Bullet Points: F/X

It had been years since I last watched 1986’s F/X starring Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy.

Some would consider that a negative, however it turned out to be a positive on my recent rewatch as there was so much that I had forgotten about the film that it almost felt like I was watching it for the first time…

• Just Like the Movies: The opening scene of F/X allows us to see special effects man, Roland “Rollie” Tyler (Bryan Brown, Age of Treason), in his element on a movie set. There is a scene being shot that includes many elements of Rollie’s movie magic as a hitman tracks down his beautiful target and guns her down at a restaurant, along with several other diners and plenty of fish tanks. Once the scene is complete, we find out that Ellen, the actress who played the hitman’s target, is Rollie’s girlfriend and we see Rollie approached by a “Producer” who is looking to work with Rollie in the future… Rollie tells the “Producer” to meet him at his place the next morning and I bet at that moment the “Producer” had no idea he would be greeted the next morning by a tighty whitey wearing Rollie Tyler.
• Job Offer: It turns out the “Producer” is really a guy named Lipton (Cliff De Young, The Substitute), who works for the Justice Department. The Justice Department wants to recruit Rollie and his skills to help them keep notorious mobster Nicholas DeFranco (Jerry Orbach, Universal Soldier) alive so he can testify against his former mob associates and deliver a major blow to organized crime. The plan is to stage DeFranco’s death in a public place, the thinking her is if DeFranco’s enemies think he is already dead, they won’t be looking for him anymore. Rollie is resistant at first, but eventually agrees to help and collect his tax free $30,000. By the time the “hit” is supposed to go down Lipton’s boss, Col. Mason (Mason Adams) has even convinced Rollie to play the part of the hitman…

• Plans Change: Something goes terribly wrong during the staged hit and Rollie finds himself on the run for a very real murder and he quickly realizes he can’t trust Lipton or Mason! Rollie is a loose end that Lipton and Mason need to eliminate and Ellen ends up becoming collateral damage as a result when a hitman is sent to her place to kill Rollie. Then Rollie ends up killing Ellen’s killer with an iron and Rollie is officially in even deeper shit.
• 44 Minutes In: As the movie was nearing the halfway point, I couldn’t help but say to myself… I thought Brian Dennehy was in this movie. We first see Dennehy’s Leo McCarthy of the NYPD in bed as he gets a wake up call from his partner, Mickey (Joe Grifasi). The two have been called in to investigate the murder of Ellen and the unidentified dead male found in Ellen’s apartment. With a big assist from Velez and her computer skills, Leo is able to find out the identity of the man in Ellen’s apartment and the trail takes Leo and Mickey right to Col. Mason at the Justice Department. Leo instantly suspects that Mason is hiding something and while his cop instincts are right on, his approach eventually gets him in hot water and Leo finds himself suspended… but if you think a little something like that is going to stop Leo, you’d be wrong.

• Racin’ to Get to Mason: Meanwhile, Rollie with some help from his special effects assistant Andy, is also on the hunt for Col. Mason. After kidnapping Lipton and convincing him to give him Mason’s home address, Rollie and Andy have to get the F/X van out of the police impound lot and outrun the cops in order for Rollie to get his revenge on Col. Mason. Rollie and Andy go into their bag of special effects tricks to escape the pursuers and Rollie has even more tricks up his sleeve when he arrives at Mason’s home. The increase in action, the plot twists and the unexpected ending make for a memorable third act and to me it is really where F/X has a chance to shine.

Bryan Brown’s Rollie Tyler is one of the most unique action heroes of the 1980s. There were plenty of super soldiers, martial arts masters, grizzled vigilantes and tough as nails cops during that era, but Rollie was in a category all his own. It is the uniqueness of Rollie Tyler that carries over to F/X itself making it a one of a kind action thriller.

No special effects to wrap up this review, just some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Face: A few years before he was building his Nuke empire in Old Detroit as part of RoboCop 2, Tom Noonan was playing one of Col. Mason’s minions, Varrick. And speaking of Noonan…
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Bryan Brown push Tom Noonan right into the drink, then F/X is the movie for you.
• Soundtraxx: Early on in the movie, Ellen is listening to “The Heart of Rock and Roll” by Huey Lewis and The News in her kitchen. When Rollie shows up, he quickly turns it off. I wonder if he would have been so quick to turn the tunes off if Ellen was listening to Men at Work?
• They Want F/X: Brown and Dennehy would return for the 1991 sequel F/X 2, but had nothing to do with F/X: The Series that ran for two seasons starting in September of 1996.