KILLING MACHINE is a low budget thriller made as a Spanish/Mexican co-production. It's about an everyday trucker who runs foul of the usual mafia types and suffers the murder of his wife in a burning truck as a result. What follows is a mix of cameos from aged actors (Richard Jaeckel, Aldo Sambrell, Willie Aames) alongside local talent (Frank Brana and Hugo Stiglitz), some gritty action sequences, political subtext, and the usual dubbed performances. The hero of this one is Jorge Rivero, once a muscular beefcake star of the 1970s, now decidedly middle-aged.
I actually found KILLING MACHINE better than expect given the resources available. The opening part is slow but keeps you watching, while the action hits hard throughout and there's little sentiment or wishy-washy stuff. Lee Van Cleef plays a lawyer but brings a suitable air of menace to his part. The main problem with it is the lack of availability of a decent print; as it stands it's fuzzy throughout and would benefit from improvement. It's hardly the kind of film you'd want to go to the effort of watching again, but it does the job well enough for a one-off viewing.
I actually found KILLING MACHINE better than expect given the resources available. The opening part is slow but keeps you watching, while the action hits hard throughout and there's little sentiment or wishy-washy stuff. Lee Van Cleef plays a lawyer but brings a suitable air of menace to his part. The main problem with it is the lack of availability of a decent print; as it stands it's fuzzy throughout and would benefit from improvement. It's hardly the kind of film you'd want to go to the effort of watching again, but it does the job well enough for a one-off viewing.