During Orion’s heyday of the 80’s the production/distribution company released a number of films across a wide variety of genres. They had varying degrees of success with their action/thrillers, which included the likes of First Blood, Remo Williams and F/X. One of their lesser known action efforts was Malone, starring Burt Reynolds. On the surface Malone is like a number of action movies from the late 70’s and on into the mid to late 80’s, but it’s surprisingly relevant today.

Reynolds stars as Richard Malone, an ex-CIA agent who gets tired off life as a hired gun. On his latest assignment in Washington he decides to call it quits and heads off in his Mustang. Unfortunately Malone only makes it to rural Oregon before his car breaks down and he’s forced to push it to the nearest service station.

The station is owned and operated by Paul Barlow (Scott Wilson), with the assistance of his teenage daughter Jo (Cynthia Gibb). Paul takes a look at the car and determines the quickest way to fix it is have it towed 60 miles out to a larger service station with more parts on hand. In no rush, Malone decides he’ll wait a few days for the parts to be delivered to Paul’s shop. With no hotels in town, Paul offers up his spare bedroom for Malone to stay until they can get his car back on the road.

As Malone waits for the parts to come in he begins to survey the small Oregon town. What he discovers is that a man named Delaney (Cliff Robertson) seems to run things. Delaney is a rich man that uses his money to bully the town. His plan is to buy up as much of the town as he can, when people refuse to sell he sends over a couple of goons to terrorize them until they change their tune. Malone won’t stand for this and decides he’s going to help the town fight back against Delaney. Once Delaney catches wind of Malone, the two begin to go at each other leading to a final showdown.

The reason this film feels a bit relevant to me is because Delaney considers himself a patriot and he says he’s part of a larger group of like-minded patriots who are all incredibly wealthy. They’re using their wealth to buy up as much land as they can in rural areas. They’re doing this so they can control elections and elect Congressmen that will retake the country from “mongrels.” Doesn’t that sound a little familiar?

The movie does start off a little slow, but once it picks up it’s all awesome. This is basically everything I want in an action flick. You’ve got Burt, who is cooler than cool. You’ve got a baddie who is very easy to hate because he’s rich and who doesn’t hate the rich? And it’s really, really violent. Like once people start getting shot, they really get shot. Whoever did the squibs did a wonderful job.

The Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber isn’t exceptional by any means but it is very solid. The transfer has a few moments that are a bit heavy in grain and the colors are a bit muted at times, but overall it looks nice and has that film quality you always like to see. A trailer is included and that’s it as far as special features. This is basically your standard Blu-ray release. If you like a solid action movie with an army-of-one hero, you can do a lot worse than Malone.