Gritty NYC! Halfway into this, I legit had to check to make sure Death Promise wasn’t a modern parody along the lines of Black Dynamite. Nope, near as I can tell all this low budget action insanity is for real, as Charles Bonet teams up with his buddies to kung fu murder a group of evil landlords in extremely ‘70s NYC. This feels exactly like a Dirk Diggler movie, only without the porn. And it is GLORIOUS!
Highlights include:
– The slammin’ 70s wardrobe.
– Super silly deaths.
– Our hero’s buddy creating a distraction by jumping out onto the villain’s lawn and singing “Girl from Ipanema”
– Crackling expository dialogue like this from the cops guarding one of the evil landlords: “After all, the Judge is a pretty good guy, we’ll take care of him while he’s laying there.”
– All the evil landlords discussing how they’ll spend their ill-gotten gains in typical ways – investments, buildings, women, cars – except the mob boss, who pipes up about how he’s always dreamed of traveling and seeing Turkey.
– Kung fu vocalizations that make Dolemite seem normal.
– The theme song!
Seriously, this is Miami Connection lost treasure good.