MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*
Sometimes there's a lot of fun to be had, when Italian exploitation directors take some American actor with only mediocre "chops" and stick him in a half-witted B-picture. Not this time, though.
The half-witted premise of LIGHT BLAST is that a mad scientist with a laser beam is out to extort $10 million from San Francisco, else he'll destroy the city. One might think that such a threat-- amply illustrated at the film's opening when Mad Doctor Soboda annihilates a railway car, and the two teens who happen to making out inside. One might think that the entire SFPD would be combing the streets, looking for the culprit or at least the technological sources of his laser ray. But no, most of the people in charge seem to want to pay up, and only Inspector Ronn Warren (Erik Estrada) seems determined to scour the city and eventually turn up the heat on the mad doctor.
Director/co-writer Enzo G. Castellari, best known for the two lively "Escape from the Bronx" movies, might have found a lot of ways to have fun with this routine pulp outing. Instead, the viewer is forced to wade through endless driving scenes, interpolated with Warren occasionally interrogating boring suspects. Aside from the opening, the only standout scene in BLAST involves Warren investigating something or other in a morgue. There, one of the mad doctor's confederates-- a lady in a nurse's outfit-- nearly kicks the cop's ass with her kung fu skills. But after that one scene, we're back to driving, driving, and more driving. Even the sight of the former CHIPS star speeding around in a dune buggy doesn't improve things. After this fiasco, I get the sense that Estrada spent most of his career doing featured walk-ons in support-roles. I never liked or disliked the actor, but it's a shame he didn't get a chance to shine in just one memorable starring vehicle, even if it was pulp nonsense.
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