Chooch (Macauley Gray) and the Stranger (Istvan Criste) are bank robbers. They’ve recently taken a large haul from a nearby bank but, when things got dicey, they split. Chooch took the money and got out of town and the Stranger snuck off to a small farmhouse outside of town to lay low. If things went south, they had prearranged to meet up elsewhere a few days later.
When Chooch shows up to meet the Stranger at the farmhouse later, he comes in a new car without the rest of the cash from the robbery. When questioned about the money, Chooch explains that he hid it out in the desert for safety. The Stranger clarifies that, if Chooch wants to keep his boyish good looks, he had best get the money in its entirety and meet up with him at a new meeting spot the next day. Chooch agrees but insists that they delay leaving the area long enough to pick up his sister, Rebecca (Cecillie Bull), who is living in the nearby squatter town of Darwin. The Stranger reluctantly consents to these terms, insisting that Chooch be quick about his familial recovery matters.
The next day, Chooch successfully locates and acquires the money but, on his way to Darwin to get his sister, his car breaks down. A passing soldier named JT (Robert Ragis Smith) gives a lift to the stranded Chooch and his mysterious bag of loot. Unfortunately for Chooch and the Stranger, Chooch is a moron and hasn’t zipped up his bag properly. As such, JT, who is in fact a lieutenant for a local criminal syndicate based out of Darwin, realizes that the bag is full of cash and that the only thing standing between him and it is Chooch.
Stopping the car in the middle of the nowhere, JT forces Chooch to get out and walk into the desert, where he shoots and kills him. With that, he takes the money and heads back to Darwin, where he hides his newfound loot and tells a highly modified version of this tale to his boss, Archie. While Archie’s enraged that J.T. killed someone without his express permission, he is somewhat mollified by payment of a few hundred dollars (which he believes is all that Chooch had on him) and the promise that J.T. won’t kill people without Archie’s express permission. However, when he finds out that J.T. didn’t even bury the body, Archie insists that his Lieutenant take some of the lower level soldiers and bury him properly.
Meanwhile, the Stranger has become worried when Chooch doesn’t show up and decides to find a high plateau that overlooks the road to Darwin to see what’s become of his partner in crime. From this vantage point, he sees JT and his men burying a body. While he can’t tell for certain that the body is Chooch from the distance he’s at, he has the uncomfortable fear that it is indeed his idiotic sidekick. Once JT and his men drive off in J.T.’s new truck toward Darwin, the Stranger goes down to explore and discovers Chooch’s sunglasses.
Armed with the knowledge that someone in the town of Darwin has killed his partner and absconded with the money, the Stranger decides to infiltrate the town to seek out the killer, avenge his friend, and get back his money, even if he must leave a trail of dead bodies in his wake.
While the other elements of Escape from Darwin were highly successful, the content section was a fairly mixed bag.
First off, let’s start with the things that worked well. The overall writing for the script was pretty decent and, with the exception of a ridiculous escape the Stranger manages to enact against two trained assassins, the story arch makes sense, especially from a Grindhouse/Action-Adventure perspective. The ending of the film works pretty well, leaving you feeling as though justice, at least of a sort, has been served by the end.
