Terror In Beverly Hills (1989)

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

When an evil gang of middle-eastern terrorists led by the sinister Abdul (Vossoughi) comes to Beverly Hills, well, terror ensues. Their main target is Margaret (Heslov), daughter of The President (no actual name for The President is ever said) (Smith). They kidnap her while she's shopping and spirit her away to "the old bean factory". While LAPD Captain Stills (Cam) is crankily and dyspeptically working his way through the situation, it becomes evident to all concerned that only one man can rescue Margaret, take down the terrorists, and restore law and order to Beverly Hills: HACK STONE (Stallone). (Hack Stone is not an anagram for Frank Stallone; we checked). Will the fantastically-named Hack Stone, who is a former Special Forces soldier and now Karate instructor, be able to complete his mission? Or will terror reign at the old bean factory...er, I mean, BEVERLY HILLS? Find out today... Here's a movie that delivers what it promises - terrorists come to Beverly Hills. It also gets sillier and sillier as it goes along. It starts out fairly seriously, with comments about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the threat of terrorism in our time, which actually makes 'Terror fairly topical even today. Well, about as much so as Terror Squad (1988), Hostage (1987), or Scorpion (1986). VERY quickly, however, we are launched headlong into a highly-entertaining morass of ridiculousness that we as viewers do not return from. Thanks to its rock-bottom budget, we get some classic nonsensical dubbing/dialogue, wonderfully stupid chase/shooting scenes, and the whole outing has that vibe of absurdity that fans of fun movies will recognize immediately. It's almost like a cousin of Provoked (1989), and there's even a McKeiver Jones III-like character. And that's the key to Terror in Beverly Hills - its characters. Even with all the preposterous goings-on, what stands out are the characters, no matter how small they are in the overall scheme of things. Of course, we have the aforementioned Cam Mitchell, who puts in a performance that enlivens the proceedings. Then we have the great William Smith, perfectly cast as The President. Unfortunately, like most of the other characters, his voice was dubbed, so his trademark gravel is not heard. Naturally, there's Hack Stone, AKA Frank Stallone, who ties it all together. The main difference between Stone and Stills is that Stone drinks regular Pepsi (with a very prominent place on his desk) but Stills prominently drinks Diet Pepsi. Have the Pepsi people ever seen this movie? But the smaller parts, the incidental roles, are what really make 'Terror a gem. There's Crystal, the 911 dispatcher who really cares about her job and has terrific typing skills, there's Brian Leonard as Tony Motta, the enthusiastic and pushy TV news anchor, and there's Captain Leonard (the McKeiver guy), who really shines as an LAPD detective. But the show is well and truly stolen by the charming interplay between Bruce and Gandhi, two locals. All that isn't surprising, as director Myhers was primarily known as an actor himself, but he did direct one movie per decade in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Obviously this was his 80's entry, released in the golden year of 1989. Myhers passed away shortly thereafter in 1992. Evidently the old bean factory that is so central to the story was a real place, as in the end credits, the California Bean Growers Association are thanked. You don't see that every day. In the end, Terror in Beverly Hills is a ton of silly and absurd fun, and despite its limited resources, it is vastly better than The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991). If you only see one movie where something bad happens to Beverly Hills, see this one.

TERROR IN BEVERLY HILLS is a Z-grade action flick from 1989 whose unbelievable storyline sees the president's daughter kidnapped by Arab terrorists and held hostage in Beverly Hills. Gruff-talking cop Cameron Mitchell isn't up to the task of rescuing her, so he calls in special forces man Frank Stallone to do the job. If you've ever wondered why Frank never had his brother Sly's success, you'll see that his wooden acting as evinced here was good enough reason. The quality of this movie is on the level of a typical independent flick, with poor-quality acting across the board and a generally sloppy feel. You'll be hard pressed to get any enjoyment from it at all, even if it does star cult favourite William Smith as the US president, of all people.

A group of evil no-good terrorists from the Middle East abduct the president's daughter Margaret (an irritatingly shrill portrayal by Lisa Hayland Heslov) while she's out shopping on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (they even blow up a car as a distraction). It's up to erstwhile special forces agent and ace martial artist Hack Stone (the almighty Frank Stallone in peak two-fisted macho form) to save the day.Boy, does this uproariously awful clunker possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: We've got ham-fisted (mis)direction by John Myhers (who also wrote the gloriously asinine script), ineptly staged action set pieces, the terrorists are all crude stereotypes (their ruthless leader who naturally has some kind of personal beef with Hack Stone is even named Abdul!), clumsy use of strenuous slow motion, pathetic (far from) special effects, a mechanically bouncy synthesizer score, plain cinematography, tin-eared dialogue ("Don't you worry about anything -- that Hack don't kill that easy"), lots of excessive and blatant product placement for Pepsi, and even some tasty gratuitous female nudity thanks to a scene that takes place in a strip club. The fact that legendary B-pic god Big Bill Smith's voice as the president was obviously dubbed by another actor who sounds absolutely nothing like Big Bill further adds to this flick's considerable cheeseball charm. Moreover, Cameron Mitchell contributes a hilariously cranky turn as the supremely irascible Captain Stills, who curses like an angry truck driver throughout and complains a lot about how he's on the cusp of collecting a full pension. An absolute craptastic hoot.

Often the symbol of decadence, Beverly Hills took a cinematic beating in the early 90s through films like THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS (1991) and this cheap Frank Stallone action flick. Actually, calling it "cheap" is an insult to cheap films. This film is on the level of Al Adamson cheap. We're talking one long shot of a white limo driving down the road while characters voice over as much exposition dialogue that the shot will allow cheap. So cheap that a bomb consists of nothing more than a lump of clay with a digital watch face pressed in it. And yes, so cheap that William Smith's trademark gravely voice is dubbed. You get the point. Yet at the same time, they managed to shoot on location in Israel for the opening.Top billed Stallone stars as Hack Stone (yes, Hack Stone), but only appears in roughly 10 minutes of the first hour of the film. A majority of the time spent concentrating on Abdul (Vassoughi) and his Palestinian terrorist group as they hide out in an old bean factory. TERROR tries hard to elicit the thrills of DIE HARD but on a stretched budget of $10. When Stallone finally shows up for work in the last half hour, he enters the abandoned factory with only a rope and an M-16. I guess anything else would be unnecessary. And he manages to take out the entire terrorist unit without even using the rope! The film's sole highlight is the completely foul mouthed, over the top performance by Cameron Mitchell. As Police Capt. Stills, Mitchell seems to be making it up as he goes along, to great effect. While holding a press conference, an airplane flies overhead and Mitchell stops what he is saying to mutter, "Goddamn airplane!" Later he yells at a plain clothes cop, "Who the f#*k told you to wear that outfit?" When the cop replies, "You did," Mitchell barks out, "Well you know I have no f#*king sense of style!" Then again, maybe it was scripted that way. The screenplay by director Myhers (who co-scripted the Don Knotts/Tim Conway vehicles THE PRIZE FIGHTER and THE PRIVATE EYES) is laughable. "Come on man, don't be an a#*hole," utters Stallone when he finally confronts Abdul.