Starring: Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone, Thomas F. Wilson Directed By: Craig R. Baxley Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Pan & Scan Region Code: 1 Release Date: May 18, 1999 Running Time: 95 minutes Theatrical Release Date: February 12, 1988
Product Description: Jericho "Action" Jackson is a Detroit police sergeant who was demoted from lieutenant for almost tearing the arm off of sexually violent sociopath Sean Dellaplane whose father is Peter Dellaplane a major car manufacturer. But Dellaplane himself is violent as well. Dellaplane kills his wife Patrice by shooting her. And then he plants her body in Jackson's apartment framing Jackson. Dellaplane won't miss Patrice very much because he has a drug-addicted mistress named Sydney Ash. He keeps Sydney hooked with a free supply of heroin. Jackson suspects Dellaplane of masterminding a murder spree against local officials from the auto workers' union. Dellaplane's mission is to gain a political power base and choose the next president of the United States. Because of what happened to Dellaplane's son Sean Dellaplane has taken a particular dislike to Jackson. Jackson gets Sydney's help in going after Dellaplane.Running Time: 97 min.System Requirements:Starring: Craig T. Nelson Sharon Stone Vanity Carl Weathers Running Time: 1 hrs. 36 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: UPC: 012569081628
Amazon.com: Having built a name for himself playing Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies, Carl Weathers hoped to launch his own action-hero franchise as the wishfully named Action Jackson. But this first film never took off and it turned into a one-movie series. Weathers plays Jackson, a police sergeant so nicknamed because he always seems to be where the action is. He runs afoul of an evil auto magnate (Craig T. Nelson), who promptly sets about putting Jackson in the middle of a jackpot for murder. Jackson springs himself from jail and goes on the run, aided by junkie-with-a-heart-of-gold Vanity, before bringing Nelson to justice. Weathers is an impressive specimen but an indistinct personality (though he can handle a one-liner), and he's overmatched against fire-breathing villain Nelson. --Marshall Fine
"Action Jackson" is a competently standard showcase for Carl Weathers' superhero cool... Action is a proud man, a high-school track star, a dedicated cop, a sergeant who lost his lieutenant's stripes almost two years ago...
He jostles a conceited, two-faced, backstabbing mass murderer called Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson). Director Craig R. Baxley has not only carried it off, but makes you believe it... One must also give some of the credit to Carl Weathers whose erect muscular body and his charm and good looks give some credence to the heroics...
The picture contains fun, lots of action, and two sexy women...
Vanity looked so gorgeous when she was shot up with heroin...
Stone met her husband after his first wife died and his son went to prison... She thinks that he may seem greedy and arrogant but he remained loved by everyone, and the whole experience changed him... She also thinks that Jackson is not so different from her husband, that both are stubborn, and both intent on getting what they want...
Takes off into the Bad Movie stratosphere with the arrival of Sharon Stone and Vanity. "Some say his mother was molested by Bigfoot, and Jackson is their mutant offspring," a policeman explains -- no, not about Michael Jackson, but about the Detroit cop, ex-serviceman, and Harvard Law School grad played by Carl Weathers, who's hot on the trail of psychotic auto magnate Craig T. Nelson (named "Dellaplane" -- we couldn't possibly be meant to think him John DeLorean-esque now, could we?). Seems Weathers not only helped put Nelson's bad-news son behind bars but he also tore off the kids arm. Tore off? "So what -- he had TWO," reasons Weathers, cluing us in to a cross-examination technique he must have picked up at Harvard.
Weathers, who acts with his torso, is plenty amusing on his own, but the movie takes off into the Bad Movie stratosphere with the arrival of Sharon Stone as Nelson's gorgeous dim bulb of a wife, and Vanity as Nelson's gorgeous dim bulb of a mistress. Women in these movies exist to be naked, dead, or both -- and it's lucky for Stone she gets to do both, since that means she's not stuck in this flick till the end.
She meets Weathers at an awards ceremony for her husband, decked out in a black dress and enough white lipstick for a mid-'60s MATT HELM movie. We know she digs Weathers because she smiles AND flares her nostrils. Later, at a nightclub, we catch Nelson digging junkie Vanity, a long way down even from her association with Prince, as she sings and bumps and grinds ("choreographed" by Paula Abdul). "I expected a standing ovation," she whispers, sidling over to Nelson's table, who answers, "You're getting one." She berates him for not delivering her a Motown record deal and, when he asks for two good reasons why he should come through, she (yes) pops out her breasts.
Since this is a by-the-numbers Joel Silver production, Stone is gratuitiously naked too. Because she gets chummy with Weathers, villainous Nelson has to off her. "I love you," he says before shooting Stone deaad, then adds, "MORE than life itself,"
Weathers becomes the prime suspect, which sends him and Vanity on the run. With half of Detroit's underworld after them, Vanity coos, "We gotta go back for my purse. I'm not wearing makeup. I look terrible." (Vanity, thy name IS Vanity.) Weathers can't help but fall for a gal who, badly in need of a fix, mutters, "I feel like my teeth are hollow! My gums are made of rubber! My stomach's trying to start a bonfire in the back of my bloody head!" Commiserates Weathers: "I think I felt that way once. They call it love." It all ends up with more explosions and a "Who asked for it?" encore of the Pointer Sisters singing the theme song. On such trash, Silver got the clout tp bring us HUDSON HAWK.
Should have been a franchise for Weathers I remeber seeing Action Jackson when I was seven years old and enjoying the movie like it was the best thing since sliced bread. I bouhgt the film on DVD back in 2003 and I enjoyed even more now and take for what it is a action comedy. Carl Weathers recalls Richard Roundtree's Shaft and Jim's Kelly Performance as Black Belt Jones. The film is full over the top and one that's for the guys.
elementarily stupid and cliched to the extreme childish screenplay with formulaic dialog, explosions, unnecessary nudity scenes, unnecessary clown-like keep-fainting pickpocket-bag snatching guy, unnecessary gun shooting scenes, song...ruined a lot of furniture, broke a lot of windows, unnecessary man-of-the-year award scene.....almost 80% of this movie could be deleted without hurting the super shallow and hollow childish movie. worse than reading a comic book. a total waste of the production fund which could do a lot good for the 3rd world countries.
Two reasons to watch this film This movie is just plain bad. As other reviewers have said, it is cut from the same cloth as Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies, though is not even up to the low quality of those. One liners that are supposed to be funny, violent action, women who are nothing more than eye candy, clichéd characters and a one-man fighting force are all part of this hackneyed formula. As the main character, Carl Weathers certainly fits the part: charismatic, decent looking and built like a tank. He is capable of pulling off a role such as this and I cannot really blame him for this mess. It occurs to me the filmmakers were either so enamored of the Schwarzenegger movies they wanted to emulate them, or were simply attempting to cash in on the success of this formula. Either way, they did a poor job. The characters are one-dimensional, the plot is very thin and writing is insipid. My advice would be to avoid this movie at all costs, but then one would miss seeing both Sharon Stone and Vanity (aka Denise Matthews).
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