Night of the Warrior

My review was written in July 1991 after watching the movie on Vidmark video cassette.

Lornzo Lamas turns into a believable martial arts star in "Night of the Warrior", a family effort co-starring his mom and wife. Film was released theatrically in the midwest in June and will hit video stores from Vidmark in September.

Dog-eared plot has Lamas (who also co-produced the feature) as a kickboxer who's paid off a loan from gangster Anthony Geary that financed his nightclub, co-owned by mom Arlene Dahl (Lamas' real-life mother).

Geary wants his meal ticket (Lamas) to keep fighting, but Lamas is determined to retire. The bad guy stops at nothing, killing a former girlfriend (Felicity Waterman) to blackmail Lamas, beating up Dahl and even kidnapping current girlfriend Kathleen Kinmont (Mrs. Lamas) in his efforts to get him back kicking.

Final fight of Lamas against a Korean expert is exciting but the pic takes too long to arrive at this point. Helmer Rafal Zielsinski is better known for comedies ("Screwballs", "Ginger Ale Afternoon") than actioners.

Lamas is comfortable in the larger-than-life hero role, and the film benefits from several flash dance interludes at this nightclub featuring choreographer Sarah Elgart and other dancers. It's nice to see Dahl again (her first feature film in 20 years) though her role as a faded star dreaming of her salad days is wafer-thin.

Extremely tall actress Kinmont is well-matched again opposite her husband, though she surprisingly went further in her romantic scenes opposite Wings Hauser iin the recent "The Art of Dying".

Soap opera star Gear hamis it up as the self-pitying villain. Ken Foree, heretofore a good guy, handels a baddie role as Geary's henchman with panache.