One of my favorite lyrics of any song “Slide” by 90’s alternative band Luna: “You can never give the finger to the blind.” This is the mistake young Brandon Call makes in 1989’s Blind Fury when he tries to do this to a blind Rutger Hauer, and the man startles the boy by snatching his hand.
Hauer’s infirmity started in Nam, where he was serving with best friend Terry O’Quinn. After Hauser is injured in a firefight, villagers help him recuperate and, for whatever reason, they show him how to use a sword. Soon, he is quartering fruit tossed in the air. I assume this is where the game Fruit Ninja started.
Now he’s in Florida, looking for O’Quinn, unaware the house is he going to is that of the man’s ex-wife (Meg Foster). She’s billed surprisingly high for being in the movie for about five minutes before she’s killed. Kudos to her for taking what I can only assume was an easy paycheck.
She was killed by thugs pretending to be police men, who are there to abduct her son. This is to be collateral for his father, a chemist by trade, to produce crystal meth for them in Reno. At least, I assume these blue crystals he’s producing are meth. I had never heard of the drug before this century, but thought maybe it had been a thing long before I was aware of it.
Hauer was at the house when she gets killed, slaying the two fake cops, but not a fake detective played by Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb. That actor is best remembered as Leonard Smalls in Raising Arizona, and his performance here isn’t too far off from that. Of course, this is an 80’s action movie, so pretty much every other person is a macho asshole. Yes, there will be the obligatory thugs in a restaurant who will pick a fight with a blind man. Naturally, Uzis will be the weapon of choice among the bad guys, and they will be seen in abundance.
At least Hauser prevented Call from getting abducted, though he briefly regrets this after what a terrible shit the kid is initially. This is the kind of film where a kid thinks a funny prank is offering a blind guy a rock while saying it’s a piece of candy, only to have the guy spit it back out hard enough at the kid’s forehead to leave a welt. Here’s a kid who consistently takes the low road, and our hero keeps stooping to his level.
Now here’s one massive implausibility I struggled to set aside: given how rambunctious Call behaves, why isn’t he constantly trying to get away from this man he doesn’t know? For the longest time, Hauer won’t even tell the kid his mom is dead, and just refuses to let the boy call home. And yet the kid goes along, however begrudgingly, on a bus ride with this stranger across the country. Hauser is only doing this because he promised Foster to take her son to Reno. I hope this was the inspiration for the R.E.M. song “All the Way to Reno”, but I have my doubts.
It is in Kansas that Hauser finally spills the beans. Call’s reaction is run across the street and into a cornfield. I was hoping he would run into, and likely join, the cult of kids from Children of the Corn, but no. Instead, the two encounter Cobb and his minions. Hauer tracks down and kills those men through his finely tuned senses of hearing and smell. What I found baffling is he doesn’t realize he failed to kill Cobb, and this is the second time he has failed at that.
Hauer and Call manage to get to Reno, but are apprehended by baddies who must be psychic to have figured out they were going to O’Quinn’s apartment. I find it amazing the plot has the bad guys from Reno trying to abduct a child and bring him there, when he basically delivers himself. It’s like an Uber Eats for hostage takers, where they deliver the victims to your door.
This leads into the most ridiculous setup of the film, where Hauer drives a van through busy streets while the bad guys are in hot pursuit. Yes, there will be the obligatory bit where a driver yells at Hauer, “Are you blind?”, to which he’ll reply, “Why, yes, what’s your excuse?” This is also the kind of movie where, when an elderly woman gets carjacked, she will pull from her purse the largest gun you have ever seen.
I’m on the fence as to whether it is true, and to what extent, that the other senses of blind people are heightened. I seriously doubt they have whatever abilities Hauer employs to be able to win big at the roulette table in a casino, and then detect the croupier is cheating, as well as the means through which they are doing that.
And yet, those moments where Hauser seems to have impossible abilities are the most enjoyable of this picture. Many of the fight scenes had bits where my eyes nearly rolled right out of my head because of how ridiculous everything is. One of my favorite moments is something very simple, where he causally tosses his walking-stick-cum-sword longways at two baddies at face level. Naturally, they catch it, and he simply charges forward, whacking both of them in the face simultaneously with the staff they just caught.
As expected with this kind of fare, the dialog is rarely clever except for when a pithy remark is needed. My favorite of these is when Hauer impresses a goon with this swordplay, remarking afterwards, “I also do circumcisions”.
I was surprised to find I had a blast watching Blind Fury. Perhaps I was just in the right frame of mind for it at the time. God knows there are a great many films of this type which completely failed to resonate with me. I chalk up my acceptance of this movie partly to its overall good-naturedness. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Hauer appears to be having a great time. I can only assume this was more fun than making Blade Runner, even if a key speech here doesn’t rival his “rain and tears” monologue at the end of that film: “The place that makes tears inside my head doesn’t work anymore.”
Dir: Phillip Noyce
Starring Rutger Hauer, Brandon Call, Terry O’Quinn
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray