Eye of the Tiger

Holy crap! This movie blew my mind! Action? TOO MUCH OF IT (almost)! Acting? TRULY OSCAR WORTHY! Theme Song? GREATEST SONG EVER! It's a shame that there aren't more movies out there with "Eye of the Tiger" as the theme song. I honestly believe it would go great with some movie where this guy has to face a huge challenge and he seems like an underdog however in the end, due to his amazing conditioning and training he overcomes his challenges and beats the favorite in a boxing match.

Usually when the Eye of the Tiger song comes on your mind naturally brings you to picture Rocky and Apollo Creed duking it out ever so fake in the middle of the ring. However from this very day all we will see is a giant toothed Gary Busey who has just earned himself a top spot in Sid's ultimate action heroes. Over the years we have been huge fans of Busey (Brian, Brian, look. I'm Gary Busey. I'm frequently aggressive in situations that don't call for it) and all his crazy antics from B movies or celebrity rehab clips, but had no idea the action fury that dwells deep within him. We found this masterpiece on the Impact on-demand channel (yes the very same that brought us Ninja Vengeance [VHS]) so going into it the expectations were somewhat high. No matter how high the expectations Eye of the Tiger surpassed them with ease by actually being an awesome action flick. It even went beyond the realm of B by making itself enjoyed on more of an actual movie basis. Fantastic!

Gary plays newly paroled Buck Matthews who was wrongly sent away by crooked hick sheriff Seymour Cassel. Buck is a well respected Vietnam Vet around his old town and is looking forward to reuniting with his wife and daughter. What he doesn't realize is there's now a drug pushing motorcycle gang, led by a guy that looks like he's part of a Judas Priest cover band, whose wreaking havoc around his old stomping grounds. Once buck takes the law into his own hands against the gang the war begins. Once the gang takes his wives life Buck enlists the help of cop buddy J.B. Deveraux and prison pal Sal Pachino (who just happens to do the most hilarious Tony Montana impression). From here on out Buck starts taking down the hundreds of gang members one at a time with furious passion. We've always said you don't f*** with Chuck but that may have to be swapped out with Gary Busey who proved he's one of the kings out there.

Eye of the Tiger really had everything a great b action should have. Going into it we were figuring a hilarious B was on the way, but much like Death Ring [VHS] it proved to be so much more then that by being an edge of your seat, kick butt, action masterpiece. At this point in Busey's career you could easily give him the Fulton and say "this guy's got it" in the acting department. Much like his role in Point Break he nailed it with ease. In fact we loved this one so much the only proper way to close it out with the iconic Joe Bob Drive In Totals:

1 Sal Pachino

3 Decapitations at one time

Great Spy Hunter video game music when biker gang comes around

Buck and J.B air strike on biker gang

Bullet Proof 4x4 equiped with Machine guns and grenade launchers

7 Bikers Driving through the windows and walls of Busey's house

84 Dead bodies

and the most springboard launched gang members since Death Ring

I recently purchased this, well not purchased, but my dear mom was nice enough to buy this DVD at Ross today for the low price of just $4.00. At first, I actually had no freakin' idea that this was on DVD to begin with. I thought the only available copy was the OOP VHS from USA Home Video (Which is now Lions Gate). It had a cooler cover than the DVD, but before I get back to the movie, I would just like to make a little rant about how the big Hollywood studios (And the greedy sharks that own them) keep changing the cover art (Or force the art department to do so) for DVD releases. This one's a good example. The cover art for the original VHS of this movie made it look fun and imo, somehow dramatic, but this cover looks like it's been made over at MGM using Photoshop. It just doesn't make the movie look good to a buyer. It seems like these studios could really care less about nostalgia and just only care about making it appeal to today's youth. I guess you could also say that the cover for this made it look like a Transporter Rip-Off or a John Woo-type movie from 2001.

Anyway, back to the movie. It's about a Vietnam Vet/Ex-Con (He had been convicted for a crime he didn't commit) named Buck Matthews (Played by Gary Busey in as I stated, quite possibly his best role.) who had just been granted parole and he goes back to his hometown to move on with his life and his family, his wife Christie (Played by Denise Galik) and Jennifer (Played by Judith Barsi from the awful "Jaws 4: The Revenge", may god rest her poor soul). We then see Buck at the police station, where he meets the corrput sherrif (Played by Seymour Cassel) and meets up with J.B. (Played by Yaphet Kotto) Also, Buck encounters a biker gang (The leader Blade, being played by the always awesome William Smith from "Maniac Cop") attacking a nurse, and saves her life and he becomes a town hero. However, it isn't long before the gang attacks Buck's house and kills Christie. Then, the movie starts to move into Death Wish territory.

I do not feel like going further for the moment (I really don't want to spoil anything for anybody), but I will say the rest gets more exciting every minute. That's just my opinion though.

As for the DVD itself, there really isn't much, although MGM did do a good job with the very beautiful widescreen quality. There is a trailer, but that's pretty much it for extras. There could have been like a director's commentary or even a commentary by either Busey or Kotto or all 3, but I really don't know.

Feel free to comment.

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