The Survivalist (1987)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Not to be confused with the pulp novel series. A small nuclear device is detonated in Siberia and sends the world into a cold war panic. Back in Texas, Jack Tillman (Steve Railsback), a sort of doomsdayer-lite, is fully prepared for the chaos erupting. He gets his family together to go save his son at a summer camp. But when his wife and daughter are killed by random roaming ruffians, he is forced to go on the run with his doctor friend Vincent (Cliff De Young) and his wife Linda (Susan Blakely). Of course, not before offending National Guard nut (and former 'Nam nemesis) Lt. Youngman (Marjoe Gortner), who decides the biggest priority in this worldwide panic is to kill the man who crushed his motorcycle with a backhoe. This is a film that seems like it could have only been made in the '80s. Director Sig Shore (producer of SUPERFLY) gets the most out of the barren locations, but ineptly handles the rioting masses (which seem to be about 12 people). The screenplay is credited to one John V. Kraft (amusingly, a copyright search finds a script from 1986 with that title credited to an equally pseudonym sounding Louis J. Mayo...mmmm, Kraft and Mayo) and it seems really confused as if Tillman is the hero. I assume they wanted this to be a FIRST BLOOD (1982) type flick, but Tillman is so mean to nearly everyone he meets that it is hard to like him. Railsback is his usually self and the supporting turns by De Young and Blakely are better than one would expect.

Really corny and bad low budget film that feels more like a piece of confused NRA-propaganda than post-apocalypse. The world is cast into chaos, violence and confusion after the threat of nuclear war between the US of A and the Soviet union. Everybody is freaking out, except... Jack Tillman! (his name is repeated in absurdum)... who's a survivalist who's been preparing for this crap and now gets to play with weapons, build campfires and protect his family and blah-blah-blah... If you are a 40 year old guy in army pants who lives with his mum and have strange ideas about most things, and who's biggest hobby is to hang around in the forest and build knives, this might be right up your alley... Everybody except that guy and the most tragic of post-apocalyptic movie collectors needn't bother. A few unintentionally funny scenes and the fact that this ultra-low budget film takes it self 110% serious saves it from being a complete waste of time.

A potentially potent and exciting "Panic in Year Zero"-type premise gets fatally hamstrung by a lackluster execution in this merely passable doomsday thriller. Steve Railsback (who also toplined in the futuristic Aussie "The Most Dangerous Game" variant "Escape 2000" around the same time) stars as Jack Tillman, a tough and fiercely self-reliant take-charge Texas suburbanite who's more than ready when the news of an imminent nuclear war causes society to degenerate into a barbarous every-man-for-himself mass hysteria state. Martial law is declared, looters run rampant in the streets, the cops fail to maintain order, and Tillman's wife and daughter are killed in the ensuing violent fracas. So Tillman makes a perilous cross country trek to the North to find his son before it's too late. Wimpy idealist doctor Cliff De Young and his more sensible nurse wife Susan Blakely tag along for the dangerous ride.Jack V. Kraft's neatly though out script offers a few inspired and interesting touches (e.g., vengeful National Guard soldier Marjoe Gortner uses the dire situation as a golden opportunity to track down and kill longtime nemesis Tillman and the National Guard are forced to recruit a rowdy biker gang as deputies out of absolute necessity). Alas, the promising material is greatly undermined by "Superfly" producer Sig Shore's tepid direction, Tony Camillo's mechanically spare and redundant synthesizer score, and Benjamin Davis' drab cinematography, all of which squeeze the juice out of the solid subject matter. Moreover, the film's flat TV movieish quality severely diminishes both the sense of vigor and feeling of urgency crucially needed to make the story gripping and effective. Worse yet, a good cast mostly turn in strictly blah performances: a paunchy'n'pudgy way past his 70's prime Gortner looks haggard throughout and even the usually wired Railsback appears to be cruising on thespic automatic pilot. Only veteran character actor David Wayne rises above the blandness with his pleasingly crusty cameo as a helpful elderly backwoods gas station owner. Overall, this picture isn't a really bad movie; it's ultimately just an awfully mediocre one.

This movie is great for many reasons and anyone who knows anything about survivalist issues will enjoy it. Most liberals will hate this one for it sure tells it like it is.Based loosely on the paperback book series: THE SURVIVALIST. Railsback brings to life the hero and Marjoe Gortner plays the perfect over the top villain as usual.There is violence and a brief nude scene with Blakely which really does lift the film for its own reasons.If you are a fan of big government or dislike survivalists...stay away from this one.If you like holocaust survival movies or like to see what survivalists are really like.. check this one out. I do hope they will put this one out on DVD someday.