My review was written in July 1986 after watching the movie on Vestron video cassette.
"Deadly Impact" is a caper film with one of the silliest premises yet. Italian-made production was lensed in Las Vegas and Phoenix in November 1983 with such pointless working titles as "The Believer" and "Giant Killer", finally debuting on video cassette a year ago.
A young computer expert named Harry from Phoenix has come up with a system to break the bank in Vegas: he ties in his computer terminal via secret codes with all the casino computers to monitor when each of their slot machines is ready to pay off. Then he sends his girlfriend Kathy around to play the winning slots, generating a take of about $30,000 per weekend in Vegas.
Two thugs noticing the winnight track down Harry and torture him for his secret but acidentally kill him, later kidnapping Kathy. Phoenix cop Bo Svenson and his helicopter tour pilot pal Fred Williamson get on the case and predictably end up with the system and its spoils for their own corrupt use.
Assuming the viewer buys the unlikely premise that slot machines are computerized and go off like clockwork rather than according to the laws of probability, "Impact" is boring anyway with its series of cornball chases and car stunts. Filmmaker Fabrizio De Angelis (a/k/a Larry Ludman) is interested in just killing time with the type of mindless saga that used to keep 42nd Street grindhouses purring but is now just a random title to take up space on a video store's shelf.
Bo Svenson is tiresome in another of his stereotype cop roles and his sidekick Fred Williamson (previously teamed in the Italian war pic "Inglorious Bastards") merely makes wisecracks and chomps on his trademark stogie.