Deadly Illusion (1987)

a review by Evan Landon

Ah, the days when you could go around assaulting people to get what you want, shoot down helicopters opening fire on a fine dining restaurant with a pistol, businessmen pretending to be someone else dealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash with Billy Dee Williams smacking bitches whilst drinking a Colt 45. So much has changed since the boomer era, I swear.

Q: Does a movie have to take place during Christmas, be released during Christmas, or be Christmas themed to be considered a holiday picture? Asking for a friend.

There are so many Christmas movies that people do not consider “Christmas movies” that many of them get pushed to the side, much like Deadly Illusion. In this forgotten VHS gem, Billy Dee plays a hard-nosed private eye name “Hamburger”, most likely because he gets beat up a lot. He also beats up a lot of people and shoots at board members in close chambers to get noticed, so that is something. But once a white collar businessman hires him to kill his wife, a whole conspiracy is unearthed. It's basically the same plot as Fletch, but the only costume Hamburger wears is Billy Dee. Plus, he shoots at people a lot, so that is different too.

Where do I start with what is wrong with this movie? Whatever passes for a plot is very quickly abandoned for grab-assing and illogical character devices. Again, you would not be able to get away with a movie like this these days and avoid controversy.

For what starts off as a paint-by-numbers detective thriller descends into a series of sparsely unrelated scenes where Billy Dee gets to fire a starter pistol at extras and make out with Morgan Fairchild. Accomplished exploitation director Larry Cohen wrote and directed this botched crime noir B-movie that went largely unnoticed at the box office, pulling in $626,724 against a budget of Twinkies and peanuts, so it's hard to say if you could consider this a success or not. I am going to suppose the latter.

To say that this is a “vanity” project would be too on the nose because Vanity plays his partner, so maybe you could say it ironically. This might be the only movie you get to see anyone committing a golf cart drive-by in Shea Stadium, much less Lando Calrissian. Thank god 'twas the offseason. He did take out the second Death Star, y'know.

“Rina, listen to me! How can I love you forever?” Billy Dee be smooth as silk, brah. Merry Christmas, kiddos!

2.5 Out Of 5