Waco Watch: Action USA (1989)

Watched:  07/12/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Stewart

After he'd recommended it to me twice, I took JAL up on his suggestion of this particular flick.  I meant to watch this for the 4th of July, but we got busy, so here you go.  My salute to America.

Action USA (1989) is probably the best high-action movie shot in Waco during the 1980's.

I very much remember Waco in the 1980s.  It was, aside from Baylor, a town that had seen its best days 30 years prior and was not yet recovered from the economic turns of the 1970's and 80's.  In a few short years, we'd have the Branch Davidian stand-off near here.  And then, much later, Joanna Gaines would convince people Waco was the shit, which... TV is a powerful drug, y'all.  Somehow, the second worst college town in Texas is now a tourist destination for people who like overpriced wooden spoons and mediocre football.

Anyway, it is always weird/ a delight seeing the landscape of my part of Texas in a movie.  And buildings that still stand that I am a bit familiar with from a job I had ten years ago when I was in Waco a lot.

This movie seems assembled from what could be gathered in the Waco area, plus enough money to hire That Guy! actors William Smith and Space Mutiny's Cameron Mitchell (playing a mob boss and having a glorious time).  Our stars are Gregory Scott Cummins, who you know as Mac's dad on Sunny, but who looks like he stole his wardrobe from Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.  It also features an aggressively bra-less Barri Murphy* who is pretty funny despite a less than amazing script, and William Hubbard Knight, who is stuck in an off-the-rack suit for the movie and the thankless role of the not-lead guy who is in every scene.

This movie is about stunts and explosions.  Sure, there's a plot, but it makes no sense...  they wait like 12 hours to try and get a flight to Oklahoma City from Texas?  Just... drive.  

As near as I can tell, the movie cobbled together from what they could get (you have to see the 1969 Stingray in the movie), stunt performers looking to show their craft, and from the fact Waco probably didn't know what it was agreeing to when they let people blow up houses, fly helicopters with people dangling from them or drive through an RV on the edge of downtown.

here's the entire opening, objectifying a car in a weird way

I mean, the plot is not entirely different from a hundred other cop movies I watched during this era, so to call it derivative is not entirely accurate.  It just is another one.  

But clearly this is people having fun making a movie, going through the motions of the drama to get to the action sequences.  And, if nothing else, the banter between the three hitmen is worth the price of admission.  Just wacky, unhinged stuff.  But no one seems to understand how retirement works, and yet it's a key plot point in the movie.

The movie is not good in the traditional sense, but it is good in the "ha ha!  What?" sense.  And the stunts are actually pretty impressive.  I mean, they toss a dude from the one skyscraper in Waco.  They drop a guy from a helicopter.  They blow up a whole house.  And lots and lots of 1980's Waco.

*according to the internet, Murphy refused to wear a bra, which upset the film'd director's wife