Bullet Points: Death Ring

Steve McQueen. A man who paved the way for future action stars in classic movies like The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and Bullit. 

Chuck Norris. The man tangled with Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon, thwarted an entire terrorist invasion on his own in Invasion U.S.A. and saw that justice was served for years on Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck is a legend.

Patrick Swayze. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, Patrick Swayze is the only man with enough machismo to star in movies like Dirty Dancing and Ghost and lose absolutely none of his badass credibility in movies like Road House and Point Break.

Now imagine McQueen, Norris and Swayze all in the same movie. Your mind is blown isn’t it?

Well there is one movie that can boast having McQueen, Norris and Swayze in the same movie…

…Chad McQueen (son of Steve), Mike Norris (son of Chuck) and Don Swayze (brother of Patrick) dubbed as the next generation of action heroes, all appeared in 1992’s Death Ring. 

• The Premise: Mike Norris plays Matt Collins. Collins is a former special forces soldier who is having trouble adapting back to civilian life. The unemployed Collins is unsure what he is going to do with the rest of his life and his fragile male ego is taking a beating when he comes to the realization that his fiancée, Lauren Sadler (Isabel Glasser) is the bread winner of the two. But it is not all bad news for Matt Collins, as the movie begins Matt is victorious in a “Survival of the Fittest” competition, that for whatever reason is getting coverage on the local news. But to paraphrase Biggie Smalls, Mo “Survival of the Fittest” wins, Mo Problems! Collins’ wins gains the attention of eccentric rich dude Danton Vachs. Vachs has an interesting business that he runs on his private island off the coast of California. Vachs lets other super rich people come to his island to hunt human beings. So Collins and Lauren are kidnapped, while enjoying a day at the batting cages, by some of Vachs’ hired goons. If Collins wants no harm to come to Lauren, he has to become the hunted in Vachs’ demented human hunting game.

• The Villain: While one could accuse Death Ring of being filled with action heroes from the JV squad, no one can argue that Death Ring’s villain could be captain of the villainous varsity team. That is because Danton Vachs is played by the one and the only Billy Drago. Drago’s evil accomplishments in film include roles in The Untouchables, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, Convict 762 and Invasion U.S.A. just to name a few. Vachs not only has his own private island (which I imagine is a goal of all evil billionaires), he also has an evil Asian henchwoman/lover named Ms. Ling (Elizabeth Sung). Vachs depends on Ling to do a lot of his dirty work, like arranging the kidnapping of his competitors. But Vachs is not afraid to get his hands dirty from time to time. When Mr. Cross, one of Vachs’ clients played by Branscombe Richmond of Renegade fame, complains about the quality of the last hunt, Vachs ponders the feedback for a moment and then kicks the shit out of Mr. Cross until he dies. Did I mention this is all done right before Vachs, the hunters, the soon to be hunted Matt Collins and his captive bride-to-be Lauren are sitting down for dinner? That is disregarding “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “The Customer is Always Right” in one fell swoop.

• The Friends: After Matt Collins is kidnapped his best friend from their days together in the military, “Skylord” Harris (Chad McQueen) makes it is mission in life to find out what happened to Matt and Lauren. Skylord in turn gets some help from the local police, more specifically Detective Jack Crawford. Crawford is played by Harrison Page, although Page’s role in the film is uncredited. Action fans will recognize Page as Joshua from the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic Lionheart. Meanwhile on the island, Collins befriends a survivalist by the name of John Blackwell (Don Swayze). Blackwell was the target of the previous hunt. Blackwell’s skills allowed him to disappear on the island before the hunters could kill him and he had just been hanging out in a cave ever since. Collins and Blackwell quickly become allies and the movie going public finally gets the Norris/Swayze team up they had been dreaming of.

If I were grading Death Ring I would give it the old “E for Effort”. While it did not have the most original premise (something that could be said for a ton of action movies), the decision to cast people related to much bigger stars was a bold choice and they ran with it.

Billy Drago’s inclusion is probably what took Death Ring up a notch for me. Some men were born to play villains in movies and television shows and Billy Drago is one of those men. The hunters were also an interesting mix of characters and Ms. Ling proved to be one bad mama jama. More proof that quality villains are more often than not the key ingredient to the success of any action flick.

And one of the key ingredients to any review on this site is the always popular bonus Bullet Points…

• Unamerican Ninjas: Mike Norris and Chad McQueen were among the actors that Michael Dudikoff beat out for the role of Joe Armstrong in American Ninja.
• Familiar Face: George Cheung plays Mr. Chen, one of the hunters in Death Ring. You may remember Cheung from such films as Shootfighter: Fight to the Death, Robocop 2, True Vengeance and U.S. Seals II. On a side note, you can read my reviews for all the films I just listed by clicking the conveniently placed hyperlinks in the titles of each film.
• The Name Game: When I first saw the title of the movie, I assumed this was another in the long line of fight to the death type movies with our hero competing in some sort of underground fighting circuit and not a human hunting movie. But Death Ring derives its title from an actual ring that Drago’s character Danton Vachs wears.
• Viagra for Hunters: I had no idea that drinking snake blood before a hunt enhanced a person’s hunting senses until I watched Death Ring.