Joshua Tree (1993)
Joshua Tree (released under the alternative title Army of One) is a 1993 American action film directed by Vic Armstrong, written by Steven Pressfield and starring Dolph Lundgren, Kristian Alfonso, and George Segal. Much of the film was filmed in Los Angeles, Lone Pine, Agua Dulce, and Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. The climax was shot in the Cottonwood Canyon region of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
Plot.
Wellman Anthony Santee is a former race car driver who has turned to a life of crime since the death of his mother. Santee and his friend Eddie Turner bend the law for profit by hauling exotic stolen cars. Santee’s latest assignment is to transport such goods across the desert, but a Highway Patrol officer pulls him over. The officer notices that Turner carries a gun hidden behind his back and prepares to arrest him, when suddenly a pair of cops named Frank Severance and Jack “Rudy” Rudisill arrive. After a brief gun battle, Turner and the officer are killed, and Santee is left wounded. After recovering in a prison hospital, Santee escapes during transfer to the fictional San Gorgonio Penitentiary after correctly sensing that his guards intend to murder him. Wounded and on the run, Santee abducts Rita Marrick from a nearby gas station, unaware that she is a police officer.
Rita’s partner Michael Agnos leads the search for Santee and Rita. As Santee eludes capture with the help of Eddie’s widow and child, Severance and Rudisill continue their investigation. Rita’s attempt to escape, which forces Santee to violently disable nearby police officers (as opposed to kill) causes her to begin to doubt Santee’s guilt.
Santee releases Rita and invades Severance’s home, forcing his wife, Esther, to provide the phone number of former associate Jimmy Shoeshine, from whom he demands payments due to him and Eddie. There Santee is rejoined by Rita, who finds evidence in the house supporting his claims, and they escape, barely evading gun blasts from Esther and a highway patrolman.
At Shoeshine’s warehouse, Santee handcuffs Rita out of harm’s way and in a firefight, he decimates Shoeshine’s lethal mechanics.
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After he coercively retrieves the money from Shoeshine, Showshine is able to escape due to the timely arrival of Severance and Rudisill. It is revealed in a series of flashbacks, that Severance and Rudisill are the leaders of Shoeshine’s car smuggling ring and that they killed the patrolman, and Eddie, to safeguard their involvement. Subsequently, the pair murder both Jimmy, who has responded to the firefight and Michael, for knowing too much. Rita, devastated after witnessing Michael’s death, joins Santee in a desperate race for life. As Severance and Rudisill close in, a crime scene officer discovers a surveillance tape that recorded Severance killing Michael.
Title change.
When the film was released on VHS and laserdisc in the United States (last territory worldwide) in the fall 1994, the distributor Live Entertainment changed the title to Army of One to prevent confusion with The Joshua Tree, the 1987 album by U2. Until February 2013, with the release of the Blu-ray from Shout Factory the film had never been released in the US under its original title or in the correct aspect ratio, a delay of nearly 20 years.
Widescreen availability.
Joshua Tree was filmed in Super 35 with a printed aspect ratio of 2.39:1 (a.k.a., 2.35). Naturally VHS releases of the time only showed the film in a pan and scan (European markets) and open matte release. Until recently,[when?] the film had not been released in the United States in its original aspect ratio, though it was available on DVD in anamorphic widescreen in France (where it had been released theatrically). That version was dubbed in French, however, with no original language audio track. Shout! Factory acquired the U.S. home video rights and set a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack release for February 26, 2013.
Censorship.
Although not listed as cut by the BBFC, the 1994 UK VHS release was missing a large amount of violence from the film. Despite still being given the 18-rating, almost every blood squib, entrance wound, exit wound, moments of excessive gunfire, mutilations and graphic death had been removed or edited from the film. This is especially evident in the scene where Santee is involved in a chop shop warehouse gun battle with dozens of Chinese mafioso as the music jumps all over the place and characters seemingly warp from one side of the set to the other. The UK VHS has been out of print for a number of years and there is no DVD release there. The French Region 2 DVD runs two minutes shorter than the uncut theatrical release and VHS; two scenes in which Rita lights a cigarette are cut and the love scene between her and Santee is shortened. This edition is believed to be mistakenly made from a master originally made and edited for French TV channel TF1.RELATED:
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Critical response.
TV Guide stated in its average 2/4 star review: “Brimming with muscular martial artistry, energetically staged pursuit sequences, and a full quota of bullet barrages, ARMY OF ONE suffers mainly from over-length. Still, action aficionados will be too busy body-counting the bad guys to notice any of this proficient revenge drama’s deficiencies… carries a lot more dramatic resonance than less thoughtfully-scripted fugitive movies.”Cast:
- Dolph Lundgren as Wellman Anthony Santee
- Kristian Alfonso as Deputy Rita Marrick
- Matt Battaglia as Deputy Michael Agnos
- George Segal as Lieutenant Franklin L. Severance
- Michael Paul Chan as Jimmy “Shoeshine”
- Beau Starr as Detective Jack “Rudy” Rudisill
- Geoffrey Lewis as Sheriff Cepeda
- Michelle Phillips as Esther Severance
- Nick Chinlund as Deputy Tomay
- Bert Remsen as Woody Engstrom
- Ken Foree as Eddie Turner
- Khandi Alexander as Maralena Turner
- Marcus Brown as E.G. Turner
- Rondi Reed as Detective Chelsey
- Edward Stone as Detective Jordan
- Jason Ross-Azikiwe as Officer Macher
- Charlie Holliday as Officer Hines