Hangmen (1987)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Sadly Over-hyped

Must See Movie...

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

When I first saw Hangmen, I don't think I watched all of it. In fact I remember I found it boring. Cut to a few years later where I'm now in the nineties, I viewed it again, this time finding it much more entertaining. It does have a lot of acting and VIOLENCE by some quite merciless parties. And you know what it also has, besides an impactful and involving lead- a young Sandra Bullock in her first pic, ever. Hangmen of course isn't the best film ever made, or even good, but it is a quite involving popcorn flick if giving a chance. There might be a couple of moments you feel yourself droning, but I found the whole thing quite a nifty B grade Canadian action pic, with unknowns, except for it's partial known lead and Bullock. The story is quite good of an CIA agent, told to stand down, as so a corrupt agency can do their own thing, only our main guy intervenes, thus bringing hell down on him and his men who are taken out. His son who's girlfriend (Bullock) like himself was taken, teams up with an old CIA buddy of his Dad's to get her back. We have some quite nasty baddies in this appealing pic, and Bullock, shows us how real stars are born. There are much worse movies out there, than this one, believe me. Go easy on it, give a chance.

I give it a 2 - I reserve a 1 rating for Guy Ritchie and Woody Allen films. We don't even remember what this movie was about. The only thing we recall is one gunshot scene where the actors drop to the ground, roll to the other side of a hallway or something and then get back up shooting. It was like watching 80-year-olds with 2 broken legs trying to perform the 'stunts'. Also, when the characters were driving in a truck, the engine noise (or radio? can't recall) would vanish entirely when the actors were talking.And, like others, we bought it because of the Sandra Bullock front cover. very sad, very bad.

This movie was COMICALLY awful. It seemed to me more a film student's final project than a full movie production... and it is shamefully bad. The cover of the rental case that I picked up had Sandra bullock prominently displayed on it (while in the film she is on screen for less than 10 minutes) wearing a hat crudely photoshopped on her head that she never wore in the film. This movie is best enjoyed as an object of ridicule -- and is masquerading the incidental fact that Sandra Bullock is a tertiary character in it to get people to view it. That fact alone is almost as funny as the awfulness of the movie itself. It is as much a Sandra Bullock movie as "28 days later" is a sequel to Sandra Bullock's "28 days."

I saw this one remastered on DVD. It had a big picture of Sandra on it and said "Starring Sandra...." and made it seem like she had a big part in it. Not so. She's barely in it. She does what she can with the script, but that's not much. The sound was awful. By that I mean things didn't go together. Shots would be fired and the number of shots didn't correspond to the sound. People talking in a car while it's moving and the shot is from outside the windshield but there's no motor noise, road noise, or any other sound. Kind of weird.Score was awful. It sounded like the same few notes over and over. Dialog really awful. Acting was awful, I couldn't believe any of it. Fight scenes were like a Batman comic without the "BIFF", and "BAM". They were really lame. The shooting scenes, I mean with firearms, were laughable, literally. I fast-forwarded through a lot of this movie. Even then, it was too long.