Hurricane Smith

1990 / Director. Collin Budds.

Hurricane Smith is a contrived, generic carbon copy movie with a storyline lifted straight from Beverly Hills Cop. Carl Weathers plays a nice guy from Texas who   travels to Australia to find his lost sister. A fish out of water he is faced with prejudice, racism and bogans while trying to infiltrate a prostitution and drug smuggling ring. This is an Australian film doing its best to be a Hollywood movie... and with a modest budget, it does a great job. Sure the script is trite but the action is fantastic with some superbly choreographed sequences... most notable is a speed-boat chase, which makes great use of the rivers and canals of Surfer's Paradise and a gutsy helicopter dangle. Carl Weathers' performance leaves a lot of be desired but he is supported by great talent like David Argue and Jürgen Prochnow (basically doing a Victor Maitland impersonation). Sadly the movie is riddled with uncomfortable stereotypes and an ugly undertone of racism. Weather's character is constantly referred to as "Septic" and occasionally "nigger". Of course he's the hero of the movie and always prevails but he brushes off the bigotry without reacting... a noble trait but my own frustration wanted him to crack skulls every time an Aussie fuckwit slagged him off. The movie poster is amusing too because that woman in Hurricane's arms is not in the movie. Who the hell is she? LOL. For all it's flaws, this is still a fun and well staged action movie and would benefit from a proper DVD release. I'd love to get a bit more insight into it's production. 

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