8mm Forum: "RUCKUS" (super 8 optical sound) edited

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 18, 2007, 12:22 PM:

OSI, ever the savior of lost films, has found another gem that's not all that bad, entitled ...

RUCKUS!

This film stars Dirk Benedict ("Starbuck" from the original Battlestar Galactica), Linda Blair, (the little girl in the Exorcist), Ben johnson and Richard Farnsworth. The film is as follows:

A vietnam vet (Dirk), dirty and forlorn, ih his old fatigue jacket, walks into a small hick town, looking for a bite to eat. He orders a burger, (he insists on it being raw) and sits down to eat, only to be taunted by the local hicks who pelt him with beer cans. He remains speechless.

The local powerbroker (played by Ben Johnson) sees the homeless vets jacket, recognizing it as the same insignia of his lost sons unit. He asks the vet if he knew his son, Jack. The vet doesn't answer him. The power broker (we'll refer to him as Ben from now on), then gets some of the bigoted hicks to
force the vet to talk. They corner the vet on a bridge. The vet refuses to talk and since they think he stinks, they want to give him a forced bath. The vet goes ape-shit and beats them up. the vet then runs off into the brush. the hicks then call on the sheriff, (played by Richard Farnsworth, an old favorite of mine). The sheriff finds out the background details about the vet. He broke out of an insane asylum. he was also caught twice by the Viet Cong and escaped twice as well, living in the jungle for 8 months, not talking to anyone, which is why he doesn't like talking. The sheriff sends a man in to get the vet out of the brush and he is captured but not killed. With this distraction, the vet is able to steal the sheriff's car. The vet then drives out to Ben's house, where his daughter in law (played by Linda Blair) lives with her son. The young lady takes pity on him and feeds him. She asks him why he's being a problem. he says that they wanted to arrest him and put him in a cage. He can't be in a cage. The hicks realize where the vet is and try to surround the house. The vet gets out and gets away on a motorcycle into the forested area.

The rednecks won't take no for an answer, and they hunt him down. The Vet sabotages thier trucks and such and gets away. He also fakes his own death, which doesn't work for too long.

He heads back to the young ladies house. They go off-roading together (kind of a stupid scene, by the way), but they are seen crossing a river, by ferry. The chase is on, once again!

The sheriff, meanwhile, wants to just leave the vet alone. He's heading for election to sheriff again and he doesn't want to make trouble. The young officer, however, won't settle for that. You see, he's been wanting to "nail" that pretty widow(and he's been waiting for the husband to be pronounced dead), and he's darn well not going to put up with some drifter coming to town and sweeping her off her feet.

The young lady finds out that her husband has finally been officially labeled as missing in action. There is a fair in town and so she decides to go to it( to deal with her grief), which is a mistake, because the drifter, (who has cleaned himself up before now) decides to go into town with her and is seen. The bigoted officer captures him.

They take him to a grain silo and put him in a cage. The police officer tells them, "Now boys, I never laid a hand on him, and I was never here." and he lets them do whatever they want to the vet. The vet, meanwhile, has a flashback, as he was captured by the Viet Cong and tortured in a cage. and it messed him up, so he reverts to his former speechless state. When the hicks finally let him out, (and only to humiliate him further by forcing him to fight), the vet goes berzerk and jumps out a glass window, ending up in a river down below. (good stunt, by the way.)

The vet finds a boat and heads off, the rednecks in hot pursuit. The vet makes it to an Island, and there comes up with his own brand of justice. The rednecks are sent wimpering off the Island (in they're underwear). The sheriff, along with the the local power broker, decide, why not give the vet that useless Island anyhow?

The vet is happy with his Island.

The End.

It becomes painfully obvious that either Sylvester Stallone or his screenwriter borrowed liberally from RUCKUS. First Blood is a much more violent movie, (as well as having a much higher budget), in RUCKUS, the only physical injury is a man being shot in the leg with a homemade arrow by the vet. Sure, there are lots of explosions and such, but it is pretty tame as these kind of films go.

There are some plot problems. The vet causes all this mayhem, (although, quite honestly, he is pushed into it), and yet they just leave him on his Island, but then, this film isn't meant to be any stunning statement on vets rights or the Vietnam war and besides, the story is the same with Stallone in First Blood. He doesn't have to answer for almost destroying a whole town. First Blood has the noteriety of pushing heavy violence even further in the cinema. RUCKUS has a more soft feel to it. When the vet is being chased, there is what I would refer to as "standard redneck chase music", and when there is violence, it feels more like "Dukes of Hazzard" style violence. The rednecks are cartoon in nature, with more bullets than brains and this film definitely does have much more of a humorous slant to it. I personally think that this film, in some ways, is far more realistic than first blood. Having lived among rednecks my whole life, believe me, the portrayal of them isn't too far off the mark.

One of the big plus's in my mind is Linda Blair, who is playing a sane, decent little town girl, which is rare for her career. Usually, you only see her in possessed roles and such.
It was fun to see Dirk Benedict in a role other than A-team or Starbuck, and he did take it seriously. The rest of the cast does it's job okay. The flashback he has while in the cage is well done too.

It's not that they didn't try to make a good statement about Vietnam, it's just that they didn't quite have the budget or the writing to make it fly that high. It does hold the distinction of being one of the first statements about the subject.

This is an optical sound print, so the sound is mono, but certainly adequete, without too much "surface scratch", which can be common with optical sound prints. The color on this print has faded a little. All the colors are there, but it has an overall yellowish/brown tint to it, thereby verifying that it is kodak SP.

The sharpness is pin sharp, very good! Contrast is excellent.
The film fits very snugly on 3X600ft reels, (very full) and so the film runs approximately 1 hour 40 minutes.

This was released by "An International Vision Production", and I like how it has the original studio logo stuff, as, when a lot of these older films are re-released by another company, you lose those titles a lot of the time.

This is a fun film to check out, if you get a chance to find it. Compare this to First Blood. RUCKUS was made a good two or three years before First Blood and check out the similarities. This was a fun film to watch and I'll enjoy it many times over.

[ June 22, 2009, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: Osi Osgood ]

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