User Reviews

Scott Edwards (Gaylord) (No, that's his name) is just your typical college kid: to make ends meet he is a rickshaw puller in Coconut Grove, Florida. He's getting his college degree presumably due to the fact that no one even knows Florida has a rickshaw industry. He attracts all the street business because of his snappy Tiger tanktop. Apparently, he was born in the Chinese year of the tiger. Isn't your tanktop your preferred method of telling the world of your Chinese animal sign? Anyway, this must have attracted elderly Chinese mystic Madame Luna (Kobi), who Scott picks up one day during a rainstorm, so she watches out for Scott using a cat and a cobra that do her bidding. Meanwhile, Scott gets embroiled in a conspiracy and is framed for murder. Professional hit-man Francis (Greene) is after him, so Scott goes on the run with prostitute Joanna (Victoria Prouty) and tries to clear his name. But the power and sway of televangelist Reverend Mortom (Pleasance) is going to complicate matters. And that barely covers the supernatural forces at work, apparently brought about by a "stone of evil". Will Scott pull his way out of this one? This movie is very, very weird. In a good way, of course. It probably doesn't get the attention it deserves because of the title and box art. It seems like a standard type of thriller with no surprises, so customers must have left it on video store shelves. Thanks to some poor marketing by Academy video, that is what it seems like. But like the world inhabited by Scott, Reverend Mortom and Madame Luna, all is not what it seems. Anyone familiar with Italian horror and giallos will know the name Sergio Martino - the man is amazing. He's worked in every genre imaginable - post-apocalyptic, Spaghetti Westerns, sexploitation, Poliziotteschi, the list goes on and on. For American Tiger, he brings the off-kilter sensibility he brought to such movies as After The Fall of New York (1983), Suspected Death of a Minor (1975) and Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key (1972), but this time adds the ultimate 80's coolguy: one Mitch Gaylord.

Everything from the opening quote by Confucius to the music (featuring a song that really sounds like "I'm in a restaurant, whoah-oh"), to the utter strangeness of the ending, nothing ever makes concrete sense in this movie, giving it that addictive Italian feel that American filmmakers cannot achieve. It's almost like Martino was going from his subconscious, almost like a dream, rather than any kind of written script. Thus, the vibe of this movie is impossible to describe, so we encourage you to see it for yourself. The only people that will not like it are filmgoers that demand everything make absolute sense all the time. But doesn't that get boring after awhile? Movies like American Tiger give us a break from the ordinary and thus have memorable moments we can talk about. So we applaud that, even if it is confusing to our logical minds.

Daniel Greene, whose best role is in Hands of Steel (1986) but also appears in Skeleton Coast (1988) and The Maddening (1996), throws himself into his role and seems to be having a good time. We always love seeing Donald Pleasance, and while wags might accuse him of slumming here, we thought his presence added a lot, and besides, he's been in much worse. Even Sherrie Rose appears briefly as well. But the man of the hour is clearly Gaylord, and if any gymnast is going to make a movie career, only he and Kurt Thomas should be able to do so. Can anyone explain why they were never in a movie together? Also known as American Rickshaw (now there's a title that'll pull customers in), we definitely recommend American Tiger. We totally loved its unorthodox style.

A rickshaw driver in Miami is protected by an Asian witch when he comes up against a conspiracy involving him being videotaped having sex with a mysterious redhead and it causing the death of the son of a faith-healing televangelist played by Donald Pleasance - all directed by Sergio Martino (Torso, All the Colors of the Dark, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh and so much more)!

This seems like the perfect union of everything I love in movies. It's pure junk and perfect for 3 AM weekend viewing! Scott (U. S. Olympic Gold Medalist Mitch Gaylord, American Anthem) just wants to get ahead in class and help his roommate with his rickshaw business. But after that aforementioned redhead hooks up with him, all hell breaks loose. Reverend Mortom's (Pleasance) son Jason was taping the action and Scott flips out, beating the guy's ass. But soon, Jason ends up getting killed when the boat the action happened on is set ablaze. Soon after, a hitman (Daniel Green, in a role made for George Eastman) comes after Scott, killing his roomie with another inferno.

There's also an ancient Chinese woman, Madame Luna, who Scott helped with his rickshaw who uses a cobra, a cat and magic to rescue our hero throughout the movie. She also wrote him a letter that he never seems to get to finish. Even after it's been eaten by rats, her voice still plays in his head when he is near the paper.

The cops are also after Scott, thinking that he's killed the reverend's son and his roommate. So our hero goes to the Pink Pussycat and kidnaps the redhead - who we soon learn is Joana Simpson, the girlfriend of the dead man. I should also mention that Scott is pretty much the most moronic hero in a film and that's covering so much territory. Yet even after kidnapping Joana at gunpoint she still likes him and ends up helping him.

Throughout, Martino uses tons of crazy zooms, weird cuts that defy editing logic and everyone is constantly running and grimacing. It's like a Rob Liefeld comic come to life.

However, let me make my argument. Any movie where Donald Pleasence is an evil televangelist with a warthog statue that is locked in eternal combat with a sorceress directed by my favorite giallo director is going to obsess me. There's also a shower sex scene where our hero keeps his jeans on, confounding me even further. There's also a magical key that unlocks the secret of the statue that burns through the killer's hand. There is also a magical cat. I have no idea how anyone would even come up with these concepts.

It turns out that Scott and the reverend's son were both born on the highest day of the Chinese calendar - 6/6/66 - which means that when Scott says that he wears a tiger t-shirt because he was born in the year of the tiger but he was born in the year of the horse and American Horse is a worse title than American Tiger or American Rickshaw. It's also the title of a song by the band The Cult, but I think I'm probably the only person who knows or cares about that.

Donald Pleasence comes to attack the Chinese woman, but the cobra and cat attack him before he chokes her. Have you ever heard Pleasence do a Southern accent at the same time that he can't shake his British voice? You will. I'd say this role was beneath him, but I can also point to so many other films that he was in that are worse.

The killer finally catches up with Scott, who runs across railroad ties and trips - he was an Olympic gymnast - before a semi takes out the killer, who suddenly has a snake come out of his eyeball!

Scott takes the statue back to Madame Luna, who is young again. The cops listen to Joana, who tells them that Scott is innocent. And the Reverend goes on TV and transforms into a warthog while Luna outs him to the world. Yes, you just read that correctly. Then, his wife screams that he is the devil and shoots him as everyone watches the warthog under his skin emerge. "He was the devil!" she screams as the cops matter of factly lead her away. A man just turned into a giant bloody pig. This should be a much bigger deal than the way the cops behave.

A Miami college student finds himself framed for the murder of an evangelist's son.

He hooks up with an Asian witch and a stripper to find the real killer and clear his name.......

I honestly only saw this film because of the stars ridiculous name, and the fact that it was advertised as a martial arts movie in the UK, under the title, American Tiger.

It's nothing of the sort. What we do get is a really bored looking Donald Pleasance, a woman in old lady make up, a cat, a snake, and a whole host of wonderfully bad nineties clothin and hair-don'ts.

A raunchy movie is filmed without the stars consent, a boat blows up and the rest of the film consists of our lead being chased by a hulk version of Lorenzo Lamas.

And it all ends with Pleasance making a speech and his voice turning into an animals.

It has an air of mysticism to it, but to be honest it gets lost up its own backside come the conclusion.

It's not a surprise that the lead didn't get many starring roles after this, what with his name and performance.

It's pretty risible stuff, but just about worth seeing for Pleasance overacting.

American Tiger is a really low budget Italian action film shot in Florida, seemingly a location to go for for Italian crews after the continuing success of the Hill/Spencer collaborations. Watching a film like this, you realise just how far the genre had collapsed by the 1990s, because American TIGER is a very bad film indeed. The unlikely-named Mitchell Gaylord plays a student framed for murder who finds himself going up against a crazed TV evangelist, played by Donald Pleasence in that 'anything goes' stage of his career.

The saddest thing about this nonsense little film isn't the bad action sequences or worse acting, but rather the presence of director Sergio Martino, who had a long career of great gialli, action, and science fiction movies behind him. You don't get to see any of his style in this film, which could have been directed by any old person. The only time this film threatens to become interesting is when it veers into random supernatural elements, with the climax a particularly amusing head-scratcher.