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| Courtesy of Scorpion Releasing |
A film that was a passion project for leading man and
producer Gary Conway, a frequent television star and eventual writer for the American
Ninja films, The Farmer took the then-trending revenge thriller ala Death
Wish and particularly Taxi Driver into post-WWII America and offered
a uniquely fresh if not brutally violent spin on the subgenre.
For years a title that formed a cult status
given its unattainability with only a select few able to provide recollections
on what The Farmer was like, the good folks at Scorpion Releasing co-opted
with Diabolikdvd and Capstone films the very first ever home video release of
one of exploitation cinema’s most utterly obscure offerings. Scanned from the original negative and fully
restored, The Farmer can now finally be reintroduced to eagerly awaiting
cult horror fans and cinephiles scouring the planet for forgotten film relics.
WWII veteran Kyle Martin (Gary Conway) returns to his home
in Georgia with fellow fieldhand Gumshoe (Ken Renard) helping him to build a
farm. However, the profits for a one-man
farm aren’t there and the local bank threatens foreclosure. One night a local gangster named Johnny
(Michael Dante) gets into an auto accident near Kyle’s farm before being
rescued by the local farmer. In
gratitude for saving his life, he offers him $1,500 but it’s still not enough
for the bankers. Worse still, higher-ups
in the local mob aren’t too happy with Johnny past-posting on a horse race who
proceed to murder his bodyguard before permanently blinding him with acid. Battered and broken, Johnny reaches out with
a job offer the farmer can’t refuse: kill the gangsters who blinded him.
Not unlike The Driver, The Mechanic, the
aforementioned Taxi Driver and more recently Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive,
The Farmer begins as a methodical and layered character driven slow burn
that gradually builds towards an explosive eruption of ultraviolence rivaling
the graphic brutality of even Scorsese’s masterpiece. Co-starring Mean Streets and Phantom
of the Paradise actor George Memmoli who had to decline the now-infamous
cabbie role in Taxi Driver due to an ultimately fatal injury suffered on
the set of this very movie, The Farmer is part postwar Southern Fried
period piece and then-70s exploitation nastiness.
Initially it feels like a lead into Mackintosh
& T.J. as a homegrown rural western and for the most part The Farmer
is a snapshot of 1940s small town America.
But once the violence starts, the film is like a slippery slope of
increasing savagery sure to eject the faint hearted from their seats. It is also, carried by the rugged but veteran
actor Gary Conway, kind of a badass and distinctly American vengeance actioner.
Aided by folksy country acoustic tunes interspersed with a
somewhat anachronistic electronic score by Hugo Montenegro which occasionally
can take the viewer out off the movie and shot handsomely in the Georgian
countryside by Ivy Goodnoff, technically speaking The Farmer is a taut little
number. Initially the film soaks in the
dirt, grass and trees covered farmlands, absorbing the atmosphere like a
sponge, getting you to relax somewhat and allow your guard to come down so you
aren’t prepared when the bullets fly and blood sprays.
An ensemble piece with special kudos given to
Angel Tompkins as Betty who does the heaviest lifting all the characters in the
film, playing a spunky bartender girlfriend to Johnny who takes a liking to his
new hired hand, The Farmer jumps between these disparate threads which will
eventually invariably clash once farmer being hit for so long finally decides
to hit back.
A rough and tough revenge action flick which might be a
little too violent for some, The Farmer for better or worse is back in
the public eye again probably having garnered far more attention now than it
did upon initial release. Seen now it
represents one of the meaner nastier revenge thrillers to come out of the 1970s
that starts off kind of quiet before turning into a vicious bloodbath.
Not everyone will take to this rough around
the edges actioner while others will revel in its transgressions and belief in
the unforgiving lone hero ala Dirty Harry or Gran Torino
involving a craggy veteran who has been around the block and is tired of having
his face spat in. For my money, I got a
real kick out of this pitchfork to the stomach of a movie.
--Andrew Kotwicki
