Mad Dog II (1983) Online

Okay, this has got to be the most pointless movie I've seen in a long time...but it's still great fun for a movie-night!

First of all, if anybody can even find this film, they should actually consider themselves lucky, as it has a very limited release worldwide, and probably only on the out-of-print format known (and loved) by us all, called VHS. I was fortunate enough to find this on Danish VHS, with the cover stating that the film starred Helmut Berger and Richard Harrison, as the first "Mad Dog"-film, which supposedly was "La belva col mitra" aka "Beast with a Gun" (1977). But "Mad Dog II" bears no similarity with that movie (or any other "Mad Dog"-movie for that matter), so the title is actually quite puzzling.

The story is as follows: The titular "Mad Dog" (presumably, as he's never referred to in any way as such), actually goes under the very anonymous name "Nick Nolte", and is played by Romano Kristoff, whom you may or may not remember from such classics as "Warbus", "Double Edge", or "Tough Cops". He is a cop who doesn't take it easy when the mob executes his stripper-sister, and he goes after them to get revenge at all costs. Another Phillipino superstar, Jim Gaines, has a small cameo in "Mad Dog II" as a snitch who gets snuffed in the bathroom.

Most of this film is either scenes where our hero, Nick Nolte (allegedly no relation to the actor), goes around town beating up and/or killing bad guys, or random scenes of him making love with his girlfriend in seemingly endless ultra-slow-motion scenes with soft-core porno-music playing in the background. It is really a pain to watch, so it is nice having your remote-control nearby for fast-forwarding to scenes that actually have a point regarding the so-called "plot".

Anyway, after some fast-forwarding, he eventually takes revenge on some of the mobsters who were responsible for the death of his sister, including some random henchman called "Joe", who we see in an early scene, sporting maybe the funkiest afro you will ever see.

Another quirky little detail about this film is that EVERY single policeman/detective has a mustache, from the street-officer to the police-captain, every damn one of them has a sweaty mustache for some reason... I guess "Magnum, P.I." was really popular at the time.

Final Judgment: While this film is by FAR no masterpiece, and was full of clichés, it was a passable time-killer. So if you don't mind using the fast-forward button, it does actually have a few good moments, apart from all the unintentional comedy, such as ten guys all greeting the mafia Godfather "Don Vittorio" and shaking his hand, in a scene which seems to take FOREVER, before they move on with the plot... which is scenes of "Don Vittorio" and his sleazy pals sitting on cheap couches watching a passionless striptease and patting each other on their backs.

I give this film 3/10, one star for the character "Nick Nolte", one star for "Don Vittorio", and one star for the fact that all the cops sported handsome mustaches.