H.E.A.T. BEAT

[Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>]

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                         SANDY SANDFORT
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H.E.A.T. seekers,

Please note my new title for these reviews in the subject line.
Consider it a filtering aid--pro or con.

CODE NAME:  FRAME-UP

The Team is in Culebra ("snake"), Panama to capture a gunrunner,
Salazar, who's supplying terrorists.  They pretend to be hanging
out on the beach (bikini alert) and the grab him as he is making
a "private" cellular call to the terrorists.  During the snatch,
they find that he is carrying cocaine, so that's what he gets
busted for.  He will being going before Judge Diaz, who is not
corrupt, so he's toast unless his brother can rig something.

"Something" comes in the form of Celia Alvarez, a Salazar gun
moll who bears a striking resemblance to our own Romana Machado.
She comes to our hero, Mike, and tells him she wants to make a
break from Salazar's gang.  She gets Mike to her room to talk
about it, and gives him a Mickey Finn.

When Mike comes to, he's in bed with his gun in his hand and a
dead guy (shot with Mike's gun) on the floor.  They dead guy is
judge Diaz.  The cops burst in, Celia says, "he did it" and away
goes Mike.  After this point, the plot self-destructs and makes
no sense at all.  No matter; that's not why we're here.

Before all this happen, however, there is a gratuitous montage of
babes in bikinis, intercut with scenes of our heroes basking on
the beach, practicing martial arts, frolicking in the water,
playing with puppies, etc.  (For those of you who are more
interested in good-looking guys than gals, there were plenty of
shots of shirtless male Team members, posing and flexing their
muscles.)

The upshot of the weird plot twists is that the Team loses its
official backing and has to go in on its own to save Mike.  To do
this, they first break into the DEA's computer.  The purpose of
the intrusion is to put information *into* the database.  They
create files that say that Marcos and Cat are big-time drug
dealers.  With this, they are able to infiltrate Salazar's
operation and ... well I'm not sure what the idea was, but it
gives Marcos a chance to slick back his hair (all bad guys on
Acapulco H.E.A.T. have slicked back hair), and dress in a cheesy
pimp outfit.  Cat gets to put on too much makeup and tart it up
in a short, tight, red dress.

Besides the computer break-in, there is only one other "hi-tech"
plot device.  Outside Salazar's villa, the Team uses a "long
range mike" to pick up Mike's voice inside.  The microphone was
an incredibly cheap-looking hand-held parabolic mike.  It was
only about a foot in diameter, and they were using it *through
the windshield* of their car.  There was also a briefcase with a
flash bomb inside, but that's not particularly hi-tech.

Of course, there is a climactic shoot-em-up, but the only thing
that gets blown up is the aforementioned flash Grenada briefcase.
There was, however, some deliciously irresponsible firearms role
modeling.  When Ashley finds Mike, he's handcuffed.  They have
one of their typical romantic banters that ends with her saying,
"Maybe I should just shoot you and blame it on Salazar."  Mike
responds with a smart-ass comment, at which point Ashley points
her pistol at Mike, causing him to cringe away with his hands
over his head.  She than pulls the trigger and shots through the
links connecting the two wrist sections of Mike's handcuffs.  Ya'
gotta love a woman like that.  (Or else!)


 S a n d y

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