


Steele Justice

“Steele left this buried in my chest 12 years ago. I swore one day I would return it to him.”

STEELE JUSTICE is one of those special action movies that is serious but feels more like the parodies of action movies than you realized was possible. Martin Kove – the KARATE KID bad guy and valuable supporting player in movies like DEATH RACE 2000, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, BARE KNUCKLES and BEYOND THE RING – actually gets to play the hero of this, and it’s one for the record books.

I’m sure you’re already making some assumptions about what kind of a movie would be called STEELE JUSTICE, so I would like to go ahead and verify the following points for you:

1) Yes, his name is John Steele

2) Indeed, he is a Vietnam vet

3) You are correct, he is also an ex-cop (fired)

4) You bet your ass there’s a title logo made of steel letters that clanks onto the screen

Writer/director Robert Boris only has two other action-ish movies on his resume (he wrote ones called EXTREME JUSTICE and DIPLOMATIC SIEGE in the ’90s), but most of his career was spent on comedies and TV movies about Jimmy Hoffa and Marilyn Monroe. He was the screenwriter of ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, SOME KIND OF HERO and DOCTOR DETROIT. So for his one Rambo era movie he turned every dial as high as it would go.

I mean, the poster describes it pretty well. Like Dirty Harry, he’s pointing a gun straight at the viewer. Like Rambo, he’s wearing a tank top and a headband and a huge bandolier. Like John Matrix he has warpaint on his face. And what the hellb he also has shotgun shells strapped to his biceps. And why not fingerless gloves also. And oh what about a sword on his back. And what about he’s dressed like this in the middle of L.A. not the jungle.

The opening is a flashback that re-imagines ‘Nam with ’80s action movie one-liners, which makes it so much more fun in my opinion. But not fun enough to not be traumatizing. In the present (1987), Steele is said to be an alcoholic and seems to have come back, you know… not quite right. The character is obviously inspired by Rambo, but those movies, especially FIRST BLOOD, treated Rambo’s psychological scarring from combat as drama. For Steele it’s just a cute quirk of his. The movie sometimes treats the way it torments his wife Tracy (Sela Ward, the president in INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE) seriously, other times seems to imply she needs to loosen up and get over it.

He’s supposed to be fun-crazy, like Riggs. He works for “The Department of Wild Horses,” but when he finds out the horses he’s delivering are going to be made into dog food he lets them loose in town. So all the sudden he’s ex-military, ex-cop, ex-Department of Wild Horses. His wife finds him depressed and drinking from a full bottle of Wild Turkey at a bar (live country music provided by the The Desert Rose Band) just before they come to arrest him.

“My friend might have something to say about that,” he says, and pulls out his poisonous snake, Three-Step, named for the amount of steps you can make before you die because motherfucker you just got bit by Three-Step. I don’t know how long those type of snakes normally live, but he must be taking at least decent care of him because he’s been carrying him around since the war. Three-Step gets more play than the two katanas Steele’s also been carrying for the same period. (When he finally uses them in the final duel they quickly get knocked out of his hands.)

In this bar scene the joke is that he fights and then pretends he’s gonna stop and then starts again. “Okay, okay, I’ll go. See, I can change. I can control my temper. I can be calm. Like hell I can,” and then he’s fighting again. And he does the same thing to cops, he says “I’m sorry, I’m real sorry man, I just lose my temper when I drink. I get this way when I’m drunk.” And then he swings a night club at one of them and it turns into a big brawl.

But the movie is not about his troublemaking. It’s about his troublestopping. Another ‘Nam friend besides Three-Step is Lee (Robert Kim, PAYBACK). They survived being betrayed and machine gunned in the back and now live in the same city stateside and Lee is a police detective. Steele is so close with the family he takes a bath at their house. He happens to submerge himself underwater just as some Black Tigers (the local Vietnamese mafia) burst in and machine gun Lee and most of his family.

When Steele finally hears something he comes out wearing only jeans, jumps over a railing onto a guy, runs out onto the street and tries to machine gun the gunmen as they drive away. When he realizes they’ve gotten away he throws the gun down the street, which in my opinion is not proper gun safety.

Steele is a great warrior but a piece of shit human, so he shows up late to the funeral and then sees the killer there and runs and jumps off of a tombstone onto him and starts fighting him. There is a time and place for that sort of thing and yeah I guess come to think of it that could only really happen during a funeral so I take it back, that was awesome. Unfortunately it turns out to be a local politician’s son and he has to stand down. But he takes it upon himself to look after Lee’s daughter Cami (Jan Gan Boyd, A CHORUS LINE) and go on a one-man rampage against the gang and you know the drill.

Sort of. All the expected shit is there but also plenty of stuff you wouldn’t have taken for granted would be there. There are cocaine busts, stolen experimental military vehicles, a big muscleman with a tattoo of a panther covering half of his face, Al Leong as a henchman (credited as “Long Hair”), a guy in a Body By Jake t-shirt (because Body By Jake was one of Kove’s personal trainers), a rat with a grenade strapped to his back, a gunfight during a music video shoot for Animotion lead singer Astrid Plane, with dancers in spandex with big hair dodging bullets. Steele gets arrested, so he punches out the twenty or so guys in the holding cell, pretends to be unconscious himself, and then attacks the guard when he comes in.

Do you need a self surgery scene? We got one. Al Leong shoots him with a poison dart so he pulls it out, leaps through a window into a conference room with a catering table set up, cuts open his arm with a large knife, sucks out some blood, spits it out, then picks up a hot pan and cauterizes the wound with it. I imagine that was his plan for if Three-Step ever turned on him. I’m not sure if the jump counts as a step or not.

This is actually a DEATH WISH 3 situation where the police purposely send a vigilante on a rampage to do their dirty work. As the tagline says (and Ronny Cox paraphrases in the movie), “He’s not recruited. He’s unleashed.”

Watching this the first time I liked it but thought it was maybe a little draggy in parts, not quite the fever dream pure ’80s action essential oil I’m making it sound like. Then I kept describing it to friends and the more I talked about it the more amazing it sounded so I watched it again and yeah, I think everybody needs to see this one. The tone kinda reminds me of SNAKE EATER: sometimes it clearly knows it’s being funny, but overall it seems serious, even in the silliest parts. And it’s kind of a thrill to see a movie that glorifies Martin Kove like this. The cockiness that he puts to such villainous use in other movies is presented here as macho charm.

You ever heard someone called “a musician’s musician”? This is a 1987’s 1987 movie. Let me give you an example. Within all the ridiculousness I’m describing, there’s some completely sincere MANHUNTER type husband and wife drama. He broods on a beachfront swing set, she comes and quietly tells him she can’t take it anymore. “It’s over between us,” she says. “I’ll take care of Cami. But if you love us, don’t ask us to watch you commit suicide. Not anymore.”

As she walks away he purses his lips, some rockin music starts, and it goes right into a training montage. “Fightin fire with fire / with the force of thunder and steel.” The song would fit right into a Stallone movie and is by a band called Hot Pursuit.

Later the bad guy has Tracy hostage and refers to her as his wife.

Ex-wife,” Steele says, and blasts her through a fucking wall!

But ha ha the joke is that it wasn’t a shotgun shell or anything, it was only a non-lethal beanbag that slammed her chest so hard it carried her off the ground and smashed her body through a structure like a rock going through a window. Ha ha and then he bickers with her about whether or not it hurt. You know how couples are.

So you see, STEELE JUSTICE is so 1987 it could only exist in our exaggerated memory of what 1987 was like… or so you would think. But I have seen it and it is real.

I think this trailer will convince you:

Thanks to david j. moore for forcing me to watch this by comparing it to STONE COLD.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017 at 10:15 am and is filed under Action, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

20 Responses to “Steele Justice”

  1. I was already sold with Martin Kove in the lead. That right there is a novelty in itself but it really does sound pretty amazing overall. How the hell did I never even see this?

    Vern this Steel/e review series has inspired a lot of cinematic crate digging. Props!

  2. This bitch was HUGE on VHS here in the UK back in the day. Loved it.

    Now it’s as camp as Christmas, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Still a lot of fun.

    Kove is awesome (He was taught martial arts by Count Dante, y’know).

  3. Vern, I’m assuming you didn’t mention LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT because you don’t feel that Kove was a valuable supporting player in that movie. I still have no clue what Craven was thinking with the dopey deputies subplot but I’d never want them cut out of the movie. Those scenes are just too weird.

    I’ve only seen this once, back when I was ripping every VHS-only 80s action movie I could find (with a specific focus on 1987, so I’m glad you noticed that there’s something particular about that vintage) and like you, Vern, I thought it was better in theory than it was in execution. But it looks like I need to give it another shot because the sequence of events you describe sounds too amazing to ignore.

  4. Well I’m sold.

  5. Have you guys noticed that they don’t do the “gun pointed right at the camera” thing anymore on posters or cover art? I bought the 30th anniversary Blu-ray of THE UNTOUCHABLES (a nice little item but don’t be fooled: the extra are exactly the same as the 15th anniversary DVD) and they changed the cover from the original poster where Elliott Ness is pointing his .45 right at the camera. Now he’s holding up an oversized novelty modern-day detective badge and it looks absolutely ludicrous. Are we really worried that a child might walk by this product on the shelf and become frightened that the two-dimensional, completely static man depicted on it might shoot him? Because if so, I’d say that kid’s got more problems than a sloppy Photoshop tweak can solve.

  6. That cover is all sorts of awful looking. Jesus. Way to celebrate a 30th anniversary.

  7. Fuck it. Anyway I realized it wasn´t the 30th anniversary edition cover anyway.

  8. You forgot to mention he has a gun that shoots knives.

  9. Oh my god, the right-wingers are right. We ARE in a too PC world! First they took our Home Video guns and now they are coming from our real ones!

    You think it’s that they are trying to be too PC or is it the home video marketing departments’ quest to ruin all great or even good posters for the Blu-ray release or their stubborn refusal to give any movie any half decent cover art now-a-days?
    -I looked it up and yeah that new cover is kinda funny. Reminded me they did the same to DIRTY HARRY and now now Det. Callahan shows us his badge instead of what he’d actually do and threaten to shoot us first (or just shoot us) THEN tell us he was a cop.

    I’d say maybe it’s a retailer issue now but those don’t exist anymore and if they did I was in a Wal-Mart not too long ago where they were selling the OG I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE Blu-ray with the original poster so maybe not (then again that one has a butt and not a gun point at you on it).

  10. Majestyk – I never made the connection that that was Kove! Not that I’m in a rush to watch LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT again, but if I ever do I’ll be watching for that.

  11. CrustaceanLove

    May 23rd, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    Very much enjoying the STEEL-series. I can only assume this is leading up to a review of MAX STEEL, the hottest superhero movie of 2016.

    Kove also plays an exemplary evil fight tournament organizer in SHOOTFIGHTER: FIGHT TO THE DEATH. Also features fellow KARATE KIDder William Zabka and a rare appearance from Good Guy Bolo. That one should be on your short-list for the next Super-Kumite, Vern.

    I’m torn on Kove’s Keystone Kops in LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. On one hand I respect the bizarre tonal shift and I feel like the comedic bumbling juxtaposed with horrible suffering contributes to the feeling that it was made by someone who is raw and angry and political. On the other hand it’s annoying and not funny. Subsequent remakes/rip-offs were right to excise it.

  12. I hope that since Vern has reviewed this Martin Kove gem he will follow it up with a review of Karate Kid 3 and bask in the glory of the greatest villainous performance of the 20th century. Of course I’m talking about Thomas Ian Griffith as the awesomely sinister Terry Silver.

  13. Ancient Romans

    May 24th, 2017 at 6:08 pm

    This gave me an idea for…Well, not a movie necessarily. Just some fan/fic. Or one of those unofficial shorts that Adi Shankar produces.

    A Vietnam movie about a squad comprised of our favorite action heroes. John Rambo, Dutch and Dillon from Predator, R.J. MacReady, Peter from Dawn of the Dead, and so on.

  14. Watched this one earlier and enjoyed it. Thanks for the recommendation, one of the reason I come here to learn about such rare oddities.

    Since THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT came up, reminds me I recently re-watched the original. Also the remake. Also THE VIRGIN SPRING which HOUSE is an unofficial remake of. Also I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and both the original and remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES. After all that, my brother walked in on me watching two versions of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. He naturally was all like ‘why the hell are you watching ANNE OF GREEN GABLE?’ I tried to brush it off as I always liked ANNE (the book, other adaptations I’ve seen) which is true but I had to come clean and admit that after doing a multi-day marathon of extreme real horror I had to watch something wholesome without rape or mutilation.

    In conclusion, you guys should watch STEELE JUSTICE, it’s a fun romp from yesteryear and a type of movie that is not really made anymore. Also the ANNE OF GREEN GABLES show on Netflix is a faithful adaptation and I recommend it. I mean my preferred one will always be the 1985 one and the 1979 anime one but if you don’t have ready access to either of those the one on Netflix should get the job done, could do without the avid farts though.

  15. Wait, there is an anime version of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES? Also, ANNE OF GREEN ABLES? ANNE! OF GREEN! ABLES???

  16. There is also an anime version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC. (Well, technically of The Trapp Family’s story. )

  17. Yes there is an anime version of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. It was made by Studio Ghibli co-founder and GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES director Isao Takahata, other much more internationally famous Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki worked on it as well as a layout artist (they went on to work on NAUSICAA after it was done). So not only is there an ANNE OF GREEN GABLES anime, it was/is immensely popular! Like the DOG OF FLANDERS anime, it is still referenced and parodied to this day. The book is incredibly popular there as well as it is on their school’s required-reading list.


    I did not know about the Trapp Family anime though…

  18. The Trapp Family anime was a TV series. German TV had lots of Anime shows on TV, before people even called them Animes outside of Japan. Like that DOG OF FLANDERS show. (Although in the German dubbing, the kid survives in the end.) Actually some of the most popular cartoons that are beloved by several generations of viewers over here are Animes, like the HEIDI adaptation or VICKY THE VIKING.

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