Red Scorpion

I was reading about lobbyists and the notorious Jack Abramoff scandal on Wikipedia and discovered to my shock that before he founded the unbelievably sucessful business venture of Lying Inc, Mr. Abramoff had delusions of Hollywood grandeur in the mid 80s. Im guessing he got invited to some swanky parties on Sunset Blvd, snorted a few too many lines, and had an epiphany that he was born to be a script writer.

Money gets you what you want, so Abramoff's pet project was greenlighted by an obscure South African film company, and the end result was RED SCORPION starring DOLPH LUNDGREN!

I actually saw this movie when I was ~13, obviously unaware at the time, along with the rest of the world, the irony of seeing "A Jack Abramoff Production" in the opening credits. I stopped at two different video stores, but neither had Abramoff's one hit wonder in stock. So I torrented it and 19hrs later was set to relive some childhood memories through a very different lens.

Red Scorpion is a near carbon-copy of Rambo 3, with the twist of telling the story from the Russian perspective. It opens in the basement of a Johannesburg office building, aka the "Soviet Command Center". A white haired Red Army hardliner is ranting about the slow progress in their mission to spread the revolution to a fictional African country. Ignoring large poetic license taken in depicting African geography, is almost certainly a stand-in for Botswana.

Dolph, playing himself as a Spetsnaz operative, is summoned before his sinister superiors and ordered to assassinate Sudata, the anti-communist insurgent leader. Dolph asks for a picture, but could have just been told "kill the first black guy you see wearing wire-rim glasses". The Russians have conveniently captured Sudata's right-hand-man. Perhaps my ears decieve me, but I swear they introduce him as Kunta Kinte (so Toby). Dolph is choppered in to the Soviet forward base in Afro-Narnia and within hours has executed a gratuitously violent good-cop-bad-cop plan to get himself arrested by the local base commander and imprisoned along side Toby. They are quickly joined by a Danny DeVito-esque American journalist covering the occupation, with all due professional objectivity. Scratch that, he screams endless hatred for all things USSRish in every scene.

Droopy face thug Leon from Blade Runner is their warden and enters the cell to demand Devito-lite teach him how to operate the American tape recorder he just confiscated like 2 minutes ago, and has already given up. Toby is used to doomed causes and creates a scuffle, even though there are two guys with shotguns in the room. But Dolph has an ulterior motive to not be passive and surprise drops these extras like they were Apollo Creed with brain damage.

Enduring relentless vitriol from Devito, the reluctant allies manage to sneak out of their apparently sound-proof holding cell still echoing with 12guage blasts, and stowaway on one of those ever-present Axis-of-Evil covered trucks.

They are discovered at the next checkpoint and a lukewarm desert car chase ensues. I lold when Devito leaned out the passenger window, haphazardly fires a sawed-off at a pursuing half-track and the thing instantly fireballed in one hit. Unnecessary. So after some mandatory clinging to truck sides/roofs while under fire, they ditch their pursuers and lead the Russkis to believe they have perished in a cliff fall. While continuing on foot, Toby gleefully extols the virtues of the village over the next rise, who are wonderfully hospitable and ethnic and exemplify everything thats right about traditional African culture. Cue smoldering ruins. How awkward, Mr. Spetsnaz. 

They make it to the ragtag rebel camp without further incident. Look, they may not have matching uniforms or guns, darn it, but they are so very determined. "The land speaks to us", also, "it must be returned to the people". Sudata, the man responsible for this remarkable philosophy, makes his appearance. Dolph manages to avoid openly slavering at the mouth and keep his cover. As night falls, Dolph inner-turmoils a little, but works out his confusion by imprinting his knuckles on sheet metal and chanting Red Army drill cadences. Confidence in mission restored, Dolph uber-sneaks into Sudata's tent on Operation Stab Darky, but Sudata didn't become Insurgent Commander for nothing, and Dolph slashes only lumpy blankets. The gig is up and Dolph is pistol whipped and left for the Russians, while Devito jumps up and down and shrieks I TOLD YOU SO. For the audience, this is a major turning point in the movie, because its the last scene in which Dolph is wearing pants. Its short-shorts from here on out. 

Shackled in the local Gulag, Dolph is browbeaten by Hard-Liner, and then turned over to the Cuban attache. For some reason Hard-Liner is not telling the Cubans about Dolph's real mission, but then puts them in charge of executing him? So of course they leap at this opportunity to educate themselves in most awful fashion possible.  Cuban Steve Buscemi starts performing Depraved Heart Acupuncture on poor Dolph, but gets too close to gloat and suddenly has a broken neck. So heres a valuable lesson for torturing Russian circus strongmen for information, who are going to be executed immediately after. Step 1: cut off hands.

Cut to the SECOND brutal desert trek of the movie. Dolph colapses on a dune, and ducks roving helicopter spot lights, but his haste has led him to inadvertantly stumble into a scorpion nest. This accident leads into a 20 minute sequence with Dolph being discovered unconscious by a klick-klick bushman, nursed back to health, taught to hunt warthogs via spear, makes fair-trade sandals, takes a vision quest, gets a tribal tattoo, and comes out the other end a humbled and changed man. Keep in mind the going-native process is a substantial chunk of the movie, and I think you'll agree with me, this absolutely called for about a 90 second montage, maybe set to Toto, yes?

Meanwhile, the Soviets have performed a tactically brilliant poison gas strike on the stone age tribe and their strategic sharp stick cache. Fully disillusioned by this pointless genocide against people who are not even aware of the Russians existence, Dolph tosses his dog tags and returns to the rebel base, just as Sudata is succumbing to mortal wounds sustained off camera. Over-ruling Devito's fanatical anti-Russian complaints, both Sudata and Toby recognize the authority of the Red Scorpion tattoo and put Dolph in charge of the whole eclectic army.

Cut to the opening salvo of a long Revolutionary Spirit car alarm frontal assault, with Dolph wading into the thick of close quarters machine gun battle, kitted out with multiple assault rifles, but still the short-shorts. Every shot without Dolph in frame could have been directly lifted from Rambo 3. After some arbitrary feats of strength and ridiculous action melee cliches, Dolph corners Hard-Liner and lays down his bitter accusation. Hard-Liner keeps up the pretense of political righteousness, "We're here to liberate an oppressed people." To which Dolph exqusitely ripostes, "but who are really the oppressors?". BURN.

Dolph walks away in disgust, but of course Hard-Liner shakily draws his sidearm, and Dolph whirls after ten paces and blows him to smithereens. Credits roll to the sound of Little Richard with machine guns sampled as percussion. Seriously.

So Jack, if you could do it all over again, which do you regret more: ripping off your lobbying clients for $80 million, or creating RED SCORPION?