Band of the Hand (1986)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Leo Garen and Jack Baran
Directed by Paul Michael Glaser
Starring Stephen Lang, James Remar, Lauren Holly, James Cameron Mitchell, and Laurence Fishburne

Features:

• Trailers
  

Released by: Columbia Tristar.
Rating: R
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Nope. Presented in glorious full frame.

My Advice: If you can hum the theme to Miami Vice, rent it.

When five juvenile delinquents from Miami are taken out of their facility and dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the Everglades somewhere, things are looking pretty grim. When a laconic survivalist informs them that their asses do, in fact, belong to him, things are looking even worse. This is their last chance at rehabilitation. They either pass Joe’s survival course and learn to live together, or they die forgotten in the depths of a swamp so vast they’ll never be found.

Against the odds, and in true plucky-young-delinquents-get-reformed fashion, the group forges a bond out of mutual disgust with the food they're eating, mutual desire to get out of the swamp, and just general plot necessity. After a grueling final exam trek through the wilds of Florida with only one compass and a rudimentary map, Joe transplants the group to the heart of Miami and takes them to the next stage of their training, which will of course involve machine guns, better clothes, and small unit paramilitary tactics. Once trained, it’s time to take down the Miami drug kingpins in a hail of Uzi fire.

The bad guys of the piece are the standard collection of 80s clichés: Colombians, drug dealers, and black people. There are a few reinforcements of negative stereotypes, possibly even including the boys' trainer Joe, who is channeling the mysterious native archetype from the picture's get-go, coupled with the battle-hardened 'Nam vet survivalist archetype that really had its zenith in the same decade, most notably in the person of Crockett & Tubbs' superior officer. Of course, the five heroes are pretty stereotypical too: smart white kid with bad home life; gang-banger black guy and Mexican; suave Cuban drug dealer; and white trash tough guy. Nothing terribly inventive or very advanced, but carefully designed to give the widest demographic audience a character with which to identify.

Band of the Hand isn’t a complicated movie. It’s not even a particularly good movie. It’s just a guilty-pleasure action flick for those that remember Jan Hammer, pastel suits, and cheesy synth-pop. With a cast of entirely forgettable players (rounded out with a few choice cameos by people who would be famous a decade later), there’s little in the acting to recommend it, though the performances are passable for as far as they go. The draw here is fighting and gunfire, pure and simple. Machine pistols and Porsche 911s.

If you don’t remember the 80s (either from youth or exuberance), than this won’t really do a lot for you unless you’re just a sucker for an action flick. There’s a certain amount of nostalgia value in it for those of us that do remember, though. It’s worth watching just to see Laurence Fishburne with a really bad haircut.

This one merits a rental for nostalgic Gen-X action movie fans, but beyond that narrow target audience, it won’t be worth much. The complete lack of features and full-screen presentation don’t do anything to enhance the value of this beyond a memory lane rental.