The Rage (1997)

Very well executed

The greatest movie ever made..!

Dreadfully Boring

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

RAGE is one of those movies I stop to watch whenever it pops up on TV. Why, I have no idea. Perhaps it is because of the frequent action sequences and the thousands of expended bullets. Perhaps it is to watch Busey playing an absolute lunatic, shouting into the camera and looking like he just took a hit of fun juice. Lamas is rather subdued and cleaned up for this one, as he plays a stiff necked FBI agent hot on serial killer Busey's trail. The boat chase at the end is a hoot, if a little long, and you just know Busey won't be coming back. He goes out with a decided bang. This is actually one of Lamas' better efforts, although Busey and Scheider are clearly slumming here.

**SPOILERS** Outragous movie about a gang of psycho Vietnam Vets who are at war with not only the US government, whom they feel betrayed them back in Nam, but the entire country as well for not giving them the moral and political support that they needed when they came back home.Led by a Rambo-like Art Dacy, Gary Busey,these angry and unstable individuals have taken their rage and hatred back to the states by waging a guerrilla war of their own against the people and law enforcement personnel of Wasatch County.Assigned to finding out who's responsible for over sixty murders in and around Wasatch county is both FBI man and women Nick Travis & Kelly McCord, Lerenzo Lamas & Kristen Cloke. We learn early in the movie that the man in charge of this FBI operation agent John Taggert, Roy Scheider, is actually more interested in doing in his agents on the case, Travis and later McCord, then catching the gang of psychos who turned the entire north-west into a free fire zone. Taggert has it in especially for Travis since an unfortunate shooting incident at a place called Quantico where because of his screwing things up caused a number of FBI agents and white separatists to be killed in a Ruby Ridge-like assault by the FBI. This foul-up on Agent Taggert's, not Travis',part cost him the chance of being promoted director of the FBI and he's held Travis responsible for that ever since.Meanwhile crazy Dacy and his and his gang of loonies are planing to wipe out the entire bunch of US government representatives who are about to have a big get together between themselves and the North Vietnamese at an exclusive compound outside of Bear Lake called the Bountiful Society. Shades of the super secret Bohemian Grove retreat outside of San Francisco? Hard to follow because of all the side plots and double-crossing going on all throughout the film that you find yourself having trouble keeping up with what's happening on the screen. The movie "The Rage" goes from a psycho, or psychos, on the looses to a gang of veterans who were mentally damaged and left out in the cold by their government to a crazed and unstable FBI man. Who's obsessed w with hanging the man who he holds responsible for his failures. To finally a massacre of the leadership of the US government during the Vietnam war by the veterans that they sent there to do the fighting.You have to say one thing about the movie and that is that it didn't skimp on the action scenes which were like every ten minutes. The ending mercifully made sure that the villain, Art Dacy, wasn't going to come back for an encore. I have to say that even though Dacy was as vicious and venomous as they come you could still work up some sympathy for him, not his actions, in the movie. Dacy was turned into a Frankenstein monster by the government who refused to grant him, and many other vets, the medical and psychological help they they so desperately needed and in fact even cut the meager funding that Dacy and his fellow psychotic already got. Taggart was an entirely different type of cuckoo bird who had no reason for his despicable actions, in regard to both agents Travis & McCord. Taggarts demise at the end of the movie evoked a much more unsympathetic response even by his fellow lawmen as the SWAT team leader. As local Wasatch Sheriff Dobson(Brandon Smith), who gunned him down before he could do in both Travis & McCord,reported as he called for back up by saying: Come on down boys and pack up this trash, we ain't no litterbugs".

The first in a new style of films for Lamas- no tattoo's, motorcycles or karate. I, for one, miss them. But this is a serious movie. He plays a FBI profiler who has lived so long with the bad guys in his head that he no longer trusts anyone, including himself. Gary Busey is either a great actor or somebody I wouldn't want to meet in broad daylight on a crowded street. Kristen Cloke pursues Lamas as doggedly as she pursues the serial killer. There is one surprise after another as the story unfolds not the least of which is the ending. It seems to never come - there is always one more layer to the story. Cloke and Lamas start out as the good guys, turn into the bad guys and somehow end up the heroes. But it's definitely worth the rental price. For maximum enjoyment throw in a candy bar,a bag of popcorn and a soft drink. You're going to the MOVIES!

Of all the films I have seen, this one, The Rage, has got to be one of the worst yet. The direction, LOGIC, continuity, changes in plot-script and dialog made me cry out in pain. "How could ANYONE come up with something so crappy"? Gary Busey is know for his "B" movies, but this is a sure "W" movie. (W=waste).Take for example: about two dozen FBI & local law officers surround a trailer house with a jeep wagoneer. Inside the jeep is MA and is "confused" as to why all the cops are about. Within seconds a huge gun battle ensues, MA being killed straight off. The cops blast away at the jeep with gary and company blasting away at them. The cops fall like dominoes and the jeep with Gary drives around in circles and are not hit by one single bullet/pellet. MA is killed and gary seems to not to have noticed-damn that guy is tough. Truly a miracle, not since the six-shooter held 300 bullets has there been such a miracle.