11/14/07: Red Scorpion (1989)You’ve heard a lot about war veterans lately, but what about the poor actors who enlist in right-wing action films? That’s part of what we’re honoring with
Red Scorpion. This one was barely released as Dolph Lundgren’s follow-up to his role as He-Man in
Masters of the Universe, and most folks would dismiss
Red Scorpion as more cable fodder on the level of the
Iron Eagle films.
In truth,
Red Scorpion is a compelling mess. Jack Abramoff’s production (and story) credit is actually one of the least interesting things about the film. There isn’t much to say about the plot, either. It’s a standard direct-to-video actioner in which a super-soldier is sent off on what he’s assured is a moral mission, only to find out he’s been double-crossed by his superiors. In this case, of course, Dolph Lundgren is Lt. Nikolai Rachenko from the Spetsnaz Soviet Special Forces. We immediately like him when he meets with his superiors—who all speak English with a Russian accent—and refuses to shake hands with (or even take a cigar from) the liaison from Cuba.
Nikolai is assigned to infiltrate the camp of some freedom fighters who are causing trouble somewhere in Africa. His mission is to kill the rebel leader. Surprisingly, it takes almost an hour (and one failed assassination attempt) before Nikolai starts to figure out that he’s on the wrong side. That's the measure of how long it takes for all that Little Richard music to have an effect.
Red Scorpion’s soundtrack is wall-to-wall Little Richard. It’s an effective way of foreshadowing that Nikolai is ready to overthrow his personal oppression.
That’s one of the great things about
Red Scorpion. Another is the constant abuse that Nikolai has to endure. The poor guy takes a beating from all sides. The rebels kick his ass when they find out he’s a spy, and then the Russians beat him for being a screw-up, and the Cubans torture him for a while, too. The only friends that Nikolai ever has are some Bushmen. They show how much they like him by carving a scorpion onto his chest.
The only guy who doesn’t kick Nikolai’s ass is lovable crank Dewey Ferguson, as played by M. Emmett Walsh. The actor does a fine job with a character that wasn’t believable even in the ’80s. Dewey is a foulmouthed journalist who can’t stand Commies, and loves nothing more than exposing the antics of the evil Russkies. Dewey would like to kick Nikolai’s ass, but he settles for grabbing a gun and helping to kill off a bunch of other Russians.
Walsh’s acting is all the more impressive for his lack of empathy. Behind the scenes, the actor was complaining to the producers about the script’s blatant conservative bias. It’s hard to imagine exactly how Walsh wanted to balance the script. History has certainly been kind to both
Red Scorpion’s message and Walsh’s performance
Red Scorpion still gets kind of goofy. By the end of the film, it’s hard to keep track of what the killing is all about. (Some hysterics claim that the film is pro-apartheid, but that may not even be true of
The Cape Town Affair.) The important thing is that all the right people get killed. There’s even a grenade gag that’s better than anything we ever got in a Rambo film. And then we get closing credits where Little Richard’s “All Around the World” plays over sound effects of guns and explosives. That, our friends, is the way to do a remix.
Make it your own: Cheap copies abound, but the DVD lacks any interesting extras. Too bad, since this is another film where we’d like to hear more from the cast and crew.
There was a
Red Scorpion 2 in 1994, but the villains were white supremacists and the heroic journalist sidekick was a devout liberal. No surprise there.
