City Limits (1984)
1/10
it took me five viewings to get it
22 August 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I really had to study this thing to find out the plot, which I think is this: after total economic collapse, a young man leaves the countryside (where there is plenty of clean water, food being grown in fields and chicks willing to have sex in cisterns) to pursue a vague rumor he has heard of fun-fur-wearing motorcycle gangsters in the city. There, food, water, electricity are unavailable (so wouldn't the trend of movement be from city to country?) and a Bad Guy, played unconvincingly by Robby Benson, who doesn't like the gangs (because of reasons never explained-- if he wants to rule his world, he needs people to rule, and they appear to be the only ones left in the city). And there's a rival gang identical to the main gang, and a comic book culture (I suppose it was predictive in this) and unsuccessful fights which result in them regrouping to James Earl Jones's house where hero-guy bonks one of the motorcycle gang girls. But at the end, the gang returns to the city and succeeds in defeating Benson (I think) and all is well because they achieved their goal of...um, well, they never really had a goal, and one must assume there's still no water or food in the city, so maybe after the closing credits end, they all die. One can hope. Five times through to understand this much, and I wouldn't swear to half of it.

However, it only takes one viewing to see this is incomprehensible crap with horrible sound (not that I think we're missing anything by missing some dialog). Some of the actors are phoning it in; some are trying for sincerity, so maybe they had a different shooting script that made them capable of mustering caring or maybe they were on better drugs than the writers, editors, and sound guys.

On the good side, Benson gets one of the oddest screen deaths I've ever seen, and you have to admire the actors for wearing fun furs under hot lights.
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