1st watched 10/10/2002 - 2 out of 10(Dir-Lance Lindsay): Very bad stuntmen take on the drug-lords movie. The only reason I didn't give this movie a `1' is because it's so bad at times that it's funny and a good candidate for `Mystery Science Theatre 3000.' The plot is ridiculous, a group of good-ole-boys & girls stunt people run into trouble when they're just trying to get away for the weekend and then decide to take on the whole gang by themselves and become a bunch of individual `Rambo's.' Yes, even the girls. There is a bunch of repetitive dialogue that after awhile gets you laughing. The funniest bit came when they used one of the one-liners(You got a light. expressed as a way to get the bad guys attention but used once right before ousting one of them, this time intended for comedy) but most of them are just taken too seriously like the rest of this movie. They constantly are making comments like, `they sure got us now' only to begin wiping the enemy out one by one. This happens at least 3 or 4 times. Martin Landau is wasted and given about one continuos repetitive line(Not again, don't let them go alive!!) expanded a couple different ways. I guess what's good about this movie is that it's a wonderful example of how not to go about making a movie. The moral of this story is that if you're a stuntman stay one and don't try to make movies.
9 Reviews
AWESOME movie.
dgoossens27 May 2004
if you are a fan of B movies, which takes away the fact that you can throw a lot of money at any idea and make a huge movie, you will LOVE this movie, because it is GREAT!
as a fan of B movies, i enjoyed every minute of this movie. there are a lot of things that you can say about B movies and what will make a good one. this movie explores several aspects what makes a great B movie. as you watch it, you get the idea that the Director knew what he should do to make this movie progress in a good steady, entertaining direction.
good action and good script. too bad there is not a sequel.
good job John!
as a fan of B movies, i enjoyed every minute of this movie. there are a lot of things that you can say about B movies and what will make a good one. this movie explores several aspects what makes a great B movie. as you watch it, you get the idea that the Director knew what he should do to make this movie progress in a good steady, entertaining direction.
good action and good script. too bad there is not a sequel.
good job John!
Film making at it's best!
tcporritt29 September 2002
Despite awarding this film a score of 1 (on account of it being, possibly the worst film in the world)I have actually watched the damn thing about six times! I bought "real Bullets" for about 20p in a charity shop because my friends and I take great pleasure from watching films like this when we come home from the pub. The plot is ridiculous and the acting is appalling which makes for a great laugh with some mates. Other titles in this genre (crap films) include "scorpion thunderbolt", "mutant on the bounty" and "fat guy goes nutzoid", need I say more!!
Stuntmen and women couldn't pull off this stunt.
Johnboy122128 January 2018
Let's face facts here. There's a world of difference between pulling off stunts in a movie and producing, writing, directing and acting in one, and this is proof of that. Very few stuntmen ever turned in good acting roles (Ben Johnson. Hal Needham, Jock Mahoney and Richard Farnsworth being a few exceptions to the rule), and some good stuntmen managed to make some watchable movies, but this one manages to rate at the bottom of the list. Even many of the stunts aren't very good. There's no story, no good dialog, no good directing, editing or acting. In short, this film was ill-conceived from the start, and proves that even action films can be a waste of time to sit through.
Reasonably entertaining
Leofwine_draca16 May 2022
A middling low budget action thriller which involves a group of stunt actors and actresses tangling with a drug gang who kidnap a couple of their number, spurring a rescue attempt. Cheesy stuff indeed, with some RAMBO-style bow-and-arrow action. Totally implausible, but reasonably entertaining.
The world's best stuntmen vs. drug dealers movie
udar5513 May 2022
Following his debut Star Crystal (1986), writer-director Lance Lindsay quickly moved to Real Bullets but it seems to have slogged through post-production (evidenced by a odd voice over) and distribution (the date in the end credits is 1987, but Vidmark didn't put out the VHS until 1990). The So Calif Stunt Team led by John Gazarian (who co-wrote with Lindsay) heads to Vasquez Rocks for a fun weekend, but end up running running afoul of a major drug dealing operation (owned by Martin Landau, whose only scenes are him getting phone calls at home). Landau got roped into this as the female lead is his daughter, Darlene Landau. The end is basically a 20 minutes shootout with the stunt folks taking on 60+ drug stooges. Oddly, for a team of real stunt performers, the actual physical stunts aren't as over-the-top as you'd expect. Gazarian (a Glendale dentist in real life) must have been involved with Darlene Landau as they later re-teamed with Driven to Kill (1991), an early PM Entertainment release. As for Lindsay, he left the film business and now makes brass garden ornaments.
If you can manage to brush aside (or embrace) all the technical issues, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had with Real Bullets.
tarbosh2200017 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
John Davidian (Gazarian) is the founder and main instructor at the Southern California Stunt School. This year's class is a fun-lovin' group of guys and gals who just want to learn the ways of stunt and then party down in their off time. Unfortunately for them, they cross paths with a drug gang based out of the Vasquez Rocks area in Agua Dulce, California. At first the goons think the stunt team won't be a formidable fighting force, but they turn out to be wrong. Head gangster Sallini (Martin Landau) gets progressively less and less happy as the stuntpeople win more and more of their skirmishes. Will our stunt players get out alive, now that they're playing with...REAL BULLETS?
From the makers of Driven to Kill (1991), Real Bullets is something of a cross between Death Cheaters (1976) and Lone Hero (2002), with a bit of The Contra Conspiracy (1990) and Invasion Force (1990) thrown in for good measure. It was clearly a labor of love for everyone involved, because even though the film was done on a very low budget with mostly non-actors or people just starting out in their career, they managed to turn in a film with an upbeat tone that has a lot of heart.
With that in mind, it's easy to overlook the many technical flaws, such as bad lighting and poor sound quality and things like that. They become unimportant when we're introduced to "The Old Miner" character (that's what everyone calls him) or when John Gazarian breaks out his bow and arrow (which is an odd signature weapon to have in a movie called Real Bullets, but, then again, the whole structure of the film is pretty odd). Also, it's narrated for some reason.
Everyone in the cast has the same character name as their real name, with the exceptions of Martin Landau as Sallini and John Gazarian as John Davidian. Apparently it was important for him to be playing a different Armenian stuntman. Everyone else can be themselves, though. Just another oddity that reinforces the fact that Real Bullets is well worth watching.
Martin Landau's Sallini is a guy who pretty much yells lines like "No More Mistakes!" and other cliches, mostly over the telephone. At one point he wears a blindingly-white suit that can only be described as being of the Ice Cream variety. It's so "Wonderful" that it's amazing that Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, and Edward James Olmos didn't come looking for it. Meanwhile, Martin Landau's daughter Darlene is running around here somewhere. She has only appeared in two movies to date - Driven to Kill and Real Bullets. It all comes back around.
A highlight occurs when a classic barfight breaks out at a place called Alice's Topless Joint. On their sign, it reads "Truckers Welcome, Suckers Keep Out". (Well, there might have been some inappropriately-placed apostrophes in the words "Trucker's" and "Sucker's", but who's counting? It all adds to the rough-hewn charm of the movie). It's also quite a strange phenomenon that it seems like there are way more members of the stunt school towards the end of the film than there were at the beginning. Or it could have been an optical illusion in the desert. Who knows?
Real Bullets obviously impressed the higher-ups at Vidmark back in the day, enough for them to give it a VHS release. But perhaps they didn't have total faith in the film, because these days it's one of the rarest Vidmark titles. Maybe they made it in limited quantities. All that aside, if you can manage to brush aside (or embrace) all the technical issues, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had with Real Bullets.
From the makers of Driven to Kill (1991), Real Bullets is something of a cross between Death Cheaters (1976) and Lone Hero (2002), with a bit of The Contra Conspiracy (1990) and Invasion Force (1990) thrown in for good measure. It was clearly a labor of love for everyone involved, because even though the film was done on a very low budget with mostly non-actors or people just starting out in their career, they managed to turn in a film with an upbeat tone that has a lot of heart.
With that in mind, it's easy to overlook the many technical flaws, such as bad lighting and poor sound quality and things like that. They become unimportant when we're introduced to "The Old Miner" character (that's what everyone calls him) or when John Gazarian breaks out his bow and arrow (which is an odd signature weapon to have in a movie called Real Bullets, but, then again, the whole structure of the film is pretty odd). Also, it's narrated for some reason.
Everyone in the cast has the same character name as their real name, with the exceptions of Martin Landau as Sallini and John Gazarian as John Davidian. Apparently it was important for him to be playing a different Armenian stuntman. Everyone else can be themselves, though. Just another oddity that reinforces the fact that Real Bullets is well worth watching.
Martin Landau's Sallini is a guy who pretty much yells lines like "No More Mistakes!" and other cliches, mostly over the telephone. At one point he wears a blindingly-white suit that can only be described as being of the Ice Cream variety. It's so "Wonderful" that it's amazing that Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, and Edward James Olmos didn't come looking for it. Meanwhile, Martin Landau's daughter Darlene is running around here somewhere. She has only appeared in two movies to date - Driven to Kill and Real Bullets. It all comes back around.
A highlight occurs when a classic barfight breaks out at a place called Alice's Topless Joint. On their sign, it reads "Truckers Welcome, Suckers Keep Out". (Well, there might have been some inappropriately-placed apostrophes in the words "Trucker's" and "Sucker's", but who's counting? It all adds to the rough-hewn charm of the movie). It's also quite a strange phenomenon that it seems like there are way more members of the stunt school towards the end of the film than there were at the beginning. Or it could have been an optical illusion in the desert. Who knows?
Real Bullets obviously impressed the higher-ups at Vidmark back in the day, enough for them to give it a VHS release. But perhaps they didn't have total faith in the film, because these days it's one of the rarest Vidmark titles. Maybe they made it in limited quantities. All that aside, if you can manage to brush aside (or embrace) all the technical issues, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had with Real Bullets.
Real bad
lor_10 May 2023
My review was written in April 1990 after watching the movie on Vidmark video cassette.
Good intentions aren't enough in "Real Bullets", an amateurish saga of the life of stunt persons. Even a guest shot by Martin Landau can't save this one.
Filmmaker John Gazarian also toplines as a teacher of aspiring stunt artists who becomes an adversary to evil drug smugglers led by Wolfgang Linkman. His script with helmer Lance ("Star Crystal") Lindsay simplifies matters by using the real first names for the principal cast members.
Given the subject matter, stunts here are surprisingly unspectacular. Acting is poor. Leading lady is Darlene Landau, no relation to Oscar nominee Martin Landau who phones in his role as a mafioso.
Good intentions aren't enough in "Real Bullets", an amateurish saga of the life of stunt persons. Even a guest shot by Martin Landau can't save this one.
Filmmaker John Gazarian also toplines as a teacher of aspiring stunt artists who becomes an adversary to evil drug smugglers led by Wolfgang Linkman. His script with helmer Lance ("Star Crystal") Lindsay simplifies matters by using the real first names for the principal cast members.
Given the subject matter, stunts here are surprisingly unspectacular. Acting is poor. Leading lady is Darlene Landau, no relation to Oscar nominee Martin Landau who phones in his role as a mafioso.
Real Bullets Rocks!!
RichardPole28 April 2021
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