By Chris Summerfield
“Land of the Dead” was George A Romero’s long awaited return to the genre he reinvented. Note: Zombie movies were being made and released long before the ground breaking “Night of the living Dead,” however Romero created his to be blood thirsty cannibals.
Most of the residents of the USA that had survived the outbreak in this latest movie have retreated in to compounds, and the one this movie focuses upon being in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The city fortified.
The compound being governed by a crooked, Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) and his board of directors, all that live the rich life in a state of the art building named “Fiddler’s Green,” while many people live on the streets of the compound, having to sell and porn anything they get their hands on in order to survive.
In the meantime the zombies within this movie are evolving; they have a leader, Big Daddy (Eugene Clark) a zombie that seems to have intelligence and empathy to the way the rest of his fellow zombies are being treated by what remains of civilisation. From zombies being hung upside down, tormented in any means possible.
Big Daddy leads his army of zombies towards the fortified city for revenge and any man that gets in the way being eaten and destroyed in typical gory, Romero fashion.
The movie mainly focuses upon Riley Denbo (Simon Baker) and his colleague, Cholo Demoro (John Leguizamo) both who have different ideas when it comes to duty, their job entailing raiding local towns and villages for supplies in a fortified vehicle named “Dead Reckoning.”
Riley, becoming disillusioned with it all and wants out of the compound so therefore decides to resign from the job, his sidekick and friend, Charlie (Robert Joy) a scarred man, with a learning disability, follows him everywhere and being an excellent marksman, plays a good part within the movie.
Riley rescues Slack (Asia Argento) a prostitute, from a cage, in which she is within along with two blood thirsty zombies, expecting to fight to the death… (Riley being there to seek out, Chihuahua) Riley and Slack along with Charlie are arrested for the murder of Chihuahua (Phil Fondacaro) a crooked businessman.
Riley is released along with his friends by, Mr Kaufman, on the understanding that they recapture, Dead Reckoning… Dead Reckoning being stolen by, Cholo, who had been wanting an apartment within, Fiddler’s Green, and after being turned down, stealing the vehicle with intentions of black mailing, Mr. Kaufman into a handsome amount of money and if his demands aren’t met planning to destroy the compound with its awesome firepower.
Then begins the race against time, Riley as to get the vehicle back before the city is targeted by Cholo, at the same time, the city is slowly but surely going to be the target for, Big Daddy and his zombie army.
I have always been a great fan of George A Romero and this movie fails to disappoint me. There are many gory scenes within the movie and a great plot and boy did I enjoy the fate of Paul Kaufman, well deserved…
Without doubt this being another triumph for Romero therefore I give it a cool…Rating: 9/10
