From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Warriors of the Wasteland (The New Barbarians, I nuovi barbari) released in 1983.
Starring:
Giancarlo Prete, Fred Williamson, George Eastman
Directed by:
Enzo G. Castellari
Genre:
Action, Romance, Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
R
Budget:
N/A
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
4.6
The Synopsis is:
In the year 2019 the sinister post apocalyptic gang called The Templars hunt every living human left alive on Earth. It takes a former Templar, Scorpion to put an end to their terror.
Story:
Some people, not many, confuse this film as being an adaptation of the Penguin book, Warriors of the Wasteland published in the same year, 1983. However the story dips into a completely different source.
Before we go into the story, I’ll have to give you a little short film history.
The beginnings go way back to the Spaghetti Westerns, also known as Italian Western inspired by American Westerns and Japanese samurai films of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
It all started with the Italian film, Per un pugno di dollari, Fist Full of Dollars. It’s an Italian film! I always thought it was American. It was an unofficial remake of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo (1961), which resulted in a successful lawsuit.
Well, it created this lucrative market for Italian rip-off films in America and thus an assembly line productions began, from westerns, to horror, sci-fi and fantasy. And they were gloriously low budget!
This film was mainly modeled after the Australian dystopian action film, Mad Max released in 1979. As well, post apocalyptic films were very popular and they were the cheapest low budget films to make because they were usually set in the desert, use old vehicles, and costumes would consist of rags and odd end pieces.
Tito Carpi came up with the story and wrote the screenplay with Antonio Visone, and the director, Enzo G. Castellari (also credited as Enzo Girolami).
The original title of the film in Italy was, I nuovi barbari, translated to The New Barbarians. It was one of three movies that Enzo worked on that was written, prepared, and filmed in six months time. The other two films were, 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx.
Wow! Let’s give credit where credit is due for delivering three memorable action packed films in such a short range of time. That’s real hustle.
As far as the story goes, it’s actually solid and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s no hero's journey, but it’s got the bones of a beginning, middle, and an end. Well actually, it starts off in the middle and the beginning you have to piece together if you pay attention to the story. And to be fair, it’s not easy to pay attention to the story because of all of the hilarious shock value placed in the tale.
The writing is more of a whirlwind of action scenes that lead to a big showdown at the end, but when it comes to dialogue, the film suffers it’s biggest detriment. It’s so awkward, hilariously ridiculous, and at points extremely offensive, so that is another reason it is hard to pay attention to the actual story.
But somehow at the core of it, I still feel as if there is a good story brewing beneath the surface of this film.
Pacing:
At 1 hour and 31 minutes the pacing goes quick. So much happens in the film you feel as if you’ve been through a whirlwind by the end.
Challenge:
As I said before, the beginning of this story starts in the middle. The thing that started it all was the nuclear apocalypse in 2010. The film never directly tell us this, but after many viewings and dissecting the dialogue peppered throughout the film, you get this backstory.
Nine years later we have caravans of survivors roaming the wasteland of desert. They hold on to the hope that they can reach “civilization” through radio signals. At some point in the film, it is understood that civilization could be as close as 10 miles away.
So why haven’t the rest of civilization tried to send a rescue team to find survivors? Well it’s quite possible the were intercepted and exterminated by the dreaded Templars.
The Templars are a massive gang of murderers that comb the wasteland for survivors.
The Templars are named after The Knights Templar, a Catholic military order that existed from 1119 until 1312. They even refer to themselves as the high priests of death. This is one of the many obvious religious references in the film, but it’s very uncertain if the film’s message is part of an agenda.
Just when you think that the Templars may be a religious group, their leader, The Supreme One, (also referred to as One) maniacally rips a bible in half and says that “books” started the apocalypse. I’m not sure if he is just referring to religious teachings, or the mass sharing of ideas in general. However, by ripping the bible in particular, we can understand that the Templars are in a league of their own.
You get the feeling the rest of the Templars, just enjoy being at the top of the food chain, but One seems to be driven by the purpose to finish what the apocalypse started in the genocide of humans.
Why? Well it’s a little garbled why, but his reasoning is more out of outrage at what has happened. He says that world “raped itself” and thinks that “no one is innocent”. That would include women, children, and newborns. He says they have to “pay for the crime of being alive”.
One is really the most fleshed out character in the film at least his psychological state when we see him on screen. We now how he feels. He pretty much says anything he is thinking.
Shadow is the #2 guy, the literal shadow to one, which makes me think that the two characters have real names, but the Supreme one and his Shadow is a binary ruling title.
You always get the feeling that Shadow really wants to be the Supreme One, he doesn't think One has the heart to be truly ruthless. And he’s not alone in this sentiment.
Mako, who is the fanatical young warrior next in line to succeed One, thinks the two in power are too soft and old. It’s even possible that Mako and One share a special romantic relationship… and let me explain.
As per certain events that happen in the film, that I may not be able to discuss on this platform, it is strongly indicated that the Templars are homosexual. This makes complete sense to me because there are no women in the group and I noticed that many of the Templars are often paired in twos.
It’s even possible that One and Shadow are a couple because Shadow never gets reprimanded for some of the awful things that he says to One. Shadow is also extremely jealous of Mako and Scorpion.
Scorpion used to be a Templar as the tale goes, after scraping together different bits of dialogue. Scorpion was victorious in a duel with One, allowing him to leave the group. There was an unspoken truce between the them. And you get the sense that he must have done a lot of damage before leaving because they are also very, very afraid of him.
The truce seems to vanish change when Mako is killed. And back to the theory of One and Mako having a relationship, the war lord was really upset when he dies. We are talking about a character that wants all humans to die.
Revenge for Mako becomes their motivation for finally going after and capturing Scorpion.
Once the Templars have accomplished their goal what is next for them? What is the point of killing everyone? The concept is not fully imagined. Good try though. It just leaves the audience a little dumbfounded.
Empathy:
My empathy was not really there for me. I struggle to figure out why because this is such a cruel world that Scorpion has to shoot a wounded man who is begging to die. It's so sad. (coincidentally, the dying man was played by the director and it was some of the best acting in the film.)
But somehow, the film doesn’t allow you to feel the weight of this and we move on without any emotional tone but cold silence. What little dialogue that transpired between the two characters didn’t help either.
Scorpion is kinda modeled after Mad Max, but the filmmakers forgot to let us know why. The entire Mad Max movie was the story of how the character became mad. Scorpion, barely has a backstory that you can plainly see. It took a few watches to figure it out, so it’s hard to really identify with him without a real reason for his behavior.
However, what I can muster up of his motives, when Scorpion lets a female survivor, Alma, into his car, Shadow points out how Scorpion and the Templars are the same… killers. What makes him “so different”?
Part of Scorpion’s response is that he looks at Alma and then looks back at Shadow, he says, “Now you know how I am different.” He likes girls.
Another lone wolf character appears in the film with a friendly history of some kind, by the name of Nadir. He’s is a fun character that enjoys fighting and a good battle.
Nadir’s mission throughout the film is to help Scorpion with his battles against the Templars but he also wants Scorpion to admit he needs it. It’s an ongoing banter between the two, of Scorpion needing help and refusing to ask for help from Nadir. It’s a cute bromance going on between the two.
Alma is Scorpion’s love interest, and it’s completely predictable. In their awkward interactions with one another she represents the hope that many of the survivors have, of restoring their world, finding “civilization”. Scorpion believes that humans should just move on with the world as it is. And who is to say who’s right. It makes sense that they feel so differently and I really like the fact that is touched upon in the film. I would have loved more of that.
Technical:
The New Barbarians was shot outside of Rome in late 1982. As I mentioned before that this was 1 of 3 films made in six months so there was a lot of work that was done quickly, efficiently, and very rough around the edges.
To the credit of the movie, the action in this low budget film is excellently finessed for such little resources. The stunts were a pure spectacle as you can see many of the stunt guys flipping in the air and landing on their backs. Even our main actor, runs as explosions actually go off near his ankles. It’s unbelievable!
It really takes a great deal of craft to pull off this kind of work without killing your crew, so, bravo.
The stunts were shot at three different speeds: 24, 55, and 96 frames per second. This really helped to extend the run time and expand the impact of many of the action scenes. This means lots of slow motion action.
The explosions were pretty awesome to be quite honest and there is a certain kind of pyrotechnics that you can only get from a low budget film. The just revel in the fire play, torches and explosives.
A lot of people overlook the details on the different post apocalyptic cars. I thought that they were pretty crafty.
The special effects were not horrible, but there were some definite moments where you can see that dummies were hilariously used to depict some of the brutal arsenal. It’s so entertainingly bad and you just can’t help enjoying the shenanigans.
That is what I suppose is the charm of b movies wherein we have so many terribly unbelievable gory moments and it’s hysterical because it’s obviously not real or realistic. It's more make believe than big budget films.
Some of the Templars used future guns that had a very lazer sound to the effects, however, the people being shot was inconsistent. Victims were falling over with no visible evidence of anything happened, some would flash a prosthetic wound, and sometimes there was smoke. It took a while to understand what was going on because it looked like someone forgot to add in the visual effect of a laser beam. It’s a little hilarious.
I rather enjoyed the costumes quite a bit, they are unique and a bit absurd in many instances. But again, you can see there was some money spent on them, especially the design and construction of the Templars’ uniforms. Was I the only one who thought that the Templars must have had their own tailor, because their costumes were sick!
Comical, shoulder pads were a big emphasis and there is something ultra 80’s about them.
The Templars were also treated with a little more flair when it came to hair and make-up. I must confess, that I am a sucker for guy liner but the wigs... the Templar wigs were laughable. I mean, who can ever unsee Mako’s purple mohawk.
This is why I have so much fun with this movie.
Warriors of the Wasteland was filmed with everyone speaking English, but the standard in Italy was to film without sound. The voices were dubbed over and it is quite distracting because they almost never match up the voices with the actors mouth movements or even their characterization. It seems the american actors are matched well, but Italian actors are almost always off.
The sound was pretty good when it came to direct noise coming from what was in the visual of the scene, but not off screen. We have several instances where in the thicket of battle, we only hear the sounds right in front of the screen.
So this is where I geek out about the film and what enticed me to review it. When watching this for the first time, we have the intro with a very awesome synth track that blew me away. Along with the apocalyptic images, I literally began screaming “YES” with delight. Seriously, I can’t tell you how much I love this music along with the imagery. Was it perfect? No, but, wow, it had my attention and we have Brazilian composer Claudio Simonetti to thank for the awesome music, which I know is an acquired taste.
Throbbing synths are not for everyone!
I also love the music he composed for Nadir’s theme. It was a little groovier, but still electric.
Performances:
The performances are questionable. The main characters are OK, but the smaller roles were really struggling with their lines and maybe it was because of the language difference. The bad dubbing didn’t help.
American actor, and former professional American football player in the 1960's, Fred Williamson was the big name draw for the film. Wisely, many of the posters have him on the cover or even has him alone on the cover. We don’t get to see him until 28 minutes into the film and it feels like 28 minutes too long. He’s so much fun in the film and he seems to be enjoying his role as Nadir, the battle loving tough guy.
Fred was a regular to many Italian films and appeared in all three of the films Enzo Castellari filmed in six months.
George Eastman played the Supreme One and was actually a big stand out in this film. His acting is way over the top but it at the same time it’s nice seeing someone with emotions even if it is a little overdone. He’s also having fun with the character and so are the filmmakers giving him lots of juicy dialogue. He’s very entertaining.
Best:
The best part of the film is for me the beginning. I just love that intro and the music.
The Ending:
There is a small child that is a mechanic that has a bullet proof plastic and creates an armor for Scorpion with it. He imitates Clint Eastwood at the end of A Fistful of Dollars where the two character wears a poncho to a gunfight against the bad guy, with the bullet proof armour underneath.
The armor is kinda cool and also kind of ridiculous at the same time. I loved it.
The very end though is kind of weird, with Nadir going off to do his own thing, while Alma, the young mechanic, and Scorpion make some kind of strange family unit.
Wish List:
I wish the female characters were less passive in this film and treated like the trophy for the heroes. I really wasn't happy with the way they were treated.
I wish that the film paid more attention to detail than shock value. An example of that is at some point during the film, Nadir says that the people believe in something called God. The apocalypse only happened 9 years ago so they all are old enough to be familiar with religion, except for the mechanic and he wasn’t even in the scene.
Enjoyment:
The film was produced by Deaf International Film SrL and Fuvia Films under the name, I nuovi barbari, (The New Barbarians). The film was later released in U.S. theaters by New Line Cinema as Warriors of the Wasteland in 1984.
For years these low budget movies have been building a cult following and this one has no less the same. The only issue with this is that it has content and language that may be highly offensive and there are some scenes that make people uncomfortable to watch.
At the end you might ask yourself, what did I just watch?
I had fun watching this.
If you ever get a chance to check it out, RiffTrax does a fantastic commentary on this film.
My Rating:
6.5
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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