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analogscum · 6 years

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ENEMY TERRITORY (1987, d. Peter Manoogian)

I don’t often like to bring up social or political issues on this site. For me, and I assume for many of you, these movies that I write about are a respite. When I want to escape the reality of what modern life in this country has become, then I want to watch something that looks and feels as far away from that reality as possible. And furthermore, I don’t want to shove my own social and political beliefs down anyone’s throat. I don’t know what you believe, and I don’t want to alienate a reader on a site that’s about exploitation cinema based on something that is outside of that sphere. Or even worse, you already agree with me, and I’m preaching to the converted, which is a complete waste of both my time and yours. Anyway, this is all a preamble to say that I find it impossible to talk about today’s movie, 1987’s Enemy Territory, without talking about social and political issues. Because, while this movie is undeniably entertaining, it’s also undeniably racist as hell.

These types of movies were all over the place in the 80s, the Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York type of urban jungle, ragtag group of heroes have to survive the night with a bunch of psychopathic baddies hunting them down. And yes, it is no secret that New York City in the 80s was a grimy, crime-ridden hellhole. So perhaps it is not that shocking that Enemy Territory does not present, shall we say, the most subtle or diverse view of black life in America. But this goes far beyond being a product of its time and environment: Enemy Territory represents a conservative white male’s nightmare vision of the black experience. Nearly every black character in this movie is either a gleeful villain or a morose victim. There are scenes in this movie where I couldn’t help but hear our internet troll President droning on about how crime-ridden and poverty-stricken and joyless he and his ilk think modern black life is in my head while it was playing. I’d like to think we’d have gotten better with understanding race relations in the 31 years since this movie was released, but all signs point to nope.

Enemy Territory opens with one of those urban blight montages, just scenes of infrastructure decay and abject poverty, while a Grandmaster Flash knockoff blares on the soundtrack. Everything is covered in graffiti. In fact, we see the title itself being spray painted on a wall, before it pops out onto the screen. Movie magic! We then meet our protagonist, Barry. Barry is an insurance salesman, and it seems that things aren’t going so well for him. He’s arguing with his ex-wife over the phone about money problems. Then he opens his desk drawer, and wouldn’t you know it, but there’s a giant bottle of Jack Daniels inside. Say it ain’t so, Barry! For some reason, Barry’s boss is like, ok Barry, you’re a total drunk fuckup, but I like you, so go get a signature from this old lady named Elva who just took out a $100,000 life insurance policy, and collect the premium. By the way, this old lady happens to live…in the ghe-ttooooooooooo.

Meanwhile, we meet a phone company repairman named Will, who is played by Ray Parker Jr. Yes, THAT Ray Parker Jr. I’m going to do my best to refrain from Ghostbusters puns here, but no promises. As it turns out, Will is also headed over…to the ghe-ttoooooooooo, because he has a lady friend there that he wants to pay a visit to. Makes sense, because I heard he likes the girls! Dammit!

So Barry arrives…in the ghe-ttoooooooooo, and immediately these kids are like, hey you white cracker honkey ass piece of shit motherfucker, give us two dollars to watch your car. And since Barry is so white he makes Dave Chappelle’s uptight white guy character look like Rudy Ray Moore, he’s like well gee golly, here’s your money, I don’t want any malarkey! And he walks away, at which point the kids start robbing his car. He’s not even out of earshot. Ugh, whatever, movie. Inside the building, Barry taps a kid on the shoulder and asks where Elva’s apartment is. The kid responds very reasonably, and is happy to help him find…nah, I’m joking, the kid is like what the fuck you say to me you white devil cracker ass jive bitch motherfuck shit cracker ass punk, and pulls a switchblade on him. UGGGGGGH, whatever, movie. Luckily, the building’s ancient security guard shoos him away, and helps Barry find Elva’s apartment. Every single line that this security guard has is about how bad the building is, how crime and gang-ridden it is, how they’re probably going to die because they’re roaming the building at this hour, etc. When Barry goes and gets the signature and the premium from Elva, every single line that SHE has is about how bad the building is, how crime and gang-ridden it is, how he’s probably going to die because he’s roaming the building at this hour, etc. Tomi Lahren probably thinks that this movie is a documentary.

Barry and the security guard head back to the elevators, but oh no, there are a bunch of gangsters waiting for them! Turns out that the kid that Barry tapped on the shoulder was a junior member of The Vampires, and now he must pay, with his blooooood!

OK, time out. This is how you know a white conservative wrote this screenplay: there has never been a street gang like this in reality ever. The Vampires are corny as hell. They refer to white people as “ghosts” and black people who help white people as “blood traitors,” have silly nicknames like Psycho, and do a little salute to one another where they make fangs with their index and middle finger, and hiss. Oh, and their leader calls himself The Count, and the most evil thing he does for the entire movie is break Elva’s glasses. Speaking of Dave Chappelle, the Player Haters Ball would have a field day with these clowns.

However, despite being totally unrealistic and silly, Tony Todd, who plays The Count and went on to play Candyman, is easily the best part of this movie. He takes all of this nonsense about how The Vampires own the night and the building is their castle and plays it with the verve and seriousness of Shakespeare. He chews the scenery, yes, but his presence is magnetic. You can’t take your eyes off of him whenever he’s on screen. The movie gave him a bunch of garbage to sell, and he sells the HELL outta that garbage.

So there’s a scuffle, and both switchblade kid and the security guard end up getting shot and killed. Ray Parker Jr., having heard something strange in the neighborhood (shit, sorry!) runs out of his lady friend’s apartment and helps Barry get to safety. The movie really kicks into gear here, and I’ve gotta say, becomes rather exciting. They keep the pace going, keep the characters on their toes, and I was surprised to find that I started to become really invested in these characters. I know I’ve been giving him a hard time, but Ray Parker Jr. really isn’t that bad of an actor, you could at least say that he skates by on charisma. But anyhow, these two eventually meet up with Elva’s granddaughter, Toni, played by Stacey Dash (who must’ve felt right at home with all this right wing dog whistling). They decide that the safest place in the building is Mr. Parker’s apartment, as he’s the only person that The Vampires are scared of.

We finally get to Mr. Parker’s apartment, but not before Barry has to stab a Vampire to death, which reduces him to a blubbering mess. Mr. Parker’s door looks like a maximum security jail cell door, and there’s a slot through which he sticks out a gun. Eventually he lets them in, and holy shit, his entire apartment is covered in reinforced steel, wired with booby traps, and Mr. Parker himself turns out to be a kooky crazy Vietnam vet in a fancy, weaponized wheelchair (!!!) played by none other than Jan-Michael Vincent. He goes on and on about how he left one war and found himself in another and says some pretty racist stuff about his fellow tenants and is like, you know why I’ve got this pet bird? So that if there’s a gas leak, I’ll know about it because he died first! And then he’s like, you know why I got this pet cat? So that it can eat my food first, and test it for poison!

At this point, I knew that this character wasn’t going to be in the movie much longer. One, because when you introduce a character this larger than life this late in the narrative, then it’s too good to be true. Two, because at the time, Jan-Michael Vincent was well into his torrid love affair with drugs and alcohol. Despite the fact that Mr. Parker is in a wheelchair, his legs are constantly twitching. You can’t help but speculate that they gave the character a wheelchair because JMV was too drunk to stand up, and considering the sorry state of his health today, that wheelchair becomes almost a harbinger of things to come. Anyway, The Vampires show up and almost immediately kill Mr. Parker. But not before he can give his machine gun to Elva. Chekhov’s machine gun!

Barry, Toni, and Ray Parker Jr. somehow manage to escape, and they find a little boy who claims to know a secret way out of the building that not even The Vampires know about. On the way, they encounter the aforementioned Psycho, who has a giant geri curl that made me chuckle, and they throw him down an open elevator shaft, which also made me chuckle. So they get down to the basement, gingerly stepping over Psycho’s corpse, and make their way to the secret exit. But guess what? PSYCHO ISN’T DEAD! At this point, I got very excited, because, holy shit, what if The Vampires…ARE ACTUAL VAMPIRES?!?! If the movie suddenly went in THAT direction, that would’ve been so awesome. But, alas, they just kill Psycho again, this time for good. RIP, Psycho.

Eventually the kid leads them to the secret exit, but its a really tight squeeze, so Toni decides to run to the nearby NYPD building for help. Of course, she is almost immediately raped and murdered by an entirely DIFFERENT gang as soon as she leaves the building, because the movie hadn’t shoved its racism in your face in awhile. Without giving too much away, eventually Barry and Ray Parker Jr. also get out, The Count has an amazing, borderline operatic (seriously!) death scene, the rest of The Vampires are shot at by Elva and her new machine gun (yaaaaay!) and in the ultimate example of this being a right wing fantasy, the NYPD, yes, the NYPD, arrives right on time to save the day. Hoooooo boy.

So what else is there to say about Enemy Territory? Yes, it is entertaining. It is a well-constructed action movie with some surprisingly good performances to back it up. I haven’t even discussed the cinematography, which is easily the film’s best technical asset, seeing as it was done by the legendary Ernest Dickerson, who shot all of Spike Lee’s best movies. I can’t imagine it was easy for Ernest to look Spike in the eye after participating in a movie like this. And here’s the thing: Enemy Territory isn’t just racist now, it was considered racist for the time, if you can imagine that. After it was released, on May 22, 1987 (the day I was born!), the film played in New York City for a week before it was pulled from theaters due to overwhelming outrage and protests from black activists and civil rights groups. Though it would make its money back on VHS, the film has never made it to DVD, and there seem to be no current plans to change that. Which is fine by me. Enemy Territory is a shiny piece of entertainment that rots from the inside; what purports to be a gritty look at the big bad city is really nothing more than a collection of racist dog whistles directed at a section of the white population whose view of other races is myopic and bigoted. There are plenty of great 80s action movies that won’t make you queasily think of Bernie Goetz, or the Central Park Five, or Amadou Diallo. After all, real life is bad enough, wouldn’t you rather escape?

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