What can I say, this is one of the worst of the worst. Sure its so bad its funny, but the ineptitude wears after twenty minutes and its just a slow slog to the end.
The plot has a guy returning to 42nd street after sometime away and planning on opening a nightclub in the middle of it. The big shot who runs the street and who hates our hero does everything he can to stop him, including machine gunning the opening night crowd to death. Its bad acting, violence and comedy in spades.
The film film is set, and was made, in the last of the bad old days of 42nd Street. This was before Rudy and Disney came in and cleaned it all up. This is the 42nd street that you avoided like the plague since you probably would be robbed or worse. It was a place of incredible danger right off the Great White Way. It was filled with characters of every description, most of whom wanted to get something from you,usually in the quickest and least honest way possible. The way its portrayed in the film is both as better and worse than it was depending on what the plot needed. The most glaring error put me in hysterics as a mostly white middle class audience attends the opening of the nightclub. It would never have happened, certainly not without a heavy police presence. The director of this film, was/is in the gay porn industry and should have known better.
As a record of what the street looked like (kind-of, sort-of) the film is a valuable document, except that the continuity is so awful that any one who knew or knows the area will get a headache with mismatched shots. (and even if you don't know the area, watch what passes outside the windows during the opening cab ride, and match that up to what we see happening on the street) As an actual watchable film of any quality this is the pits. Its dumb, simply dumb. While some of the acting is okay, most of it isn't.(And what the hell is Jeff Fahey doing in this garbage beyond getting a paycheck?) The direction is bad. The action...is not be taken seriously. The whole thing is just barely in the so bad its funny category, but not in place that can be recommended.
If you are nostalgic for the bad old days before Disney, and don't care about quality, give this movie a try (my rating of 2 is purely nostalgic). Everyone else give this film a wide berth.
Ultimately anyone admitting to having seen this or owning this should be beaten (yea, me too). Anyone admitting to liking it should be locked up in an institution. And anyone who admits to having been part of this film's production should be forced to eat a print of it (They brought into the world, they can help take it out)
