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Released by: Mill Creek Entertainment
Released on: May 12th, 2020.
Director: Christian Drew Sidaris
Cast: Bruce Penhall, Julie Strain, Mark Barriere, Rodrigo Obregon, Suzi Simpson
Year: 1993
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Enemy Gold - Movie Review:
In Malibu Bay Films' 1993 production, Enemy Gold, a trio of secret agents - Becky Midnite (the gorgeous Suzi Simpson), Chris Cannon (Bruce Penhall of ChiPS, who shows up in a ton of other Sidaris films) and Mark Austin (Mark Barriere, who would join Team Sidaris again a year later in The Dallas Connection) are out on the job busting dope dealers and things get a little out of hand and they have to get rough. This results in some repercussions from the higher ups and our three heroes find themselves kicked off the force for going too far, even if it was all in the line of duty.
In order to relax after the rather stressful events that they've just gone through, they decide to kick back and head out on a camping trip, and, while they're out there, see if they can dig up some gold that was stashed during the Civil War by the Confederate Army. This all sounds well and good but what our three heroes don't realize is that a dastardly drug dealing nudie bar owner named Santiago (Sidaris regular Rodrigo Obregon) wants that gold for himself. Santiago is the type of guy who is not above hiring a lethal assassin named Jewel Panther (yep, that's right, Jewel Panther, played here by Julie Strain) to kill them if he has to in order to get his greedy paws on the treasure.
This entry, directed by Sidaris' son Drew, stays very close to the tried and true Sidaris formula perfected by his father - a copious amount of lovely naked ladies, bloody shoot outs, gratuitous violence and explosions - and that's a good thing. While the plot might be completely disposable, little more than a reason to bombard the view with exploitative set pieces, the movie definitely delivers the trashy goods. The film also really and truly allows Julie Strain to make the most of her role as Jewel Panther, she dominates the scenes that she's in. Sidaris' penchant for casting Playmates is present in this one as well, with both Suzi Simpson and Kym Malin having spread for the Heff in the late eighties, and this time there's a Penthouse Pet thrown into the mix as well.
A few stand out set pieces from the film include some gratuitous and completely unnecessary but wholly welcome hot tub action, Suzi Simpson running around in a tube top and short-shorts firing explosive arrows from a crossbow, a few fantastic backwoods kill scenes that kind of add a weird survivalist horror element to what is otherwise an out and out action movie and an exploding helicopter! We even get a large scale Civil War reenactment to open the film. Drew Sidaris may not have reinvented the wheel with this movie, but he does prove that the apple didn't fall very far from the tree, and for fans of his father's pictures (Andy did serve as producer on this film), that's a very good thing indeed.
Enemy Gold - Blu-ray Review:
Enemy Gold arrives on a 50GB Blu-ray disc with the feature taking up 27GBs of space framed at 1.85.1 widescreen in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer taken from a new 4k restoration provided by AGFA and it looks quite strong. Colors are nice, especially in the film's many brightly lit outdoor scenes, while black levels are solid too. Skin tones look nice and natural and the whole thing feels appreciably filmic in its look and feel. There are no noticeable issues with any edge enhancement or noise reduction and the disc is free of obvious compression artifacts. Some minor print damage does show up here and there but it's tiny stuff, not distracting at all.
The 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 audio track does what it can with the limitations of the source material. Dialogue is clean and clear and properly balanced but there's a bit of flatness to the audio that, no doubt, stems back to the original recording. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion and optional subtitles are provided in English. All in all, this sounds just fine.
Aside from a quick ninety-second optional introduction to the film provided by Andy Sidaris and Julie Strain, we get a commentary track featuring Andy Sidaris and his wife/producer Arlene Sidaris. It's a fairly scene specific talk that begins with talk of how and where the Civil War reenactment footage was shot, the quality of the cinematography in the picture and how important it is to the movie, how and why the different cast members that appear in the movie landed their roles (Julie Strain apparently makes good chili), how Andy's own car was used in the film, the importance of doing proper weapons checks on set, how much the Sidaris' love crossbows, the different locations that were used in the shoot, certain camera tricks that were used during the production, tricks involved with using real horses on set, the fine art of blowing up a helicopter and more.
Additionally, the disc includes a forty-four-minute behind the scenes piece that replays material from the introduction where Andy hangs out with the ladies before then showing off some memorabilia from the film, a bunch of time-coded behind the scenes footage from this and other Malibu Bay films with commentary from Andy and Arlene overtop (including some spear gun action), clips from the film itself to show and contrast the differences, before then heading back to Casa Sidaris for a photo shoot with Julie Strain that was done to promote Fit To Kill, some roundtable reading footage, some archival interview clips with Andy and Joe Bob Briggs and more.
Rounding out the extras are trailers for a host of Malibu Bay productions like Malibu Express, Enemy Gold, Picasso Trigger, Savage Beach, Guns, Do Or Die, Hard Hunted, Fit to Kill, Enemy Gold, The Dallas Connection, Day of the Warrior and Return to Savage Beach. Menus and chapter selection options are also provided. All of the extras included on the disc are carried over from the older DVD releases.
Enemy Gold - The Final Word:
Enemy Gold doesn't bring much of anything new to the Sidaris formula, but it does what it does really well, offering plenty of sin, skin and action, more than enough to placate exploitation aficionados. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release looks and sounds very good and carries over the extras from the previous DVD release, making this one plenty easy to recommend.
Click on the images below for full sized Enemy Gold screen caps!
