THE STABILIZER
Dir. Arizal, 1984.
Indonesia. 94 min.
In dubbed English.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, AUGUST 19 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 – 10 PM

“Listen, Debbie, we’re dealing with Big Leaguers here: the world’s best criminals, who are completely capable of upsetting the balance between Good and Evil. As impossible as it seems, what we need is a man with the guts and the ability to restore the balance…”

Justly considered Arizal’s masterpiece, THE STABILIZER is, by the filmmaker’s standards, a sprawling, prismatic exhibition of picaresque high-octane adventure and squad-driven justice. In his signature role, feather-mulleted Peter O’Brian—variously described as an FBI agent and American cop—leads a colorful task force of special agents in the crusade against diabolical drug smuggler Greg Rainmaker. He’s after a rumored device known as the “Narcotics Detector” for the purpose of planting drugs on his competition. Just how the device will further this purpose, or the lapse of logic in the plan owing to his targets likely, as drug smugglers, already having drugs on their person, is not clarified; nor does this justify it being incommensurately pitched as a decisive battle between the forces of Good and Evil.

In any case, O’Brian’s Peter Goldson has a decidedly personal stake in the mission, as Rainmaker had previously ravaged Goldson’s fiancée and stomped her to death with his spike-soled derby shoes. Ditto the beautiful and deadly Christina Provost, whose father invented the Narcotics Detector and is being held captive by Rainmaker. Their team is mirrored by an equally distinct lineup of opposing henchmen including a man who eats live baby alligators—animals were definitely harmed during the making of this film—and an Asian Mr. T. The lengthy drug barn raid sequence, which begins with Goldson bursting through the wall Kool-Aid Man style on the back of a motorcycle, doing donuts in a pile of cocaine, and throttling off a balcony plunging his front tire directly into a random bad guy’s head, is a cinematic tour de force—and it only anticipates the later, greater drug warehouse raid sequence. Featuring the would-be hit punch-dance ballad “The Stabilizer.”