Dangerously Close

MOVIE #1,488 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 03.28.24 ALBERT & AKERMAN: AN AUTEURIST STUDY IN CONTRAST + CONTINUUM This has some major pacing issues, losing a ton of steam heading into the third act which it can’t quite recover from. Pyun’s first effort for Cannon Films, Dangerously Close (shot after Vicious Lips, but released before) sees him toning down his style in favor of a more approachable narrative. Though this is clearly still a dystopian vision, albeit one without murderous, foul-mouthed disco children roaming a post-nuclear wasteland. It was co-written by Radioactive Dreams star John Stockwell who also appears here in a turn as the lead villain. On the surface, Pyun doing a high school vigilante film that comments on conservative jingoism feels like gold. And the first twenty minutes or so deliver. It’s the classic “snobs vs. the slobs” set-up, but it never pays off.

The movie simply drags along as we wait for the next big action set-piece that rarely comes. And the conclusion is a dud. The dean of students, a woefully underdeveloped character, feels like the prototypical red herring, but nope… he's the killer. Because: Vietnam? Not only do we not get any satisfying commentary on the dangers of youthful fascism, but it’s a snoozefest taboot. Honestly, one of the most awkward endings I’ve ever seen…


In a career full of concessions made in the face of creativity, playing it safe might be the ultimate sin.

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⫷ MOVIE #1,487 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,489 ⫸

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At an elite school, a group of students who call themselves The Sentinels begin terrorizing their socially undesirable classmates. Soon, one of their targets ends up brutally murdered. An editor of the high school paper begins to investigate and The Sentinels become even more ruthless in their behavior. It was released on May 9, 1986.