All Rise...

Judge David Johnson met Old Man River of Death. He was a dick.

The Charge

It takes some real effort to make something called "River of Death" this boring.

The Case

Second-tier '80s action icon Michael Dudikoff (Avenging Force) takes to the Rio del Morte, a terrifying river that snakes through all manner of deadly threat. And as capable a badass as Dudikoff has proved himself to be over the span of his illustrious career, sadly, he failed to overcome the greatest scourge: brutal tedium.

It doesn't start out like that, however. The opening proves to be quite promising in a flashback sequence, when we see a deranged Nazi scientist (Robert Vaughn, Superman III) escape the Allied surge and disappear into the Amazon. Fast-forward and a dangerous disease breaks out in the area, which is more than likely connected to whatever crimes-against-humanity the Nazi bio-chemistry experiments have yielded.

To determine the cause of the illness a group of do-gooders hire well-known adventure guide John Hamilton (Dudikoff), who takes this group through the teeth of the jungle. Lethal encounters await however: pirates, Nazis, head-hunters and, of course, ill-tempered cannibals. Their ultimate destination? A mythical long-lost Incan city, which holds the promise of untold fortune and weather-beaten swastikas.

Again, that all sounds pretty great, right? Exciting riverboat chases! Hand-to-hand combat with bloodthirsty pirates! Daring escapes from marauding cannibals!

Technically, that stuff happens, but it's all shot with such a huge lack of energy you have to wonder if half the crew was suffering from dysentery. River of Death crawls along at a glacial pace, buttressing the aforementioned action scenes, with piles of Amazonian foliage and dense plot exposition.

And when the mayhem does drop, it's unappetizing. Any stuff that transpires on the boat is muted and the cannibal scenes—as ridiculous and archaic as the concept will be to modern-day movie viewers—are notable only for the gigantic amount of poor extras who have to run around in 100 degree dew-point humidity, half-naked and caked in full-body pastel make-up. Essentially, all the sequences involving the killer natives add up to our heroes running like crazy while the occasional spear whistles by them.

Worse, the brains behind the film can't even get the adventure right. I mean, come on, a psycho Nazi doctor bunkered in an ancient Incan city doing God knows what? The eventual reveal at the end of the River of Death devolves into another yakfest, with Vaughn, one of the great scenery-chewers in the history of cinema, reduced to a glorified cameo. Too add insult to injury, The Dude is deprived of uncorking all those moves he worked so hard to perfect in American Ninja.

Kino Lorber's River of Death (Blu-ray) is a technical winner, with a terrific looking 1.85:1/1080p HD picture and a solid DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track. We only get one extra, but it's a good one—an audio commentary from director Steve Carver and star Michael Dudikoff.

The Verdict

I had high hopes for a B-movie action exploitation spectacle, but all I got on this River was motion sickness.

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