Posted: 02/08/2011

Predator Review

by Robert Baum

Review: Predator (1987)

Having proven himself an unstoppable force against any terrestrial opponent, action star Arnold Schwarzenegger finds himself facing a challenge from elsewhere. The Austrian-born behemoth is the prey of a visitor on a hunting safari in Predator. The latest testosterone-fueled audience exciter produced by Joel Silver, who recently brought us the intelligent action joyride Lethal Weapon, is directed by John McTiernan.
Schwarzeneggger is Dutch, the leader of a slightly motley crew of commandos. They’re called in to recue some bureaucrat that has been captured by South American revolutionaries. Dutch is a bit uncomfortable to find that his old friend Dillon (Carl Weathers), now with the CIA, will be joing the mission. Dutch and his men work alone but not this time.
Dutch, Dillon, and company head out to the remote reaches of the jungle and commence their operation. They’re being watched by the titular being and encounter what appear to be the corpses of Dutch’s fellow former comrades. It makes little sense to Dutch as it looks like the work of a foe with significant savagery and some potent firepower. Ordnance not usually found in the arsenals of most revoltionaries.
The commandos find the guerilla compund but too late to free the captive. Dutch and his men turn the compund into compost with their mighty weaponry. It turns out that the captive is not a bureacrat but a CIA operative which does not sit well with Dutch and only confirms his suspicions that Dillon is involved in some shady dealings. Dutch isn’t much for agreeing with Dillon wanting to take the sole surving guerilla (Elpidia Carillo, recently seen in Oliver Stone’s Salvador) with them.
Two memebers of the unit (Grappler Jesse Ventura and Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black) are shortly thereafter brutally slain by an unknown assailant. The team’s firepowere is great, their survival skills excpetional, but they’re able to keep the enemy at bay for only so long. Eventually only one remains to battle the being and one will be terminated. One can probably guess who wins. If not, remember that the star usually survives but sometimes doesn’t.
The film is your standard gung-ho actioner with a never-ending supply of thrills. As the commandos, Schwarzenegger and company do nothing more than go into a heavy firefight unscathed—save for Ventura who utters a line that is rather amusing—until they find themselves up against higher stakes in some fashion or other. They’re merely nothing more than another variation of The Dirty Dozen or The Wild Bunch. Audiences have seen this more recently in last summer’s Aliens.
To its credit, this is a superior version of the 1980 slasher film Without Warning which starred Kevin Peter Hall who played an extra-terrestrial visitor preying on earthlings and using some lethal frisbees to do the job. Hall portrays the title role in Predator, also an otherworldly being. Though one needs to wait for the films’ climax to witness the alien hunter as it is seen only camouflaged so as to blend in with the jungle. Stan Winston, whose effects contributions for Aliens recently earned him an Oscar, designed the title character which will strike fear into many of the unwary.
Schwarzenegger’s cigar-chomping macho military man is obviously an homage to pulp hero Sgt. Rock. Or perhaps it’s only to emphasize that this is a film about guys and guns. An unabashed, loud display of military machismo but quite a bit of a bang for your buck.

Robert Baum is Currently a Bryn Mawr, PA-based film afficanado and pop culture junkie.

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