‘Showdown at the Grand’ Review: Bad Guys Threaten a Struggling Cinema in Fond Salute to Vintage B Movies
07.11.2023 - 18:51
/ variety.com
Dennis Harvey Film Critic The struggle to keep movie theaters alive gets very personal in “Showdown at the Grand,” an enjoyable tribute to retro exploitation pictures with Terrance Howard as a movie palace proprietor besieged by diminishing receipts and violent goons. Dolph Lundgren plays the former action star who shows up for a personal appearance, then stays to help save the joint from those agents of unscrupulous developers.
More low-key homage than campy cartoon, writer-director Orson Oblowitz’s fourth feature does manage to deliver some tongue-in-cheek mayhem in an extended climax. The setting is an actual vintage art deco temple for cinema, San Pedro’s Warner Grand, though rather than being managed by the City of Los Angeles (as it is off-screen), it’s kept alive here as a none-too-successful for-profit labor of love by George Fuller (Howard).
Decked out in cowboy duds as if he were an actor himself, George is also projectionist, handyman, janitor and sometime bouncer, his burden only slightly alleviated with the hiring of film school graduate Spike (Piper Curda) as chief popcorn slinger. George seems to live for the hoary grindhouse fare he programs, his only apparent friend being local pawnshop owner Lucky (John Savage), a loyal customer he enjoys trading dialogue quotes with.
That’s just as well, since operating this joint 365 days a year, 12 hours each day does not favor an active social life. George’s biggest problem is, of course, empty seats — patrons are few, which is why he’s trying to secure elusive ex-action hero Claude Luc Hallyday (Lundgren) for a special event that might lure the crowds back.
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