Death Cheaters (1976)

A slice of early 'Ozsploitation', Brian Trenchard-Smith's Death Cheaters (1976) was a follow up to his popular Australia/Hong Kong martial arts action thriller The Man From Hong Kong (1975).  While it is fast moving and action packed as the earlier film, Death Cheaters is far less successful as a film and was far less successful at the box office.  The film's biggest problem lies in its meandering and episodic plot.  While the basic concept is simple - a pair of stuntmen are recruited by the Australian government to carry out a secret mission in Thailand - it takes an age to get to what audiences doubtless expected to be the main focus of the story.  The mission itself - a raid on an industrial complex to steal some secret papers held by a shady industrial magnate - is crammed into the last fifteen minutes or so.  There are a few sequences prior to this devoted to the protagonists' training at a government camp, but the rest of the film is mainly filled with their various stunt activities as they shoot a series of TV ads for various products - one is a public safety film so involves one of them being hit by a car, the other set on fire etc.  

It's not that these scenes aren't well executed and enjoyable, it is just that they feel like padding and frustrate the viewer expecting a full blown action thriller along the lines of The Man From Hong Kong.  For too much of the film's running time, it doesn't actually feel as if it is actually going anywhere.  It's loose structure is probably down to the fact that it was conceived as a pilot for a TV series that could be released to cinemas as a self contained feature film.  No series, however, was ever picked up, but the various episodes in the film are clearly there to establish the type of action potential buyers could hope to see on a weekly basis, while not nailing the concept down too firmly to a specific format.  As well as the various stunt sequences, there is quite a bit else to enjoy about Death Cheaters.  While the two leads, John Hargreaves and Grant Page (an internationally renowned stuntman), might not be exactly star names, they make for charismatic and likeable heroes, wisecracking their way through a variety of situations.  Veteran Australian character actor Noel Ferrier gives a characteristically enjoyable and quirky performance as the 'man from the ministry', while various other stalwarts of Australian TV and film, such as Vincent Ball, Wallas Eaton and Christ Heywood, pop up in supporting roles.  Trenchard-Smith's direction is, as ever, highly efficient, with the film playing to his strength of being able to co-ordinate and shoot complex and lengthy action sequences with absolute clarity, while not losing any pace.  Despite being played for laughs, Death Cheaters is still packed full of exciting car chases, fights and explosions.  The climactic mission is actually extremely well staged, despite feeling rushed - it really needed to have started earlier in the narrative.  Despite being a relatively minor entry in the 'Ozsploitation' genre (and Trenchard-Smith's canon), Death Cheaters is still well worth watching.