SNAKE EATER II: THE DRUG BUSTER (1989)

Directed by: George Erschbamer

Writers: Don Carmody, John Dunning, Michael Paseornek

Lorenzo Lamas returns as Jonathan “Soldier” Kelly in this sequel which is probably the weakest film in the trilogy, but that doesn’t mean it sucks or something, it’s just that it’s... the weakest film in the trilogy.

The story goes as follows: Lorenzo learns that a particularly nasty drug lord has been enrichening his merchandise with rat poison, which for some reason causes the death of some people. It comes as no surprise that Lorenzo is really pissed off and that he immediately sets sail for bringing down the said druglord and kicking his ass.

 

It’s also not a real surprise that he’s suspended; this time they don’t even bother to tell us why. This comes as a small problem for his mission, because he’s unable to use the standard police methods like shooting everyone and blowing everything up. Forced to keep a low profile again, he arms himself with a really big shotgun and goes to shoot everyone, but only manages to kill four or five bad guys before the police arrives.

He goes to trial, where his lawyer plays the temporary insanity (TM) card, resulting in him (Lorenzo, not the lawyer) being sent to a mental institution for evaluation, rather than jail. Apart from not being in jail, the institution has several upsides: First, the doctor that does the evaluation is a woman, so she eventually falls in love with Lorenzo. Second, the inmates are really a cool bunch, especially a crazy sex-obsessed former preacher whose “sermons” are probably the high point of the entire movie. Finally, the place is so well guarded that Lorenzo’s pals can go out and return unnoticed any time they like. They just don’t want to do it because the people outside are crazy.

 

Lorenzo however sees an opportunity and armed with his wit, fists and a black sidekick named Speedboat he goes about his business of destroying the evil drug master. Here lies the main problem with this movie – there’s a significant lack of fistfights.  Lorenzo and his pal base their operation on sabotage – for example, they blow up the evil guy’s warehouse, they poison his henchmen (and blow one of the up) in a restaurant, etc. etc. Finally, they get tired of that crap, kill the bastard and get arrested. End.

 

Anyway, it takes almost 80 minutes to get to the first fight, where Lorenzo is almost killed by this huge bearded guy, but luckily he notices a nearby bottle, breaks it on the guy’s head and then electrocutes him. We have a few shooting scenes, especially at the beginning and near the end of the movie, but we can say that in total this movie is a bit short on action.

 

All in all, as far as first two movies are concerned, I must say I’m not quite satisfied with Lorenzo’s performance in fights. However, he totally makes up for it with his superior endurance. This time he gets stabbed right in the back and later the aforementioned large bearded guy shoots him in the arm and in the leg, all of which does absolutely nothing to slow him, or even bring him any pain. Still, he should be more careful with his reputation – the way he walked right into the trap by not checking the corners of the room is really unflattering. A former Snake Eater should not allow that.

Female viewers would be interested to know that Lorenzo again takes his shirt off a few times, but doesn’t spend so much screen time topless as in the first movie. Male viewers should be warned that this time there’s no trace of female nudity.

 

I have already said that this is the weakest movie in the trilogy, which was kind of lame because now I don’t have anything to conclude the review. So, this review will remain unconcluded.

SNAKE EATER (1988)

Directed by: George Erschbamer

Writers: Michael Paseornek, John Dunning

This is the first part of a trilogy in which Lorenzo Lamas plays Jack “Soldier” Kelly, a former member of the Marines, currently a cop whose job is to look cool, make the women around him take their clothes off, deliver one-liners so devastating they would make Arnie blush and occasionally beat up some bad guy. In this movie he faces a band of Deliverance-style rednecks who killed his parents and kidnapped his sister, but we will get there in a moment.

Lorenzo being cool and shirtless

First things first – the Snake Eaters are an elite division of the Marines whose speciality are actually the search & destroy missions and not something else that might have crossed your dirty mind. I’ll be first to admit that this was a relatively poor choice of words on the screenwriters’ part – they couldn’t theoretically have made it more gay, unless they’d named them Village People. And that one was already taken. Anyway, this is actually not that important, because, as I said earlier, Lorenzo is a former Snake Eater. The only thing that reminds us of his past is his belt buckle, which has a drawing of a snake on it. Apart from that, we are pleased to announce that Lorenzo doesn’t eat any snakes in any of the three movies.

Lorenzo being sad

Okay, anyway – the very beginning of the movie shows us a disastrous drug bust led by Lorenzo that got him suspended. Without going into too much detail, I will mention that we get to see a naked woman (she had to remove her clothes to show that she’s not wired, but she required the same of Lorenzo and he did it, but fortunately he kept his snake offscreen) and a general Dirty Harry attitude that drives his character. At the same time, said rednecks kill his parents and kidnap his sister with every intention of doing reeeaaally nasty things to her, like raping and stuff, but they never get around to that because something always interrupts. You would imagine they’d have some privacy deep in the woods, but no.

Lorenzo in a fight

Lorenzo doesn’t act in this one – he simply revels in his own coolness and generally keeps the same don’t-give-a-crap-gonna-kick-your-ass face expression throughout the movie, except for the very moment when he learns of the tragedy, when he looks down in sadness for about a second, but he gets back on the track really quickly.

Lorenzo meets a pair of boobs

Unfortunately, his self-confidence isn’t always followed by his actions. Of course, he did save the girl, but he also got himself into trouble far too many times, definitely more than someone of his reputation should allow. For example, the very first time he meets the rednecks, he starts a fight with them and gets heavily beaten (and there are only three of them!). He also steps into a bear trap, he gets shot etc., but luckily none of that does him any noticeable damage.

Lorenzo in bed, with a naked woman in the background

Snake Eater is a pretty good movie. It actually started great – the drug bust was really hilarious and after that we had a few juicy fistfights, all of that enriched with Lorenzo’s one-liners; unfortunately, things got a little quiet in the middle, with him trying stealth tactics to infiltrate the rednecks lair and all that, which was kinda gay. Also, the rednecks were totally inept and never managed to get any of the women to take their clothes off, which was a bit frustrating. Lorenzo, on the other hand, spends virtually the entire movie shirtless. Still, there’s enough action and humor to keep you entertained, so I would wholeheartedly recommend this one to all you B-movie lovers out there.

"... and then I said 'Squeel, little piggy!'... "