“Everybody off! Away from the boat!”

Drake’s rating: Cannon shoots itself in the foot

Drake’s review: Cannon Films was in a bad way by 1989. Where the production company had once been known for cheap, trashy flicks* that nevertheless guaranteed cheap, trashy fun, somewhere along the way they lost the plot and decided that what they really wanted to do was compete with the major studios. And to do that, Cannon needed to pay the big bucks and greenlight pricey would-be blockbusters. So it was that they coughed up $12 million in 1987 to secure Sylvester Stallone for a movie about arm wrestling, $22 million to make Masters of the Universe, and another $25 million for Cobra. In Cobra’s defense, it at least made money.**

But too many of Cannon’s films didn’t make a profit, or at least enough of one, and between faltering box office receipts, lawsuits, ill-advised financial dealings, and the departure of one of the company’s two partners, the writing was on the wall. Cannon was a sinking ship.

Still, there was some good stuff to come out of the studio yet. Kickboxer and Cyborg, both starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, hit the theaters in ‘89 and proved there was a bit of life left in Cannon yet. And if an unknown Belgian martial artist could pull in the audience, then why not go back to the well with a Cannon veteran and give Michael Dudikoff an Indiana Jones-like adventure to hang his hat on?

Honestly, the concept probably sounded good on paper. With the rights to an Alistair MacLean novel in hand, and veteran actors such as Donald Pleasance, Robert Vaughn, and Herbert Lom to fill out the cast, River of Death could well have been another sleeper hit for Cannon.

And it might have been, if it weren’t so bad. Forsaking the stupid fun of Cannon fare such as American Ninja, River of Death casts Dudikoff as John Hamilton, a soldier-of-fortune traipsing around the Amazon, protecting a doctor who is trying to cure a mysterious, deadly disease. Unfortunately Hamilton isn’t very good at his job and the doctor is killed, while his beautiful daughter is captured by local tribesmen.

Hamilton escapes, but heads back into the jungle again, accompanied by Heinrich Spaatz (Pleasance) and a host of supporting characters who are primarily there because a buddy movie starring Pleasance and Dudikoff would just be weird. And along the way we have a boat ride, said boat sinking, a helicopter, culturally insensitive depictions of the Amazon’s tribal peoples, a lost city, and Nazis hatching evil schemes because they’re jerks.

Granted, several of those elements, cultural depictions aside, sound like they might make for a decent adventure flick. But River of Death doesn’t have the snappiness to run with its plot. Instead, it just plods along from scene to scene, less a clone of Raiders of the Lost Ark than a tenth-generation photocopy.

Until it gets to the end and decides to ape Apocalypse Now instead.

River of Death is a slow-moving, humorless action flick that’s not even bad in an interesting way. Pleasance and Lom seem to be having a good time, but everyone else pretty much sleepwalks their way through this one, just waiting for the shoot to end.

If you’re a Cannon completist, you’re going to catch this movie at some point, but don’t go in expecting much. This is no King Solomon’s Mines and it’s certainly no Ninja III: The Domination. And it’s just miles away from truly gonzo bad fun like The Apple.

*With the occasional passion project here and there, such as the outstanding Runaway Train and Michael Winner’s bizarre adaptation of The Wicked Lady.

**They also developed Superman IV: The Quest for Peace with a $26 million budget, until it became obvious that they didn’t have that kind of cash available and slashed the budget by half.

Intermission!

• Having Michael Dudikoff do voice-over narration for the film was a horrible idea. He sounds like he was woken up at 4 am from a sound sleep and told to read off of a handful of cue cards.
• River of Death was originally supposed to have been shot in South America, but Cannon cut costs and sent the production to apartheid-era South Africa instead. Director Steve Carver defended the indefensible decision and was subsequently fined by the Director’s Guild of America. He didn’t direct another film until 1993.
• Michael Dudikoff, on the other hand, intensely disagreed with South Africa’s apartheid policies and refused to return there for American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt.
• So how did River of Death actually do at the box office? It tanked badly, bringing in a lackluster $237,500. That was probably about the budget for Stallone’s sunglasses in Cobra.