STREET WARRIOR is one of many TV action films getting buried in the heaps of similar flicks that have sat around movie store shelves before heading towards the bargain bin. With a story that's not very inventive and fight scenes that were mediocre even at the time of its release, this is a watchable but totally overlookable addition to an already cluttered subgenre that will only truly interest fans of particular performers.
The story: Discharged war veteran Jack Campbell (Max Martini) returns home to find his brother comatose after being drawn into an underground fight club controlled by a wealthy sadist (Nick Chinlund). Seeking revenge, he finds himself trapped in "the Gauntlet" as well when a family member is taken captive.
The movie's biggest asset is its strong cast: though these roles could just as easily have been played by lesser-known performers, the effort put forth by Martini, Chinlund, sidekick Max Pehrlich, love interest Valerie Cruz, and a couple others is noticeable and keeps the movie watchable in lieu of a more compelling story or interesting fights.
As tends to be the case with low budget action pictures, the problem with these fights is how they're shot and edited. The camera-work could be worse, but it still stays too close to the performers most of the time, making a lot of the action tough to follow. Further hindering the cohesiveness of the brawls is how clunkily shots are shoved together, oftentimes with considerable gaps in the action. Max Martini does a decent job at playing a fighter, and the martial cast is a decent mix of better- and lesser-known film fighters (including a surprisingly large Sidney Liufau as the champion), but their physical prowess can't save these mostly-bad thirteen matches.
Chances are you reached this film's page because you're an action fan to begin with, and if this is the case, let me assure you that you've probably seen this movie many times before with different covers and a slightly tweaked storyline. Unless you're building a collection of underground fight flicks, this one's not worth the prices of purchase. There's just nothing new here.
