Review of Sloane

Sloane (1985)
3/10
Never fear, Sloane's here! Who?!? Sloane, dammit!!
28 February 2010
(B-movie Messiah): Good people of this incredibly petrified world, you don't need to fear any longer. Sloane's here! (Astounded crowd): Who the hell is Sloane? (B-movie Messiah): You people don't know who Sloane is? THE Sloane? (Astounded crowd): No … (B-movie Messiah): Sloane!!! He's the guy Chuck Norris has nightmares about! The dude Steven Seagal hides for! The bloke Arnold Schwarzenegger bows down to! The action hero prototype for whom Sylvester Stallone retires back to his jungle! (Astounded Crowd): Never heard about him…

"Sloane" is a 100% obscure, undiscovered and unloved early 80's action movie and that's what it will remain always and forever. This is the type of movie that probably will never get a DVD release and only the deranged people with a passion for lousy, low-budgeted exploitation will take the effort of seeking stuff like this out on VHS. Around that time there were numerous movies like "Sloane", all of them clearly intending to cash in on the success of such films like "Rambo". What you needed was a handsome beefcake protagonist, an inexhaustible army of hideous bad guys, a handful of sexy female love interests and a couple of testosterone-packed action stunts. Everything else is of minor importance, like a plausible plot and half decent production values. This movie is great entertainment, as long as you are very tolerant towards stupidity and if you can gather some friends, beer and pizza.

"Sloane" is a massively clichéd action movie. The titular character himself is also a tremendous stereotype. Sloane – here on the movie page fully credited as Philip Sloane even though I don't recall anyone at any point addressing to him by his first name – is a suave and virile blond God who used to be a cop in Manila, but now resides in California where he lives on a yacht and practices martial arts. He's called back to the Philippines because his ex-girlfriend got kidnapped and her husband brutally murdered. As soon as he lands in Manila, Sloane pretty much instantly turns into a pig. He hangs around bars, sleeps with local jailbait prostitutes, insults the girl he's supposed to work together with and starts random fights. Sloane also bites off the heads of snakes whilst he's in the middle of high speed car chases and he has the worst action hero one-liners I've ever heard. The plot is unimportant throughout three quarters of the film, and then all of a sudden there's a lot of confusing drivel about religious cults, secret hideouts in caves, cannibalistic midgets (!) and betrayal. Cheap and very amateurish action flick with unimpressive staged action sequences and too many dumb twists to name. There's a good reason why lead guy Robert Resnick didn't grow out to become a major action hero, as he's a terribly lame actor. He has the squeaky voice of an adolescent boy and he doesn't even look that buffed. The cover image is totally fake, by the way, as Sloane never appears shirtless. "Sloane" is really fun to watch if you want to mock the typical characteristics of early 80's B-cinema, but make no mistake, it's incredibly bad film making.
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