cult film freak: CHARLES BRONSON & JASON ROBARDS REUNITE IN 'CABOBLANCO'

Title: Cabo Blanco Year: 1980 Rating: **1/2

This spiritual remake of CASABANCA about an American who runs a Peruvian hotel/nightclub harboring a French woman who knows about a local sunken ship's treasure is also similar to future blockbuster TITANIC; and for some reason the cache-seeking ship's captain, played by youthful surrogate hero Simon MacCorkindale sending a mini-sub to investigate, also narrates, eventually injured since this is a Charles Bronson vehicle: But unlike the Bogart classic, Dominique Sanda and Bronson's Giff Hoyt didn't have a previous affair...

And yet she did have a former French lover (his friend) who provided details about that treasure which... sadly, since fortune hunting neo noirs are usually pretty good... is quickly buried in a limited plot concerning pressure from the second/third of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, Jason Robards as the Nazi main villain (hooked with blonde moll Carmilla Sparv who should have replaced the wooden Sanda).... even less threatening than his native law-leg Fernando Rey or Aryan assassin Denny Miller. Meanwhile the biggest shame is that CABO has fantastically manned camera-direction by J. Lee Thompson, seeming more in-tune with a modern (1980) thriller that the wardrobe and certain technological aspects also resemble. And while primed to beat a lot of people up, Bronson's hardly in any real danger throughout — so why even bother?