Hands of Steel (1986)

 

Sergio Martino once said "My movies are like a soft drink -- sparkling, unaffected products for mass consumption. A soft drink doesn't have the prestige of champagne, of course, but I'd rather have a good soda pop than watered down wine anytime." I can't think of any of his movies that fit that description more than Hands of Steel. The cyborg programmed by a company to kill a specific person is why people will call this a Terminator ripoff but the similarities end there. This is actually a really intriguing story about a cyborg becoming self aware and wanting to be human. Arm wrestling, helicopter and big rig chases, ridiculous looking futuristic guns, desert bar romance, cyborg on cyborg fights, and bar fights make this one of the best junk food movies ever made. Claudio Simonetti's incredible theme adds some great ethos to it.

Synopsis: A cyborg is programmed to kill a scientist who holds the fate of mankind in his hands. He fails and hides in a diner in a desert run by a woman who likes him.

I love how this movie starts. Claudio Simonetti's amazing score reverberates throughout the credit as you see homeless people standing on the street which transitions back and forth with shots of smokestacks at industrial plants. This is an interesting basis for the movie. In 1986 people weren't necessarily talking about climate change much, pollution yes. The film transitions to a group of activists trying to make people more aware of the danger that corporate industry is doing to the environment. They are keeping their leader hidden before a gathering of some kind. They talk about rising pollution levels in the air and how so many more people will get sick. Not that I want to bring my politics into this at all but this kind of activism is more relatable to me than the usual give us all your money so the world doesn't end in 10 years. I think the world will always be okay to live in but how hard it could be to live in certain places without impacting someone's well being is entirely different. 

With some cool point of view shots the film shows Paco Queruak (Daniel Greene) going to assassinate the leader of the movement Reverend Arthur Mosely. The FBI agents guarding the building pursue Paco after he presumably kills Mosely with a punch. The first hint at his cyborg structure and abilities is that he passes through an underground electrical conduit with no harm.

Paco later gets on the road and in a really cool scene acid rain, which is shown to be in a certain area via a sign, burns through his car. He later trades the car in. The road aspect to some of this movie, coupled with two different sides in pursuit of a otherworldly being of some kind reminds me of Starman. Mosely is shown to have survived and Paco is pursued both by the FBI and those who hired him. It is revealed that a leader of one of the corporations Francis Turner (John Saxon) programmed Paco to kill Mosely. 

Spoiler Section

I gave you the basic premise so anything from here on out I think would be spoiler territory. Two FBI agents, including one named Peckinpah, nice tribute there, find a way to trace the blow made to Mosely to a 5000 PSI punch. That proves that Paco indeed is cyborg with Hands of Steel. Meanwhile Turner's right hand man played by Roberto Bisacco, Stefano from Torso, and another cool henchman in sunglasses find the scientist who made the cyborgs. In one of Donald O'Brien's few roles as a good in Italian genre cinema he eventually tells them that Paco might go back to his home in Arizona. They kill him. Because Stefano from Torso is wasting too many people Turner has the sunglasses guy kill him and he calls in Peter Howell (Claudio Cassinelli) for more help. 

Meanwhile Paco starts working at remote desert bar managed by Linda (Janet Agren). They have a flirty relationship right away such as her saying you may want a place to stay until you slit my throat. She has him chop up some firewood and he finishes that in record time. Cyborgs must be good at that. For some reason arm wrestling is a huge thing at this bar and one of the best Raul Morales (George Eastman) shows up and throws his weight around and harasses Linda. They gave Paco a roll of toilet paper saying, "If you're a man prove it, if you're shitting your pants wipe your ass with this." Paco then tears off a piece of the marble counter and writes "you're on." He beats Raul easily in an arm wrestling match. He then beats up all of Raul's other trucker friends in a bar fight. 

A scene in the middle has Paco tinker with his cyborg arm. Sergio Stivaletti does some great FX throughout

Raul comes back to the bar next day with the arm wrestling champion, Blanco (Darwyn Swalve) challenging him to a match where the loser will have their arm pinned near a snake on the table. They fake an emergency involving an overturned car and drag Paco on the winch of a tow truck and then string him up and beat him with a pipe. Paco eventually shows up and beats Blanco and karate chops the snake so it doesn't harm him. From the dead body of the cyborg scientist the FBI finds out Paco was from Arizona and was a former soldier experimented on after being in a coma. Howell and the sunglasses guy find the car salesman and eventually run into Raul's trucker friends at a roadhouse talking about Paco. They find Raul who takes them to the hotel. 

This is when the final 30 minutes of the movie start and it is all action. Howell tracks Paco's body temperature with this silly dated computer looking thing proving he is in the motel. From there two people enter posing as a couple. The one woman turns out to a cyborg dressed in white and some saran wrap. They stab Linda to get Paco out of hiding and the cyborgs both shoot each other many times. It ends when Paco rips her head off. The cyborg head is an awesome effect by Sergio Stivaletti. Paco and Linda get in a shootout and eventually get to a rundown trailer. Both Turner and the FBI eventually show up. In a chase with a big rig on a bridge Paco eventually kills Raul by crushing his head. Blanco shows up to help them and Turner and company blow up his truck leaving Paco to think she is dead. Eventually Turner and his men face off with Paco in an abandoned plant of some kind. Paco kills the men in various ways including punching through one of their helmets. He eventually corners Turner and something Sergio Stivaletti loves to do is rip people's hearts out and that doesn't change here. Paco has been crazed by this rampage and doesn't believe the FBI when they say Linda is alive. Paco's head was wounded and inside his head is only cyborg tissue leading him to believe maybe everything he knows was only a memory implanted. 

Cyborg in Saran Wrap

Severed cyborg head with Sergio Stivaletti's awesome FX

Some insane looking guns in this movie

I love everything in this movie. One thing I can say about is how while it could be considered a ripoff of Terminator or even Blade Runner, it is doing so many things that other movies would go on to do. It's arm wrestling before Over the Top. It's soldiers being brought back and even the scientist saying they would revert back to their old memories before Universal Soldier. It did big rig cyborg truck chases, cyborg on cyborg fights, and cyborg bar fights before Universal Soldier or Terminator 2 ever did them. So the question is who really did the ripping off here?

English dubbing cast:

• Susan Spafford dubs Amy Werba as Dr. Peckinpah
• Frank Von Kuegelen and Edward Mannix dub some of Raul's trucker friends 
• Pretty sure Frank Von Kuegelen also dubs the assassin who comes with the prostitute at the end

Rating: 10/10 My favorite Italian Post-Apocalyptic movie

Trivia: Claudio Casinelli actually died while filming one of the helicopter shots near the bridge. That is why his character is killed off early by Turner. John Saxon would have been in that shot if not for the SAG actors union where he had to shoot all of his shots in Rome. He credited that with saving his life. After Casinelli's death Martino became much more cautious when it came to stunts. He hated the actor's unions and casting processes while shooting in America so he found Daniel Greene, a non SAG actor to play the main role.