Determined to walk away from his job as a C.I.A. hitman and hit the Pacific Northwest in his ’69 Mustang, Burt Reynolds is Malone (1987), a man whose grown weary of killing, but is warned by his handler and former flame Jamie (Lauren Hutton), that “nobody just walks away from ‘the company’.” After his car breaks down in a small Oregon town, he is welcomed in by the local mechanic and his daughter – Paul and Jo Barlow (Scott Wilson, Cynthia Gibb) – who invite him to stay in their spare room. Malone soon discovers that the town is being taken over by “land grabber” Charles Delaney (Cliff Robertson), who runs a white nationalist terror group and teaches a doctrine of hatred disguised as patriotism. Delaney sees Malone as a threat who needs to be eliminated and the two men head for a Shane-like showdown, but not before Malone violently takes on any of Delaney’s thugs who poke the bear – including a crazed Tracey Walter as a brother dead set on revenge. Malone packs a Peckinpah like shotgun blast of action to the chest, and Burt Reynolds kicks enough ass to make Navajo Joe ride off smiling.
