EDITOR’S NOTE: Nothing gives me greater joy than when our site gets mentioned on my favorite podcast, The Cannon Canon. There are a few movies they’ve covered that I haven’t, so it’s time to fix that.

I am happy to admit that I rented Action Jackson more than a few times. Carl Weathers deserved to be the star of more movies and, well, Vanity was in it. After watching this movie, I realize that I am only two movies away from seeing every film that she was ever in.

It starts unlike any normal action movie you’d expect, as almost supernatural killers, the Invisible Men, come out of nowhere and kill some auto union guys. That’s how you know we’re in Detroit, you know?

Detroit Police Department Detective Sergeant Jericho “Action” Jackson (Weathers) was a star athlete who went to law school and became a hometown hero, but that was before he arrested the son of important businessman Peter Anthony Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson). He was quickly demoted, divorced and demoralized. He’s at odds with the public and his boss, Captain Earl Armbruster (Bill Duke, always an angry ranked cop) because he won’t stop chasing down Dellaplane, who really is dirty and is too smart to get caught.

Yet there’s hope. Dellaplace’s wife Patrice (Sharon Stone, fated to be the dead bad girl in every movie at this point) gives him info before she’s killed and Dellaplace’s mistress Sydney Ash (Vanity) is set up. Yes, Craig T. Nelson is at near Michael Douglas level here, sleeping with both Sharon Stone and Vanity. Action Jackson also has help from Kid Sable, a local hotel owner and retired professional boxer — this movie is like James Bond with its strange helper characters — played by Chino ‘Fats’ Williams, hairdresser and connected gossip queen Dee (Armelia McQueen), his old partner Detective Kotterwell (Jack Thibeau), bad kid gone good Albert (Stan Foster) and Sydney’s bodyguard Big Edd (Prince A. Hughes).

This is the kind of movie where the bad guys plan on barbecuing our hero and instead he sets them on fire and shoots them with a grenade launcher. It’s beyond over the top but in a way that completely works within its universe.

I love how matter of fact Weathers was about how this movie got made: “A creation that came about when I was doing Predator and talking to Joel Silver, who loved blaxploitation movies. Joel said, “Well, you know, why don’t you put something together?” So during that time of shooting down in Puerto Vallarta, I created this story and came up with this guy – or at least this title – Action Jackson. And Joel found a writer who wrote the screenplay, and that was it. We got it made.” There’s a TV movie Weathers did after, Dangerous Passion, which was called Action Jackson 2 in Germany, but unfortunately there was no sequel. Weathers said that it was because, “Lorimar sold the lot to Sony and sold the library to Warner Bros., and that was that. It never resurfaced again, unfortunately.”

If you love 80s action, this has so many people you know in it. Dennis Hayden, De’voreaux White, Robert Davi, Mary Ellen Trainor and Al Leong were all in Die Hard together, while Weathers, Duke and Sonny Landham were in Predator. In a better world, we got a whole bunch of these movies.

This was the first movie — after episodes of The A-Team — of former stunt coordinator Craig R. Baxley, a beyond dependable name because he also directed Stone Cold, Storm of the Century, Rose Red and Kingdom Hospital. It was written by Robert Reneau, one of the writers of Demolition Man.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode of Action Jackson here.