ENDGAME (1983)

 

1983's ENDGAME is yet another post-apocalyptic film. But though visually it owes a lot to the Mad Max films, it's best seen as a combination of tropes from Wild West films-- particularly those revolving around the "gunfighter" subgenre-- and satirical SF about futuristic blood-sports, as established in cinema by films like 1965's TENTH VICTIM and 1987's THE RUNNING MAN.

The film spends its first half hour on depicting the bloody past-time of licensed killing in the reality-TV show "Endgame," but the game itself is not that important to the movie's plot. The game exists to set up a conflict between the game's two toughest players, heroic Ron Shannon (Al Cliver) and villainou Karnak (George Eastman).

However, before the two opponents manage to square off for their last battle, Shannon is drafted into a sort of futuristic "wagon-train" duty. A telepathic mutant woman named Lilith (Laura Gemser) enlists Shannon to help her people-- all mutants persecuted by the city's normal denizens-- to reach a safe haven far away. Shannon in turn persuades a small coterie of other tough guys to help his charges brave the radioactive landscape and fight off predatory nomads and much uglier mutants. For good measure, Karnak follows, pretending to join the wagon-train but secretly planning to kill his long-standing Endgame-rival.

Directed and co-written by Joe D'Amato, ENDGAME is actually a little more sophisticated than most post-apoc adventure-stories. The plight of the fugitive mutants is well handled, and although there's a very politically incorrect rape-scene, in which Lilith is attacked by one of the "uggo" mutants, the scene does manage to show courage on Lilith's part, as she restrains herself from calling out to Shannon at a critical moment, so that the other bad mutants won't detect the hero's presence. (Yes, I know this scene was primarily about showing T and A, but that doesn't entirely negate Lilith's self-sacrificing actions.) In the end, Shannon, like the similarly-named cowboy-hero "Shane," forswears any participation in the promised land he's made possible. The film ends on a freeze-frame as he and Karnak charge each other, fated to duel one another to the death. Said ending would be a good deal more potent if lead actor Cliver weren't a poor man's Clint Eastwood, whose underplayed solemnity is consistently upstaged by Eastman's bravura performance.