Wizard-8 Review of Chains of Gold

Chains of Gold (1990)

If it had been Mr. T's chains of gold, it would have been more interesting

[20 February 2010]

I'm assuming that John Travolta decided to take things in his own hands at the time of making this movie, seeing that his career was in a slump at the time. I assume that because Travolta is credited as being one of the four screenwriters of this movie. It must have hurt when the finished product was shelved for some time before being dumped directly to cable TV, though I'm pretty confident that the movie wouldn't have done well if it had been released to theaters. It's pretty apparent this was a low budget movie, with such attributes as poor photography and dimly lit sequences. In fact, despite all the swearing, violence, and drug scenes, the movie feels like it was made for TV. The screenplay contains some howlers like interracial gangs, but it's a mostly dull and slow-moving affair. Bernie Casey and Hector Elizondo are good, but there's only so much they can do in their limited roles. As for Travolta, while he's been good in other movies, you wouldn't know it from his performance here. His swearing, getting uppity and saying such things as "How dare you?", crying, and bulging eyes suggest a director who was reluctant to reign him in for some unknown reason. The only reason to see this is to try and figure out how this got re-released (on DVD) a few years ago.