poolandrews Review of 2019: After the Fall of New York

2019: After the Fall of New York (1983)

Reasonably entertaining futuristic Sci-Fi action from the underrated Sergio Martino.

[6/10 · 24 January 2005]

2019-After the Fall of New York opens with a lengthy narration over extremely poor miniature models of an almost completely destroyed New York, and goes something like this "since the Nuclear Holocaust Twenty years have passed. The leader of the Eurac monarchy, the powerful Euro, Afro, Asian unity who pressed the fatal button claims to have won the conflict. But planet Earth has been reduced to a garbage strewn radioactive desert inhabited by humans devoid of all hope or future (a bit like it is now then?). Radiation could not have been worse, a few deformed creatures developed in the post war period then nothing. For nearly fifteen years now not one human child has been born. New York City, a huge pile of waste and rubble (a bit like it is now then?) is under the control of a Eurac military force, with the help of mercenary hunters are with deadly efficiency exterminating the locals and using the healthy ones for every conceivable kind of genetic experiment in a desperate attempt to find the key to survival to the continuation of the human race." This monologue explains things up to this point perfectly. Soon after this we are introduced to our hero, Parsifal (Micheal Sopkiw) who is an all round tough but fair sort of guy and just a likable kind of hero, you know the sort. He is kidnapped by a rival organisation to the Eurac, known as the Inter-American Confederation. He is flown to 'Alaska'. There Parsifal meets up with the federations President (Edmund Purdom) who offers him a deal. It appears that the only fertile woman left on the whole Earth is in New York. The federation needs her for the continuation of human life on several other planets in a galaxy called Alpha-Centuri that they are planning to travel to. The president promises Parsifal a seat on the spaceship if he brings the girl back safely. Either that or he dies now, not much of a choice really. For help Parsifal has two men, Bronx (Paolo Maria Scalondro as Vincent Scalondro) who is practically a living map of New York and he has a metal robotic hand. Parsifal also gets a guy called Ratchet (Romano Puppo as Roman Geer) who is the strongest man in the confederate, apparently anyway. They all gain entry to Manhattan and are attacked straight away by a gang called the 'Harlem Hunters'. On their travels they come across more gangs, a blonde woman named Giara (Valentine Monnier), a dwarf called Shorty (Louis Ecclesia), Big-Ape (Geaorge Eastman), an evil S/M leather clad Eurac babe Ania (Anna Kanakis) and a whole heap of trouble! Will Parisfal be able to find and recuse the girl and therefore save the entire human race from extinction? This Italian production was co-written and directed by the criminally underrated Sergio Martino under the pseudonym of Martin Dolman and I thought it was a good film that made the most out of it's obviously small budget, but Martino has made better. The script by Martino, Ernesto Gastaldi and Gabriel Rossini is very fast paced and quite entertaining even if it is rather silly at times. But I must admit I started to tire of it's slight repetitiveness after about the 40 odd minute mark. It just became Sopkiw and friends running through sewers and over piles of rubble occasionally stopping to have a fight with some Eurac guards who are under orders not to kill them so they never shoot or even try to fight back that much, and various gang members. The film became interesting again for the last 20 minutes when the main plot kicks back in and they find the last fertile girl on the planet and have to escape New York with her. I was disappointed by the ending which just leaves everything up in the air and left me somewhat dissatisfied. Martino's usual production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng does a good job with limited funds, the sets look quite good as do the locations if a little campy and cheap. The costumes look a bit silly at time though, a special mention goes to Anna Kanakis as the evil S/M babe who makes a great villianess and looks cool in her studded leather outfit! Even if she is very underused and just sort of disappears from the film and the viewer has no idea what happens to her, or the Eurac organisation as a whole. Martino's usual cinematographer is on board too, Giancarlo Ferrando does a fine and professional job generally speaking. The special effects are pretty poor but I've seen worse and are fun to watch on a 'bad' level. There's very little gore, but there are lots of fights with various types of weaponry. Also, for the animal lovers among you watch out as there are scenes of rats being chased and killed by being impaled with spiked poles. Martino directs the action scenes with pace and vitality, I especially liked the sequence where Sopkiw is attacked in a junk yard full of battered, wrecked and burnt out buses. Worth a watch for sure, but I found it a little dull after the fifth fight that looked exactly like the four that proceeded it. I'll sum up by saying that 2019-After the Fall of New York is good fun and should keep most Sci-Fi action/Euro exploitation rip-off fans entertained for an hour and a half without too much trouble.