Other commenters here have compared this to "Rambo," and it did come out early in the cycle of cheap Rambo imitations. But it's at least as much like "Walking Tall," in that the upstanding ornery cop (or ex-cop in this case) moves to a small hick town and immediately runs afoul of the good-old-boy louts running amuck there. His long-lost daughter shows up uninvited, and when the bullies kill one of her friends, they spend the rest of the movie's second more "Rambo"-like half stalking father and daughter through the surrounding wilderness in order to eliminate the remaining witnesses.This is fairly well-paced but not as much fun as you might hope. The dubbed dialogue is sort of funny-it's the usual bad Italian approximation of what Americans sound like, read by actors sporting very hokey "redneck" accents-but the film is an adequate, earnest "B" rather than luridly ridiculous and entertaining in the mode of many later "Rambo" knockoffs or 80s Italian exploitation films in general. Nor is the action or violence very memorable. My favorite exploitation actor George Eastman aka Luigi Montefiori turns up playing the main villain's sympathetic older brother, a much more low-key role than usual for him and not a very interesting one. Michael Sopkiw, the U.S. actor who was never able to parlay his stardom in these early-80s Italian movies into an American career, is handsome (here with a big Marlboro Man 'stache) and agreeable-enough as usual. Anyway, it's an OK time-killer but nothing special. Lamberto Bava does a decent job, but his 80s giallos and "Demon" movies are more memorable. Fans of the period will enjoy the disco-synthy score, though the fact that the film actually was shot in the U.S. (Georgia) makes it less obviously a European imitation of an American movie than most similar Italian enterprises around the same time. By the way, the irrelevant title was originally intended for a science-fiction movie that the funding fell through for. I guess some marketing materials had already been prepared, so to save costs they kept the title when the entire project was changed into this less-expensive rural action thriller.

The always fun to watch Michael Sopkiw stars in this highly enjoyable action yarn. In it he plays an ex police officer who having just been released from an eight year prison sentence, now seeks the solitude of the great outdoors. However, with a film title such as Blastfighter, you can bet your bum that solitude is a luxury that our hero won't be attaining.Sure enough he finds himself in a heated dispute with some local rednecks who repeatedly antagonise him after he attempts to interfere with their cruel deer poaching activities. This initial antagonising eventually escalates to attempted murder and later on, the actual murder of one of our hero's friends plus our hero's estranged daughter's boyfriend (whoa, that was quite a mouthful!)Matters reach a dramatic peek when the daughter herself is also killed thus finally sending our hero over the edge..... It is at this point that in true Rambo style he takes drastic action and basically kills every one of the scumbags! To aid him with this joyous task our man utilises a rather nifty shotgun that fires multiple projectiles such as explosives, smoke grenades, darts etc. (COOL!!!)The climax of the picture has our hero up against the legendary George Eastman who plays the BIG brother of the head redneck.What can I say, this is a really satisfying movie with some stunning location shooting and in addition, plenty of shooting of the ammunition kind! Sopkiw gives probably his best performance and makes for a very sympathetic hero. It's such a shame that he retired as an actor after only four films. If there is one criticism I would level at the film however, then it is that although the special weapon our hero carries is supposedly the main draw of this film (as regards the advertising at least) it is only actually used proper in the final 15 or so minutes of the running time. In addition, despite a fair number of cool explosions, these final scenes are not handled as spectacularly as perhaps one might have hoped for (although the scene where our hero blows off a mans arm at point blank range is pretty awesome!)Still, as a whole, as I previously said, this is solidly entertaining stuff and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all serious action fans.....Now where can I get one of those guns from?

I am not usually a big fan of action movies. That is, American action movies. Being a fan of Italian horror films, I was attracted to this film because of the director, Lamberto Bava. This was fun movie to watch, and kinda funny to-unintentionally. It was funny to see the Italian take on American rednecks from Georgia- did a pretty good job of it, but very much a caricature of rednecks. I don't want to spoil it, but there is a lot of over the top situations where the viewer will say, "they wouldn't do that!", or "that wouldn't ever happen!". But that is the joy of watching films, to see things that couldn't or wouldn't happen in real life. This is almost a cliché' for a action movie from the 80s. Explosions, big guns, and a sweaty dirty hero. I had to pick up a DVD-R from somebody, I don't believe that this is distributed by any company at the moment- in the US at least.

Scenic locations and great action really make this italian entry into the Hicksploitation genre stand out. It's somewhat reminscent of Rambo: First Blood, but I actually like it better than that movie. Micheal Sopkiw really shows his talent as a versitile action star here. See it along with After the fall of New York and Massacre in Dinosaur Valley to really get a sense of Sopkiw's talents.