By Geno McGahee
Arnold Schwarzenegger was the man in the 1990s. He began the decade with TOTAL RECALL and KINDERGARTEN COP. The next year he would have, arguably, his best film with the incredibly successful TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. Although successful, LAST ACTION HERO in 1993 wasn’t considered one of Arnie’s good films and some actually consider it terrible. I’m not one of those people. I dig that flick. In 1994, JUNIOR was released and bombed. That one was a total piece of shit and shed some doubt on the future of Arnie, but he would rebound with a really good film in 1996, but it seems like the forgotten Schwarzenegger film, ERASER.
Johnny Casteleone (Robert Pastorelli) is in witness protection but he’s found by the mob and about to be killed with his wife. Right before he’s taken out, John Kruger (Schwarzenegger) shows up to save the day and relocates Johnny. Casteleone is a great character immediately and one of my only criticisms of this film is that they didn’t use him more. We learn that Kruger is an eraser, removing a person from society completely and saving them from some unsavory and dangerous element.
Kruger is informed about Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), a woman that works in a weapons development company. She discovered that her bosses are dealing the weapons to a terrorist and turns the information over to the FBI. She goes into her job and makes copies of the files, but is caught before she leaves by her boss, William (James Cromwell). William tries to explain his motives for selling to bad guys, but Lee’s not having any of it. When he realizes that she is wired, William takes out a gun and blows his brains out. That doesn’t happen enough in movies. I like those scenes where a guy blows his brains out.
The FBI screws over Lee, not telling her that she would have to be erased. Kruger isn’t happy with the guys that set her up either and Lee is refusing to into witness protection. She goes home and the bad guys show up with their weapons and these weapons are tremendous. They shoot through buildings and can see through them as well. When they land, they are so powerful that they launch the person twenty feet. It’s awesome stuff and Lee’s ex-boyfriend showed up on the wrong night. He was trying to get back with Lee and on top of her turning him down, he gets killed by the super gun. It launches him across the room and through the wall. I was hoping Lee would have taken the time to say “consider that a breakup”, but there was no cool line. Kruger shows up and the two are off. She is officially erased.
Kruger’s boss, Robert DeGuerin (James Caan), is dirty and is working with the gun developer to sell the guns to a terrorist, but he has to get rid of Lee and Kruger first. Kruger is nearly killed by DeGuerin on a flight but he fights and jumps out of the plane in a very cool scene. Kruger has to catch the parachute, put it on, while the airplane tries to hit him. Of course, they’re not going to kill Arnie. He lands in a junkyard and gets a “welcome to earth” from a kid, which was hilarious and goes on his way to protect Lee.
To take down the bad guys, Kruger recruits Johnny. Pretending to be a pizza delivery guy, Johnny provides the distraction for Lee and Kruger to get inside and get the information at the weapon developer building. Johnny was great here, foaming at the mouth and convulsing on the floor. Arnie is great, but he seems to be better with a funny sidekick as he was in TRUE LIES with Tom Arnold and even in TWINS with Danny Devito. He’s great in just about everything, but Arnie shines really bright when he’s got a funny sidekick in his films.
With Kruger now holding the evidence, we get a big showdown at the end, which a tremendous fight scene between Kruger and Deguerin on top of an overseas container, hanging high in the sky. We also get to see Arnie use two super weapons and shoot two bad guys, launching them into the sky. Good stuff.
ERASER is the often forgotten film in the Arnie catalogue. I blame BATMAN & ROBIN. That came out one year later and as much as Arnie tried to make it work, that film was so terrible that many probably held ERASER responsible too…and maybe that’s why they shit on JINGLE ALL THE WAY, which was released in 1996. Damn that fucking BATMAN & ROBIN!
I highly recommend ERASER. Despite its action elements, it’s does feel different than other Arnie films. It just has a different style but it works and Vanessa Williams and James Caan add a lot to the film.
