If video stores were like supermarkets, one would find GENUINE RISK in the generic products section with a plain label reading "Film Noir." It's a no-frills thriller with all the basic ingredients but no flavor.
Henry (Peter Berg) is a young parolee listlessly throwing his life and his money away betting on racehorses. His old buddy Jack (M.K. Harris) has become the right-hand man to murderous gangster Paul Hellwart (Terence Stamp), and when a job opens up in the syndicate (Hellwart has blown out a
flunkie's brains) Jack talks Hellwart into hiring the unwilling Henry. This creates problems for our anti-hero, for he's been having grunting sex with a mysterious blonde beauty--who of course turns out to be Hellwart's moll. Henry winds up saving Hellwart from an assassin, but nothing stops the
gangster's rage when he finds out Henry's been bedding his woman. Hellwart tries to kill both Henry and Jack, but Henry survives, and the rivals fight to the death back at Hellwart's mansion.
This sordid story unwinds virtually by the numbers, plodding mechanically from one narrative checkpoint to the next. Henry pledges not to use violence while in Hellwart's employ, then boom! He's caught in a gun battle. Hellwart warns Henry about the price of disloyalty, then boom! Henry's in bed
with the crimelord's lady--and you don't have to be a racetrack oddsmaker to know that within minutes you'll be hearing the sexpot utter the old darling-you're-home-early-today routine. The torrid love affair lacks passion, depth or credibility, and there's something misogynous about the treatment
of lead actress Michelle Johnson. Her vague character doesn't even get a name, then is abruptly offered up at the end as a devious temptress who deserves her grim fate.
The male actors fare far better. As the hopeless Henry, Peter Berg generates more sympathy for his self-inflicted plight than the weedy character merits. Watch for veteran B-movie heavy Sid Haig in a tense scene in which hapless Henry tries to flex his freshly acquired mob muscle, only to find
himself outmanned and outgunned. M.K. Harris, who previously starred for writer-director Kurt Voss in another racetrack melodrama, THE HORSEPLAYER, scores as the comically lethal "Cowboy" Jack, a narcissistic hood who commits shocking acts of violence with barely a pause in his flip banter. Most
impressive of all is British actor Terence Stamp, whose steely portrayal of merciless, absolute gangland power compensates for the picture's low-budget lack of scope.
But generally GENUINE RISK (the title also refers to a racehorse) covers familiar territory in predictable fashion. It briefly played theaters in late 1990, largely on the West Coast, then came to video-store shelves in 1991. (Violence, profanity, sexual situations, adult situations, nudity.) leave a comment