Summertime Killer is a Spanish thriller and would seem to take influence both from the Italian Polizi and mafia genres, as well as the American action films. The film is thoroughly entertaining for the entire duration; but it does suffer from some major story and scripting problems – for a start, the film simply tries to do too much and changes gears too often and at really short notice; we go from a revenge thriller to a kidnap flick in a heartbeat and it makes the film feel rather disjointed. Add in some completely bizarre character decisions and you’ve got a film that is seriously hard to take seriously. Summertime Killer starts with a scene that sees a bunch of gangsters kill a man, under the nose of his son. We then fast forward a few years and the kid is grown up; the gangsters that killed his father are also being picked off one by one. Naturally, there are people out to stop him from taking his revenge; including the mob boss as well as a police detective who resolves to track the kid down.
The lead character is played by Christopher Mitchum; a fresh faced actor who I was surprised to find is the son of grizzled Noir star Robert Mitchum. He actually fits the role better than I thought he would and plays the cold man of few words well. My fellow Dario Argento fans will recognise Karl Malden as the star of Cat O’Nine Tails; the distinctive actor puts in a good performance here, and the stunning Argentine actress Olivia Hussey rounds off the central cast. There’s a solid stream of action that runs throughout the movie and thankfully director Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi knows his way around an action scene well enough to keep everything entertaining. The car chase towards the end of the film is a seriously gripping highlight and actually reminded me a lot of the standout car chase in James Cameron’s masterpiece Terminator 2. The film has a fair few distinctive elements about it; the way the central character rides around on a dirt bike and lives in a houseboat being the biggest of them. Overall; this is certainly a very flawed film – but it’s entertaining enough and I’m sure that anyone who tracks it down won’t be too disappointed.
