved. Steve G. reviewed it today and said it was on YouTube AND I ACTUALLY HAD TIME TO WATCH SOMETHING so I got right on it. Before I started it I wasn't sure I'd finish it (childhood memories don't always make enjoyable adult watching), but once it got started I was hooked. For 8 minutes you don't see the protagonist's face, but when Dirk Benedict looks up wild-eyed and yells, you either love it or you don't. I died laughing. It was great.
Some may see this as a proto-Rambo, but as Steve G points out, this has more in common with The A-Team TV show. Not just…
Noch vor J.J. Rambo (82) gab es KYLE HANSON! (Zumindest in Filmvariante ;))
Der als Veteran/Landstreicher in ähnlicher Manier ein Provinzkaff aufzumischen hat, weil die Rednecks in ihrer Selbstjustiz-Mentalität auch alles falsch machen... indem kein Dialog Sinn ergibt, sondern einzig/provozierend nach Raudau fordert!
Aber ein Frühstück bei Linda Blair HEILT noch jede posttraumatische Nachkriegsstörung; im Gegenzug hilft Hanson der Kriegswitwe auch über ihren Verlust hinweg. Was in Zeitlupe zu ROMANTIK-SCORE schon mal in einen Motocross-Pärchenlauf münden kann.
Schön knattert es sich durch die Wälder Madoc Countys.
A-Team „Face“ Dirk Bendedict mimt als Drecksspatz die One-Man-Army, welche selbstredend Special Force Skills mitbringt! Wie schon im A-Team wird viel ausgeteilt, aber keiner wirklich verletzt. Die Stimmungslage eröffnet durch den Querbeet-Score (Country, Romantik und schlechte Spannungsdramatik) wirklich jedmögliche Facette und schlägt sich bis Ende - und jede Menge Action - noch auf eine Insel durch.
Ein (trashy) B-Actioner wie er im Buche steht, garniert durch holzschnittartige Stimmungswechsel.
like a proto-FIRST BLOOD, only for some reason tending toward comedy. not anywhere near as fun as that sounds.
Ruckus (aka How Murdoch Became Face) shows us what a good shower with Irish Spring, a good shampoo with Prell, a good close shave with Edge using a Gillette twin blade, a splash of Skin Bracer (byyyy Mennen!) and a good change of clothes washed with Tide and dried with Bounce fabric softener can really wash away all those horrible memories of the POW camp in 'Nam and serve as a disguise against sweaty greasy redneck bullies ("I see him! He got cleaned up! He looks good!"). It'll also help you get in good with the 20 year old widow of another Vet (miscast Linda Blair) and her 8 year old son.
Word of advice to Sheriff Richard Farnsworth, I…