‘Showdown at the Grand’ Review: Bad Guys Threaten a Struggling Cinema in Fond Salute to Vintage B Movies
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic The struggle to keep movie theaters alive gets very personal in “Showdown at the Grand,” an enjoyable tribute to retro exploitation pictures with Terrance Howard as a movie palace proprietor besieged by diminishing receipts and violent goons.
Dolph Lundgren plays the former action star who shows up for a personal appearance, then stays to help save the joint from those agents of unscrupulous developers.
More low-key homage than campy cartoon, writer-director Orson Oblowitz’s fourth feature does manage to deliver some tongue-in-cheek mayhem in an extended climax.
The setting is an actual vintage art deco temple for cinema, San Pedro’s Warner Grand, though rather than being managed by the City of Los Angeles (as it is off-screen), it’s kept alive here as a none-too-successful for-profit labor of love by George Fuller (Howard).
Read more on variety.com
