Night of the Juggler Review – Complete 80s pulp shocker filled with non-stop gonzo mayhem | film

nOnstop’s gonzo mayhem is on display in this shocking film from 1980, starting with a surprisingly reckless car chase, fender-bending, and pedestrian-endangerment that takes up more or less the first 20 minutes. It’s a gritty New York crime/exploitation thriller with some amazing punches and shootouts; Some attitudes toward race and sexual politics can only be described as being of its time. Those who prefer 21st century standards of good taste would do well to look away now.

A racist pedophile (Cliff Gorman) has kidnapped the 15-year-old daughter of divorced ex-cop Sean Boyd, played by James Brolin. This sweaty creep demands a million dollar ransom, but he got the wrong girl. He believes his prisoner—dressed in a sheer blue dress that belonged to his dead mother, and at one point kissing her tenderly on the lips—is the daughter of a real estate mogul whom he blames for moving so-called undesirables into a Bronx apartment building, with the goal of forcing the current tenants out so he can tear it all down for a new development. (Look at the New York Daily News headline: “Carter Makes Tours of South Bronx Slums.”)

So Boyd must track down this hateful pervert to save his daughter – while Boyd himself is also being hunted by a corrupt cop he once exposed. This is wide-eyed Sergeant Barnes, played by Dan Hedaya, who shoots Boyd on a city street with a shotgun, causing window-smashing mayhem, but because he’s a cop he doesn’t seem to get into any trouble. There’s a raunchy, funny and outrageous sequence when Boyd has to interrogate sex workers in their exhibition booths. An innovative way to introduce nudity into the film. You can’t help but gasp at the complete madness on display, and connoisseurs will enjoy the reckless taxi driver in the chase scene, played by young Mandy Patinkin.