1008-Final Justice

Film Year:  1987
Genre:  Action
Director:  Greydon Clark
Starring:  Joe Don Baker, Rossano Brazzi, Venantuno Venantini, Patrizia Pellegrino, Helena Dalli
MST Season:  10

The Movie

“You think you kin take me?  Go ‘head on.  ‘T’s yer move.”

Joe Don Baker is back and this time he’s portlier!  Baker plays small town Sheriff Geronimo, who has caught the Italian mob boss Don Lamanna at the border.  He is under strict orders to transfer his prisoner to Italy, but after a flight detour in Malta Lamanna escapes custody and disappears.  Determined to find his man, Geronimo goes through the Maltese underground to bring justice to Lamanna.

Really uninteresting 80s action movie has very little going for it.  Joe Don Baker is serviceable as (the quite hilariously named) Thomas Jefferson Geronimo, but for the most part acts as if he’s doing his best John Wayne impersonation.  Baker is capable in the role, but a John Wayne he isn’t.

He’s not really given much of anything else to work with in the rest of the movie either.  The manhunt story is fairly standard and unimaginative.  It’s obvious the film has ambition to be a contemporary western in a foreign setting, but it doesn’t really go in any particular direction with the idea.  Set pieces are invented for spaghetti western standoff shots, where Baker is just basically required to just pose for minutes at a time without any genuine tension.  When final resolution is in place and the villain is given his comeuppance, there’s just little to no reason to really care other than the movie is over and we can leave.

I like a crappy 80s action movie as much as the next guy.  I could even watch one starring Joe Don Baker, but it would have to be something more rollicking than this.  Final Justice is low energy, lacking in storyline and plot, and just isn’t entertaining.

The Episode

The boys on the Satellite are salivating at the mouth over another Joe Don Baker movie being featured on the show, given the success of Mitchell (with is a genuinely great episode even had it not have been Joel’s final).  Pretty much the minute they sit down for Final Justice they immediately go for the jokes that had been the funniest in Mitchell, and that’s taking aim at Joe Don Baker.  They are really hard on him in this movie, which is kind of unfair since he’s one of the better aspects of this movie.  The riffing of Final Justice feels like Mitchell residue.  They rail on Joe Don Baker for being a porky slob, but even though he is a bit pudgier than he was in the previous film, their riffs are more in line with the Mitchell character than Sheriff Geronimo.  The end credits in particular are nothing but a giant fat joke at his expense.  The gang seems to realize they’re being borderline offensive with this portion and play it down with Mike being uneasy with the jokes being told, meanwhile giving the meanest riffs to the inhibitionless Crow and Tom Servo who spout them out with glee.

The only other real flaw that they take aim at is the censorship of the movie, which the TV version they have to work with is constantly dropping foul language, which results in the constant phrase of “You son of a _____!”  The jokes they make here aren’t at the movie’s expense, which seems a bit odd because this aspect is out of the filmmakers’ control.

That said, I’d be lying if I said that Final Justice wasn’t funny.  As harsh as they are here, it’s pretty solid off-the-leash shock humor.  My only real complaint is that maybe they’re a bit too focused on Joe Don Baker and the TV censors that they let the rest of the production slip by them, which makes watching the movie in general a bit of a slum since so many aspects of it are uninspired.  The sad truth to the matter is that it’s possible that Final Justice would be a weaker episode for it, however.  It’s kind of a flaw in my criticism.  We have an episode that’s perfectly funny as is but not really their most precision work, but had it been we might have had a forgettable episode instead.

Host segments are kind of low key.  There’s a fairly good opening bit about the Yes song “Owner of a Lonely Heart” that Kevin delivers beautifully.  The rest are just some random aspect of the movie that the crew goofs on to mixed results.  On the Mads’ end, Pearl is enforcing more humor in the workplace.  Unfortunately more humor in the workplace doesn’t translate to humor that the audience can laugh at.

The episode ends on a fairly brilliant note, where Mike recreates the end of Mitchell by claiming that after sitting through a bad Joe Don Baker movie means it’s his time to escape.  It’s a wonderfully nostalgic moment for longtime fans, well-scripted, and hilarious.  It ensures that Final Justice leaves a pleasant taste in your mouth.

Good

The DVD

Final Justice comes to us via Shout Factory in their Volume XIV set.  Picture and audio are both sensational, and it comes with a handful of bonus features.

First up is an interview with the film’s writer/director/producer/co-star Greydon Clark (also director of Angels’ Revenge), who delves into what goes into making a crappy action movie.  He talks the origins, in which the film originated by a Maltese company offering to co-produce a film and the filmmakers writing a movie around the setting.  Clark enjoys the movie he made, and claims he has met several MSTies who have enjoyed it as well.  I’m sorry that I can’t be one of them, but he seems like a nice guy so props to him.

The second bonus is footage from the television series Cheap Seats, which had Mike, Kevin, and Bill do guest audio riffing over their footage.  For those who didn’t know, Cheap Seats was a show inspired by MST that aired on ESPN, which featured a group of comedians riffing on sports footage and in this particular episode they asked the MST alums to join them.  I remember watching this episode as it aired, being the diehard MSTie I was at the time.  While I thought the show was cute (I might have liked it better if I were a bigger sports fan), it was mostly Mike, Kevin, and Bill stealing the show.  So I don’t think you’re missing much if all you have seen are these clips.