SeriousJest Take Melanie Griffith, Rae Dawn Chong, and Maria Conchita Alonso, cast them as strippers and show them dancing topless, add a young Billie Dee Williams and Tom Berenger talking smack to each other with some stereotypical 80s-NYC lines, insert a psycho ninja slasher (played by an actor who, curiously, was never identified in the credits), and set all of this amidst slummy, early-80s Times Square (before the New 42nd Street cleaned it up). Now you've got a fun 80s-NYC classic. Don't get me wrong, this is not a good film in terms of actual quality (other than the acting, which I thought was awesome). The story is not that creative or unique, the script calls for over-dramatization at times, the soundtrack is wack, and the fight stunts are not top-notch (along those lines, Berenger, who plays an ex-boxer, punches a wall in one scene, and his wrist is positioned in an improper way that would probably result in an injury). However, the cast, the setting, and my nostalgia for 80s-inner-city movies made this film a good way to kill 96 minutes…and just because I strongly suspect that director Abel Ferrara didn't mean for this movie to be campy doesn't stop me from enjoying laughing at it.

edwagreen Tom Berenger seems to improve as the film goes on. Stiff at the beginning, he seems to find his stride as the boxer who killed in the ring, and is now a promoter in strip clubs. He hires the girls to work. Pretty soon, a maniac begins assaulting and invariably killing the women. As Berenger is unable to come to grips with his early seedy past and what occurred in the ring, he is determined to catch the culprit at any cost.Melanie Griffith is too much as his love-interest and worker in the club. She is supposed to come across as a steamy dame, but how can she with the chalked-up voice that she has?Michael V. Gazzo, of "The Godfather" fame is in top form as an owner of the club. As the cop investigating the case, Billy DeWilliams shows his grit and bigotry as well. There is an interesting cameo appearance by Jan Murray, as a fellow owner, and in a career-ending performance, Rossano Brazzi plays an underworld like character.The seedy side of society is shown here and the N.Y. strip area is well depicted.

John Seal Though Abel Ferrara's Fear City retains a little of the indie 'juice' associated with the director's best films, it's ultimately a failure. The major problems are leads Tom Berenger and Melanie Griffith, neither of whom bring much to the table. Berenger spends half the film driving around with a deadpan expression on his face (the same expression he displays throughout the entire film, actually) and the other half flashing back to his days as a prize fighter. Griffith's squeaky little girl voice is as fingernails on the chalkboard to me, and her love scenes with Berenger are simply unwatchable. That said, there's plenty of great location photography and some good supporting turns by Billy Dee Williams as detective Wheeler, Rosanno Brazzi as good fella Carmine, and Michael V. Gazzo as strip club operator Mike.

MARIO GAUCI This early flick from Abel Ferrara piles on the sleaze as it deals with a group of strippers being hounded by an unknown night-time assailant; from a surprisingly good cast for such cheap exploitation fare, Melanie Griffith scores best as the most popular stripper around, who also happens to be her moody boss (Tom Berenger)'s ex, indulges in a lesbian relationship on the side (with fellow stripper Rae Dawn Chong) and turns into a full-blown junkie when the latter dies at the hands of our good friend, the serial killer. Nice clean family fare, then, right? While the film remains watchable throughout and even has a handful of amusing sequences (most notably when, having been mistaken for the killer, the wrong guy gets beaten up in the kitchen of one of these clubs) and performances (in particular, Michael V. Gazzo as an irascible strip-joint owner), it is seriously damaged by a frankly dull hero (or rather anti-hero, since we're basically talking about an ex-boxer-turned-pimp here) and a very silly villain (a karate expert/fitness freak/budding writer). Billy Dee Williams also stars as an irate cop disgusted by all the squalor around him and Rossano Brazzi turns up for a free plate of pasta as the pre-requisite "respectable" mobster overseeing NYC's underworld. For the record, the film was originally bankrolled by Twentieth-Century Fox but they eventually sold the property to an independent company in view of its objectionable content and a cleaned-up, padded-out version eventually made the rounds on US TV and European videos; also, the actor playing the serial killer remains uncredited to the end, just as the killer's name is never known throughout the film.