Netflix is my dealer. Revised.

Gangland. 2000.

I do love the post apocalyptic and dystopian genres. Almost as much as I love to state the obvious. Movies, books, comics or daydreams. Whatever takes me away to a time after civilization has fallen. I like the idea of scavenging deserted cities in a post-apocalyptic future. Cities where only gangs roam. Zombies, or plagues, or alien invasions. Blah, blah blag. I'll give just about any title in the genre a go. This is a sickness, I know. Netflix doesn't help either. They have tons of movies available any time of the day. Netflix is one horrible enabler for a sad wretch like myself. Oh baby, just one more hit for me before I hit the road.

Hell, do it in Lego and we'll be good.

Add this to the fact that I have netflix, and the ability to stream many low budget films instantly. It has to be low budget too, since in most cases the Post-Apocalyptic genre is at the fringes of popular culture. I have to imagine that it's difficult to get proper funding. Still, Gangland had some sort of budget to work with. It wasn't large, but they were a professional crew, and not a bunch of amateur college students.

Gangland starts out with some stock footage of nuclear weapons going off. There's a monologue about the war and how it ended with the bomb, and then an onset of Ebola mutated by the radioactive fallout. Good times. Civilization is collapsing as the police are no longer able to keep control due to attrition of their numbers and the rise in gangs. That's right, the gangs have united and taken over the cities all across the country. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

You got all of that? We're not moving too fast for you here? Gangland is a combination of Mad Max and Warriors. Or maybe Surf Nazis Must Die (though I only managed to watch a half hour or so of Surf Nazis before my brain rebelled.)

Made in 2001, and set approximately 10 years in the future (or last summer), Gangland is a film about war, plague and the break down of human society and how individuals cope. Or at least I think that might be what the writers are telling themselves. Really, the movie seems to ask the age old question. “How many shirtless, muscular dudes can we stuff into leather pants and get on-screen at one time?” The answer, a lot. There are only a few token female breasts (mostly slaves and implied rape victims) and most of the rest of the screen-time is filled with big beefy men. I think that somewhere along the way in the production process a gay man saw 300, and said “I want to do that, but with bikers!” - though there is a major hole in my theory. 300 came five years later. Clearly someone on the team felt that there wasn't nearly enough softcore gay porn available in the world.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it seems that Gangland was wrangled by a crew who cut their teeth in porn. In addition to the beefy, mostly naked dudes, they throw in a couple of hot sex-slaves of the Asian persuasion. I think this can be seen as a definite precursor to the later film 300, where the director throws in a red herring to disguise the fact that the audience is viewing Gay Porn. Asian girls in mini-skirts? People running around in leather? Definite Fetish Film!

The movie is littered with symbolism. I don't mean riddled. I mean littered. Someone opened up a proverbial can of symbols and then drenched the script with it. What's a can of symbols? Well it's sort of like a can of whup-ass, only it smells a lot like a jar of Mayo that's been sitting in the sun for a week. To start out we have a conflict between Coolio and Ice T. This would be a bit like pairing Cheech Moran with Danny Trejo. Not quite, but close. They're portraying police officers just as the works is really going to hell. One is still a good cop, while the other is becoming corrupted and evil. The beginning of Gangland is almost like an analogy of the Hiphop industry during the 90s. Down to the street brawl that wraps it up!

Enter Lucifer, the new King of Los Angles. The story takes place in LaLaLand, where most of the characters seem intent on fleeing (that is, all non-gang members) to Phoenix. Get it? Oh yeah, that's American subtlety at it's best! But at least they try to add some sub-context. They were thinking about about injecting some deeper meaning into their story. Better luck next time guys, but damn good effort.

Ok, I can accept all of this. I can suspend disbelief, this is how I managed to enjoy Ghosthunters. It's why I watch movies in the first place, to be whisked off to a fantasy world and entertained by the story, if only for a little while. But the movie takes place in Los Angeles. Why are ALL of the gang members white? This is LA, home of the Crips and Bloods. Latinos make up half of the population of the city. Blacks and Asians each make up another ten percent. Where are all the people of color? If the movie was shot in LA, they should have had plenty of available talent. LA is crawling with non-white gangs.

Back is the Harry Potter Heroic Lineup. One smart woman. One slightly above average man as the leader. One really dumb guy to play sidekick to slightly above average man who's the leader. That's ok, since the heros are pitted against utter retards. How can it tell? Imagine you're in a violent street-gang that runs the city and kills civilians for pleasure. You encounter a couple unarmed dooffi(the plural for doofus), on a bridge, standing next to a overheated car. Your gang decides to toy with them a bit, but the doofi show spunk and show their mad kung fu skills. Do you:

A. Join the fray with your bare hands and out Bruce Lee them!
B: Find a stick and go in swinging!
C: SHOOT THEM WITH YOUR FUCKING GUN!

Guess what happened? Guess. Yeah. It got worse, the scene ended tragically with a slow motion extended “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” sequence on the part of one of the heroes. I laughed at this. Does that make me a bad person? There was another point that I laughed at the big dumb guy, at the finish of another scene that was meant to be traumatic. I can't help it, he was one of those dudes who kept up a running commentary, talking and talking, no matter that he had nothing to say. Fuck him, says I, fuck him with a chainsaw wrapped in barbed wire.

The heroes aren't much better than the villains. They were facing a psychopathic gang of thugs who were terrorizing a city. A gang that spent its time slaves and raping and murdering all over the place and generally carrying on ugly. What tactic do the heroes choose? Shoot them in the face so that they can't continue their reign of terror? Nay Nay. Cut their throats with a knife. Never! That might be messy! They just choose to beat the gangsters into submission and then run away.(In fairness, fearless leader did use the dreaded cock-punch technique once) That of course is unless they have a gun. Then they just shoot wildly, firing hundreds of rounds without ever re-loading. I believe in the final confrontation with Lucifer, the Light-Bringer is armed with naught but a six-shooter. After firing at least fifteen rounds, he's overcome and performs his loud and dramatic death, all to the tune of firing another eight shots.

Finally there was the big girl fistfight where Hermione met her nemesis. A statuesque woman clad in tight leather. Because tight leather is the ideal clothing for fighting in. There's no real explanation for any of this. They didn't meet previously, so there's no feud between them that has become more bitter with each encounter. They just randomly meet in the woods and throw down like a couple of men, trading punches and kicks. At no point does either of the combatants go for a titty. Never. Sure that might hurt the actresses, especially since Nemesis clearly is sporting an excess of silicone. One punch and she's down for good. Maybe Hermione ain't so bright after all. Of course intelligence is rather relative, and she's smarter than her two companions.

I think that the writers had a bit too much material for 90 minutes, and had to cut some of the character development. Because man, those boring fight sequences take a lot of time, as the actors keep repeating the same moves over and over and over again.

Clearly Gangland was about 15 years too late. It should have been made in the mid-eighties where it would have been about on par. This isn't the worst movie I've ever seen. In fact it, with the exception of a couple times where I got up and got a beverage, Gangland kept my attention. So, it's entertaining, if stupid. It would have made a fine episode of MST3K.

2/5

Now, what did this movie teach us?

First, a personal lesson. If we're thrown together due to the end of the world, and you're a chatty bitch who is completely incapable of silence for protracted periods(The Big Dumb Guy from the movie). Big dumb guy, with his inability to shut the fuck up, is going to get everyone killed when he Someone who lacks a filter between your ears that prevents you from voicing every flicker of neuro-energy... Then I'm gonna shoot you. In the face. Until I'm completely out of ammunition or you're completely out of face. Whichever happens first. It's either that or you're wearing a ball-gag for the duration. Your choice.

Now for the broader view.

Martial arts. Everyone in the apocalypse seems to have some proficiency of various forms. It would seem that you either need to become a master of Drunken Style KungFu, or pretty effing good at Parkour. One or the other. Preferably both.

Nowhere that I recall was rope used in this movie. The villains used chain in their torture chamber, which is like the evil half-brother of rope. I bet that the heroes would have been much better off if they had carried a few lengths with them and tied some knots. Maybe they wouldn't have had to flee the first battle had they climbed up the side of Lucifer's fortress instead of barging through the front door. But alas, they didn't follow the teachings of Sir Charles of Bronson.

Automotive Mechanics. Big McStupid would have been in a lot better shape if either he, or his brother, knew thing one about cars. Instead, they got trapped on a bridge and molested by a biker gang. Sure, the movie would have taken a different turn. But it would have been a vast improvement.