Four motorcyclists -- rugged Bill (solid Christopher George), easygoing Dan (likable Preston Pierce), sassy Diana (the always radiant Roberta Collins), and feisty Jamie (a lively portrayal by Linda A. Borgeson) -- run afoul of a gang of evil redneck pot farmers while searching for hidden treasure in the deep woods. Director William Grefe, working from a blah script by Nicholas E. Spanos, crucially fails to build much in the way of tension and allows the narrative to plod along at a too leisurely pace for the first hour. Moreover, the mild PG rating ensures that this movie never completely acquires the hard, gritty edge it truly needs to work and nothing much happens until fifty minutes into the story. Fortunately, things perk up considerably in the final half hour with a dynamic burst of thrilling and well-staged action that's topped off by a genuinely startling surprise bummer ending. The veteran cast of familiar B-pic faces do their best with the mediocre material: George, Pierce, Collins, and Borgeson make for appealing leads, perennial bad guy thespian John Davis Chandler does well as slimy and nasty head hillbilly Rudy, Robert Leslie almost steals the whole show with his hilariously kooky and energetic turn as a crazy old hermit, and William Kerwin is suitably hateful as the seedy Homer. Julio C. Chavez's sunny cinematography makes nice occasional use of strenuous slow motion and boasts lots of breathtaking shots of the gorgeously verdant sylvan scenery. Charlie Daniels' twangy and harmonic score does the rousing trick (Daniels also wrote and sings the catchy theme song). A strictly passable time-waster.
Review of Whiskey Mountain
