If you were going to the movies in the 80s then no doubt you were aware of Cannon Films. Founded by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, they made their mark on Hollywood by making some of the biggest films of the time without the help of major Hollywood studios. They were outsiders who came in and pulled some of the top talent at the time into their films and made millions in the process. With over 300 films to the company's credit you would think they'd still be busy. But that's not the case.

Filmmaker Hilla Medalia takes a look at the duo from their beginnings to the eventual collapse of their studio. Using a combination of archival footage, film clips and current interviews with both men she gets to the heart of the company and what happened, never giving ground to easy questions and searching for answers. In doing so we get a better grasp of the two men and what they actually achieved.

Menahem, the elder of the two, was already making movies in Israel when the decided to join forces. This led to a series of successful films in Israel that were eventually released in the US as well. Deciding to take the risk of being major film producers the pair moved to the US, bought out the struggling Cannon Pictures company and made history. Working out of a small office they negotiated some of the biggest deals of the time.

Their string of hits included most of the early films of Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme. They brought Sylvester Stallone in on a few films. The same with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Menahem was the one overseeing the productions being made and Yoram was the money man, able to find the resources to get these films made.

But they had different ideas of where they wanted to go. Menahem headed more towards making numerous money making films without worry about if there was money to make them or not. Yoram wanted to make more prestigious films in an effort to rise about the exploitative films they had been making. These included films like FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepherd and RUNAWAY TRAIN by Andrey Konchalovsky.

A few bad films and some bad investments led to disaster for the cousins to the point of them not talking to one another. It also led to the downfall of the company they had created. That might seem like you're being told the entire story but it is just the bare bones. It is the meat surrounding those bones that makes this documentary both entertaining and informative.

If you grew up loving those films and seeing the Cannon Film banner at the beginning of a film then you'll want to check this one out. For me I enjoyed it from start to finish be it the interviews, the film clips, the trailers clips and more that are on hand. And once it's over my guess is, like me, you'll be looking to see if some of the movies discussed are in your collection to be pulled out and watched again. Alongside the titan of the business Golan and Globus deserve more recognition. Perhaps this film will lead to that happening.

Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were two brash and gutsy guys who got their start making movies in Israel prior to taking America by storm with the production company Cannon Films in the 1980's. After enjoying a good deal of success throughout the early to mid-1980's, the duo crashed and burned by the end of that era because of a few bad business deals and putting an emphasis on quantity over quality as far as making movies was concerned.

Director Hilla Medalia paints a fairly rosy, but still refreshingly honest portrait of the irrepressible pair, with Globus the shrewd moneyman and Golan the audacious idea guy. The opening section on all the pictures these two made in Israel is especially interesting and informative. It's also a hoot to see how modest the Cannon production offices were in the early 1980's and the footage of the duo plying their deal making craft at the Cannes Film Festival is absolute gold.

Jean-Claude Van Damme shares a priceless story about his wild audition for Golan while director Joel Silberg has some choice stuff to say about the making of the huge hit "Breakin'." Lawyer and film executive Tom Pollock shares some important details about the duo's downfall. Alas, Eli Roth comes across like some annoyingly gushy fanboy dweeb. While Globus and Golan are reluctant to discuss at length their failures in the film industry, they both deserve credit for being brutally honest about how both could have been much better husbands and fathers. A really solid doc.

It´s an interesting documentary about the famous movies Cannon Group made in the 80s. The problem is that they switch from english to hebrew to french without adding subtitles and you lose about 40% of the dialog in the whole documentary if you don´t speak one or any of these languages . Many times it changed languages even in the same interview so that is a big No No for this Go Go. But at least half of the documentary can be understood.