“I’m a general! They’re not even professionals.”

Drake’s rating: Just a casual weekend jaunt into Colombia.

Drake’s review: Stone (James Brolin, Westworld) is a down-on-his-luck filmmaker who recently did a bit of camera work in Colombia. While down there, he became aware of Serrano (James Coburn, Our Man Flint), a ruthless drug lord who’s just rolling in cash. Stone needs a bit of help, though, so he sells three of his underemployed friends on the idea of indulging in a get-rich-quick scheme that couldn’t possibly have any downside, right?

So it is that Stone is joined by Tony (Chick Venerra, McBain), Rockney (Cleavon Little, Blazing Saddles) and Dan (Bruce Davison, X-Men) to take a little jaunt down south for a weekend getaway and just a little bit of armed robbery. The other three men are sold on the idea of the robbery part pretty easily, but are not as thrilled by the “armed” aspect of their mission. They were told they’d maybe need a few pistols to shoot snakes, and instead they meet up with Clint (Ernest Borgnine, Escape from New York) and end up packing pump shotguns, Uzis, and automatic rifles. That should be their first clue that Stone hasn’t been entirely straight with them.

Still, the four men are flown into Colombia by a pair of professional mercenaries and travel to Serrano’s compound without much in the way of incident. And even if the robbery doesn’t quite go as planned, they still make off with piles of cold, hard cash and head for the rendezvous point as fast as they can. But this would be a pretty short flick if all went well, and soon the four men are split up after an attack by Serrano’s men. Tony and Rockney are captured while Stone and Dan make their escape. But the latter pair aren’t home free, either, as they cross paths with General Mariano (Anthony Quinn, The Guns of Navarone), the leader of a group of bandits cosplaying as revolutionaries.

Thus separated, the four men have to figure out how to escape their respective captors and make it to an abandoned landing strip in time to catch their flight home.

High Risk is a little-seen early ‘80s action flick directed by Stewart Raffill, who went on to direct The Ice Pirates and The Philadelphia Experiment, which were pretty good. But then he did Mannequin Two: On the Move, which was just abysmal. But then he turned around and both wrote and directed Tammy and the T-Rex, and I just don’t know what to think anymore.

Look, the man is complicated.

But like I said, High Risk didn’t have much of an audience back in the ‘80s since the distributor went broke, which severely limited its release. And then it had the misfortune to hit the theaters at around the same time as Raiders of the Lost Ark, which meant it just kind of disappeared with barely a blip on the radar and slipped into obscurity.

Which is really a shame, because High Risk is a fun little ‘80s flick that deserved a bigger audience. Brolin is good here as the square-jawed but somewhat ruthless antihero driven by greed and focused on making that big score, and the supporting cast is first-rate. Coburn is suave but dangerous, Quinn makes the most of his part and happily takes over his scenes with scheming charisma, and Lindsay Wagner pops in around the halfway mark to liven things up even more.

For some reason, and I’m guessing that it’s the aforementioned distributor going out of business and leaving the rights in limbo, High Risk has never been cleaned up and given a decent release on disc. The only copies I’ve seen floating around look like third-generation VHS tapes that have been left out in the car too long. And that’s too bad, because High Risk is a solid flick that keeps the action exciting but the tone light. Even in its currently ragged state it’s a fantastic popcorn flick and a fun time, and features one of the all-time great rescue scenes in movie history.

You know, it’s not every day that you get to see Thanos’s father team up with the Bionic Woman to rip off a South American drug lord, but it was the ‘80s. That’s just how things were back then.

Intermission!

• Clint will happily sell the men weapons, but he makes sure they won’t hurt any animals with them. Clint’s A-OK.
• The pilots were played by David Young and Richard Young. Richard might be best known for his role as the swaggering thief who’s such an influence on a young Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
• The marijuana leaf painted on the side of the plane kind of lets you know what these two are up to during their regular hours.
• Prison break! Followed by a quick run through town in their underwear. Those guys have to be rethinking their life decisions right about now.
• That might be the least inspiring Hercules I’ve ever seen.
• It’s looking pretty ‘70s there for a minute, and then it’s all “Here we come!” and things blow up and “Satisfaction” blares out of the plane’s speakers, and this film goes full ‘80s.