Plot: A college professor and his ex-girlfriend find themselves being hunted by the CIA, the KGB and an African drug smuggler. Seems they have inadvertently gotten information that would show how the KGB gave the CIA state secrets in return for a cut of the African drug-smuggling market.
I remember seeing this movie many years ago and was trying to remember it’s name as I recalled it being a lot of fun. It’s funny how sometimes we have rose tinted spectacles on when thinking back about movies from our childhood as we remember them being better than they actually are.
I do miss old fashioned adventure films and Scavengers feels like a low budget version of Jewel of the Nile or Romancing the Stone. Even our leads Tom Reed (Kenneth David Gilman) and Kimberly Blake (Brenda Bakke) feel like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner clones. Scavengers clearly doesn’t have a huge budget with some questionable acting/dubbing throughout and a mostly awful musical score that goes for “comedic” themes.
Where this film stands out is in the action department, especially in the second half. The first act isn’t especially exciting setting up our couple for an adventure in Africa as they try to keep a bible with secret codes out of the hands of villains. The bad guys are just cartoon characters and never especially scary mostly due to the low budget and poor script.
Like I said, it’s essentially the final 30 minutes which elevate this movie with some incredible stunt work like motorbikes driving out of planes then parachuting below, as well as shoot-outs and explosions.
I’m not normally a huge advocate for remakes however, there are times where there are some great ideas in a movie but it never quite reaches its potential. That’s the case with Scavengers which has some awesome ideas and amazing stunts, but it just needed a bigger budget and sharper script. With so many filmmakers today coming from stunt backgrounds I think you could do a fantastic new version of Scavengers with a better cast, script and music score. Keep the practical stunt element and keep the tone light and fun and this could be a much needed rebirth of a pretty much dead genre.
Overall, Scavengers has some amazing stunts and some interesting ideas but the clearly low budget, questionable performances and terrible music score make it a missed opportunity for it to be classic adventure picture. If anything is ripe for a remake, it’s this.