Snake Eater

1989 action movie

Bad Movie Rating: 3/5 (Josh: 3/5; Fred: 2/5; Lisa: 2/5; J.D.: 3/5)

Rating: 7/20

Plot: An ex-marine tries to rescue his sister from some sinister hillbillies.

With our first Bad Movie Club watch of 2019, I'm apparently in the minority with the appraisal of Lorenzo Lamas as an action hero. He looks the part with a good build, facial stubble, and puffy hair that, if you look at it from certain angles, is nearly a mullet. In an opening scene and maybe a few others, he shows the ingenuity of a MacGyver or a Kevin McCallister, and he's got plenty of one-liners even if none of them are any good. He's got some of that bad boy charm you'd associate with a lot of more iconic 80's action heroes.

However, as a couple of my friends have pointed out, he doesn't do very much here. The movie's got a body count that it can be proud of, but when you look at the amount of bad guys that Snake Eater actually kills, it's a little embarrassing. He spends the majority of the movie getting captured and hung in a sleeping bag from a tree or crashing whatever vehicle he happens to be riding. The female characters and even a tractor actually might out-kill Snake Eater.

No, I have no idea why his name is Snake Eater. There is a reference to eating a snake in the movie--a clever reference to a forced blow job, I assume--but Snake Eater isn't even around during that conversation. I assume they just named him Snake Eater because he has a shirt that says "Snake Eater" on it.

I looked it up, and apparently, "Snake Eater" is an elite division of the Marines. I don't know enough about these sorts of things to know if that's legitimate information or something manufactured for this movie.

The main appeal for me is the collective of ornery hillbillies here. They're led by Junior, played by a a perpetually snarling block of man named Robert Scott. There's also Slim, Sissy, Clyde, Torchy, Sissy Clyde, Uncle Joe, Uncle Slim, and Uncle Sissy, all yee-hawin' and yelpin' like they're not sure if they'll ever get a chance to act in a movie ever again. They don't really bring an authenticity to the proceedings, but they're definitely a colorful and randy lot. I also liked Ronnie Hawkins' character, a guy named King. Hawkins wasn't in a lot of movies, but he did play "Bob Dylan" in Renaldo and Clara, a movie that Bob Dylan was in. Hawkins is in a great action scene in this where our hero--Snake Eater--is fighting some hillbillies on the dock and King bursts out on a motorcycle and immediately flies into the water while Snake Eater--our hero--succumbs to his only weakness--an empty plastic gas can to the back.

Another interesting side character--guy with a necklace of teeth.

Anyway, this movie has a pair of sequels. I imagine we'll watch those someday because we really don't have much else to do with our lives.