Mac and Me

It’s crazy to think just a few months ago I was drifting through life unaware that Nick Millard’s high-octane shoot-’em-up Mac-10 (1986) had been loosed on the world. Apparently, it received a VHS release in Denmark and nobody notified my mom so that she could notify me once I came into existence. An IMDb page was created sometime in the past few years and a cover scan was uploaded there. The text on the back roughly translates as follows:

The Las Vegas Mafia and the man with the deadly Mac-10 machine gun – a former policeman with his back against the wall, fighting for his life and his future in this fast-paced action film.

What clued me in to all this was Zachary Keane’s recent — and might I add awesome — YouTube review, which he linked on the late filmmaker’s Facebook page. In the video, he mentions buying his copy from DVD Lady, a bootleg site offering tons of obscure stuff. I’m both astonished and thankful their operation hasn’t been shut down. I immediately brought up the site. However, I couldn’t find Mac-10 anywhere. Thinking their search function was broken, I contacted them. They told me they don’t sell it. Confused, I asked Keane if maybe he was misremembering where he got it. He replied with a link to the site’s listing for Gunblast, another Millard movie.

“It’s a mistake on their part.” he expanded. “I’m led to believe that people think Mac-10 is an alternate title for Gunblast. So they have Mac-10 labeled as Gunblast, but it’s Mac-10.” Gunblast came out the same year, features the same actors, and likely contains footage also present in Mac-10, so I understand the confusion.

I thanked Keane and was back on my way. I don’t normally shop the black market, but if ever there was a reason to reconsider that policy, it’s a long-thought-unreleased Nick Millard movie. I chose to have my order delivered digitally because shipping was $6 and said it could take up to 45 days. I was emailed a map of the Himalayas with a red X on it. I hired a man to investigate what it meant, but he checked into a healthcare facility called Shady Palms Clinic and never checked out. I knew what had to be done. I called in sick to work for the next month and flew to Nepal. For 21 days and nights, I journeyed by foot through treacherous mountain terrain in subzero temps until reaching the X, a remote Buddhist monastery. Once I regained my health, I was shown the last remaining VHS copy of Mac-10, encased in glass. While the monks were away, I switched their sacred artifact with a copy of Rock-A-Doodle and snuck out the back. From there, I smuggled it into India, then the US, by inserting it into my anus.

I’m here to tell you the trouble was worth it. Compared to, say, Death Nurse, Mac-10 has an ambitious albeit disjointed plot, massive star-studded cast, wide range of locations, decent action, and lots of nudity, plus all the brain-stomping, no-budget madness you could hope for.

Before we get into it, a word of caution. When ordering from sketchy sites such as DVD Lady, I strongly advise you to use prepaid gift cards. Those places may get your physical and virtual addresses, but at least your bank account will be safe — that is, unless the Mac-10 Maniac rolls through your town.

The movie starts with a montage of Sin City, similar to the ones in The Cemetery Sisters and with the same music. The opening credits list two actors — Lloyd Allan and Christina Cardan. We’re now in a rolling pasture. Hundreds of gunshots ring out, deafening cows. The suicidal inmate from Alcatraz Breakout fires the title weapon for a full thirty seconds at nothing in particular. There are no muzzle flashes. However, there are sound effects. After he runs out of ammo, he does a prolonged crackhead shuffle.

The music resumes. Ray Myles is sorting stacks of hundred-dollar bills. His character, Marco Rondetti, is a mobster in charge of the fictional Sho’tel casino. He skims millions in cash from the count room and has it deposited into Swiss bank accounts. An airplane parks at a boarding bridge. Rondetti’s runner, Sam, exits. He walks through the airport and gets in the passenger seat of a car. The driver tells him he’s doing another run. Rondetti hands Sam a briefcase containing $5 million at the casino. Sam walks back to the car.

The man from the pasture, later identified as “Roy”, grabs his Mac-10. “It’s party time.” he grins. He steps out of a wood panel Station Wagon and blows Sam away, right there in the parking lot.

Sam’s partner returns fire from behind his car door, but his pistol is no match; he’s greatly outgunned. Roy spins around to one knee and shakes the prop weapon at him, inflicting such an extreme case of motion sickness he dies. Roy grabs the briefcase. He calmly strolls off into the distance, abandoning his vehicle.

Maniac with a black Mac-10
Bout to throw this mark-ass nigga back in
What’s crackin? Your motherfucking head
From the impact and some hot lead
—Ruste Juxx, “Body the Beat”

An older gentleman is eating in a corner of Millard’s home disguised as a restaurant. He looks familiar. Millard himself brings a phone to the table and tells the man in Spanish that he has an important call.

“Sam’s dead.” Rondetti reports. “So is Joe Glaze.”

“What about da shipment?” his boss questions.

“The shipment is gone.”

“Hey! You get somebody on it right now.”

Ex-police lieutenant Winchester (Marland Proctor) walks by a bar. He tries two unmarked doors that clearly aren’t entrances. When they don’t open, he takes out a bottle of whiskey. I reckon his boss never asked for his badge as it’s pinned to his uniform, also unreturned. A car pulls up beside him. Rondetti lowers the window and offers Winchester $25,000 to recover the stolen briefcase. He sweetens the deal by saying he can pull a few strings to get him reinstated. Winchester refuses. Rondetti tells him to come by his office if he changes his mind.

Winchester may be a drunken mess, but he’s still respected for apprehending the city’s last maniac, an arsonist who set fire to a pair of casinos. Unfortunately for Winchester, the methods by which he obtained his confession were deemed unlawful and he was kicked off the force. Shit, coercion is a warmup in 2023. Cops kill an average of three people a day and the worst punishments they ever seem to receive are paid vacations. It used to be a cliché that taking lives traumatized cops. Now, it’s Tuesday for them.

A bodyguard flips through a magazine while a couple makes love on a bed. The couple was inserted from a 70s film I haven’t identified yet, the same one from the porn shoot in Dracula in Vegas. The man swirls his tongue around the woman’s nipples. She unzips a ball from his leather underwear and drags a breast across it. S E N S U A L I T Y.

Roy lets himself in the front door. He sneaks upstairs with his Mac-10 in hand. The bodyguard pops out of a room. Roy guns him down. Someone yells “Hey!” from another room, to make it seem like the couple is real. Roy unloads in their direction. The thud of an unzipped testicle hitting the floor signals their deaths.

Winchester drives to a hotel and calls Rondetti from the front desk. Rondetti tells him to come up. He offers some lame explanation for why his office is a cheap hotel room and gives Winchester the info he needs to get started on the case. He does this while lying down because he has a migraine. Winchester theorizes that an inside man is responsible. His plan is to flush out the killer with an even bigger bag, using himself as bait.

Next, our one true king, Albert Eskinazi, is introduced as Robert Alan Arthur, controller of the casino. From what I’m seeing, “controller” is a fancy title for “accountant”. Arthur rides around listening to a news bulletin read by Millard’s wife informing us that one of the latest victims was the son of the vice president of the establishment.

In a shocking turn of events, we’re treated to original footage of a blonde (Christina Cardan, I presume) hanging out, quite literally, on a couch with her fake tatters exposed. She does an erotic, three-minute striptease for someone sitting offscreen, and has an entire conversation with them we can’t hear. This alone must have cost Millard fifty bucks! No expenses were spared!

Meanwhile, Winchester enlists the help of his Native American friend, Chocktaw (played by Millard), who he finds discharging his handgun into the wilderness, just like Roy. Chocktaw is always up for a challenge, and offers to help however he can. Talk about whitewashing. This casting choice would go over so poorly today. I love it. At least he’s not wearing a headdress or doing an offensive accent.

After that, Arthur drops in on Roy. Here, it’s explained that Roy works for Arthur. He’s indebted to him for some reason and intercepts the shipments so Arthur can buy the Sho’tel. All he asks in return is the chance to kill people. And hookers.

“Did you like that English girl I got for you last night?” Arthur asks.

“I sure did. She had tits so big I put one in my mouth and one in my ear at the same time.” That wouldn’t require very big tits. Mouths and ears are only a few inches apart. Also, how did he fit a whole breast in his ear?

Credit: Family Guy/Fox

Eskinazi has the personality of a health inspector. He hasn’t been very good in any movie I’ve seen him in, but here he’s just done with this shit. Is this him playing an emotionless villain, or is this how he is in real life? Why does he hate existence so much? Wrestlers who command attention, your Stone Colds, your Rocks, are said to exude charisma. Eskinazi absorbs it. Like a psychic vampire, he saps the lifeforce of everybody onscreen and watching at home. Still, there’s something about him I respect.

Later, Arthur sees Roy praying to his Mac-10 through an open window. Roy is startled by his boss’ knocking. He blows out a ceremonial candle and answers the door with a cover story that would embarrass most people: “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Arthur, I was on the toilet!”

Winchester asks the mute, blonde hooker (his on-again off-again girlfriend, whose name might be Lucy) to have her fellow hookers report any drunk clients bragging about committing mass murder. Lucy begs Winchester to give up his dangerous lifestyle. She says she’s earned enough money to support them both and wants to settle down in Paris. Winchester tells her to keep that dream alive a bit longer. It’s not about money for him. It’s about the glory. And this is his one shot at redemption.

Eventually, Winchester comes to the brilliant conclusion that Roy will have to replace all the ammo he uses. He alerts the gun shops in town. Wouldn’t the actual police have already done that? One of the owners he talks to is Millard in his third role. Can Winchester and Chocktaw bring an end to Roy’s onslaught?

A title card transports us to San Francisco. Jake Cole (the detective from Butcher Knife) walks into an adult theatre and watches clips of Uschi Digard making out with a woman taken from Dr. Christina of Sweden, one of Millard’s hardcore pornos. This goes on for more than four minutes. I think the clips are supposed to be a live sex show. Cole leans against a wall sipping a drink. The camera zooms into his ear. I know what he’s thinking. How he can fit Digard’s slammin’ naturals in there.

On his way out, he’s stopped by the son of an old friend. The son asks him to teach him “the switch”, in this context meaning how to use loaded dice at Craps tables. Cole is firmly against this. “No!” he shouts. His reaction is on par with answering whether he wants pasta for dinner. He attempts to dissuade the son by showing him his pinky, which he claims hasn’t worked right since Rondetti’s men caught him cheating and bent it backward. Sounds like a rather lenient punishment to me. The son says he’s going to Vegas regardless. Cole agrees to teach him because he doesn’t want him getting hurt.

Aside from the word “Rondetti”, this subplot has nothing to do with the main story. Nothing. I’m picturing Nick Millard as a young boy connecting pieces of string with Scotch tape, oblivious to the fact that unless he ties them together, it all falls apart. Mac-10!

Cole and his protégé arrive in Las Vegas. Cole finally gives him some worthwhile advice: act like a spoiled rich kid, throw money around, tip generously, and lose at first. Will the team pull it off? The Craps scene was shot in Millard’s living room. You can tell by the fabulous gold tile wallpaper. I’m babysitting two dogs right now on top of my own, so I know what it’s like to have craps in my living room. The croupier was Millard’s neighbor Larry and the older lady was his mother, Frances.

A highlight of the movie for me is another unrelated scene. Two shotgun-toting thugs pay a visit to Chocktaw. One is played by Millard’s nephew Royal. He has a torn piece of fabric tied around a pant leg, so you you know he’s a tough customer. “Stinger is reeeal pissed off at you…” Royal drawls with a mouthful of chewing tobacco. “He knows you fucked Susan.” His eyes are all the way closed in some shots from the sun.

“Look, studs, I’m only human and Susan is damn good looking.” Chocktaw confesses. “This isn’t worth any bloodshed. I bet you fucked her yourself.”

“That’s different. Stinger doesn’t mind if I fuck Susan. I’m his best friend.” Royal counters.

“Well, let’s all go up to the house, sit down, and have a drink of whiskey and be best friends.” Chocktaw suggests sarcastically.

“I don’t want no goddamn halfbreed leaving his mess in my woman.” Stinger proclaims. He fires the first shot and misses. The kickback sends him staggering.

Chocktaw empties his chamber. These weapons look real. Stinger falls to the ground with two entry wounds.

“You shouldn’t have killed Stinger.” Royal says, displeased.

“He was trying to kill me.” Chocktaw insists with the energy of a kid whining to his mom that his brother started it.

Royal lets off a shot, missing too. Chocktaw grabs a knife from his moccasin and throws it into his adversary’s gut. Royal stumbles around for a moment before succumbing to his injury.

I’m dying at how Millard gave himself the most badass material and managed to come out a geek. Chocktaw vanquishes two men at once, after bedding their girl, but owes his survival to dumb luck, not skill. His attackers beat him to the draw, they just happen to be lousy shots. He doesn’t even try to evade their barrage, just stands there hoping for the best. His accuracy is only slightly better than theirs — 33%. Keep in mind that Millard had total control of all stages of production. He chose to write, direct, and edit the scene this way. I guess he didn’t want to upstage his co-stars too badly.

If this sounds like a vibe or even a whole-ass mood and you don’t have twelve bucks to spend in this economy, I’ll email the movie to you. I watched it while eating Havarti cheese, an exclusive right of Denmark. I give the experience my highest recommendation, 5 boobs on balls and/or in ears out of 5.