The Banker

Summary

“I am the hunter. I drink blood from the fallen and gain strength.”

Dark Force Entertainment is a very small film distribution label with only a few titles to its name so far. Not every one of their releases is up my alley, but when I saw that they were going to release a police procedural in Los Angeles from the Eighties starring the late great Robert Forster, I took the plunge and preordered a copy of the film. The Banker has been lovingly restored by the small label from a new 4K scan. The other night seemed like a good time to watch the film, so I checked it out.

The film begins with a drawn out sex scene between a prostitute and her mark, Spaulding Osbourne (Duncan Regehr.) While he showers she begins to look through his things. He steps out of the bathroom with a crossbow with a laser sight and shoots her with the weapon. Police Captain Lloyd (Richard Roundtree) seeks out Sergeant Dan Jefferson (Robert Forster) and introduces him to Eddie Garcia, his new partner. Dan is asleep in a treehouse surrounded by beer cans when they locate him. He goes into the office with Eddie and they begin working the job. Arriving at the crime scene, Dan encounters news anchor and ex girlfriend Sharon (Shanna Reed.) She jumps headlong into the case and at work that night she goes off script and antagonizes the killer. Her off script outburst would have cost her her job, but the audience responds well to her and she is promoted with the expectation that she talk tough each night to the killer.  Spaulding works as a banker and is very wealthy. He drives a beautiful red sports car with the license plate Hunter1. As he begins to kill high priced prostitutes, he bases his kills on South American mythology and leaves behind a primitive symbol in their blood after mutilating them. Due to the type of women killed, Dan begins to monitor a lowlife pimp named Cowboy (Jeff Conaway) that is known for dealing in the women that the Banker targets. As Dan draws closer to finding the killer, the killer becomes infatuated with news anchor Sharon.

This is a big dumb cop procedural that plays like one of those films that ran late at night on Cinemax or USA. I mean this as a sort of compliment. These erotic thrillers have disappeared in more recent years, but they ruled the late Eighties and early Nineties, filling the shelves of VHS rental stores everywhere. They seem to have fallen out of favor as times changed, but for a while this genre was able to attract some good talent. This was the era of Baywatch, Silk Stalkings, and Andy Sidaris films while more prominent A-list films like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction killed at the box office. For a more jaded generation like my own there is still a certain innocence to these types of movies. While it is easy to dismiss these films, they are definitely entertaining.

The film is elevated by the presence of the great Robert Forster. Forster was such an understated and believable talent onscreen that he could make even something as formulaic and silly as this sort of work. I also enjoyed the performances from Jeff Conaway and Duncan Regehr. Conaway is a lot of fun as a lowlife pimp. Duncan Regehr plays the banker convincingly with the right mixture of privilege and lunacy. It is also worth pointing out that the film is not overly violent – never really showing any of the kills by the banker except after the fact. The violence in the film is about PG-13 level.

The Banker will certainly appeal to the same demographic that enjoys the occasional release by Code Red or Vinegar Syndrome, while people that find these types of films to be trash will not find any reason to think differently.

Video

Presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio with an MPEG-4 AVC Encoded image, the presentation is sourced from a new 4K scan done by Dark Force Entertainment. This restoration is not quite up to the levels of distributors like Arrow Video or Shout!Factory, but it is obvious that Dark Force Entertainment is getting serious about their offerings. The video transfer is pretty strong. Certain scenes seek a little more darkly lit than may have been intended, but overall it looks nice. Blues and red hues are used frequently to good effect. The fine grain over the film lends to a healthy filmic look. Fans should be happy with the job that Dark Force did on the film.

Audio

The DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio presentation on The Banker sounds okay. The audio is a little muffled at times, and due to the lack of subtitles I had a little trouble making out some of the dialogue in the film. I liked the soundtrack which is a very stereotypical sounding Eighties track with saxophones, bass lines, and jazz piano.

Supplements:

• Robert Forster – this is an incredibly short (4 minute) discussion by Robert Forster and his daughter about actor Joe Spinell. It is hard to really call this a special feature since it has nothing to do with the film or anything, but it was still sort of interesting. 

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 3/5

Supplements – .5/5

Overall – 4/5

The Banker is a fun foray into the erotic thriller genre with great leading man Robert Forster. It is a big dumb cop procedural that will not fail to entertain fans of Code Red and Vinegar Syndrome films. While the film is not high art, it is a fun enough way to spend an hour and a half. Fans of this film will be pleased to see the new restoration from a new 4K scan, but the audio and special features on the release are not of a very high standard.