Firehead (1991) Poster

(1991)

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2/10
What are you waiting for? Detonate!
stevemains9 April 2008
I purchased Firehead because I like bad movies and, well it's called Firehead, isn't it? It's terrible. Inexcusably bad. But you probably already guessed that or, heaven forbid, watched it and knew.

It concerns a Russian super-soldier with telekinetic abilities who defects to the US ("I'm going to find a free country") and eventually turns on his American handler as well. Christopher Plummer plays his former boss, Vaughn, who is part of a shadowy secret group that wishes to rule the world. I'd explain more of the plot, but it's a fun combination of dumb and nonsensical, so I won't. It doesn't matter anyway. Suffice to say that Vaughn decides it's a good idea to enlist a chemist to track down a rampaging super-powered defector blowing up factories. But fear not! He has assigned an assassin to tag along and take out this raging Russian. An assassin who frequently gets surprised by people sneaking up on her, sure, but an assassin no less. It goes pretty steadily downhill from there.

The only reason this movie gets even two stars out of me is wholly because of the performances of Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer, who manage to prove they can float on top of sewage. I suspect they owed somebody favors. Big, big favors. They're good enough, in fact, to be part of the problem. They'd raise the bar back up off the ground, and I'd foolishly start expecting good things only to be hit upside the head again with, for instance, a government-trained professional gunman shooting down a very narrow hallway at our protagonists walking side by side and missing. That sort of thing.

Such a vast, uncountable amount of bullets are fired at our two (sometimes three) protagonists that I started to be concerned with the quantities of wasted metal that would go unrecycled when said bullets inevitably missed. This movie features perhaps the worst gunfights I've seen in a movie. If you kinda run and then maybe duck and then sort of look the other way when someone's unloading their clip at you, even if you're completely out in the open, you'll be just fine in the world of Firehead.

If you come to Firehead hoping for a good movie, then seriously, what's wrong with you? It's called Firehead. If you're hoping for a hilarious bad movie, then you're headed in the right direction. It's not one of the best of the worst or anything--there are some slow moments, but it seriously shines in spots. It has awful, awful gunfights. Constantly. It has probably the worst little girl actress I've encountered delivering some inspired lines. In also has an ending so dumb, tangential and inexplicable that I was amazed. And it has enough little unexpected bad moments, one of which involves a squeaky toy, to keep you interested.

2/10 for quality. 6/10 as bad movies go.
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3/10
Combines elements of hunt for red october and batman, drawing much from neither.
The Red Bull24 November 2001
I bought this movie for the cover. Unfortunately, I had to take the whole thing. I used to think you could never go wrong buying movies sporting a flaming hammer and sickle, but apparently my logic is flawed. It opens as our hero, an obvious reject for the HeMan live action movie, helps a russian woman and her children evade certain death by moving them five feet to the left. The movie after this point kind of degenerates. For some reason, the military hire a chemist to track down this ne'er do well, who is in America blowing stuff up with his eyes which, coincedentally, shoot lightning bolts. Apparently, he only does this on days that are prime numbers and this ability doesn't work on shoddily assembled chain link fences. Not that he was in any real danger, the only person in this movie who could shoot straight was me, and I'll miss that TV. The most interesting part of this movie was the 15 minutes after the credits, where I stared at a blank screen expecting an apology. If you decide to watch this movie, The Bull recommends doing it drunk, preferably on vodka, and far enough over the hill you won't remember it.
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4/10
"He can see into your souuuuuul!"- Gretchen Becker (Theme From Firehead)
tarbosh2200020 August 2010
Warning: Spoilers
The Power to Destroy the World...And the Will to Save It! Just when you thought AIP had run out of insane ideas...they really outdo themselves with Firehead, the story of an Estonian superdude who can shoot lasers out of his eyes and is pals with Chris Lemmon. We're not kidding.

At the height of the cold war, Ivan Tigor (Porter) leaves his communist homeland and escapes to America. He is going around blowing up military installations, so energetic but dopey research scientist Warren Hart(Lemmon) teams up with beautiful military officer and scientist Buchanan (Becker) to find the truth. This upsets Colonel Garland Vaughn (Plummer) who is a member of a secret, underground cult called the Upper Order who meet in secret and are planning World War III. Meanwhile, The President (Ed Kearney) and Secretary Fallbright (George Elliot) are all involved. Did we mention Tigor can shoot lasers out of his eyes and the origin of this is not really explained? So now Tigor and Hart are on the run with only Tigor's lasers and sometimes forcefields to help them.

This odd and zany AIP entry has some wacky humor thanks to Chris Lemmon. He's always yelling "Jesus Christ!" Most of his lines in the film either start or end with him exhorting the name of some people's Lord and Savior. His 12 year old daughter in the film, inexplicably named Smith (Lauren Levy), is a plucky genius who drives a car and seems to have some fun saying wordy, scientific dialogue. She has an ALF doll in her room. She practically steals the film, in much the same way Sarah Dampf did for Stealth Fighter(1999). Too bad the two tweens never starred together in a movie. They could team up and fight crime or something. Her energetic, loquacious performance contrasts completely with Brett Porter's monosyllabic, monotonous Arnold Schwarzenegger/Dolph Lundgren/Matthias Hues-style delivery. The film does borrow somewhat from Red Heat (1988). I guess we were running low on English-as-a-second-language action stars. Thank you Brett Porter.

Martin Landau puts in a "special appearance" as Pendleton. He mutters some exposition and looks bewildered. He seems to be thinking "What am I doing in Firehead?" Same thing goes for Christopher Plummer (who has either won or been nominated for every award under the sun) - a usually respectable actor who decided if he was gonna slum, he was really gonna SLUM. You kind of feel bad/embarrassed for him. But maybe he had fun. We don't know. Someone ask him and get back to us. Chris Lemmon looks like a cross between Joe Piscopo and Wings Hauser in this film. He seems to care a bit too much about every little thing that happens. Gretchen Becker is on hand as the eye candy but she's much more than that - she sings the powerful end credits theme song as well.

There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo in the film, such as some gobbledygook about the "special operations computer bank" (which has its own jaunty theme music), and our heroes and government agents trapped in a building before a deadly virus is released. Yet they never take any time to explain Ivan's superpowers.

Think of this movie as AIP's attempt at being topical. It is incredibly silly and Ivan's laser eyes are the main draw. But we think they held back on using the effect too much to save money.

"Fire" up the VCR for this classic tonight! For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com
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3/10
Like watching a direct-to-cable sequel to a movie you never liked in the first place
lemon_magic28 September 2018
Warning: Spoilers
I think the most important lesson "Firehead" has to teach us is that even if Chris Lemmon had his more famous father's talent, he'd still probably be stuck at this "D grade" direct to cable/video level of film making because they no longer make the kind of star vehicle that Jack Lemmon used to appear in. All we get these days are would-be blockbusters and derivative 3rd rate hackwork, and you get three guesses which camp "Firehead" resides in.

Not to bag on Chris Lemmon - he shows some flashes here and there of moxie and ability, and he's the 2nd best/most interesting actor in the film...but he can't carry the film, or even make his scenes watchable. Christopher Plummer CAN make his scenes watchable - barely - but any good will he generates dissolves almost instantly the second he is off screen.

"Firehead" goes wrong in a thousand little ways: the generic synthesizer soundtrack; the nonsensical Bourne-wanna-be plot; the straight-out-of-nowhere love scene between Lemmon's character and the office worker/assassin; the laughable performance by the actor playing the Secretary of State (not the same thing as "funny"); the silly costumes with the pyramid badges worn by the "Upper Order" during their meetings to plan WW III and rule the world; the screenplay's inability to decide how strong the cyborg actually is (at one point he blows up a cliff, but later is stymied by a chain link fence); the inexplicable role of the 12 year girl genius who will make your ears bleed; it goes on and on. Nothing on screen is convincing, or even especially energetic.

"Firehead" isn't worth your time. There are worse movies out there, but many of them are bad in a "so bad it's good" way, and this is just stupid.
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1/10
Should've been called laser eyes
wfc33-155-60751217 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
If you enjoy abandoning 12-year-old girls in the middle of the city this is the movie for you
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2/10
Firehead?
bensonmum222 April 2020
A research scientist (Chris Lemmon) joins a government assassin to track down a Russian cyborg. But is the laser-shooting cyborg the real enemy, or is someone in the government pulling the strings for their own nefarious purposes?

The 80s and 90s were full of cheesy, schlock-filled action movies. Given the cast and the presence of actual production standards, it's shocking to me that Firehead is one of the worst of the bunch. There are a couple of big issues I have with Firehead. First, and most importantly, the plot is a joke. In fact, there really isn't much of a plot - more like a vague story idea attempting to hold various poorly choreographed action set-pieces together. And what little story there is in Firehead is entirely predictable. I promise this isn't a spoiler, but watching the movie, you realize about 0.000253 seconds into the thing that the real bad guy isn't the Russian. Who could it be? Maybe over-acting, what's-he-doing-in-this-piece-of-garbage Christopher Plummer? It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

My second big issue with Firehead is the acting. More specifically, my problem is with Chris Lemmon. When he's not trying to channel his father, he has one mode of acting - comedic surprise to every situation. Regardless of how mundane, ordinary, or predictable the situation, Lemmon's attempted comedic overreaction gets old real quick. It's a one note performance.

Speaking of acting, why oh why is Martin Landau in this turkey? Was he that hard up or did he just owe someone a favor? Even with his very limited screen time, he easily outshines the rest of the cast.

One last thing, previously, I mentioned poorly choreographed set-pieces. Let me cite just one example of what I"m talking about. Two bad guys and two good guys are firing guns at each other. All are in a narrow hallway, separated by no more than 10 feet. Does anyone get hit? Of course not. After about three or four of these scenes, it got to be quite funny. Not funny enough to save the movie or anything, but it does create one of the few "memorable" moments in what is otherwise a completely forgettable experience.

2/10
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2/10
Woof
BandSAboutMovies16 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Action International Pictures, also known as West Side Studios, was founded by David Winters, David A. Prior and Peter Yuval in 1986. After Winters was overruled on a casting decision for Thrashin' - he wanted Johnny Depp and they wanted Josh Brolin - Winters made the professional decision to control all aspects of future projects.

All of this would lead to them producing seventeen movies and distributing forty one more between 1988 and 1994. They often used the same cast and crew in many of the films, such as David Prior and his brother Red, as well as William Zipp as actor, writer, director, producer, and stunt man. They weren't above getting big stars, either. That is, if you consider Cameron Mitchell a big star, which I completely do.

Some of their films include Island of Blood, Miami Golem, Deadly Prey, Zombie Death House, Phoenix the Warrior, Elves, Future Force, Future Zone, Night Trap, and, of course, Space Mutiny. Truly, their work is the bottom of a very tasty barrel.

Today, however, we're here to discuss Firehead.

At some point in 1988, a telekinetic Soviet agent known only as Firehead (Brett Porter, Arena) defects to the United States after he refuses to use his abilities against a crowd of protesters. Yet just two years later, he's blowing up American factories, which brings a chemist (Chris Lemmon, who was on Thunder In Paradise) and an assassin (Gretchen Becker, Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence) together to track him down. In the midst of all this, Christopher Plummer shows up as a military man out to use Firehead to take over the world. And Martin Landau? Oh, he should know better. He really should.
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1/10
Terrible
sixhoos27 February 2020
Soooo boring. Unoriginal and poorly acted. Script is horrible. The RiffTrax version is funny and that's this movie's only saving grace. So sad to see the immortal Jack Lemon's son debase himself with this garbage.
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2/10
The type of action movie your cokehead cousin would make.
ksdilauri22 March 2019
As far as the production itself: 2 stars, only for the presence of the classy Plummer (at least you can watch him and reflect on all the good movies he's been in) and ever-intense Landau (whose acting job here does him no favors.) Elsewise, this truly is an awful picture, thus made for Rifftrax. The mocking 'Trax team--I suspect when they were young, they made life miserable for a lot of unpopular kids who will no doubt come back as zombies to execute vengeance---have plenty to ridicule in this amateur spy shoot-em-up. Some of the riffs aren't their best level, but there are still plenty that hit the mark. The grade-school acting, plot, and dialogue give them a lot to work with. An amusing watch.
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1/10
Plays like a sequel or something...
Aaron137525 April 2020
This movie is one of those films where you are watching and you feel as if you missed something. This movie just feels off, especially at the start where it just seems like Ivan, the one known as Firehead has been featured in another film. Unfortunately, he has not been, but I guess you could say that is a good thing too as this film was just a very weak action film made on a shoestring budget. How that got Plummer and Landau is beyond me, but I am guessing their salaries made up most of the budget because the shootouts are boring and there is not all that much destruction going on within the film.

The story as I said plays like a sequel as we see Ivan walk away from his Russian duties showing off his eye laser powers. He apparently does telekinesis, but the synopsis here incorrectly refers to him as a Russian cyborg. Well, in USA he begins blowing up stuff and soon Chris Lemon is whining and trying to find him while being paired with a lady we later learn is a top assassin, yet she displays absolutely no skill whatsoever. They all must go against this secret society of rectangle people who are planning to stoke the fires of war, but do not worry, there was not enough in the budget to depict that.

The acting is about what you would expect as Chris Lemon overacts in every scene while the guy playing Ivan mimics a Russian accent with a lot of gusto and little girl shrieks all her lines loudly and obnoxiously. Meanwhile, Plummer takes his role serious while Landau is most likely regretting being in the movie. The action is boring, Ivan's powers are not used much at all making them seem almost pointless to what is going on and no nudity to speak of. All this adds up to a very bland action film.

So, this is a pretty bad film. Watched a film called Samurai Cop and it was bad too, but it was an awesomely bad film, while this one is just a dull bad which is way worse! That film still managed to entertain, while this one made me wonder when it was going to be over! Once again, I am not sure why they had the Russian dude have powers if they were going to be used the minimal number of times and he does nothing in the final scenes, and the film is titled after him, not Lemon's character!
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8/10
An enjoyable sci-/fi action thriller
Woodyanders21 April 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Russian cyborg Ivan Tibor (well played by brawny hunk Brett Porter) defects from the Soviet Union and comes to America. Ivan starts blowing up various places in a major city. Nice guy chemist Warren Hart (a lively and engaging performance by Chris Lemmon) and shrewd beautiful blonde agent Melia Buchanan (sassy Gretchen Becker) are assigned by Colonel Garland Vaughn (the always excellent Christopher Plummer) to stop Ivan. But is Ivan really bad? And is there a more sinister conspiracy afoot? Director/co-writer Peter Yuval relates the twisty and engrossing plot at a steady pace and stages the action scenes with a reasonable amount of skill. Moreover, Lemmon and Becker make for appealing and attractive leads; their sparky chemistry keeps the picture entertaining throughout (Becker also sings the cool ending credits theme song). Martin Landau contributes a neat cameo as the helpful Admiral Pendleton. Solid supporting turns by George Elliott as smarmy, sniveling secretary of defense Fallbright, Edmund Kearney as the huffy president, Douglas Simms as cocky jerk agent Taggart, and Lauren Levy as Warren's cute, spunky daughter Smith. Paul Maibaum's sharp cinematography and Vladimir Horunzhy's rousing score are both up to speed. A nifty little B flick.
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9/10
Super Soldier
carlosdxdx25 January 2021
A super soldier with telekinetic abilities that at the beginning looks sort of silly. However, great acting by Christopher Plummer and Chris Lemmon and other support cast makes this a fun filled light-hearted comedy action flic. Make sure you don't take this movie too seriously else as it is not particularly realistic or believable, but it is definitely entertaining. Also, get the original version and not the 'mocking Trax' version. Great chemistry between telekinetic soldier and the character of Chris Lemmon while Gretchen Becker is also not only good as eye candy but acts well.
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"Well I've Seen Enough Of This Twaddle!"...
azathothpwiggins23 May 2021
In FIREHEAD, we are whisked away to Estonia, looking more like Pittsburg, where soldiers are in pursuit of a cyborg named Ivan (Brett Porter) who shoots blue lasers out of his eyeballs. Ivan winds up in the US, where he goes berserk and blows up factories.

Meanwhile, a man named Hart (Chris Lemmon) and a woman named Meila (Gretchen Becker) are on Ivan's trail.

Simultaneously, we discover that the head of a secret organization, named Vaughn (Christopher Plummer) has been profiting from Ivan's destructive behavior, but now wants him terminated.

Not-too surprisingly, Hart teams up with Ivan for the obligatory human / android bromance. Gunfire and explosions soon follow.

This is one wretchedly boring movie! Everything about it is cheap, dull, and absurd! Now, ordinarily, this might be a good thing. In other hands, say, David A. Prior's, this could have been an idiot masterpiece! Instead, it's a colonoscopy for the brain, minus anesthetic!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The way the characters pose like they're getting their pictures taken, whenever they stop to fire their weapons!...
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Okay cold war thriller
lor_11 June 2023
My review was written in January 1991 after watching the movie on Pyramid video cassette.

"Firehead" is an unusual cold war thriller with sci-fi overtones. Mobile, Alabama-lensed indie opened recently in southern territories with springtime video release to come.

Chris Lemmon, again mirroring dad Jack's mannerisms and delivery, is cast as a government science whiz whose latest experiment is out of control. He has converted Soviet defector Brett Porter into a sort of a superman with telekinetic powers who shoots deadly laser beams from his eyes (hence his nickname, "Firehead"). Porter is busily destroying American factories recently awarded defense contracts.

Lemmon is assigned by his slimy bureaucrat boss (Christopher Plummer) to stop the freak, and beautiful blonde Gretchen Becker is made his teammate. Not surprisingly, Porter teams up with Lemmon to go after the real bad guys.

Screenplay by Jeff Mandel and helmer Peter Yual does a good job of maintaining interest while convincingly extrapolating the reaction of hardliners to the current spirit of glasnost. A subplot involving biological warfare plans is timely but not pursued in depth.

A prolog set in Estonia but filmed in Mobile is unconvincing, but pic otherwise is technically up to par. Becker is a personable leading lady and even gets to sing the rather silly title song over the end credits.

As a retired admiral who helps Lemmon, Martin Landau proves that recent upscale stints with Francis Coppola and Woody Allendo not preclude a sincere B-movie performance.
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