Where to watch Indio
2 Stars
“Indio”, a half-Indian ex-Marine, fights to save the rainforest against the forces of a mega corporation that is trying to destroy it to make money, headed by a former US Army colonel.
It’s 1989, and somewhere in the jungles of the Philippines, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, who ranks as my second favorite fighter of all time, surpassed only by the late Arturo Gatti, has been given the opportunity to appear in a major motion picture. Well, maybe not so major. Indio, which was filmed abroad and financed with Italian money, is a calculated bid to start an action franchise. The strategy, at the time, was to give the movie a theatrical release in Hagler’s adopted home country of Italy and a handful of other European nations. Here, in the United States, the movie had a home-video premiere without much fanfare or even a modest promotional push. There it sat amongst the Die Hard, Rambo, and Robocop VHS tapes, and obviously consumers went for the big-budget movies featuring the star names they recognized. Getting someone to take a chance on a flick named Indio starring a retired boxer and the son of Anthony Quinn is a tough proposition.
I’m telling you this to say that it has taken me 35 years to finally see the movie. And I’m not upset that I waited nearly four decades, to the point that all three leads are now long deceased, to give the film my attention. Indio is a standard programmer without much stylistic flare or artistic inspiration. The obvious nod is to Rambo; the casting of Dennehy puts his appearance as Teasel in First Blood at the forefront of the mind for the entire duration of Indio, and this is sort of a rainforest warrior with shades of Tarzan as well.
The aforementioned former world champion, Marvin Hagler, appears at the film’s midway point in a role that serves little purpose in an already silly movie. Hagler’s villain character proves too likable and is suddenly struck with a guilty conscience. The movie’s headliner, Francesco Quinn, adequately toned and tan, proves himself as a viable action hero, but the movie doesn’t give him much to do. The majority of the screen time and certainly the dialogue belong to Brian Dennehy, and his monologue, delivered to an overmatched Hagler, about the first time he shot a deer is well written and superbly performed. That’s not the case for the film overall.
Directed by: Antonio Margheriti
Written by: Filiberto Bandini, Franco Bucceri
Starring: Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Francesco Quinn, Brian Dennehy