GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Spikeopath It suffers from the pitfalls of many other 1980s action films, such as plot holes, silly twists and predictability of formula, but there is a very good action film here that's more than a time waster for the so inclined.Young Guns (1988) stars Sutherland and Phillips (by now firm real life friends) team up again, this time in Phioladelphia with Sutherland as a maverick copper working undercover and Phillips as a Lakota Indian. The two of them are thrown together by fate when a case Sutherland is working on goes bad and Phillips' brother is killed and a sacred Lakota lance is stolen in the process. They are complete polar opposites as characters and struggle to get on with each other to achieve their respective goals. We know they will find a happy ground and kick ass, and with the actors chemistry well founded, it works real well as a buddy buddy action piece.Director Jack Sholder (The Hidden) has a good knack for action construction, be it shoot-outs or punch-ups, but the highlight here is a blunderbuss extended car chase through the city that wouldn't be out of place in a far bigger budgeted blockbuster. However, with the more character based sections of film the director is not so adept, struggling to get much out of Robert Knepper's villain and letting Jami Gertz wander in and out as a love interest type without any real rhyme or reason. But if frantic action is what you like, you get it here by the bucket load, just enjoy that ride and forget any hope of depth elsewhere. 6.5/10

oneguyrambling Given the sheer number of successful buddy films in the 80s and 90s you might wonder how such a simple formula could be misused? After all, the buddy shtick is simply there to justify a bunch of action sequences and perhaps some snappy dialogue. First the formula for a good buddy picture. Have one guy meet another guy he shouldn't get along with, give them both a bad guy to hate and cue the explosions and car chases! Get it? Just keep it simple, don't try too hard and make sure a bunch of guys end up dead. In Renegades, two guys from disparate backgrounds are drawn together when they must unite to track down a bad guy who has done done them wrong!Bingo! Put some titles at the front and credits at the end and I'm in! The two guys are Buster McHenry (Keifer Sutherland) and Hank Storm (Lou Diamond Phillips) who play an undercover cop and a person of Native American heritage respectively, an Indian for the cheap seats. As you can see above Keifer and Lou (sounds weird with the DP part), fresh of The Lost Boys and La Bamba respectively and Young Guns combined, went into what should be a B-movie and kicked it up a notch. One thing I can say for Keifer is that he always seems to be trying, he won't allow himself to just coast through a film, and I always thought LDP was cool even with his slightly girly hair. Unfortunately after both enjoyed the 80s and early 90s hot streak their careers went in opposite directions, Keifer ultimately landing the well respected and long running 24, and LDP being left with the reality of being little more than a direct to video guy and TV show guest actor. Keeping with the broad stereotypes the bad guys are a faceless Italian-American crime syndicate lead by a charismatic but vicious bloke who looks like a 5% off Johnny Depp, the real JD would have made this the perfect 80s movie, but I think he was still Jump Streeting at this stage. How he caused the respective gentleman grief is not important: aside from motivating them to hunt him down for their own personal reasons, good old fashioned vengeance and a sense of justice among them. It also leads to some solid and in this case, extremely inventive set pieces that push Renegades ahead of several other pretenders from the era. The first car chase after a botched diamond heist into which Buster is inadvertently involved is a doozy, it takes around 12 minutes and seamlessly embroils Hank into the proceedings at the half way point. So once the boys band together to further unite them against a common foe events transpire that they are being hunted by both the Mafia crime family and the cops, meaning they must rely solely on each other, for a brief time the film also introduces a young woman, for what reason I am unsure, as she is not a love interest as much as someone who is in a few scenes before being shot. I'll leave it at this: There is a reason Jami Gertz is not on the cover of the DVD. Some of the best scenes emanate from the fact that Buster wants to work alone, and that Hank needs him as he is not a local and doesn't have the contacts Buster has. So the dynamic is that Buster is continually trying to ditch Hank, who is always trying to either stop this from happening or rejoining with Buster after being ditched. In short everyone how is not on the poster dies at some point in this film, the goodies die to add importance and gravitas to the film, and build the need for vengeance, the bad guys because bad guys deserve to die and because someone has to win. As you can see that is a lot of people, in true buddy tradition the guys that deserve it more die in a more graphic and painful manner. This is called Movie-Karma. One last point: There are many times in this film where there is gunfire or the need for police intervention, but the police response times in Renegades are simply off the charts. In more than three occasions, if my memory serves they are on the scene less than a minute after the first shots are fired. In the case of the finale no sooner has the last shot rung out and the required bad guys have eaten lead the cops are there, which might not be such a big deal if the film hadn't indicated that the location was in the middle of nowhere and a long drive though empty territory! Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. The simple things are often the best. Broad stereotypes, obeying the formula and in this case leaving out the snappy and inane death quips leads to an excellent and too often overlooked action flick.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

Paul Andrews Renegades is set in Philadelphia where detective Buster McHenry (Kiefer Sutherland) is working undercover to try & bring down a dirty cop by arranging a robbery to steal six million dollars worth of diamonds, however things don't go to plan & the dirty cop doesn't show up & instead McHenry is forced to go through with the armed robbery with local mobster Marino (Robert Knepper) & his men. Things go from bad to worse for McHenry as bullets start to fly & people are shot & killed, the cops show up & all hell breaks loose & Marino, his men & McHenry try to escape en-route stopping off at an art gallery where Marino takes a fancy to an ancient Indian tribal lance on display & decides to steal it shooting Goerge Storm (Gary Farmer) in the process. His brother Hank Storm (Lou Diamond Phillips) is understandably annoyed & when he saves McHenry's life as Marino shoots him & leaves him for dead the two team up to bring Marino down, prove McHenry's innocence & get the Indian tribal lance back...Directed by Jack Sholder one has to say that Renegades is a really lacklustre & lifeless attempt at mismatched partners teaming up together to bring down some bad guy action thriller & is in fact maybe one of the worst examples I have seen. There are plenty of great examples of this type of mismatched partner action thrillers from 48 Hrs. (1982) to Lethal Weapon (1987) & it's sequels to Midnight Run (1988) to Tango & Cash (1989) to The Last Boy Scout (1991) to the more recent Rush Hour (1998) & sequels to name but a few fine examples, unfortunately when compared to shining lights of the sub genre like the aforementioned Renegades is just plain poor in every department by comparison. The main aspect of these types of films that ultimately make or breaks them is the partnership, here it's a quick talking wise cracking Philadelphia cop with a blatant disregard for police procedure who gets teamed up with a quiet respectful native American Indian & it just doesn't come off since there's virtually no humour or memorable interplay between the two. I just never warmed to either of them although to be fair Sutherland does try & his character does come off as the more likable of the two. The plot is extremely bare-bones & very thin, basically there's this robbery where events take a turn for the worse for our two main character's & it becomes personal for them so they team up to bring down a common enemy. That's it. There's a supposed plot twist about a bad cop but it comes to early in the film & has no real impact on the story other than a cop is involved with the main bad guy. The action scenes are poor & very forgettable, there's a dull car chase & a few seen it all before shoot-outs where the bad guys can't shoot straight, no-one ever runs out of bullets & it's just a case of men standing there holding guns firing at each other. Yawn. The plot is extremely predictable & strictly by the numbers with these two mismatched partners hating each other to start with but growing to respect each other & becoming great friends & even putting their own lives at risk for one another, seen it all before & usually done much better with more humour & more excitement. I also hated the ending, I mean after killing people, stealing cars, threatening people at gunpoint, taking part in an armed robbery where innocent people are killed & breaking every rule in the book McHenry gets off scott free & even gets a vacation out of it!The action scenes, if you can call them that, are poor with only a fairly sedate car chase to remember the film by & even that seems lethargic, slow & dull. The occasional shoot-out are dull & all look the same as each other, the plot twists are handled poorly & have little to no impact & Renegades is one of the worst examples of the mismatched partner action thriller genre I can remember seeing. For an 80's big studio big budget action thriller Renegades doesn't seem to be that well known, there are only sixteen reviews on the IMDb as I write this & only three external reviews. I can certainly understand why it's been largely forgotten about & why it doesn't seem to have any sort of a following.Making less than $10,000,000 at the box office I assume that Renegades was a flop, the same years Tango & Cash is a much superior film using the same general template. Filmed in Philadelphia & Ontario in Canada. Kiefer Sutherland looks fat, out of shape & has a really bad moustache but managed to live this down & has gone on to have a fine career as a respected actor while Lou Diamond Phillips has made dozens of low budget straight to video action films.Renegades is a really predicable, humourless, dull & plodding action thriller that throws two mismatched yet boring characters together to bring down an equally boring enemy. One to avoid, even newly converted fans of Kiefer Sutherland (beacuse of hit TV show 24) might want to skip this.

bkoganbing The only reason I give Renegades as high a rating as I do is because I'm a great big fan of the leads Lou Diamond Phillips and Kiefer Sutherland. Rarely have I seen a major theatrical motion picture resting on a supposition as outrageous as this one.Kiefer Sutherland is a Philadelphia detective gone undercover on his own to find a corrupt cop. He's infiltrated a mob headed by a very cold blooded hood played by Robert Knepper who's planning a jewel heist.The heist goes off, but with some unforeseen complications. Such as the fact that Knepper while fleeing from the cops in hot pursuit, goes through the Philadelphia American Indian Museum and on impulse steals a sacred lance of the Lakota Sioux tribe. He also shoots Gary Farmer who tries to stop him and cold conks Sutherland who tries the same.Phillips is Farmer's brother and he and Sutherland form an alliance of convenience to accomplish their separate goals. But I have to say that the whole idea here is just plain preposterous.Phillips is a stoic Indian figure, he's carrying over his performance from Young Guns where he and Sutherland met and became lifetime friends. Sutherland's performance is a combination of Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry and Steve McQueen from Bullitt.For action fans there are enough gun battles and one great car chase as in Bullitt through the streets of Philadelphia/Toronto as some of Renegades was filmed there. As Sutherland and Phillips are good friends in real life as well the spirit of camaraderie does come through. Jami Gertz as Knepper's girl friend has a very nice role as basically an old time gangster moll.Yet the whole idea behind Renegades is just plain preposterous and unless you're a fan of either one or both the leads you're going to laugh yourself silly.