WILDING;STREET SOLDIERS

WILDING Wings Hauser, Joey Travolta (1990, AIP, $79.95, unrated) STREET SOLDIERS Jun Chong, Jeff Rector (1991, Academy, $89.95, R) While gang violence escalates on our city streets, Hollywood continues to treat it as escapist entertainment in the form of exploitation quickies that briefly play in theaters on their way to video. Two new releases do little to lift the genre out of the gutter. Set in Los Angeles, Wilding follows the antisocial activities of a gang of alienated middle-class teens. They rape, they murder, they fight to defend their turf. As it happens, almost none of this comes during the act of ''wilding''-in which packs of youths run rampant, attacking anyone in their path. But why let a little technicality ruin a good title? Shabbily scripted and amateurishly directed and acted, the movie is a pointless exercise in murkily motivated violence. To legitimize the anarchy, writer-director Eric Louzil pays lip service to underlying sociological issues. But the message is so crudely delivered that it only prolongs an unpleasant experience. Street Soldiers is about some high school jocks who team up to take back their neighborhood from a vicious street gang. Outnumbered and outmuscled, the good kids enlist the aid of the local karate master (Jun Chong), who joins them just in time to take on the bad gang's kung fu enforcer (Jason Hwang). This is as much a martial-arts movie as a street-punk skirmish, and that may be its saving grace. Waging gang warfare comic-book style, Street Soldiers is no less inane than Wilding, though it's a lot more entertaining. Wilding: F Street Soldiers: C- -MS

You Might Also Like

• Video News Wings Hauser is the biggest star you never heard of | Lois Alter Mark