This Turkey For Hire

The Worst and Most Disappointing P.I. Films

Okay, they can't all be The Maltese Falcon or Chinatown. But these flicks are so bad, so stupid and so poorly-conceived it makes you wonder...

• Eight Million Ways to Die (1986, Producer Sales Organisation) ....
  It's a wonder co-screenwriter Oliver Stone ever worked again. What a waste of a great book. The replacement of the hellish claustrophobia of Scudder's NYC, awash in alcoholism and violence, that figured so prominently in Lawrence Block's original novel by the meandering sun-dappled LA daze of a pre-Lebowski slacker makes you wonder if the occasional haze in some of the shots was pot smoke. Maybe that's why it's still not available on DVD.
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• From Hollywood to Deadwood (1989) ....
  The cock-eyed allusion to a Neil Young song is the sole piece of evidence of any intelligent life involved with this one, folks.
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• Living to Die. (1991, Trinity) ....
  It doesn't just STAR Wungs Hauser -- it was DIRECTED by him. Movie-making at its most inept.
  
  
• Raw Justice (1993) ....
  Starring David Keith and Pamela Anderson, but not all boobs involved in this one were in front of the cameras.
  
  
• 8MM (1999, Columbia)
  "Just a bad, awkward piece of film that was wasted on what could've been a solid P.I. premise. There's a line between hard-boiled and sadistic. And this movie left that line laying bleeding and twitching in the street after half an hour, along with my brain." The neo-noir brigade probably loves it.
  
  
• Shaft in Africa (1973, MGM) ....
• Shaft (2000) ....
  It's hard to say which film is worse. The misguided, clumsy African pride of the third Shaft flick couldn't hide a ridiculous plot or the often offensive stereotypes displayed towards women and various races and nationalities (including Africans), and completely missed out on the first two films' dated but still vibrant gritty urban vibe and the "I'm Black and I'm Proud" big city swagger.
  But nobody really expected the original Shaft films to be more than entertaining B-films, done on the cheap. The 2000 remake was a big-bucks affair, stacked with A-listers such as screenwriter Richard Price, actor Samuel Jackson and director John Singleton (all of whom I respect greatly). By all accounts, it should have rocked, and certainly expectations were high. But it was every bit as dumb, heavy-handed and inept as Shaft in Africa. When the dramatic high point of your film is a reprise of the almost thirty-year old theme from ther original film (whose lyrics don't even make sense anymore), you know you're in big trouble.
  
  
• The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery (1975, Strathmore Productions) ....
  A movie even more stupid than its title.

Okay, we're just getting started on this one. But feel free to contribute your own suggestions.