Hands of Steel (1986)

A vaguely Terminator inspired slice of Italian schlock, Hands of Steel (1986) - or, if you prefer, Vendetta del Futuro - also mixes in some of the aesthetic of the various Italian Mad Max and Escape From New York knock offs, with its lightly sketched in dystopian near-future setting.  In truth, it's a future that doesn't look too different to the present at the time the film was made, doubtless for budgetary reasons.  Pollution is the big threat in this future, with a political leader promising to take on the corporations and save the world, becomes a target for said corporations, who send a brainwashed cyborg to kill him at his headquarters in a run down hotel in an LA ghetto.  Unlike the 'Terminator', this cyborg isn't armed to the teeth with firearms, instead killing with his hands (the titular 'hands of steel').  But this time he doesn't kill, rebelling against his programming, he only injures his target, before going on the run from both his employers and the authorities.

At which point the plot shifts gears, with the cyborg holing up at a remote desert bar, where he gets involved in the local arm-wrestling scene.  Initially getting involved to protect the female bar owner from local thug George Eastman and his gang, he subsequently challenges the title holder, a big bald bearded truck driver, beating him despite Eastman's attempts to nobble him pre-contest.  Not surprisingly, all of this inevitably attracts the attention of both cops and evil corporation, who converge on the area.  In the ensuing conflagration, the cyborg gets to fight a female cyborg, has numerous shoot outs with corporation goons and is involved in several car chases involving articulated lorries and helicopters, before finally facing off against chief bad guy John Saxon.  Hands of Steel is one of those films which is good fun while it is on, but which ultimately leaves little impression, being entirely derivative of other, better budgeted, films.  What lingers in the memory are some well mounted action set pieces and Sergio Martino's pacy direction, which doesn't leave you too much time to think much about the film's short-comings while it is playing.  

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of the film is the way in which Martino manages to create a future world on what was clearly a very tight budget, sketching in details here and there to create something that, while remarkably like 1986 (people still drive third generation Camaros), still has enough differences to make it seem futuristic.  Unfortunately, the lack of budget means that the film can never really develop its scenario of a badly polluted world, where people have to dodge showers of acid rain, instead opting to go off into its desert arm-wrestling middle section, which could have come from another film entirely, in order to pad out the action.  The performances are adequate for this sort of film, with Daniel Greene suitably monosyllabic and inexpressive as the cyborg, while Eastman and Saxon, who had already made countless Italian schlock movies, go through their paces, delivering exactly the sort of villainous performances you'd expect from them.  All-in-all Hands of Steel is an enjoyable diversion, certainly more entertaining and action packed that many bigger budgeted action films of its era.