Published on
The Salute Of The Jugger (also released under title “The Blood Of Heroes)” is a movie that clearly copies from Mad Max. It’s set in a distant post-apocalyptic future where earth seems to be nothing more than a desolate wasteland. Somehow every invention done over the last few centuries doesn’t exist anymore and nobody has the skill to recreate them. Probably due to budget restraints none of the classic famous landmarks make a cameo as most of this movie is filmed in the Australian outback. Instead of American football, baseball, basketball or soccer the people play a sport called Jugging which sounds like a synonym for masturbating.
The people playing this brutal sport are called Juggers and the goal of the game is to get a dog skull on a stick, but this game has only a handful of rules and none of them involve the safety of the players. Leaving the field with broken limbs or even a blind eye is common. Basically the movie revolves around a group of Juggers, who are played by well known actors like Rutger Hauer, Delroy Lindo, Vincent D’Onofrio and Joan Chen. These Juggers have matches in small villages and eventually end up going to one of the remaining 9 cities to challenge the best team to a duel.
The Salute Of The Jugger is a small scale low budget movie which is clearly visible on screen. First of all it stars Rutger Hauer whose name has become synonymous with low budget action movies that in most countries go straight to video. Most of the movie takes place in dune like environments and the final act takes place in a dark underground city which consists of nothing more than a couple of rooms and halls.
It has the same serious tone as Mad Max and thus has little room for laughs. The Salute Of The Jugger is a mash-up of post-apocalyptic action and sports movies. The core of the story being Joan Chen, who is the Daniel LaRusso of the world of the Juggers. It’s not all that very engaging and every time the director tries to deepen the story like by having Hauer’s character a backstory it falls flat. The rest of the time it’s just Jugging, jugging and some more jugging.
The Salute Of The Jugger is a mediocre movie that has no legacy at all other than having some now familiar faces in them. I could have just as well spend my 90 minutes jugging off.
