Death Match

Best pals John Larson (Ian Jacklin) and Nick Wallace (Nick Hill) are laboring down on the docks when a cargo of MAC-10s comes through, complete with a gang of thugs to oversee them. Larson and Wallace hold their own against the goons with the guns, but lose their jobs in the process. They repair to a waterfront bar, where Wallace notices a flier targeting the rough clientele for an underground, big-money kickboxing tournament. But Larson, a former champion who has since hung up his gloves, warns that this fight network is run by the nefarious Paul Landis (Martin Kove), a powerful businessman who is notorious for never releasing fighters from their contracts alive. Several days afterward, Larson leaves for a job he has accepted in another state. But when he reports for work, an urgent and mysterious message awaits him, suggesting that Wallace has ignored his advice and gone for the easy money. Fearing the worst, he backtracks through the seedy underworld of itinerant mortal combat, where he is forced to break his vow never to fight again. Re-entering the ranks of formal competition under another name, he kickboxes his way through a succession of palookas, trying to garner the reputation necessary to get the top-flight fights. Larson makes it to the circuit finals, where his penultimate bout is with the evil Vanik (Mathias Hues), Landis's crony and protector. Larson prevails and is soon reunited with Wallace; together, they dispatch fight maven Landis, who dies before the final bell.

With the same perfunctory plot as FORCED TO KILL, both CAGE installments, and innumerable kickboxing extravaganzas, DEATH MATCH opts to emphasize the fighters, who comprise something of a supergroup. Hues's maleficent surfer persona is displayed prominently in both TALONS OF THE EAGLE and KICKBOXER Parts 1 and 2. Petite powderkeg Michelle "Mouse" Krasnoo reprises her lightweight little-sister role from KICKBOXER 4. Ex-champ Ian Jacklin is among the assassins in FINAL ROUND. On hand in incidental gladiator roles are Pete "Sugarfoot" London, the admirably-named Marcus Aurelius, and, as himself, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, who offers a salient bit of philosophy straight from the gym: "There's two types of fighters--there's a chess player and a checker player. A chess player takes two hits to give one, and a checker player would never take any and give you four, five, or six. Which one are you?" The makers of DEATH MATCH must be checkers players, since they undoubtedly intend to give us IV, V, and VI. (Violence, nudity, sexual situations, profanity.) leave a comment