80's Watch: Band of the Hand (1986)

Watched:  06/12/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Paul Michael Glaser

Back in the 1980's it didn't take much for me to think a movie was pretty, pretty good.  We rented this when I was maybe 12, and we thought it was awesome.  But I also have not seen this movie in this century.  What I did know is that when this movie came up, people seemed to think it was quite bad.

I did try to rewatch part of this movie at some point in high school or college and was like "ah, yes.  This is maybe not as good as 12-year-old me believed".  But it isn't one that was popular to begin with, and did not become more popular over time.

The movie is essentially about an Outward Bound Intercept program that takes a sharp left turn and ends in a gang of troubled youth becoming remorseless killers with no future.  Is this how it's pitched?  Absolutely not.  But in a practical sense - that's it.

We meet five youths who are in the juvenile penal system and see why they're there.  Gang violence.  Drug dealing.  One guy who is already in there and who has tried to escape a dozen times.  And a fellow who blows up his school and then kills his father whilst he's abusing his mother (a very young John Cameron Mitchell).

The five are thrown into the middle of the Florida Everglades, a place you really, really do not want to be if you don't know what you're doing, with a supposed Native American played by the very not Native American, Stephen Lang.  Here, they learn to survive through cooperation and earn some "self-esteem" (man, there's a phrase we don't use anymore).  

They then return to Miami in a half-way house - which is occupied by Haitian refugees and drug fiends.  Drugs are being pushed by Laurence Fishburne in what is probably not a role he features in his clip reel of career highlights.  In turn, Fishburne reports to Nestor (James Remar) who is one of our gang's former bosses.  

Remar is also now bedding that guy's girlfriend, Lauren Holly in the most mid-80's wardrobe you will ever see.

Soon, guns are employed and a war breaks out between our boys and (checks notes) the biggest drug operation in the Southeastern United States.  

Yeah, so supposedly our heroes are all 16-17.  And it's a reminder of what was considered a child versus an adult in a pre-21st Century context (we were pretty serious about 18 meaning adult) and how porous the line was between teens and adults and how they interacted.  But...  the movie makes such a big deal out of the characters being juvenile delinquents, and then heavily arms them, I don't see why they didn't just make them 22 and getting their last chance inside an adult penal system.  It would have made it make slightly more sense.

After all - Joe (Stephen Lang's character) would seem *somewhat* less insane for recruiting legal adults rather than high-school aged fellows into a literal gun war.  

This may also be one of the most problematic movies I've seen in some time when it comes to women and high school girls on film.  It lands square in the grim n' gritty 80's and they want to push the envelope - but we have one speaking female role in the whole movie, and it's a 16 year old girl who is used for sex and seen as a prop, mostly.  Her moment of empowerment is the same as that for the males - straight up murder!  

I dunno.  It's a product of its time in so many ways.  

I haven't even gotten into how it's a Michael Mann produced film, and it sure wants to catch as much of his vibe as possible.  It's got a soundtrack that has those Miami Vice vibes, Miami architecture, bizarre ideas about the drug trade and machismo flowing freely.  But it all feels like someone doing a weird imitation of Michael Mann.  The director is Paul Michael Glaser, who certainly knows his way around in front of a camera and would direct the Shaq-starring genie comedy Kazam, The Cutting Edge and The Running Man before finding steady work as a TV director.   

Anyway, maybe best not to try to do Michael Mann?

The movie has one truly great scene, and it's John Cameron Mitchell buying items to make explosives at a hardware store, and his conversation with the guy behind the counter, Martin Ferrero, who you know as the attorney from Jurassic Park.  

I think the crazy thing is - there's maybe a good movie in here somewhere if they recognized at all what teens are actually like and didn't devolve into a typical 1980's actioner.  And didn't treat Lauren Holly's character entirely like shit.  There's the raw materials of somethin interesting there if they teased out more about a guy who failed his unit in the military doing Outward Bound with some troubled teens and re-integrating them into society.  But this ain't it.

Oh, did I mention there's Brujeria witchcraft in the movie for some reason?  Because there is.  You gotta wonder how many drafts this thing went through along the way.