Trick of the Light

Light Blast (1985)

A young man and woman meet in an abandoned rail yard to do some lovin’.

Maurizio & Guido de Angelis sing “You Never Know What Your Love Cost, ‘Till Your Love’s Lost” in the background.

A van turns up. Inside is what looks like a huge laser gun.

 OH NO!!

It is a huge laser gun.

A beem of red light is fired at one of the carriages, you guessed it, the carriage the kids are makin’ out in.

The kids are evaporated along with the carriage.

We now have a hostage situation at a bank. A security guard is freed but shot in the back. These guys mean business, they also want lunch delivered by a naked waitress.

There food arrives by..............

Ok, let me just stop proceedings here for a second and throw a question at you.

What happens when you’re the star of a hugely successful TV series in America and that series runs its course and eventually comes to an end.

What do you do?

Do you find another big series to get your acting prowess into people’s living rooms  every week again?

Maybe you get yourself a nice big Hollywood action movie to tell people you’re on the map and here to stay?

Or

Do you take a roll in an Italian action movie by Enzo G. Castellari who made the original Inglorious Bastards?

Meet Erik Estrada, star of CHiPs, slumming it to death in the latter.

Back to plot.

A naked Erik turns up at the bank with a gun in his turkey and fries and saves the day while delivering his first movie line.

“Maggots like you make me like my job”

Well it’s not “Go ahead make my day” but it will do for now.

The mad laser attacker wants Five Million or he will destroy the city. He will have a show of force at 5.48pm. But where? The police make a guess that it could be at a car stunt show. What great cops these are. The police arrive but the press box still gets blown up at 5.48pm. Maybe they aren’t that great after all. 27 people dead!

Erik tries to chase the van the deadly shot was fired from, pretty easy to find and follow because a cameraman is still on top. Erik shoots him down but the driver of the van and laser mastermind, Thomas Moore gets away.

The van is later found dumped under a bridge and a phone called is made to the Mayor wanting the money in small bills. The call is traced so Erik leaps into action as Maurizio & Guido rock out.

Cars explode, innocent people are ran over and lots of crates are smashed. This is all mostly Erik’s doing. He don’t give a crappa in an Italian kind of way.

Erik finally gets him men only to find they aren’t the actual bombers. They just wanted some cash. Erik is well pissed off.

Thomas Moore now wants double.

Now we have the science bit about the laser gun which works with liquid crystals or something. I didn’t really care.

Remember the cameraman who was shot off the truck? Well his name was Kurt Shcmidt. He married Boonie for American citizenship. Erik heads out to talk to her but he’s too late because Bonnie’s been shot by a guy with a cool moustache. Erik follows him.

  

Erik follows a lot of people in this film.

Moustache man ends up at a funeral chapel. Erik ends up at the funeral chapel to. He’s really good at this following lark.

Erik gets attacked by a karate kicking mortician with a pipe and has a shootout in the morgue with moustache man. Moustache man gets away and this time Erik can’t be arsed following.

Another tape to the Mayor and the city is gonna pay up.

Erik’s partner, I didn’t mention him earlier because he wasn’t important. Now he seems to be important because he’s been elected to take the Ten Million to the bad guys.

Thomas Moore jogs and does some weights at the docks while Erik’s partner drops the case off at a car park.

The case is being tracked though. Excellent.

Now, apparently, Thomas Moore is a physicist who was dismissed from his post at a university after a terrible “Laser” explosion.  A simple case of mad scientist gone mad me thinks.

  

Back to the case, the police track it to a house but the house explodes, as well as a nice Volkswagen Beatle. Was there any need to destroy the car?

The money was also destroyed.

Thomas Moore now wants double the double money he originally asked for. Twenty Million Dollars!!

We now have a little recap montage to more Guido & Maurizio De Angelis music.

Erik’s girlfriend is killed in a raid by moustache man and pals on his house, I didn’t think she was important either....She isn’t now.

Erik is pissed and his partner shot, but lives

"Get the bastards" 

Moustache man gets away, again. Erik gives chase, again.

Most of this film is set at the docks. Is it cheaper to film at the docks?

Erik enters the docks for his show down with Thomas Moore and Moustache man.

Erik enters a warehouse and is informed by Thomas that Erik killed his wife (She was the mortician by the way). Erik also deduces that Moore is a “Fucking lunatic”

Thomas leaves the building. Enter moustache man to add his weight to a shootout with Eric in the warehouse. Many people are shot, Erik gets away but his car is attacked by moustache man in a tractor. Erik sets fire to the tractor and moustache man burns. He didn’t even have to follow him.

Thomas is still on the move so Erik steels a high powered racing car and goes on the chase, again. Lots of chases in this film as you can see.

The cars speed their way around the hills of San Francisco in a chase that tries to rival Bullit. It fails.

Another couple of questions for you.

Do all Californian people leave empty boxes out in the street?

Do high powered sports cars all have the ability to jump over things with no ramps?

We eventually end up at.....You guessed it

The docks.

 

Thomas gets to a barge were his weapon is housed and unfortunately shoots himself with it. He melts away as Erik watches on.

Light Blast just seemed to be a series of scenes to connect some chases and that actually spoilt it a little. This could have been a real cult gem if a little more effort was given by the usually dependable Castellari (Keoma, Big Racket, Bronx Warriors, Last Shark). Estrada is as charismatic as a house brick and Thomas Moore is totally wasted. Guido & Maurizio deliver a pretty good soundtrack.

I can’t say I liked or disliked Light Blast. It was just there.