Blitz (1985) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Blitz is a German attempt to make a Hollywood-style movie with action, espionage, beautiful babes, etc. The plot concerns a German auto manufacturer with the plan for a perfect car - a sporty, economical, durable, pollution-free driving machine that doesn't require petrol. They have the prototype, but everyone else either wants it, or wants to prevent it from becoming public. I guess you could say the plot is not that bad, somewhere between "Tucker" and "The Betsy" in terms of storyline, but the film doesn't even approach the minimal standards of The Betsy in terms of human insight, narrative, or well-crafted photography. Mostly it's a typical grade-B European film with people smoking vast quantities of cigarettes and looking at each other meaningfully.

One of the world's great mysteries is how the star of this film, the ubiquitous grade-B character actor Jürgen Prochnow (right), managed at one time in his life to star in an acclaimed film like Das Boot.

Prochnow's picture on a DVD box means the same thing as a cow skull at a water hole  >>>>>>>>.

To his credit, he is versatile. He is willing to make bad movies in different languages. The German film industry makes some films which are certainly poor enough to meet his standard, but they don't make enough of them, so he has to branch out internationally. Here are the bad movies he has made since 1990:

1. (5.43) - The Fall (1998)
2. (5.18) - Fourth War, The (1990)
3. (5.03) - The Last Stop (2000)
4. (5.00) - Kill Cruise (1990)
5. (4.97) - Final Ascent (2000)
6. (4.79) - Last Run (2001)
7. (4.73) - Interceptor (1992)
8. (4.62) - Hurricane Smith (1992)
9. (4.61) - Ripper (2001)
10. (4.58) - Heaven's Fire (1999)
11. (4.51) - Judge Dredd (1995)
12. (4.46) - Elite (2000)
13. (4.38) - Dark Asylum (2001)
14. (4.31) - Gunblast Vodka (2000)
15. (4.14) - Poison (2000)
16. (4.13) - Body of Evidence (1993)
17. (3.72) - Wing Commander (1999)
18. (3.38) - DNA (1997/I)
19. (3.31) - House of the Dead (2003)
20. (1.90) - Trigger Fast (1994)

There are some very, very bad films on that list. I haven't seen the bottom three, but if they are far worse than Gunblast Vodka, I can't even conceptualize what they might be like. Did the director leave the lens cap on when he filmed them?  I would love to see Trigger Fast. It is a Western which stars that rootin'-tootin' buckaroo Christopher Atkins as someone named Dusty Fog, and co-stars another orn'ry sidewinder, Corbin Bernsen. A sure sign of Prochnow's special status is that he is billed eighth in a movie rated 1.9 with those two guys billed #1 and #2! It doesn't get much worse than that.

To be fair, Prochnow was also in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum and The English Patient, although many of you will have even less respect for him after finding out about that whole English Patient thing.