Main Cast: Harrison Muller, Al Cliver, Sabrina Siani, Daniel Stephen, Peter Hooten
Release Year: 1982
Country: IT
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
Blood and gore abound as good takes on evil in this futuristic sci-fi actioner that is basically a knock-off of the Mad Max series with a low-budget Italian twist. The year is 2020 and the setting is post-nuclear holocaust Texas. It's a dusty, nasty world now as can be seen in the opening scenes when a band of drunken outlaws viciously rape and murder innocent nuns at a mission. They then crucify the priest. Their debauched reveling is interrupted by roving rangers who engage the villains in a blood-soaked, bone crunching fight. The rangers manage to save a terrified young woman from the melee, and the heroic leader and she fall in love and head for the peaceful land she describes to him. Years pass. The hero and the girl are married and she is pregnant. He is working at a refinery. Trouble erupts when a meglomaniacal Neo-Nazi dictator and his cruel minions attack the heavily fortified refinery and begin trying to convert the hapless workers to his insane idea of the New Order. Of course, the hero, after witnessing the rape of his wife, decides to get revenge. Unfortunately, the dictator blows the hero away with a machine gun. More time passes and the workers have become slaves to their new leader, but fortunately at this point, the story is far from over and eventually after considerably more blood is graphically spilled, the forces of good inevitably triumph. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review
Although it wasn't released in the U.S. until 1984 (where it was retitled 2020 Texas Gladiators), Anno 2020 - I Gladiatori Del Futuro was actually one of the first entries in Italy's early-1980's cycle of post-apolocalyptic action films. Interestingly, it doesn't follow the usual formula of ripping off The Road Warrior or Escape From New York (though it does take some visual cues from those sources). Instead, it plays out like an old spaghetti western updated with some futuristic gadgetry. The storytelling is fairly brain-dead: in fact, the first half of the film is hard to follow because it jumps from scene to scene, with no transitions or any connective scenes to explain the passage of time or the changes in the characters' whereabouts. It also doesn't help that the characterizations are pure cardboard and the dialogue is often hilarious. However, director "Kevin Mancuso" (a pseudonym for the collaborative efforts of Joe D'Amato and George Eastman) keeps the audience from having much time to concentrate on the story's deficiencies by burying them in a steady stream of explosions, shootouts and punchups. Literally, there is some type of action every few minutes in this flick. The end result is daft but never dull and that duality makes Anno 2020 - I Gladiatori Del Futuro good late-night fodder for fans of trashy b-movies. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
Al Yamanouchi - Red Wolfe; Donal O'Brien - Black One
Credit
Linda Connors - Costume Designer, Joe D'Amato - Director, Caesar White - Editor, Francis Taylor - Composer (Music Score), Barry Hills - Makeup, Patrik Russell - Makeup, Robert Jenkins - Production Designer, John Larson - Cinematographer, Helen Handris - Producer, Jim Davies - Special Effects, Robert Gold - Special Effects, Peter Gray - Special Effects, George Eastman - Screenwriter
