86 min
3.7
1992
USA
A kickboxing cop abandons the violent life after he accidentally kills his opponent during a match. After quitting, he heads for the Arizona desert to live alone and occasionally work tracking drug runners for the area sheriff. One particularly wily Mexican drug lord, Santos, has been a real thorn in tracker Joe Highhawk's side, so when he encounters the beautiful Claudia and her simpleton brother Anthony running for their lives because she, an accountant, embezzled $20 million from Santos, he decides to help them. This actioner follows what happens next. Along the way, they encounter all sorts of danger, and double cross until the exciting final standoff between the kickboxer and the villain.
Overview
Reviews
Charles Tatum wrote:As the home video boom of the 1980's began to wind down, many smaller studios were still churning out straight-to-video flicks for a fraction of the budgets of large studio films. Unfortunately, the quality suffers as well, with a prime example being "Desert Kickboxer," also known as "Desert Hawk." John Newton is Hawk, a mixed-race Navajo who lives by himself in the desert. He arrests random pot dealers for Sheriff Larry (Biff Manard), all while having flashbacks to a kickboxing match where he let rage get the better of him and killed his opponent. In the meantime, across the nearby border in Mexico, accountant Claudia (Judie Aronson) has embezzled some money from drug lord Santos (Paul L. Smith), and she and her special needs brother Anthony (Sam DeFrancisco) flee with assorted henchmen and Santos in pursuit. Hawk takes Claudia and Anthony into custody before realizing they are not criminals, and the trio fight off the baddies while trying to survive the harsh desert conditions.
Menahem Golan of Cannon Studios fame brings us another cheesy actioner that gets sillier as it goes along. Two characters survive point-blank gunshot wounds. Santos is more cuddly than menacing. Newton's Hawk is a bland blank. When he isn't kicking butt and having ringside flashbacks, the film drags to a crawl. Director Florentine obviously had zero budget here, the cast is tiny, and I couldn't care less about the plot. Golan's formula for cheap entertainment was stale at this point, and despite some eye-rollingly ridiculous scenes, there is no fun to be had. You can see the shadows of the film crew in the foreground of the climactic fight, which always takes the viewer out of the picture. The Native American/indigenous peoples angle is tossed in to try to be different, and is unnecessary. This was a blind grab out of a bin of VHS video cassettes I had in a storage room; maybe I should start being pickier about my late night entertainment choices.
