Death Squad aka 2047: Sights of Death – What a Mess

Death Squad, aka 2047 Sights of Death, is a 2014 Italian film starring Danny Glover, Stephen Baldwin, Rutger Hauer, Darryl Hannah and Michael Madsen. Directed by Alessandro Capone (Hidden Love, Primetime Murder) IMDb classifies the film as action, science fiction and a thriller all mixed into one. In reality the movie is none of these genres. Death Squad is an unmitigated disaster from frame one; as Danny Glover’s character Sponge says at the end of the film, “What a mess.”

The plot may have to do with saving the world, although it is not clear just what the overall mission of Ryan Willburn (Baldwin) actually is. He is either supposed to collect a transmitter or information and the transmitter or possibly something else entirely. He crash lands in a contaminated area where he needs an anti radiation serum dose on a regular basis or he will hallucinate and die.

Once he crashes Willburn discovers a pile of bodies and a local alien girl. We know she is alien because she cannot talk, although she can write in English, and she has been painted purple…or burgundy. She also has two black dots on her forehead and chin. Tuag, played by newcomer Neva Leone, helps Ryan on his mission, whatever it is.

The villains of the piece are apparently supposed to be Rutger Hauer’s Colonel Asimov, his aide Major Anderson (Hannah) and Lobo (Madsen). With no real clear objective, it seems that they are just meant to threaten and then kill Willburn.

Editing of the film appears to have been done while under the influence of hallucinogens and the script apparently had no dialogue included as it seems that all the performers were making it up as they went along. Hauer’s lines definitely feel made up on the spot. For all intents and purposes Death Squad seems to be the first film shot with no real script or lines or direction.

Granted the movie has been given a science fiction setting, telling the audience that it is in 2047 and that world order has fallen apart and so on sorts this out. Danny Glover’s character sits scribbling in a notebook when he is not cursing and looking for data on antiquated computer monitors or talking to Willburn. At one point in the film he is writing down that “Charles Manson was right” and that viagra “was right.” Like everything else in the movie, Glover’s character is in a muddle.

The film’s action roams all over the place and has no coherency or direction. Each of the actors feel like they are in their own film. Of course Madsen plays the same face-pulling cigarette-smoking psycho version of his Kill Bill character, regardless of the role he is cast in. The actor seems to be performing in his own special movie regardless of what the script asks for.

Hannah, and Baldwin, both seem to be desperately trying to play their roles straight but with no support from anyone else in the cast. Unfortunately for Baldwin, it is hard to play it serious when having black shoe polish smeared on one’s face. Luckily for him it does magically disappear a short time later. Odd moments like this abound in Death Squad and they do not result in laughter just confusion.

In a nutshell, this film plods nonsensically along for 89 minutes with no resolution, no real story and obviously no real script. Somewhat amazingly, 2047: Sights of Death, or Death Squad, was released in Italian cinemas. For the rest of the world, the film is on Netflix and should be avoided at all costs. There is not one redeeming factor in this feature and one can only surmise that all the name actors in the film owed someone a huge favor.

0 out of 5 stars for being confusing, horrible and a waste of time.

Author: Michael Knox-Smith

Former Actor, Former Writer, Former Journalist, USAF Veteran, Former Member Nevada Film Critics Society (As Michael Smith) View all posts by Michael Knox-Smith