Waco-based drug dealer Billy Ray (Rod Shaft) would seem to have it all: a Corvette with a personalized license plate that says ‘Sleek1' on it, a fancy house, a hot girlfriend named Carmen (Barri Murphy) who just can't wait to get naked and screw him on the couch and a bottle of Shiner! What Carmen doesn't realize, however, is that Billy Ray is involved with some bad dudes who want the diamonds that he's stashed somewhere in the area. They kidnap her man and dangle him from a helicopter until he tells them where they are, and then they drop him in a lake.

A short time later and Billy Ray is dead as a doornail and Carmen is under the protection of F.B.I. agents Clay Osborn (Gregory Scott Cummins of Hack-O-Lantern!) and Earl 'Panama' McKinnon (William Hubbard Knight). These guys answer to Conover (the mighty William Smith of Conan The Barbarian and Geteven) but more importantly than that, need to keep Carmen safe. See, a gangster named Frankie Navarro (Cameron Mitchell of Knives Of The Avenger and The Toolbox Murders) has employed a few goons: Hitch (Hoke Howell), Lucky (David Sanders) and leader Drago (Ross Hagen of Armed Response and Wonder Women). They're here to get their hands on her because the info Billy Ray gave them about the diamonds? It was BS! Those rocks are still out there and Navarro wants them in his meaty, sweaty paws before the Feds can scoop them out from under him.

From there, our heroes find themselves struggling to keep Carmen safe and away from Drago and company… but they're not really that good at their job, often letting her wander off on her own, missing flights and taking breaks at honkytonk bars where she gets on stage and sings with a band called Cherokee Rose!

Action U.S.A. is not a particularly original film, borrowing from Lethal Weapon and any other buddy cop movie you'd care to name, but what it lacks in originality it makes up for with colorful characters and an extremely enviable willingness to blow stuff up. Director John Stewart, who co-wrote with Dave Reskin, had a background in stunts, having worked on the first two Phantasm sequels as well as, yep, Armed Response to name only a few of his credits, and he took that background and those connections and turned it into a movie far more concerned with stunts and explosions than with acting or character development. Fine, every character in this film is a cliché, but you know what? It doesn't matter, because this movie starts out with its foot on the gas and just ramps it up from there (except for a stretch in the middle where things actually do kind of slow down a bit, but never to the point of boredom).

Acting? Sure, this movie has some. Barri Murphy plays a hot chick that sings well enough, eating on camera a lot of showing off her shoulder pads as well as her ample bosom. No complaints here. Gregory Scott Cummins is fine, essentially playing the lead here and having a decent enough camaraderie with William Hubbard Knight that makes us think of Samurai Cop (which wasn't made yet) than Lethal Weapon (which clearly inspired this movie). These two are pretty fun to watch. Hoke Howell and David Sanders are fine in their respective parts and Cameron Mitchell is only in the movie for a few minutes (though he does get to hang out in a hot tub with some hot chicks). Ross Hagen is great here, chewing the scenery and waving a giant silver pistol around, yelling at everyone and just clearly having a great time doing his thing. William Smith plays William Smith, not really stretching much as an actor here but using his gravelly voiced screen presence to turn his ridiculously clichéd character into something memorable.

All in all, it's just a really fun film. It isn't' deep, but it's not trying to be, but it's got some Jackie Chan level stunts on display, plenty of great explosions, goofy dialogue, car chases, nudity, country music, a sweet Corvette. What more could you ask for?

Video:

Action U.S.A. arrives on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen with the feature taking up 26GBs of space on the 50GB disc. This looks like the same transfer that Vinegar Syndrome used for their out of print Blu-ray release, which was taken from a new 4k restoration of the original 35mm negative. Ovearll, picture quality is excellent. There's a little bit of print damage here and there but it's just minor specks now and again, nothing really distracting at all. Colors are reproduced really nicely (those explosions look beautiful!) and black levels are strong throughout. The image always looks nice and filmic, there are no issues with compression or noise reduction or edge enhancement to gripe about, and there's good depth throughout.