Booby Trap Directed by Dwayne Avery (U.S.A –1970) Booby Trap is the story of dishonourably discharged marine explosives instructor Jack Brannan. Like all dishonourably discharged military personnel of the movies, Jack is about as unstable as the nitro glycerin based plastique that he’s so fond of playing with. Jack was forced out of the corps after a messy incident involving a young recruit, and a loose hand grenade. It pushed the already unbalanced instructor right over the edge, and the first casualty of war was his marriage to the lovely cocktail waitress Taffy (who incidentally looks young enough to be Brennan’s daughter). Ever since the grenade incident and subsequent break-up of his marriage, the mad marine harbours a pathological hatred of the young… particularly hippies. He sees them as a threat to social values. As the film opens in the Nevada desert, Jack is buying forty stolen claymore mines from a corrupt marine by the name of Hanson. They served together in the corps, and Brannan’s ex-colleague seems to be getting cold feet about the deal. “I’m taking one hell of a chance for you Sarge” Hanson whines to his old instructor. “For what I’m payin’ you, you should have given me another forty!” Jack retorts. These are extra special claymores. They can be armed, and disarmed with a cordless remote control known as a ‘hell box’. Brannan orders the seller to place a claymore in the sand a good distance away. As Hanson buries the small mine, Jack grabs his trusty shotgun from inside the stolen R.V. He flips the red switch on the hell box, and trains his shotgun on the patch of freshly tilled sand that the mine is buried in. Hanson is only metres from the claymore, and realises what his old instructor is planning. “No...don’t Sarge...I’m too close” he pleads. Brannan fires, and the mine sends Hanson flying. When we see Jack Brannan next, he’s insanely driving his R.V. through the sleaze that is downtown Vegas. He keeps driving through to his intended destination… an outdoor rock festival that’s being planned at Vasquez Rocks movie ranch. Old Jack’s planning to add some pyrotechnics to the festival. He realises that thirty nine claymores can wipe out a lot of the ‘no good kids’ he hates so much. He’s also hoping to take out Rudy, his ex-wife’s guitarist boyfriend who’s playing at the festival. Along the way, he picks up a hippie hitcher called Gloria. She’s very impressed with the R.V. “Wow!” she exclaims “Flockin’ far out man! This is really out of sight!”. Jack tells her about the festival. She mistakes him for a veteran roadie after he explains that he’s going there to “lay a few wires” and “dig a few holes”. Since Gloria is a hippie, she’s at one with the universe and able to analyse the troubled ex-marine’s innermost feelings. Apparently she isn’t as in tune with his spiritual side as she thought she was. Her diagnosis is that he’s so uptight because he needs female companionship. Unfortunately she doesn’t sense his real plans for the festival, or her, despite the crates marked ‘explosives’ throughout the recreational vehicle. As a road trip romance begins to blossom, it looks like Gloria might just take the meanness out of Jack Brannan. That we might not see any more claymores go bang. That the big lug might decide to make love rather than war. Thankfully Brannan doesn’t let the average exploitation fan down. Although jewelry and roses are usually the gifts of choice for the romantic, Jack leaves something in Gloria’s bag that’ll really surprise her when they part ways down the freeway. An armed claymore mine ready to go off at the slightest bump. He’s quite the prankster. Jack Brannan is also writing taunting letters to military policeman Lt. Bob Dunn. One of them reads: ‘I’ve decided to throw a party for all the kids real soon now. I don’t think they’ll appreciate the trouble I’m going to, but some of them will get a real blast in the pants’. While they’re not exactly a Unabomber’s Manifesto, the letters are still enough to worry the military. They’ve just found Hanson’s blasted body in the desert. “A pound and a half of plastic explosives sure can do a job on a man” a member of the search party observes. Lt. Dunn hands the case over to military gumshoe Captain Cliff Shepherd. Shepherd is your stereotypical late sixties screen hero. He’s an investigator who does it by the book, and still finds time to compromise his investigation with a roll in the hay (or undergrowth) while on duty. Meanwhile, Brannan’s ex-wife Taffy is eking out a living as an under-payed and over-groped cocktail waitress at L.A. mobster Mr. Bianca’s strip joint on seedy Sunset Blvd. Bianca and his right hand man Scarpo are early pioneers of reality television. They have hidden closed circuit cameras all over the club, including the ladies toilets. “She’s stacked pretty good huh Mr. Bianca?” Scarpo observes as they watch a woman remove her top in the washroom. Their perversion pays off in a different way as they see Taffy stuffing a wad of notes into her cleavage at the washroom basin. Bianca is shocked at the thought that his workers would steal from him. After all, he pays them half of minimum wage. After interrogating his favorite waitress, and treating himself to his evening grope, the sleazy Bianca realises that the wad of money actually amounts to about ten dollars in tips. Things just go from bad to worse for Taffy. Jack Brannan visits her that evening, and tells her to stay away from the festival that her boyfriend’s playing at in a few days because he doesn’t want to hurt her. Then she and her new beau Rudy are framed for the theft of twenty thousand dollars from Bianca’s safe. They flee to the only person they believe can help them… the homicidal ex-husband camped at the mine laden movie ranch. Will Jack Brannan set aside his hatred for Rudy and the rest of the hippies to defend his ex-wife against the murderous mobsters? Or will he turn the festival into a bloodbath that’ll make the Gimme Shelter look like Woodstock? Given the fact that the explosive concept of this film is far grander than its meager budget would allow, you can probably figure out the answer yourself. But despite being a letdown in some ways, this Harry Novak produced film is still an agreeable timewaster. Although only a handful of similarly themed movies were made, they reflected a very real backlash against a ‘counter-culture’ that had become tedious to many. A movement that was fresh and rebellious in its early stages had become stale, and more of a fashion statement than any kind of political or philosophical lifestyle. While middle-class pseudo-hippies on the East and West coasts of the United States were shocked at the redneck buckshot finale of Easy Rider, it’s safe to say that a fair percentage in between the coasts were cheering the oily haired occupants of the pick-up truck. Rather ironically, being a hippie at the height of the movement was as close to conformity as you could possibly get. Much of the hippie movement was merely the equivalent of new millennial teen angst. After the first successful wave of these pop-culture backlash films (a wave that included Joe and Hardcore), this obscure sub-genre would rear its head every few years. The themes changed slightly depending on what kind of populist movement the crazed (and usually homicidal) individual was fighting against. Taxi Driver and The Park is Mine dealt with the social problems of the have-nots, while the box office disaster turned cult film Fight Club dealt with problems at the opposite end of the scale. These films are like angry little time capsules. Entertainment : 2 out of 4 Watchability : 2 out of 4 Overall : 2 out of 4 Reviewed by Blake |