Deadly Rivals Reviews

This ludicrous, unwieldy direct-to-video thriller stars Andrew Stevens as a physicist whose ideas on "laser generation for S.D.I." nets him a seat in a super-secret government conference in Miami, where he becomes embroiled in two separate crime sprees. DEADLY RIVALS is related in flashback from a jail cell by Bunny Wedman (Francesco Quinn) to his interrogator (Robert Miano). Bunny worked for Miami crime kingpin Anthony Canberra (Joseph Bologna), whose latest South American gem-smuggling scheme, set up by Bunny, has collapsed in a double cross, as ace courier Rachel Richmond (Randi Ingerman) seduces, then kills, her cohort Rudy (Peter Paul deLeo) and flees with the emeralds. Hiding all this from Canberra, Bunny sends two thugs (Christopher Campbell, Ted Vernon) after her to New York, but Rachel kills them both. Meanwhile, Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald (Stevens), arriving in Miami for his conference, meets and falls in love with cute Rebecca Richmond (Cela Wise), who's been frantically searching the city for her sister Rachel. Fitzgerald is contacted by two FBI agents, Linda Howerton (Margaux Hemingway) and Bill Mailer (Alan Landers), and steals some government documents. But FBI man Daniel Peterson (Richard Roundtree) tells Fitzgerald that Howerton and Mailer are actually foreign spies and, with cohort agent Altieri (Jorge Gil), uses Fitzgerald as bait to trap them. The spies are killed in a shootout. Fitzgerald races to save Rebecca, who has been kidnapped and tortured by Bunny and Canberra for information about her renegade sister, and at the last moment is prevented from killing Canberra by Peterson. So where are Rachel and the emeralds? Fadeout finds Fitzgerald and Rebecca honeymooning on the beach in San Pellegrino, where they are spotted by Rachel, who hides from them. Redge Mahaffey's plot-heavy screenplay is wordy, pointlessly convoluted, and ultimately boring. There are gaping holes in the narrative, with Bunny's voice-over narration hard-pressed to fill them in, and quite a few improbabilities like Fitzgerald's walking out of a high-security government library with classified documents or, trapped by Canberra's hoods in the back of a car on his way to be fitted for a pair of cement shoes, finding a gun under the seat. Not helping at all is James Dodson's direction, which is plodding throughout, including the various action sequences. Ashley Irwin score mixes stretches of Verdi with monotonously percussive music. Veteran Bologna is fun for a while as the sadistic crime lord, as is Stevens as the nerdy physicist who becomes a full-fledged action hero. Francesco Quinn (DEAD CERTAIN) seems to have inherited father Anthony's looks but not his talent, and the once promising Hemingway (LIPSTICK) is just plain toothily bad. Roundtree seems simply along for the bumpy ride. DEADLY RIVALS is well-produced and looks good (director-producer Dodson also co-photographed it), using a variety of locations in Miami Beach, North Miami, and South Florida. (Violence, nudity, sexual situations, profanity.)