‘FURY’--AN IMPLAUSIBLE BLOODFEST

A rank, execrable disaster, “Certain Fury” (citywide) is the kind of movie that’s destined to show up in a trivia game as the answer to the question: “What’s the worst film ever to star two Oscar-winning performers?”

Rated R for its gratuitous violence, foul language and bad acting, it’s a cheesy, ludicrously implausible bloodfest that tries to pass itself off as a distaff update of “The Defiant Ones.”

The film’s alleged heroines are Scarlet (Tatum O’Neal) and Tracy (Irene Cara), a pair of wayward girls who get mixed up with every sleazeball who’s ever slunk down a mean street. A mismatched couple if we ever saw one--Scarlet’s a hard-edged hooker, Tracy a suburban sophisticate--the damsels meet up in court, where Scarlet is charged with murder and Tracy with stealing a Jaguar. When some rugged prostitutes overpower a bailiff and shoot up the courtroom, Scarlet and Tracy have the dimwitted idea of escaping during the confusion, which of course puts the angry cops on their trail.

For the remainder of the film, they find themselves constantly on the lam, running through the garbage-strewn streets like a pair of sprinters practicing for a slum Olympics. Pursued by hordes of furrowed-browed police, the girls survive all sorts of ugly scrapes, even a wild brawl in a candlelit junkie den where they manage to flee without knocking over a single candle.

Connoisseurs of outlandishly improbable plot devices will get a kick out of several chase scenes, particularly one howler where the doleful duo attempts to elude the police by diving into the local sewer system. Cornered by a gun-toting cop at a sewer grating, they appear trapped for certain. However, the policeman decides to have a smoke while awaiting reinforcements. Almost up to his neck in bilge, he somehow produces a dry cigarette.

Just as he’s about to light up, the girls shout in unison, “Sewer gas!” Instantly, the whole tunnel explodes. When the smoke clears, the girls are miraculously unhurt and the poor cop is trapped underwater. We’re left to wonder whether this mysterious gas is perhaps the byproduct of intensive story conferences in which great minds strain to dream up such drivel.

‘CERTAIN FURY’

A Prize Films production of a New World Pictures release. Producer Gilbert Adler. Director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Writer Michael Jacobs. Camera Kees Van Oostrum. Editor Todd Ramsey. Music Bill Payne, Russ Kunkel, George Massenburg. Set Decoration Marti Wright. With Tatum O’Neal, Irene Cara, Nicholas Campbell, George Murdock, Moses Gunn, Peter Fonda.

Running Time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

MPAA Rated: R (those under 17 must be accompanied by parent or adult guardian).