Steel and Lace starts in a Los Angeles courtroom where general all round scumbag Danny Emerson (Michael Cerveris) is on trial for the rape of Gaily Morton (Clare Wren), the verdict is in & Emerson is acquitted due to lack of evidence & the testimony of four of Emerson's friends, Toby (Scott Burkholder), Oscar (Paul Lieber), Norman (Brian Backer) & Craig (John J. York) who all gave him a false alibi. Gaily is devastated, she feels let down, cheap, angry & used as Emerson walks out of court a free man. Gaily makes her way to the courthouse roof & before her brother Albert (Bruce Davison) can stop her she commits suicide by jumping off it. However Albert happens to be a hotshot scientist & manages to bring Gaily back to life as a part human part robot cyborg, with one aim, to gain revenge on Emerson & the men who lied in court for him. Los Angeles detective Dunn (David Naughton) & his artist girlfriend Alison (Stacy Haiduk) are on hand to try & figure out who is responsible for the ever-growing pile of dead bodies...
Directed by Ernest D. Farino I thought Steel and Lace was an OK time-waster but nothing particularly special. The script by Joseph Dougherty & Dave Edison has a neat central premise but it fails to deliver the goods on too many occasions. For starters Emerson is nowhere near villainous enough, we never see him rape Gaily & most of the film he comes across as a slightly dishonest property developer which meant I never really got behind the cybernetic Gaily & her revenge mission as much as I would have liked, his four mates are even worse as beside lying in court for him they don't do anything else at all. I also thought it was too slow & pedestrian between the revenge segments which are few, I'd have liked a much bigger body count. I mean when you look at the plot synopsis & see that it's a film about rape, death, revenge, murder & killer cyborgs you just think that it's going to be slightly more exploitative than it actually is. Basically the rape scene is none existent & the revenge scenes aren't much to shout about either, Death Wish (1974), I Spit On Your Grave (1978) or MS. 45 (1981) this ain't. Having said that it's still watchable, it's reasonably good fun & there are one or two amusing (intentional) comedic moments in it & I quite liked the ending.
Director Farino doesn't do anything special & it sort of looks a bit like a made-for-TV film, it's a bit static & dull to watch. No mention of how Gaily was brought back is made, she just shows up as a killer robot which seems to skip a somewhat major plot point but I doubt anyone is going to watch Steel and Lace for it's writing or intricate plot. There are a couple of decent scenes & some nice gore, someone gets a drill through their chest which leaves a rather big hole, someone is decapitated & a cool Dawn of the Dead (1978) style scene when someone has the top of their head chopped off by the spinning blades on a helicopter.
Technically the film is OK but nothing special, the special effects are actually decent. The acting was alright & there are a couple of familiar faces here.
Steel and Lace is a decent time-waster, it's one of those films which I thought was fine but nothing spectacular & I'd have probably forgotten about it by the end of next week. Worth a watch for sure but don't lose any sleep if you haven't seen it already.
Directed by Ernest D. Farino I thought Steel and Lace was an OK time-waster but nothing particularly special. The script by Joseph Dougherty & Dave Edison has a neat central premise but it fails to deliver the goods on too many occasions. For starters Emerson is nowhere near villainous enough, we never see him rape Gaily & most of the film he comes across as a slightly dishonest property developer which meant I never really got behind the cybernetic Gaily & her revenge mission as much as I would have liked, his four mates are even worse as beside lying in court for him they don't do anything else at all. I also thought it was too slow & pedestrian between the revenge segments which are few, I'd have liked a much bigger body count. I mean when you look at the plot synopsis & see that it's a film about rape, death, revenge, murder & killer cyborgs you just think that it's going to be slightly more exploitative than it actually is. Basically the rape scene is none existent & the revenge scenes aren't much to shout about either, Death Wish (1974), I Spit On Your Grave (1978) or MS. 45 (1981) this ain't. Having said that it's still watchable, it's reasonably good fun & there are one or two amusing (intentional) comedic moments in it & I quite liked the ending.
Director Farino doesn't do anything special & it sort of looks a bit like a made-for-TV film, it's a bit static & dull to watch. No mention of how Gaily was brought back is made, she just shows up as a killer robot which seems to skip a somewhat major plot point but I doubt anyone is going to watch Steel and Lace for it's writing or intricate plot. There are a couple of decent scenes & some nice gore, someone gets a drill through their chest which leaves a rather big hole, someone is decapitated & a cool Dawn of the Dead (1978) style scene when someone has the top of their head chopped off by the spinning blades on a helicopter.
Technically the film is OK but nothing special, the special effects are actually decent. The acting was alright & there are a couple of familiar faces here.
Steel and Lace is a decent time-waster, it's one of those films which I thought was fine but nothing spectacular & I'd have probably forgotten about it by the end of next week. Worth a watch for sure but don't lose any sleep if you haven't seen it already.