User reviews

In the first of his "Jesse Crowder" series, producer / executive producer / director / star Fred "The Hammer" Williamson plays Jesse, ex-cop assigned to transport a nebbish accountant (Bernie Kuby, "The Karate Kid") from L. A. to N. Y. The accountant is due to testify against his former employer, a mobster, but Jesse has to accomplish the journey in a mere 48 hours.

Although hardly anything one could consider to be a "good" film (it looks like it was filmed on the ultra-cheap, for one thing), "Death Journey" is passably amusing nonsense. Even the action is rather incompetent, although there is absolutely no shortage of expendable bad guys for Jesse to beat up or shoot dead.

Even for a movie that, in uncut form, runs a mere 79 minutes, there's quite a bit of padding. In fact, The Hammer doesn't really get down to business for at least 20 minutes. Until then, he practices martial arts and pleases the ladies, but doesn't do much of anything else.

A lack of more familiar character actors to support The Hammer is a debit; a catchy but awfully repetitive music score is another.

It's a pity; if one is a Hammer fan, they will surely *want* to enjoy this more than they probably will. One thought that this viewer had was that you'd think screenwriter-turned-filmmaker George Gallo might have seen this once upon a time, since the premise is pretty close to the later "Midnight Run".

By the way, the poster art is a lie, promising a major action sequence aboard the train that never does happen.

Five out of 10.

Much as I am a Fred Williamson fan, this is the a very poor man's action film. Barely played as a main feature in Los Angeles area (mostly second feature runs with no ads), this movie has Jesse Crowder assigned to protect an overweight accountant across the state line to testify against a mobster. What could've been a blazing non-stop action films, this film takes the low ride and become very boring fast. The movie poster promised a top of the train running chase sequence which wasn't in the film. In fact, the video box claims he has to protect a girl (!). I am suprised Williamson didn't get any name stars to appear in this film, for most of his past works do have familar character actors (maybe they all turned it down!). The film is so non-budget that when Crowder's chauffer get out of car to open the door for Crowder, it was a two door car and not a limo (!). I love the Jesse Crowder series and Fred Williamson will always be a icon of the 70's action scene, and it's too bad I didn't enjoy this one.

Death Journey (1976)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Former cop Jesse Crowder (Fred Williamson) is hired to transport a witness (Bernard Kirby) from the West Coast to the East Coast so that he can testify. The only problem is that a lot of people want the witness dead.

I'm really not sure what the hell DEATH JOURNEY is or is supposed to be. I started watching the movie and thought it was something made that went straight-to-VHS but then I was shocked to see that it was an actual theatrical movie from 1976. For the life of me I can't imagine how small the budget must have been and how few drive-in screens would actually play it. The film was directed by Williamson and you can honestly tell that wasn't his strongest field.

There are all sorts of problems with this film but the biggest is the actual screenplay, which is just downright silly at times. There's not a single second where you actually care about anything that is going on and to be quite honest you don't care if the witness lives or dies. With that in mind, there's really no suspense to anything that you're watching as you simply don't care what happens. It certainly doesn't help that the film manages to contain some of the lamest action scenes that you'll ever witness.

Williamson is at least mildly entertaining in his role, which of course requires him to bed several women, kill a few bad guys and deliver some one-liners. It seems they were trying to make him a DIRTY HARRY like character but it just doesn't work. The film is poorly made and just doesn't really have anything good going for it.