American Tiger/American Rickshaw

(original italian title-American Riscio’)

1990/Italy/93 minutes

Tagline-The way which is a way, is not the ordinary way.(apparently some line by Confucius)

One of the most bizarre horror/action/mystery films that I've come across, this one involves a perplexing mix of Asian witches, ancient magic with sinister warthog statutes that can be either applied to good effect (gaining immortality and eternal youth) or bad effect (a pact with Satan for instance), voyeurism, evil televangelists, olympic gymnansts, strippers, creepy cats with bells around their necks, serpents, Chinese talismans and more. Phew !

A college student in Miami (Scott Edwards played by Olympic gymnast Mitchell Gaylord) works part time as a rickshaw puller to earn a few bucks and support himself and his invalid friend, who together share a moth eaten apartment in a decrepit building.  During one of his nocturnal stints, Scott is hired by a hot stripper who takes him to a harbour and then seduces him (extra payment for the rickshaw ride !) However, it turns out that she was hired to play a role in a porno film shot by respected televangelist Reverend Mormon’s son who is a 'peeping tom'. Once Scott finds out, all hell breaks out as he smashes the poor guy Jason around, beats him blue, leaves the place in a wreck and then runs away with the wrong video cassette (back in the 90's, there were those bulky tapes for home entertainment). Despite using all gymnast skills he possesses, Scott loses both the real tape and the stripper, who runs away amidst the confusion !

Back at his apartment, Scott discovers the switched tape in which the creep Jason is blabbering about some key around his neck which Scott had earlier during the struggle thrown into the water. He rushes back to recover the sex tape and instead finds Jason dead, his face stuffed into a toilet seat and his mouth full of bloodied toilet roll. Just as he is about to clear his own blood and prints, the boat bursts into flame and Scott dives into the water, thus saving his ass in time ! Parallelly, a massive thug called Francis gets hold of the sex tape featuring Scott and gets furious, as he was really after the key around Jason's neck or the tape disclosing its whereabouts, which is now in Scott's possession. He is the murderer of Jason, and has been hired by the father (Rev. Mortem) to kill the son and get the key, which is the key to the warthog whose power cannot be under-estimated.

Anyway, after a few run-ins with the thug, during which Scott and the stripper Joanna become lovers (though she always gives him the slip !), the key finds its way to the televangelist who sends his henchman to retrieve the statue (a really ugly one if you ask me). Scott's friend is killed by the thug and he sneaks into his now-burnt apartment (it caught fire similar to the boat, a phenomena linked to the supernatural powers of the Asian witch Madame Luna who was helped by Scott earlier in the film) to get a chinese talisman given by the mentioned Madame Luna. This leads him, through the precious help of shimmery white eyed cats, to the luxurious den of the lady. Here she tells him that she has been watching him since birth, because he has been chosen to return the warthog to its original resting place, as he was born on 6th June 1966 (6-6-66, inverted form of 9999, which according to ancient Chinese folklore signifies the return of the talisman symbol to the celestial sphere in the year of the tiger, and that a person born on such date would get her the warthog back). Anyway, both Scott and Jason were born on same date and year, however the latter proved weak and thus Madame Luna had enlisted the help of Joanna and Scott to get her beloved statue back.

Apparently in young days, Madame Luna had fallen under the spell of Mortem who used her to steal the statue and thus become the Devil himself ! Now she wants to get it back and restore the balance in the world and her own youth of course (now which is more selfish, being the Devil for power, or staying young and immortal ?) Anyway, the stripper returns to Scott's life as the guardian angel, and together they whisk the statue into the hands of the divine old witch, who proceeds to become young again ! She then reprimands Rev. Mortem through live telecast (how did that happen ??) and exposes his crimes, upon which his long suffering wife shoots him dead. Out of the dead body, the hideous shape of the devil is revealed, shocking the devout followers who feasted upon each word of the sanctimonious televangelist. Rev. Mortem is played by none other than the versatile Donald Pleasance, who probably tired of the Halloween franchise, thought that giving sermons from a pulpit about 'our Good Lord' and his 'divine grace' was a desirable change.

A lunatic caper of a movie, it defies being placed under any particular genre or subject-matter. It suffers from an improbable story and characterisations. The motives of the stripper are suspect to begin with, I mean why does she abandon Scott at every dangerous situation if she liked him even remotely ?  The thug is a mystery- if he wanted the key, why kill the man who carried it and instead search for a terrible video cassette where Jason was showing off the key ? Scott forgets his dead buddy as soon as he gets to bed Joanna; why does Madame Luna keep so many snakes and cats, and if she was really that powerful, she could have got the warthog long back instead of getting a ‘man from the other side’ to physically wrench it from the possession of the evil Rev. Mortem ? If Mortem stole the warthog and stored it in a government facility (hahaha), then how did he lose the key; if at all it came into possession of the son, he could have pressurised him to get it back instead of hiring a henchman to finish him off ! Also, why on earth didn't Madame Luna call Scott directly and issue directions, instead of running him around and causing his ass to be fried twice !?

The film has numerous wtf moments that left me scratching my head in bewilderment. The creators attempted making a heady cocktail of variety of strange stuff, but the end result isn’t well blended, and is rather sloppy and inconsistent. The several sub-plots seem unconnected except that they're all meant to be conspiracies around poor Jake's life, just because he was born in the year of the tiger. Speaking of tigers, Jake seems to know his fate because he wears a shirt sporting a tiger throughout (maybe a coincidence if it was the only shirt available within the budget). The acting is bad here too, Scott is wooden faced and unperturbed throughout, Victoria Prouty as the stripper is dull and expressionless, and the thug has a wince inducing smirk throughout the delirious proceedings. But it retains a certain offbeat charm, endearing in its sheer stupidity. There are certainly no movies being made like this anymore.  Definitely worth a worth for all trash film aficionados.

Interestingly, this is directed by the great Sergio Martino who went on to establish himself in giallo films during their heydays in the 1970’s with solid entries like 'All the Colours of the Dark', 'The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh' etc.

PS- Rickshaws and tigers have minimal importance in the film.