The Terrorists (1986)

1986 - Menumpas Teroris/“Menumpas Terrorists” (Kanda Indah Film PT)

[International title “The Terrorists”; released in West Germany as “Das Auge Des Adlers”]

Director Imam Tantowi Cinematography Berti R. Mottoh Music Embie C. Noer Miniature Effects El Badrun

Cast Deddy Mizwar, Barry Prima, El Manik, Advent Bangun, Elizabeth Yvonne, Belqiez Rahman, Anton Indracahya, Anneke Putri, Yoseano Waas, El Badrun, Tizar Purbaya, Torro Margens, Grace Suwandi, Yoseano Waas

Fred Anderson’s review from his Ninja Dixon blog:

The Terrorists is hardly the glory of Indonesian filmmaking, but it's still a nice trashy mix of not more than three different genres!

First it starts as a lowbudget version of a big budget Hollywood-film. Terrorist attacks plagues the world (which means a lot of cheap miniatures getting blown up) and a local gang of bad guys uses this fear to create their own attacks and steal some money (or whatever) at the same time... which means a little bit martial arts and a car-chase...

... that ends inside a hospital! And here the movie continue like a pre-Die Hard, pre-Hard-Boiled, action movie where the terrorists takes hostages in the hospital. But of course there's two men who can stop them, one of them is Barry Prima! So he goes in, shoots a lot and one of the bombs goes of...

... and suddenly we have a cheap version of Towering Inferno! People trapped in the fire, on the roof, people falling to their death and the firemen tries hard to rescue everybody! And at the same time the last terrorist goes around like Al Pacino, screaming and wawing with a gun! Until he get's shot down and the movie is over.

Barry Prima has more of a cameo, and the movie barely hangs together. The stars are more the bad guys actually! It's a cheap knock-off on big budget action with cartoonish backprojections and an idiot storyline. But it works quite fine anyway, and is never boring - except during the end where some of the fire-stuff goes on way to long.

Classic obscure trash for a trash-generation! Long Live Barry Prima!

Fred Adelman’s review from his Critical Condition Online website:

Here's an Indonesian action film that will have you howling with laughter at the terrible miniature effects and the blatantly obvious rear-screen projection process that's littered throughout. During the mid-80's, a time when terrorist groups are hijacking planes and blowing up buildings around the world, a group of crooks pretend to be terrorists to pull off a bank robbery. Little do the crooks know that a world-renown terrorist named Gozal (El Manik; HELL RAIDERS - 1985) was hired to head the robbery team by a crooked hospital executive named Mr. Santos, who needs the money to save his floundering hospital. Gozal recruits professional crook John (Advent Bangun; THE BLIND WARRIOR - 1987) to help him pull off the robbery and he agrees to do it as long as politics aren't involved, but as he will soon find out, politics is the least of his problems. When the crooks try to enter the bank and the newly installed bomb detector goes off, it leads to a lengthy (and hilariously inept) car chase, where the crooks destroy their car, steal a truck and crash it into the front of a hospital. Guess which hospital it is? Yep, it's Mr. Santos' hospital and soon Gozal uses the time bombs in his possession to hold the hospital and it's occupants' hostage as the police surround the hospital and SWAT helicopters hover overhead. The first thing Gozal does is kill Mr. Santos to keep him from talking and he then plants the bombs around the hospital, setting them to go off at 7:00 PM. The police call in a SWAT team Captain (Barry Prima; THE WARRIOR - 1981) to kill the "terrorists" and he does just that, killing every one of them (including John) except Gozal, who escapes through the stairwell after setting off a bomb, engulfing the hospital in flames (you gotta see it to believe it) and trapping many innocent people, including infirmed patients, inside. Gozal, who has now gone completely bonkers, roams the hospital's smoke-filled corridors firing his weapons aimlessly and shouting "You're all gonna die!" while the fire department and police try to rescue people in the hospital. Gozal grabs a newborn baby, goes to the hospital's roof and demands a helicopter picks him up or he will kill the baby. Instead, the police helicopter-in Gozal's wife and young son to the roof in a rope net (!) to distract Gozal long enough so that the SWAT Captain can shoot him (and an innocent doctor!) dead in front of his family. Un-fucking-believable!

Where do I begin to describe how badly entertaining this no-budget actioner really is? It's a cross between DIE HARD and HARD BOILED, but made years before anyone even heard of those two films. All the explosions are done with miniature model buildings that are so bad, they make the structures stomped on by Godzilla in the 60's look highly detailed. Clearly, 80% of the film was shot using out-of-focus rear-projected backgrounds, most of it so ineptly obvious, especially the car/truck chase, that I nearly peed my pants from laughing so hard. The entire hospital sequence is so chintzy in it's execution, it takes on an otherworldly quality. Director/co-scripter Imam Tantowi, who also directed BLAZING BATTLE (1983) and wrote the screenplays for SATAN'S SLAVE (1982) and THE DEVIL'S SWORD (1984), hasn't got a clue on how to pace a film, as THE TERRORISTS simply jumps from one mind-numbing scene to the next (including a hilarious encounter with a bomb maker who secretly poisons the entire robbery team until they pay him!), culminating in one of the most unbelievable (not to mention unlawful) endings I have ever witnessed. What law agency in their right mind would ever put a terrorist's wife and kid in a rope net and hover them over the roof of a burning hospital so they can try and talk him into giving up? Add to that constant scenes of people getting shot (lots of bloody bullet squibs), running around on fire, jumping off the hospital roof and hitting the ground (more rear projection work that elicits laughs rather than gasps) and a police force more concerned about killing bad guys than saving innocent lives (the cops end up killing more innocents than the bad guys!) and what you end up with is a deliriously illogical actioner that is must-viewing for all fans of Indonesian insanity. Search it out. Also starring Deddy Mizwar, Yos Cano, Janis Badar, Belqiez Rahman, Elyzabeth Tvonne, Yoseano Wasa, Anto Indracahya and Tizar Purbaya. El Badrun, who also has a role here, handled the shoddy miniature effects work. Never legitimately available in the U.S. on home video, the print I viewed was sourced from a Greek-subtitled VHS tape.