Crime zone

The fictional city of Soleil (the city of the Sun) with a brutal police regime is fighting with another city - Frodan . Police trap criminal Hector , who is about to steal a weapon for Frodan. He is captured alive by order of the police chief, and he is executed live after a short indictment.

Bona (Peter Nelson), who recently lost his job in the Cryogenic Gardens (where the elderly is rejuvenated) due to the fact that he did not show proper subordination and respect for his superiors, is sent to his impoverished area after dismissal. There, in a strip bar, he meets a young woman, Helen (Fenn), forced into prostitution in a government-sanctioned brothel. In that world, men and women from the lower strata cannot freely meet each other under the threat of police reprisal. Bonu and Helen immediately attracted to each other. Bona’s childhood friend, Creon, begins to envy him and demands that Bona share Helen with him. Bona refuses, and all this goes on to a fight.

Bona and Helen leave the club and steal money left by the buyer from the store counter. All this is observed by a mysterious man named Jason (Carradine) and stops them, offering a job, in return promising to arrange for them to escape to Frodan. They must steal a drive from a secret object disguised as a hospital. Despite their suspicions, they accept the offer and successfully deliver the information to Jason, who postpones the escape and offers them another thing, since they so successfully managed. Frustrated and in need of money, Bona and Helen rob the bank, quickly turning into the most wanted criminals in Soleil. Creon tries to blackmail Helen, but she rejects his threats. Bon intervenes and tells Creon that he would have killed him if he had not left Soleil so soon. Having lost faith in Jason's promises, Bon and Helen offer two friends, Alexi , an old man, a former military pilot, and youth JD , to run with them.

Hiding from the widespread search, Bon and Helen are hiding in the plague zone, but the police arrange a total raid and go to them. It turns out that Jason is an agent of the government. He explains to them that the government has long suppressed all crime in the city, and its job is to select people to participate in government-sponsored crimes in order to justify police terror. Hiding behind Jason, Helen and Bona are hiding in a safer place, where they are discussing a plan to rob the nobles rejuvenating in the Cryogenic Gardens and hijacking a military helicopter where Alexi can deliver them to Frodan. Creon intimidates JD and threatens him to hand Bon and Helen to the police with whom he made a deal. Bona and Helen enter the Cryogenic Gardens, and there Bona kills her former boss, and Creon tries to capture Helen. Soon the police arrived and betrayed Creon, as Helen had warned him earlier that this would happen. Creon takes Alexi and JD hostage and go to a military base with helicopters, and after ridicule, JD Kreon kills him, and he goes to the command post to open the hangar.

At the military base, Helen and Bona, who escaped from the Gardens, release Alexi, and while Creon understands the command post, they take the helicopter out of the hangar. Creon begs to take him with him, but they leave him. The police pull up and Jason kills Creon. Alexi takes off and leads a helicopter to Frodan, where they receive permission to land. However, the airfield on which they land celebrating freedom seems abandoned. On it stand only empty planes and everywhere on the sand only weeds and skeletons covered with sand. In search of survivors, they meet Jason. Jason shoots the old man and the policeman who arrived with him. After that, he thanks Bona for helping to realize his plans. He says that everything was a lie: Frodan twenty years ago became a radioactive surrender after the war unleashed by Soleil. And the war ended twenty years ago. The "Plague Zone" is actually a zone affected by radiation, which over the years has shifted to Soleil. Jason knows too much, and in order to secure his position, he persuaded Bon to obtain secret information for him.

Jason lets Bona and Helen leave, telling them goodbye that their existence justifies Soleil's military spending. At sunset, Bon and Helen walk along the ocean.

• David Carradine - Jason
• Peter Nelson - Bona
• Sherilyn Fenn - Helen
• Michael Scheiner - Creon
• Orlando Sasha - Alexi
• Don Manor - JD
• Jorge Bustamante - Hector Biko

Executive producer Roger Corman, who coined the concept of the film, hired Peruvian director Luis Llosa to create a futuristic thriller; Jeffrey Middents talks about what he calls an apocryphal story in which Corman signed an agreement with Llosa, while Corman was briefly delayed while stopping in Peru. The film was shot in Peru and used postmodern architecture to show a futuristic style. Students and teachers from the American school in Lima were brought. Llosa said that he focused more on the art direction than on the dialogs, and he shot at night to hide his low budget. The film was co-produced between New Concorde Corman and Iguana Films Llosa. ^[one]

The criminal zone was released in the USA by New Concorde in March 1989. MGM / UA released it on video for home viewing in May 1989. ^[2] He was included with Corman's Drive In ^[3] on the Corman YouTube Channel in 2013. ^[four]

Academician Jeffrey Middents wrote that the Criminal Zone was better received in the United States than in his native Peru, whose critics rejected it as a Peruvian movie. Middents claims that the film was rejected not as a genre film, but because it did not have a unique Peruvian flavor, especially due to the participation of actors from America. ^[1] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times criticized the film as insane and gloomy, but he wrote that he rises above his low-budget basics to become a competent Blade Runner clone. ^[5] Film critic Joe Bob Briggs wrote: “ Of course, we have all seen these stories before, but have we seen her from 1000 Peruvian extras in shiny silver spacesuits? I think not . ” ^[6]

• " Criminal Zone ” on the Internet Movie Database
• Criminal Zone on the Rotten Tomatoes website