Mean Mother

This movie essentially begins with two soldiers named "Beauregard Jones" (Dobie Gray) and "Joe" (Dennis Safron) who decide to desert while serving overseas in Vietnam. While Beauregard takes a tramp steamer to Spain, Joe flies under a fake passport to Italy as part of a gold smuggling operation. Upon reaching their destinations Beauregard accidentally crosses the Syndicate and has to leave Spain with them hot on his heels due to their mistaken belief that he has stolen some valuable merchandise from them. So with limited assets and nowhere else to turn he decides to travel to Italy in search of Joe. Meanwhile, in Italy, Joe has managed to make ends meet by doing odd jobs here and there for the same people who hired him as a smuggler and has met a beautiful woman named "Therese" (Luciana Paluzzi) in the process. But even though he would like to settle down and raise a family with her he realizes that being an army deserter carries its own risks and would be a serious liability for the two of them. And then Beauregard suddenly shows up with problems that threaten all of their plans and aspirations. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I initially thought that this was a standard "Blaxploitation" movie from the 70's with a plot which would probably follow the usual pattern . What I didn't know was that this film borrowed heavily from another movie titled "Run for Your Life" and essentially morphed into something that it was never initially intended to be. This helps to explain the meandering plot and the choppy effect from one scene to another. That said, although I admired the manner in which the makers of this film managed to cut-and-paste scenes from another movie to create something entirely different, I have to say that the overall picture lacked balance and solidity. Additionally, while the acting was tolerable, the special effects and action scenes definitely had room for improvement as well. In short, about the only thing going for this movie was the presence of Luciana Paluzzi and to a lesser extent Marilyn Joi (as Beauregard's girlfriend "Joy"). Other than that this film was rather cheap and uninspired and because of that I have rated it accordingly.