[REVIEW] Stone Cold (1991) Blu-Ray

Olive Films recently released 1990’s action B-movie Fled on Blu-Ray.  Maybe somewhat quietly again, they’ve done the same for 1991 actioner Stone Cold.  I had not picked this up recently when it was released and now seemed as good a time as any, even if they just churned it out with no extras… basically fishing to see if some old stock could sell slightly, once more.  Like Fled it has been a while since I’ve watched Stone Cold but unlike the former, this one has aged better with time (the movie itself).  This is a manly movie and a career highlight for Lance Henriksen, one of my favourite actors.

Most know the plot, but for those who do not or don’t recall, let us use a blatant rip off to highlight the deal.  Most say that The Fast and the Furious, the best movie in that series, was a rip off of Point Break.  And they are correct. But technically it could more accurately be described as a rip off of Stone Cold, since Stone Cold came out shortly before Point Break.  The Fast and the Furious is damned near scene-by-scene theft, with bikes replacing cars and hair-gel replacing balls of steel.  As in, an Alabama cop (Brian Bosworth) is sent to infiltrate a deadly biker gang, lead by Lance Henriksen.  By the way, watching this, I really longed for Mel Gibson’s cancelled Under and Alone, where he was set to shoot a similar movie, but more serious.

In this movie, the steel horses roar loudly, the mullets are strong and there are lines such as “I’ll peel your skin off with a knife dipped in shit!”.  Lance Henriksen is also the highlight of the movie, in troll mode, but can equally turn vicious and sober, just to remind us that he’s still a pro.  Hell his henchman is William Forsythe, of Extreme Prejudice and Out for Justice fame.  I mean okay, this film is a bit hoaky around the edges, the plot is terrible, it borrows heavily itself from other movies.  But a sub-tier 1991 actioner like this, faults and all is, frankly, more fun than a lot of the shit we see today.  It’s also good to see that Lance Henriksen transformed his physique, the man is usually underweight but hit the gym for this it seems, like Robert De Niro did for Cape Fear.  But no-one gives Lance credit for this like they do De Niro.

On Blu-Ray it’s the same kind of deal  as Fled.  There are no extras.  Nothing… zip.  Not even a trailer.  So basically you’re getting the movie on a disc, in a box.  The only thing I can really say is worthwhile here is that it’s probably the best way to watch such a maligned movie.  Again, better than some shitty ‘high definition’ hatchet job on TV, or some compressed torrent.  It’s not the best transfer in the world, but for most, you won’t even tell the difference between a great 2015 Blu-Ray transfer and this.  The sound is also DTS 5.1, uncompressed.  That matters, for instance when Henriksen fires up his bike indoors to reprimand ‘Ice’, the sound is glorious.  That hoarse beast’s revs are something to behold.

If you haven’t already gotten it, I recommend getting Stone Cold on Blu-Ray.