Where to watch Band of the Hand
2 Stars
In an attempt of resocialisation, five hopeless juvenile criminals, J.L., a silent boy with 80s fashion sense who murdered his abusive father, Ruben, a Latino gangbanger, Moss, a African American gangbanger and Ruben’s mortal enemy, Dorcey, an illiterate runaway car thief, and Carlos, a Cuban refugee turned slick yuppie drug dealer, are sent away from prison into the Everglades for a survival training under Vietnam war veteran, “Indian Joe” Tegra. When this is successful, they move back to Miami slums. However this offends the former illegal inhabitants of the rundown two story house they settle in, all loyal customers of drug baron Cream. The conflict escalates into a bloody gunfight, but what the boys don’t know is that Cream is just a henchman for the merciless Miami drug lord Nestor, who also has Carlos’ girl Nikki with him.
Band of the Hand combines elements from The Dirty Dozen, Lord of the Flies, and Miami Vice to create a teenage version of all three in a 1980s movie. I’m familiar with the film because it used to play frequently on HBO during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and I saw it several times. Several years later, while in film school, an instructor discussed the drawbacks of the ‘high-connect’ mindset of the era, citing the combination of Miami Vice and Dirty Dozen seen in Band of the Hand. The studio heads were surprised this movie failed at the box office, given that Michael Mann served as a producer.
Michael Mann, apart from ‘Vice’ and ‘Heat’, has not been a commercially successful filmmaker. He is a brilliant artist, but his work is not widely seen. Those who have seen Mann’s 1983 film ‘The Keep’ know that this esteemed director, like many greats, is also capable of making a bad film at times. Band of the Hand is a bad movie because it fails to follow through with the promise of its initial scenes. Too much of the film’s story is set in the Everglades, and the racial-charged bickering becomes exhausting, while a subplot with James Remar is not given enough attention and is cut short for a ‘First Blood’ type climax.
I must admit I didn’t realize Stephen Lang is the film’s ‘Rambo’ character until the credits rolled, but he and the other young actors are good enough in the movie to keep our attention. It’s the screenplay that is disappointing. The movie works best when it focuses on the Cuban kid and Lauren Holly, but it becomes laughable when it shifts focus to cleaning up a crack house and then the streets. Band of the Hand lacks style and substance, which is particularly frustrating after the intriguing opening sequence.
Directed by: Paul Michael Glaser
Written by: Leo Garen, Jack Baran
Starring: Stephen Lang, Michael Carmine, Lauren Holly