Jake Speed (1986)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Am I Missing Something?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

My dad had a biker friend I loved that he called "Doc" because of the Doc Savage pulps he always used to read.It didn't end there in our home. Remo Williams was a beloved family film and...we had a couple old paperbacks about him laying around the house. And Dumas and Claremont and Doyle and their creations.And of course Elmore Leonard was always somewhere to be found along with Louis L'Amour and Marv Wolfman and....The point is that pulp was a common thing in our blue collar home and especially if that was an adventure pulp. My father loved trash like that and it rubbed off to my sister and I.Jake Speed is trash like that. It is not only trash like that it references trash like that. It pays homage to trash like that. It spoofs trash like that it's, well, it's brilliant.In fact, it does for the pulp action hero what "El Diablo" did for the pulp western hero...And at the same time it is pure adventure......you have to love it......that is unless you are the type that has to have everything absolutely serious and only read stories about murdering your family with an axe, turning into a beetle, and only if they are penned by suicidal novelists.If that is the case you are going to hate this movie...But if you are the discerning gentleman or lady that has a respectable library...and a Kindle full of Sabatini with a password guaranteeing that no one will ever know your childlike love for high adventure...Then "Jake Speed" is bound to be one of your favorite films.Not Everything has to be "Citizen Kane" you know...these are movies, they are made for one singular reason...to entertain.

Unlike most reviewers I feel Wayne Crawford was amazing. Karen was amazing Christopher filled the partner role awesomely .44's blazing!!! The cast was perfect for the story. But quite possibly the most overlooked role of all time was John Hurt who played a great bad guy in V for vendetta and for how great he was there (in my opinion) plays the greatest bad guy off all time.The lines were written so perfectly and he delivered them in a way that should have won every best bad guy ever award. Pure evilThis movie never gets the respect it deserves. Why? Because people don't take the movie for what it is. A FUN action flick with ultimate good vs. Evil.Great one liners. Great vehicles and chases. And the greatest shotgun of any movie ( even the Expendibels shotgun pales)How many movies 20 years later try to show the horrors of civil war in Africa ( like 3 ?) There is more going on in this story than people see. I really wish this movie, the cast, the acting, the plight of Africa and the helpless citizens.Remember my words an amazing hero and the greatest bad guy ever portrayed on screen

One of my favorite films for a number of years was "Last Action Hero"; unfortunately, Arnold Schwarznegger decided to spoil my fun by becoming a corrupt scumbag politician; so now I can't bear any film he may had a hand in.The Adventures of Jake Speed actually toys with some themes similar to those in Last...Hero; so I was pleased to find it on DVD, so I could watch these themes played out so well.Despite the "plot-within-the-plot" involving white slavery during an African nation's civil war, this is not an action movie. The plot that the "plot-within-a-plot" is within, is actually about a question that the film has no intention to resolve: Is Jake Speed a real person that is helping the heroine save her sister from the white-slave trader; or is he actually a fictional character (which means that the heroine has somehow entered the universe that really only exists in a series of pulp novels)? I suggest that this is not all that clearly defined in the film, and that Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane are perfectly aware of this. The film thus becomes a presentation of what audiences may want from such a fictional "adventure-story" universe. That's actually a rich theme, the potential heaviness of which is lightened by the film's amiable and campy sense of humor.There are weaknesses to the film - primarily it's cinematography, which makes the film look like a TV show. And the pacing does sag on occasion.But I really like these characters, and I enjoy the adventure they live, however silly. And I just find fascinating the idea that this adventure is actually taking place in a novel.Holds up under multiple viewings -m good show!

This movie just doesn't work, despite having an amusing premise (those pulp action heroes actually being real). It's really sad seeing Dennis Christopher (BREAKING AWAY) being wasted in movies like this.