Enemy Territory
It’s been a bad month for insurance salesman Barry Rapchick, his ex-wife calling to chase him for maintenance for their son, his leads not panning out on his new territory and his boss throwing him a lifeline with the stipulation that it must be closed that night and that the commission will be split between them, with Barry only receiving $4,000 on the hundred thousand policy taken out by seventy-year old retired teacher Elva Briggs.
A resident of Lincoln Tower, Barry’s greeting is hostile, incurring the wrath of a belligerent child who threatens him with a switchblade, only the intervention of the sole security guard conveying him to of apartment 2016 where Mrs Briggs signs the papers and hands over the premium in cash, his exit barred by the return of the child with the leader of the Vampires, the gang to which he has pledged himself, the confrontation leaving the child dead and the guard dying.
Written by mystery novelist Stuart M Kaminsky and Bobby Liddell, Enemy Territory was directed by Peter Manoogian, released in the summer of 1987 and depicting the worst sides of New York City in that era, the three city blocks of the housing project run by three different gangs, the white Pig-Stickers, the Mexican and Puerto Rican Mortes and the black Vampires led by the psychotic Count, an early lead role for Candyman’s Tony Todd, setting the over-the-top tone of unhinged excess absent reason or remorse.
The terrible wrong wrought upon his clan that a white hand was laid on the shoulder of Decon (Theo Caesar), Barry (Gary Frank) is assisted by good Samaritan Will (Ghostbusters’ Ray Parker Jr) and Mrs Briggs (Frances Foster), both of them more savvy of the ways of the tower, her granddaughter Toni (Clueless’ Stacey Dash) helping them navigate to a lower level where paraplegic survivalist Vietnam veteran Parker (Damnation Alley’s Jan-Michael Vincent) hides in his fortified bunker with his stash of artillery, unleashing machine gun rounds by the dozen at point blank range but missing everybody.
A white protagonist presented by a white director in a predominantly black film, it is perhaps unsurprising that Enemy Territory is presented in broad terms of black and white rather than cultural sensitivity, the Vampires with their secret handshakes unambiguous Evil seeking blood revenge with no consideration of the wider situation and failings of governance, opportunity and policing that has given rise to them, and in the same era Hill Street Blues presented more complex characters on a weekly basis while Streets of Fire was more stylised in its simmering violence in the city.
While Barry is largely worthless, drinking at work, later found to be scared of heights and blood, constantly needing to be rescued and with no sense of urgency or self-preservation, that balancing thumb on the scale does not make Enemy Territory a better film, and restored from the original 35mm for Arrow’s new Blu-ray, the technical limitations are obvious, the fight scenes as dangerous as a high school production of West Side Story, every corridor looking the same and the focus poor in tracking shots, and it is only for Parker and Foster, a founder of the Negro Ensemble Company, that it remains watchable.
Enemy Territory will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Films from Monday 4th August
