Wanted Dead or Alive

A fast, high-powered political thriller, with Hauer as ex-CIA agent turned bounty hunter, renowned for hauling in hardened criminals - dead or alive. He has his work cut out when a group of Middle Eastern terrorists start a bombing campaign in leafy LA. Led by Malak Al Rahim (played by Simmons like an evil comic book character), the group has already killed scores in a cinema bombing, and now plan to blow up a chemical plant containing lethal cyanide. Hauer is unwittingly being used as bait by CIA schemers, and following the loss of his girlfriend and best pal in a mistaken identity mishap, he's provoked into seeking personal revenge...The film is enjoyably tense, explicitly violent, yet at times quite humorous; and Hauer, having collared the psycho market, here makes a similarly irresistible claim in the hard-man-with-heart stakes.