• Directed by Lance Mungia
• Written by Jeffrey Falcon and Lance Mungia
• Starring
  • Jeffrey Falcon
  • Justin McGuire
  • Stephane Gauger

Everybody reading this should know by now what “high concept” means to Hollywood types; it’s a story idea that can be expressed in a single sentence and capture the essence of the whole movie. “A maverick archaeologist has to beat the Nazis to the discovery of the fabled Ark of the Covenant.” “A teenager accidentally goes back in time and has to make sure his mother and father meet and fall in love.” “George Lucas throws eye-candy at the camera.”

I propose a new designation: “Super-high concept.” Or, if you prefer, “Stratospheric concept.” (On second thought, scratch that one — it’d put spellcheckers all over L.A. into overdrive.) A concept so nifty, so appealingly visual, that not only does it make the hearer stop short and exclaim, “Why the hell hasn’t anyone done this before?”, but it’s almost guaranteed to be a kick-ass movie if only those making it don’t get in the way of the expression of that pure concept.

“Gary Busey? My mother once said I look like Gary Busey. Once.”

Here’s a couple of such super-high concepts that didn’t quite make it:

“Cowboys and dinosaurs.” The Valley of Gwangi did a respectable job of it, but spent far too much time on stuff other than, well, cowboys and dinosaurs.

“Vampire hitwoman.” Razor Blade Smile had a lot going for it, but instead of keeping its edge it tried also to play with the rules of vampires, as well as spending too much time taking half-hearted jabs at the Goth subculture.

But with Six-String Samurai, we’ve got a movie that pretty much fulfills the promise of its premise: “Post-holocaust, rockabilly style.” It’s not a deep idea, and it’s not a deep movie, but it keeps its promises simply by mining the fun to be had in that simple premise.

It took several decades and the obliteration of every other band on the planet, but Gun’n'Roses finally staged a successful comeback.

See, as is rapidly explained to us (against a background of now-familiar nuclear test footage), the bombs dropped in 1957, and the Russkies took over what was left — all except that last bastion of All-American freedom, Lost Angeles, as ruled by (who else?) Elvis, the King himself. Now it’s forty years later, Elvis has died… and Vegas needs a new king.

Which is as good an excuse as any for us to watch our protagonist, “Buddy” (Jeffrey Falcon), a wanna-be claimant to the throne, journey across the Nevada badlands in his beat-up zoot suit, his glasses held together by tape, his samurai sword duct-taped to his vintage guitar. All to the accompaniment of the some of the best rockabilly ever, mostly courtesy of the Red Elvises (a Russian quartet who make an on-screen appearance.)

And because Buddy can’t travel alone (that makes for a boring movie), he starts out by rescuing a young kid (Justin McGuire, credited as “The Kid”) whose mother had just been done in my some uncouth neo-savages. Naturally, the ragamuffin tags along with the gruff and consternated Buddy, and I will admit that I didn’t mind the kid one bit. Usually I’m not in favor of the cute juvenile bit (a fact which will be confirmed by the members of the Militant David Mendenhall Jihad), but here it seemed more an honest homage to both the samurai and western genres, from both of which this flick draws its inspiration.

Golf: Silly sport before the Bomb, even sillier after.

Describing the plotline here is almost an exercise in futility (hey, if it weren’t for exercises in futility, I’d get no exercise at all). But the general gist is that Death himself, a big scary guy who looks like the fetish-totem version of Slash, wants to be King of Lost Vegas, and is thus bumping off all the other wanna-be claimants. So Buddy and the kid trek across Nevada, staying ahead of Death and running into all sorts of other interesting characters. Among them:

- Semi-mutant toughs reminiscent of the clan from The Hills Have Eyes, but with more style.

- A warped version of the “nuclear family” (Haw!) with whom Buddy tries to leave the kid. Unfortunately, they’re cannibals; fortunately, their dinner is interrupted by…

- The Windmill People, who live among the power-generating windmills and wear spacesuitish outfits made of fishbowls and water coolers and lots of duct tape.

Word is that sales of Rockabilly Tai-Chi videos are soon expected to surpass even Tae-Bo.

- The leftover Soviet Army, trying to keep control of the wastelands outside Lost Vegas.

Over time, as you can imagine, the kid grows on Buddy, and what started out as a reluctant semi-partnership ends with Buddy squaring off in a guitar duel against Death himself for the fate of the boy.

As I said, the plot ain’t much to speak of — but then, it wasn’t meant to be. The episodic scenes are strung together in a rough chronological order, but all the way through you can practically hear Mungia and Falcon saying to each other, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to do a scene where…” Thus, we get scenes of well-choreographed kung fu (and guitar fu) that simply sing. And I was about to start tell you all my favorite moments, but then I realized that I’d end up telling you all about every scene in the movie.

Now, I realize that there are deficiencies to this movie. In particular, because to much attention is paid to scene-by-scene perfection, the movie as a whole fails to build up as much steam toward the end as it should. And you gotta wonder where those electric guitars are getting their power.

It takes, like, an incredible surplus of cool to make up for a triff bike like that.

But hell, don’t let those things stop you. The whole exercise is so stylized, it’s practically surreal; just accept the universe created for your enjoyment, and, well, enjoy it. It’s a beautifully shot and edited movie (and I’m not alone in thinking so — it took top honors in editing and cinematography at the 1998 Slamdance Festival); if other post-apocalyptic movies took half the effort to make themselves look good, then the entire subgenre would be a respected category of cinema, instead of the laughingstock of the video store.

It may not be the greatest movie ever made… but I watched it two days in a row. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

Hail to the King, baby.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 83
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 7
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0