An Eye For An Eye/Review

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< An Eye For An Eye

People seem to think that adding the words Chuck Norris to things makes them automatically better.
 This isn't true. 
Somewhere around Walker: Texas Ranger, Ol'Chuck seemed to lose his way. Choosing to star in movies that would've made even Van Damme blush, his only appearance of any real note in the past 20 years was in Dodgeball, though I expect this to change with the release of Expendables 2. But it wasn't always this way.
 During the 70's and the 80's Chuck was your go-to guy, fronting a string of movies that were vehicles for him to do what he did best: kick ass.
 Whether he was C.I.A or Green Beret or just your average Undercover Cop taking on your local Cartel you could always rely on Chuck for some fast paced, hard hitting action, woven around a moralistic story (drugs are bad, war is terrible, that sort of thing).
 That Chuck Norris was cool, that Chuck Norris made action movies that grabbed hold of your attention and shook the shit out of it, that Chuck Norris gave us An Eye For An Eye.

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Made in 1981, An Eye For An Eye tells the story of cop Sean Kane (Chuck Norris) and his quest for vengeance after his partner Dave Pierce (Terry Kiser) is killed during a bungled undercover operation they were both running.
 And when I say killed I mean killed to death.
 After being jumped in a back alley by three gunmen who somehow manage to only wing Chuck (star-of-the-movie-privileges I'm guessing), Dave is first shot in the chest then, after he staggers back to his feet, squished between a parked car and the villains getaway vehicle which in turn results in the parked car bursting into flames and incinerating him.
 Sick burn!!!! Literally...
Knowing something is wrong in the city of San Francisco but not being able to prove that they were set up, Kane finds himself up to his neck in it with his boss Captain Stevens (Richard Roundtree).
 This leads to the classic "I'll save you the trouble" moment where Kane hands over his gun and his badge and quits the force.


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Now free of his duties to the general public, Kane decides that his next course of action should be to open up a Salvage Operation, which he does so successfully that he forgets all about his crispy critter ex-partner and spends the rest of his life raking in the dough and living on a small island just off of Hawaii...just kidding, wanted to make sure you were still paying attention.
 Detective Pierce's girlfriend/widow just happens to be News Reporter Linda Chan (Rosalind Chao, who some of you eagle eyed viewers might recognize from Star Trek:TNG) who manages to discover the evidence that neither Kane or her ex could seem to find (well, that's the police for you) and is already to share it with Chuck when she manages to get herself killed as well.
 Now pissed off beyond all normal measurements of pissed-off-itude Chuck and Linda's father, James Chan (Mako Iwamatsu), take it upon themselves to find out whose responsible and to bring them down no matter who they are...hell...even if one of them is Christopher Lee (it is).



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This is what defines a Chuck Norris movie from his "golden" period, it's action packed with a half decent script.
 Sure some of Chuck's acting is ropey but that's balanced out quite nicely when it comes to him hitting people and that is, after all, why anyone watches his films.
 No one's expecting MacBeth here right? Throw Christopher Lee and Richard Roundtree into the mix and you've got more than enough acting ability to keep you interested in the bits where Chuck isn't kicking someone's head off their shoulders.
 It might be about 15 minutes too long but it's still worth 1hr 44 of anyone's time, especially if you like Chuck Norris. 
And if you don't like Chuck Norris then I wouldn't say it loudly enough for him to hear...

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Neil Gray is a writer from the UK. The story goes that he was invented in a laboratory experiment that went horribly wrong and has spent years devouring every movie form and film genre that was foolish enough to pass his way until he is now nothing more than a hideous monstrosity, more celluloid than man.
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