Premium Post: How I Would Have Done DEATH RING (1992)
Good concept, but so-so execution. It's better to come up with improvements than complain.
Back in November, I sent out a review of the 1992 hunting-humans film Death Ring in which the sons of Chuck Norris and Steve McQueen and the brother of Patrick Swayze put on their own version of “The Most Dangerous Game.” Although I liked a lot of the ideas, many weren’t explored well and the acting could have been better. That said, it’s easy to complain and I can do better than just tell people that Hard Target is better and Death Ring is basically “watch once for the dumb fun”
Here’s how I would have done it. Maybe if someone wants to remake this, they can hire me to write the script. :)
(General note — I’m using the names of the canonical actors for convenience’s sake. If I were in charge of a modern remake obviously they’d be different and if I were making this in 1992 I would have hopefully had other options. Mike Norris did not impress, although the other actors were fine.)
Act One
I’d have started out with a prologue depicting John Blackwell (Don Swayze) running through the woods, pursued by armed men. He manages to trick them into following a false trail to a quicksand pit (where they assume he fell in and drowned), only to apparently fall to his death through the jungle floor just when he thought he was safe. Think Jurassic Park, where it’s immediately established this is a dinosaur movie even though after the caged-raptor episode we don’t see another living dinosaur for awhile. The armed men — a group of rich decadents paying to hunt people for sport — complain to island overlord Danton Vachs (Billy Drago), who along with his lieutenant Ms. Ling (Elizabeth Sung) begins planning the next hunt, promising them it will be better. The canonical film got to the point quickly, but it didn’t have a prologue establishing what type of movie it was.
We cut to retired Special Forces soldier Matt Collins (Mike Norris) winning an Ironman-type survivalist competition in San Diego and going out with his girlfriend Lauren Sadler (Isabel Glasser), his war buddy Skylord Harris (Chad McQueen), and his girlfriend Cindy (Tammy Stones) to celebrate. Lauren offering to take them somewhere really nice but Matt preferring a more normal restaurant needs to stay — it’s the first clue that there’s a major class difference between them. The bar fight where Matt protects her from a horny drunk needs to stay too, since it emphasizes Matt’s protectiveness toward Lauren and how they’re really from two different worlds. Afterward, Skylord and Cindy head off on their own and Lauren and Matt go back to her house to swim in her pool. It’s late and she’d prefer he stay at her place rather than go back to his one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood, all he can afford after some kind of unspecified legal trouble got him drummed out of the Army. They squabble about that (that she’s got more money than him is subtext), but eventually Matt relents. Meanwhile, like in the actual film, Vachs orders Ling to abduct Collins for his hunt, telling her it’s important they not screw this up like last time.
The next morning, Matt leaves Lauren alone to go meet Skylord at the batting cage. Lauren finds his note and, angry about the prior night’s conversation and about essentially being ditched, follows him. The canonical discussion between Matt and Skylord about how he’s insecure Lauren makes a lot more money than he does and that he can’t find a regular job that uses his military skills happens. Veterans not being able to get jobs afterward is a real problem. Lauren arrives and Skylord makes himself scarce while they argue. Lauren tells him there’re more important things in life than money, like the dignity and sacrifice of Matt’s military service, and says she’d be honored to be his wife. Ling and a couple of hired thugs (one big and one small) show up, chloroforming and abducting them.
Skylord returns to the batting cage to see Matt and Lauren gone and the weaker of the two thugs driving off with Lauren’s car. He follows him back to her house, captures him, and begins interrogating him, but the big minion interrupts and the two are able to escape. Skylord informs the police, but finds they’d been spotted crossing the border into Tijuana. With the police unable to help beyond providing that bit of information, Skylord leaves a note of his own for Cindy and sets off in pursuit.
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