SLOANE (1985) * ½
“Jerk.”
“Egotistical bastard.”
“Selfish little prick.”
“Horse’s ass.”
These are just a few of the names our hero, Sloane is called throughout the movie, and rightfully so. I can’t remember the last time an action flick featured such a despicable character for a leading man. There’s a fine line between stoic macho behavior and a sociopathic degenerate. Sloane crosses over that line several times throughout the film. Sloane is the kind of guy whose idea of consoling a woman after she was nearly raped is to flippantly ask, “Throwing a party?”
Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to spend 94 minutes with him either. Since I did and lived to tell the tale, I guess I should say that Sloane (the movie and the man) isn’t ALL bad. It’s just hard to root for an egotistical bastard like Sloane.
Sloane is a karate instructor who lives on a houseboat in L.A. When his ex-wife gets kidnapped in the Philippines, he teams up with her husband’s sister to get her back. They bicker A LOT before finally rescuing Sloane’s ex.
In addition to the main character’s general unpleasantness, the film itself is often mean-spirited and crude. This is one of those movies that whenever a bad guy attacks a woman, he immediately rips her blouse open. If the violence was cartoonish and over the top, I might’ve gave it a pass. As it stands, the action is mind-numbingly dull and I found myself nodding off by the end.
Despite that, there is at least one moment that is pretty badass. During a car chase, the bad guys throw a cobra into Sloane’s car. What does he do? Bite its head off and throw it back at them! Now I’ve seen plenty of heroes get into car chases and I’ve seen heroes bite the heads off snakes, but I’ve never seen a hero bite the head off a snake DURING a car chase. So there’s that. Besides, I find it hard to give One Star to any flick that ends with a random ass chase involving cannibal pygmies.
Naturally, Sloane gets the best line of the movie when he tells his leading lady, “You have as much sense as a brontosaurus!”