Steel Frontier brings us to a stereotypical post-apocalyptic future of sorts. It conjures up a man without a name or title (Joe Lara) beyond that of a "drifter," similar to Clint Eastwood's versions. A gun-wielding vagabond on a spiffy motorcycle who facially resembles Jesus Christ wandering through a toxic wasteland of society reduced to rubble and sand. At first glimpse, he finds a dying man with both legs torn off left to die in the middle of desert. This dying man pleads to the stranger to quickly end his life, as the stranger ponders over him for a few brief moments and decides...
As the film's introduction continues, a recovering town by the name of New Hope shows a community of people ambitiously moving around tires, which now are being used as a natural resource (film does not elaborate on that, it does not really need to in the given context), as a harbinger of Mad-Max styled vehicles (seemingly gang members) approach the timid town of citizens.
Once the vehicles arrive, we start to see all sorts of random odd-balls armed with rifles and pistols step out of the vehicle and ensure their grandiose of chaos on these innocent people, while the supposed leader of the outfit, General J.W. Quantrell (Brion James) casually enters into a barber shop with a rather frightened barber.
The town's police force enters the scene, and is obliterated in mere minutes. After the General's done with his shave in the barber shop, he comes out to proclaim the town, as a (self) designated military outpost under the United Regime. Later, we see him discussing plans for new leadership for the town, as he dresses down the cowardly Mayor Kissmich (Quinn Morrison) who was nowhere to be found, during the siege. The General appoints his son as the #1 leadership of the town a little to the chagrin of Ackett (Bo Svenson).
A few of the town's henchmen ride out onto the dusty roads to find runaways, and more or less runs into their possible Grim Reaper...the long-haired vagabond on the motorcycle. The henchmen taken by surprise to find someone crazy enough to be hanging out in such dangerous and desolate desert all by themselves with no care in a doomed world. One can observe fairly quickly that stranger is very much toying and play childish games with them. A stereotypical, but yet very excellent choreographed action car chase takes place. The stranger slips up... or does he? He enters the town as a man that no one has seen, before and the chaos really hits up.
The film borrows elements from The Man with No Name and the Mad Max series, but it holds its own water very well. The ending actually turns out be a bit of surprise, and kind of ironic ... not quite as it seemed at the beginning of the film. The action scenes remain top-notch and exhilarating, as usual like with most PM action produced films. The characters are actually well-written for what most would consider to be a run-of-the-mill B-movie.
As the film's introduction continues, a recovering town by the name of New Hope shows a community of people ambitiously moving around tires, which now are being used as a natural resource (film does not elaborate on that, it does not really need to in the given context), as a harbinger of Mad-Max styled vehicles (seemingly gang members) approach the timid town of citizens.
Once the vehicles arrive, we start to see all sorts of random odd-balls armed with rifles and pistols step out of the vehicle and ensure their grandiose of chaos on these innocent people, while the supposed leader of the outfit, General J.W. Quantrell (Brion James) casually enters into a barber shop with a rather frightened barber.
The town's police force enters the scene, and is obliterated in mere minutes. After the General's done with his shave in the barber shop, he comes out to proclaim the town, as a (self) designated military outpost under the United Regime. Later, we see him discussing plans for new leadership for the town, as he dresses down the cowardly Mayor Kissmich (Quinn Morrison) who was nowhere to be found, during the siege. The General appoints his son as the #1 leadership of the town a little to the chagrin of Ackett (Bo Svenson).
A few of the town's henchmen ride out onto the dusty roads to find runaways, and more or less runs into their possible Grim Reaper...the long-haired vagabond on the motorcycle. The henchmen taken by surprise to find someone crazy enough to be hanging out in such dangerous and desolate desert all by themselves with no care in a doomed world. One can observe fairly quickly that stranger is very much toying and play childish games with them. A stereotypical, but yet very excellent choreographed action car chase takes place. The stranger slips up... or does he? He enters the town as a man that no one has seen, before and the chaos really hits up.
The film borrows elements from The Man with No Name and the Mad Max series, but it holds its own water very well. The ending actually turns out be a bit of surprise, and kind of ironic ... not quite as it seemed at the beginning of the film. The action scenes remain top-notch and exhilarating, as usual like with most PM action produced films. The characters are actually well-written for what most would consider to be a run-of-the-mill B-movie.
