Explosive Action

Depth Charge (2008)

2012-02-21T23:58:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

A deadly weapon. A high profile target.

Movie Review:

After the awesome Deadly Outbreak from the review prior to this one, I was in the mood for another Die Hard in a Something type of film. After browsing the shelves I pulled out this one. Depth Charge, starring Eric Roberts and some guy called Jason Gedrick who doesn't seem to have much worthy of note since 1989's Iron Eagle. Still I quite like submarine films so the one-man-force deal should be fun, and RHI Entertainment are known for their decent bad-action and creature feature films.

On a routine training mission, the USS Montana receives a distress call from a sinking ship. Once they have assisted the refugees, seasoned naval officer Commander Krieg (Eric Roberts) seizes control of the sub along with the refugees, who are actually hired mercenaries. Now fully in control, Commander Krieg ejects the Montana crew to the (not so) sinking refugee boat and declares his demands to the President (Barry Bostwick, Spin City) via video feed; pay him the sum of One Billion Dollars (pinky finger to the mouth) or he will use the sub's nuclear warheads - and experimental stealth technology - to blow up Washington.... for world peace? What he didn't bargain on was medical officer Doc Ellers (Jason Gedrick, from (snigger) Desperate Housewives) and young sailor James Piersall (Chris Warren, from (haha!) High School Musical) hiding on board, and their uncanny ability to pick off his mercenaries one by one.

Well. That was that then I guess. It's hard to write about Depth Charge as it was just so.. bland. I was strangely intrigued for the most part and the 80 minute run time went by smoothly without too many groans at the bad acting (the President was hilarious and his aid was just.. terrible) but it's really just a 'blah' kind of film. You get that feeling as well when watching it, that the entire cast knew they were in a TV movie, that there were absolutely zero chance of getting an Oscar from this, so giving it your all wasn't a requirement.

This is Under Siege, Red October, Crimson Tide and Die Hard all wrapped into one low budget TV film. Gedrick is the star here; the Steven Seagal/Bruce Willis of the piece. He's okay in the role of the Doc and can fire an assault rifle, as well as kick and punch someone to the ground. The choreography in this was pretty average though so none of the fights are that great, but the gun violence is decent. He doesn't even spout one cool line in the film which was a huge disappointment. He takes Piersall under his wing, much like Seagal's Casey Ryback takes young Bobby Zachs under his wing, as the wise-cracking black sidekick - though Piersall is far less annoying than Zachs, thankfully. The mercenaries are all generic, right down to the 'hot but deadly' token woman.

Eric Roberts is of course why we are here and he acquits himself, in military speak, with an honourable discharge. He tries to make the best of what he has but he's obviously pretty bored with it. I also can't recall him leaving the bridge at any one point. They must have gotten in him to do his scenes in one day and paid him with cash. "Bada-bing bada-boom, I'm done." I don't blame him for going through the motions on this one. After all, he filmed this the same year as the SyFy channel film Cyclops. Poor guy. He gets to try a little 'acting' as the producers keep ramming home the fact that he's part delusional due to his pain medication, but otherwise he's just threatening his mercenaries and making small talk over the CB with Doc; that at least is funny, as Doc starts and ends every conversation with "Get off my sub!"

One thing irked me though. In Under Siege, Seagal is just the ships cook who happens to have formerly been a SEAL. In Depth Charge, JDoc Ellers is the ships doctor... who is given the launch codes to the sub missiles! That shit just doesn't happen. And just how were they transmitting live video feeds when submerged a hundred feet under water? No, no no no no...

The scenes outside of the sub with the President and his men are pretty poor. The script really is lifeless in these scenes, you can almost read word for word what they are going to say before they say it. "He was a loose cannon", et al. In bad action this can usually be funny but again, the laziness of this whole production made the scenes simply a recourse for getting from point A to point B. President asks "What's the situation?" and one of his dozen or so men and women say "Sir, he's demanding a billion dollars or he'll launch a nuclear missile at Washington." In one close zoom to the President's gloomy face I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the inevitable "God have mercy on us all." Unfortunately it didn't happen, or else I would have cheered.

I guess the overwhelming response I have to this movie is "Well.. I guess it could have been worse." And it definitely could have been. For a made-for-TV action thriller, it's not bad for 80 minutes. It's just not that good either. If it's on TV or a dollar pickup, and you simply have to see another Die Hard clone, it will do the job. But it's no Deadly Outbreak.

The Video:

The R4 DVD put out by RHI and Paramount sports a nice 16:9 transfer and strong stereo soundtrack. Runtime a lean 80 minutes.

Sourced From:

Ex-rental DVD for a buck.

Trailer:

More Screens:

Deadly Outbreak aka Deadly Takeover (1995)

2012-02-15T09:30:00.000+11:00

Tagline:

The fear is spreading.

Movie Review:

Not sure how we've gotten this far without a Jeff Speakman review on the blog. This one I learned about thanks to one of our readers Venom, who many moons ago suggested to me some of the best Nu Image titles to check out. Amongst the dozen or so titles was Deadly Outbreak. It's a tough one to find on DVD too, and I'm not even sure that it got a US or UK release. You can get VHS in those territories, but the disc I'm reviewing is the uncut Dutch release.

"Your party stinks. There's not enough ice cream and way too many clowns."

Jeff Speakman is Sgt. Dutton Hatfield, a special services agent tasked with escorting a group of scientists to a chemical plant in Israel. Unbeknownst to him and everyone else, the plane carrying the scientists was hijacked by Colonel Baron (Ron Silver, Timecop) and his team of mercenaries, who killed the original occupants and assumed their places. In Israel, Hatfield takes this team of "scientists" to the plant for their tour of the operations.

That's when Colonel Baron and his men unleash automatic weapon fury on the guards and take over the building, their ultimate goal being to steal a prototype chemical weapon from the head scientist, Dr. Allie Levin (Rochelle Swanson), and hold the world to random. Hatfield eludes capture and tries to restore order in what could have easily been called Die Hard in a Chemical Factory. Along the way he recruits the only other good guy survivor, one of the plant workers Ira, and the good Doctor herself.

Oh man, was this ever sweet! This has gone straight to the top of my favourite Nu Image films list, and up there with the best Die Hard rip-offs as well. I'm talking Under Siege and Sudden Death quality here. The action rollercoaster rarely ever stopped, and when it did it only stopped for Speakman to catch his breath before taking out more bad guys with a combination of automatic weapons, his fists and his feet. Speakman was the definition of cool. He muttered one liners to himself throughout the movie when toppling bad guys, but none better than when he blasts a guy in the crotch with a SHOTGUN and says "guess you forgot to wear your bullet proof cup." Fantastic!

This was cookie cutter stuff but it was done supremely well; at least when using the B-cinema scales. Ron Silver was totally awesome as the bad guy, and was downplayed and placid just like he is in Timecop with Van Damme. He has a very threatening persona and plays the Hans Gruber role perfectly. He has his henchmen to assist who are all straight out of the school of cliched hired goons. You got the guy with the long curly hair and uzi, the guy with the perm mullet and knives, the guy that gets too freaky with the token female and therefore is prone to a quick death by our hero. All we needed was Professor Toru Tanaka to turn up. In his place we do get a tall black man who enters a room with a machine guy and says "Take a seat!" before blowing everybody away. That was pretty cool.

The violence was pretty high in this. The opening takeover scene on the plane was just vicious and cold with one of the grunts shooting half a dozen passengers, completely unaware of his presence, in the back of the heads with a silencer. It was a little TOO much really, and I thought we were going to get a dark film. The film is big and loud like any good Die Hard clone. I suppose this was just the equivalent of the Die Hard "I suppose you're just going to have to kill me" brains splattered on the window scene - the standout vicious moment that you remember. Speakman cuts an unconscious man's achilles tendon and quips "if he wants to catch us, he'll have to crawl after us." Yikes!

As well as the gun fights we get quite a few examples of Speakman's martial arts prowess. So many guys get kicked off three story railings or flights of steps and fall in slow motion that I started to lose count. The scene in the bathroom shows Speakman can slap-fu as good as if not better than Seagal himself! There's also a sweet helicopter versus bus chase to look forward to, a huge car chase through the underground factory that sees hundreds of barrels get their comeuppance, Speakman makes out with the good Doctor, and just to round out the staples, he has to disarm a bomb by cutting the red wire! I'm not shitting you!

I can't say I can think of many other action films that take place in Israel. Not that you'd really be able to tell in Deadly Outbreak as the vast majority of the film takes place indoors, and the outdoors segments are just non-descript airports or highways. It's not like there were snipers on the Wailing Wall or anything. About the extent of it is a few accents and the military are wearing Israeli uniforms.

According to IMDB, this film was edited into Steven Seagal's Ticker. Now I've not seen Ticker yet so I'm not sure what parts Albert Pyun lifted for his movie, but that movie get's generally panned so he must not have picked the good parts. I find that hard to believe as there's very little here to dislike. Perhaps he only used a few minutes of soldiers running around and then built a crapcake on top of it? One day I'll find out when I sit down and watch it.

This is a great time. If you like Die Hard on a Boat/in a Car/on a train/in the Ocean/on the Moon kind of movies then you will dig this. It's actually quite similar to Michael Dudikoff's Strategic Command though this is far, far better. It's fast, it's violent, it has great bad guys, witty one liners and a great action star with Jeff Speakman and a cold hearted baddy with Ron Silver. I'm not really surprised that the action in this was so good as it was directed by long time stunt co-ordinatior Rick Avery, and lists Nu Image boss Avi Lerner as the executive producer. Definitely worth your time.

The Video:

Solid full screen video that doesn't look cropped from widescreen. I will mention that this edition is supposedly UNCUT when compared to a German edition. I'm not sure how it compares to any US or UK VHS. Runtime approx. 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

A seller on eBay for about 15 Euro + shipping. It's not an easy one to find! You might want to just get the VHS if that's easier.

Trailer:

More Screens:

Deadly Prey (1987)

2012-02-12T15:00:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

In Vietnam he was the best... HE STILL IS!

100th Review!

"We don't play games here. When we train, it's for real."

Well it took longer than I had initially hoped but we arrive here at last. Whilst the blog post count is a little higher thanks to a few special posts, this review marks the 100th macho example of action fantastic we've explored since starting this blog in May of 2010, beginning with Peter Weller's underrated Shakedown. What better movie to celebrate this milestone than the absolutely spectacular Deadly Prey? I can't think of any movie more fitting. The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed the blog has received a minor facelift to celebrate the milestone. Also I rarely shamelessly plug my stuff, but do check out my VHS collectables Tumblr photo blog if you haven't already.

It's pretty hard to add to this awesome movie more than what the DTV Connoisseur or Comeuppance Reviews have. This is solid gold bad-action entertainment, and it's criminal that there hasn't been a DVD release for it yet. When you think of all the sub-par action movies that have received DVD treatment but solid gold such as Deadly Prey remains only available on decades old VHS tapes and the thriving bootleg DVD scene... well, it's just sad.

Basically you are getting a cheap version of Hard Target and Surviving the Game (though both of those movies were made later). A team of mercenaries have stepped up their training under the leadership of Col. John Hogan (David Campbell) to now include hunting man for sport. While putting the bins out in his fashionable denim shorts and sloppy joe ensemble, Mike Danton (Ted Prior) gets hauled off the street by some guys in a van and knocked out. When he comes to he is quickly forced to run as the prey in a deadly game of hunt to kill, with the team of aforementioned mercenaries chasing him down. However what they don't realise is that Danton was originally trained by the Colonel! The hunted has become the hunter, and all that!

"Danton? Man I haven't seen you since the time you took the bullet trying to save my life."

There is just so much to love in the movie. The hilarious denim shorts (and nothing else) outfit of Ted Prior. The bad, bad acting from everyone involved (especially Danton's girlfriend; her scene dictating a number plate to her father, Cameron Mitchell, is hysterical). The over-the-top yet badly performed violence, complete with stock footage explosions. The outfit that the one female member of the mercenaries wears. The glorious power rock guitar solos and electric drums that play throughout. Ted's mullet. Ted's one liners ("Don't kill me I just joined today!", "BAD TIMING.") The fact that the film features somebody called Colonel Hogan! It's pure gold from start to finish. Hell this is better than gold, this is platinum. This is depleted uranium sold on the black market to smugglers wearing fur coats on their own personal yachts. It's that good.

Danton spends the majority of the movie setting Rambo style traps for his pursuers or punching their equally mulleted arses to the ground. They are all great traps as well, such as jumping out of a lake and pulling the bad guy in with him, or jumping out of concealed leaves and stabbing him in the stomach. The kills are the funniest things I've ever seen. Somehow Danton manages to skewer a guy through the chest with a twig he found on the ground. That's not really that surprising once you've seen Ted's muscles. People make Chuck Norris jokes about how his beard conceals another fist. Really they should joke about Ted Prior's mullet having bigger muscles than on his arms. I also love the fact that after being in the jungle for not even one night Danton resorts to catching and eating rats. Brilliant.

"How does a man go from being the highest decorated officer in the armed forces, to becoming some GOD DAMNED BLOOD SUCKING MERCENARY?!"

When the sides have turned and his girlfriend is taken hostage, Danton goes 'one man force' on the military base and blows up helicopters with missile launchers, and runs from tanks in his stone washed jeans shorts. But none of this compares to the montage scene of preparing to launch his final assault; Danton packs his bag with enough sticks of bright red dynamite to light the whole place up for days.

David Campbell is great as Colonel Hogan. He's sidelined for most of the film but after all the mercenaries have been dispatched by Danton, we finally get the one on one that we've been hoping for. Hogan and Danton's pow-wow at the half way point ("Join me, damnit!") features some beautiful dialogue as well. Cameron Mitchel doesn't have much to do in the film but when he does show up he's brilliant, shooting some guy point blank in the face! William Zipp turns up as a mercenary who used to be buddies with Danton back during the war and eventually switches sides, joining Danton in taking out the military camp.

Now the whole movie is fantastic but if I had to pick one scene from a movie to watch on repeat for the rest of my life, it would be the death of Hogan's right hand man Lt. Thornton (Fritz Matthews). SPOILER. After executing Danton's girlfriend at point blank, Danton enraged with fury and holding a machete takes a run at Thornton - who fires four direct shots at Danton and misses - and cuts off his freaking arm. Thornton looks at the stump for what seems like eternity and then finally screams, before - wait for it - Danton beats Thornton to death with the wet end. This is the highlight of cinema. Forget your Rosebud's - this is why we make movies, right here.

"Take off your shirt before I cut you out from under it!"

Since the age of the Internet, Deadly Prey has become notorious for being a brilliant slice of bad action cinema. In fact it is so notorious you may be put off by it without seeing it. Needless to say however, this is absolutely, positively mandatory viewing for all readers of this blog, and for all fans of bad action. Five stars, two thumbs up, however you want to rate Deadly Prey is up to you - just make it happen. I could watch this film on repeat and never get bored with it. I'm living in hope that Deadly Prey receives a legitimate DVD release in the near future - after all, the David and Ted Prior horror film Sledgehammer recently got released. Maybe if everybody sent an email to Intervision we could get this ball rolling.

Thanks to everybody who reads my blog, likes the Facebook and Twitter pages, and most importantly comments on my reviews. Here's to another 100!

The Video:

Same as all other AIP films released on VHS; soft, under-saturated picture and dubious audio. Runtime approx. 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

Haven't found the VHS itself so I had to do with a bootleg on DVDR like most people. Hopefully someday soon it will get a proper DVD release.

Trailer:

Montage of the best scenes (significant spoilers):

More Screens:

Crosscut (1996)

2012-01-27T21:55:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

No one quits the mob.

Movie Review:

I am not only a fan of action films. I am also a film collector. Those of you who are regulars here may have already noticed my new photoblog Explosive VHS, where I will be showing additions to and some of the favourites in my VHS collection. I also have a big fondness for LaserDiscs - remember those? The LP sized CDs that were vaguely popular in the 80's and 90's with video and sound quality greater than anything else available to the home market during its release. DVD quickly killed it, but as with VHS, there are many titles available on that format not yet released on DVD, let alone bluray. One such film is Crosscut. I knew nothing about the movie, but when I saw a photo of a guy holding a pistol to the camera above a city-scape shot when doing my routine eBay LaserDisc hunts, I just knew I had to get it.

Martin Niconi (Australian actor Costas Manylor of Picket Fences, the Saw franchise and the hilarious Corman film Dinocroc) is a tired mob thug who, along with his mob associates, collects overdue loans from businesses, with force. After a successful reclaiming of forty thousand dollars, Martin and associates retire to the mob bar. The violent, loudmouth son of the mob boss gets trigger happy and in the course of defending himself, Martin shoots him dead. Immediately he flees the scene and visits his uncle Leo who gives him money and the keys to his cabin in the woods. Martin makes for the cabin and begins a new life as the logger Matin Jones. However, the mob won't let the death of the boss' son simply go away. So begins the hunt!

This was not what I was expecting from the cover. That isn't to say I enjoyed it, however those of you who are expecting 90 minutes of mob vengeance action will be sorely dissapointed. The film revolves mainly around Martin trying to start his new life as a lumberjack and having to deal with being the unwanted, fish-out-of-water in a town that is already under pressure from the upcoming close of their whole logging operations. Martin tries his best to keep to himself and earn honest money doing an honest trade, but his shift leader Max (Casey Sander) doesn't like the look of him. To make matters worse, Martin shows interest in Max's sister Anna (Megan Gallagher), and that doesn't sit too well with Max.

The action takes a back seat to the story here. Once Martin has become a fugitive most action involves trees being lopped and Martin trying to get into Anna's pants. There's the token redneck bar-brawl as well, though it is over too quick, a minor car chase, and a few threatening guns pointed here and there but most of the action takes place in that famous final-fifteen of the film. The mob eventually, and obviously, locate Martin and attempt to make him pay for his crimes. This final scene is pretty good stuff with many of the loggers coming to Martin's aid, and improvising weapons from their logging equipment.

If it wasn't for the language in the first few minutes and a few violent deaths at the end, this would be proper midday-movie stuff. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. It's just a solid little film with a tried-and-true plot that can be enjoyed without too much thought, and not be overly grotesque or exploitative to cause offence to Mother whilst she peeks up at the screen when doing her knitting. Perhaps there was a TV cut of this shown in the early afternoons where the opening swearing was ommitted and the blood-splattering chest hits cut to a minimum. Costas Mandylor is just that kind of easy to watch TV actor, I guess. Perhaps his stint in Picket Fences sealed that. And the forest settings helped a lot.

Manylor does a fine job, though not an outstanding job. That could be said for the entire cast really. There's nothing hugely memorable - except the completely cliched, violent and racist language in the opening scenes of the mob boss' son. Gallagher does a decent job as the love interest who is also an owl loving environmentalist. I laughed loud at the most obvious midday-movie romance scene I've seen in a while - Martin's incompetence at catching a fish, ensuring he drops its flapping body numerous times, to the absolute delight of Anna. Everyone else from the mob guys to Anna's teenage son acquit themselves admirably.

All in all, if you aren't expecting an action extravaganza, this is a decent film. It was kind of refreshing in a way; I had put the disc on just to check the quality of it, not being in the mood to watch an action film, and ended up engrossed in it enough that here I am writing a review. Worth watching if you are in the mood for something of this type, find it cheap enough, or better yet it's on TV. Perhaps at midday.

The Video:

Decent fullscreen transfer on an NTSC LaserDisc. A little desaturated perhaps, which was a problem on many LD's, but still a huge upgrade over VHS. Solid audio output with a digital stereo track. Runtime approx. 96 minutes.

Sourced From:

LaserDisc off eBay Australia for $5.

Trailer:

Unfortunately I couldn't locate a trailer.

More Screens:

Arena (2011)

2012-01-15T16:50:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

There's no greater battle than the battle for your life.

Movie Review:

The 'forced to fight' concept is a staple of cheap, direct-to-video action movies. It also happens to be one of my favourite sub-genres of bad-action, so that's all right by me. I was definitely not on the lookout for this title when I spotted it on the shelves in my local DVD emporium. Samuel L. Jackson in a fight to the death movie, produced by Stage 6 films? I had not realised Sam was that badly in need of a paycheck; that or he just wanted to let his hair down (metaphorically of course, as he is quite obviously bald) and do a quick three day shoot for a laugh. Throw in the model from the Twilight films and we have ourselves a movie.

Kellan Lutz (Twilight as Emmett Cullen, and Dean Russell in the recent Nightmare on Elm Street reboot) is David Lord (great name), a fireman with a pregnant wife. Out driving they hit another car and his wife is killed. Drowning his sorrows in a Mexican bar, Lord gets propositioned by a beautiful girl Milla (Katia Winter). After going back to his room and getting naked, she fires on him with a taser and Lord is quickly packed up in a bag by hired goons and taken away.

Lord wakes in a dark room in an unknown location. He soon is informed that he is to be a fighter in a series of underground arena matches to the death. He of course initially resists, but after much torture and brainwashing and blackmailing, he begins to play ball - killing opponents in front of the camera for the viewers at home, who are, in this instance, pay per view Internet viewers. This is Deathgames, a brutal series of fights run by ringleader Logan (Samuel L Jackson) and enforced by the mean fist of Kaden (Johnny Messner).

Yes yes yes, you've ALL seen this a million times before. From the B-lows of Ring of Steel, Bloodfist and No Exit, to the B-highs of Undisputed and The Running Man, the forced-to-fight film is the most notorious cookie-cutter action film there is. Barely anything distinguishes these films apart from their leading roles.

The template goes: our hero is captured, beaten and made to battle other unwilling combatants (and some 'house heroes' as well), usually with some form of collateral held as blackmail. Our hero eventually agrees to voluntarily fight if his conditions are met, and he will also threaten to kill the ringleader. He makes it through to the final battle and is offered a pardon if he works for the ringleader as the new house champion. He disagrees and kills the ringleader in the most painful way possible. There will be a training montage in there somewhere too. That's the description for almost any 'forced to fight' film, and is certainly the description of Arena. I will say that there is a nice twist at the end that stands Arena apart from similar films, so you have something unique there at least.

Samuel Jackson was chewing the scenery so much in this film that he left his teeth marks on the set. I'm not kidding, I've never seen him do anything like this before. In most scenes he was sat in his throne with his two Asian computer technician cross personal strippers patting his brow and giving him a striptease, spouting lines like "What we have here is a failure to communicate! I've always wanted to say that line!" The surrounding decor switches from steel, burlesque and gothic and all Sam needed was a white cat on his lap. He's very similar to The Running Man's bad guy Killian who barks commands to his computer nerd girls to roll in 3, 2, 1 and Action. Also similar to Killian is his repentance in the final scenes; "I just give the punters what they want!"

The punters are the only thing that let this film down, and also show it's low budget. Whilst the Running Man had a huge studio audience and thousands of people on the street betting on the outcomes, Arena appears to have only two paying members: a bunch of College frat kids holding perpetual drinking parties, and a Chinese office worker at his desk sneaking a view at the Deathgames when he is supposed to be working. It's the kids that suck, really. Maybe I just hate college jocks, I don't really know, but any scene with them shouting "NO WAY BRO HE DID NOT JUST DO THAT!!" at their computer screens while the same blonde bimbos cower from the gore really pissed me off.

Speaking of gore there is plenty of that here. That's the best thing about DTV if you like that kind of thing; it's no holds barred on the blood and dismemberment. There's at least three decapitations in the film and plenty of swordplay and broken bones. Lord is cut to smithereens and coated in blood after every match, particularly the second-last fight with an escaped and deranged convict. The Arena sets themselves are intentional CG; the fighters are put in a green-screen room and in a scene straight out of the Matrix, the room itself is replaced with anything from a Shaolin temple to a junkyard. Very much akin to a holodeck.

Johnny Messner (Anacondas, Wrong Turn at Tahoe) is pretty decent as the right-hand-man to Jackson. He's well versed in forced-to-fight films, with Ring of Death under his belt and the hilarious looking Kill 'Em All coming later this year. He spends most of the film wearing a black cap as the Executioner. Katia Winter's Milla is gorgeous and we do get a full frontal scene - one for the young males in the audience! Her character actually progresses a little as she begins to fall for Lord when tending to his post-battle wounds.

This is a solid rental at the very least. If you are a consistent fan of 'forced to fight' films I'd just go out and add this to your collection. Sam Jackson is hilarious and the fights themselves are solid, even if they are a little too MTV-edited in parts. Good stuff.

The Video:

Unsurprisingly, this DVD sports a sharp and detailed picture and a strong soundtracks. There's plenty of music during the fights that make your speakers earn their keep. Filmed in scope, perhaps the producers were hoping for a theatrical release. Runtime 94 minutes.

Sourced From:

Locally purchased DVD.

Trailer:

More Screens:

Walking Tall: The Payback (2007)

2012-01-08T12:44:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

For Home. For Family. For Justice.

Movie Review:

I had wanted to get some Sorbo action onto this blog since day one but it just never happened. Recently I discovered that there were two in-name only sequels to the Dwayne Johnson movie from 2004 (and Bo Svenson series from the 80's, and Joe Don Baker series from the 70's) that starred Sorbo so I had to pick them up. Vigilante justice films can be good fun, so how did this go?

The town of Wherever (somewhere in Texas I think) is being slowly taken over by Harvey Morris (A. J. Buckley), his chief of police brother Walter Morris (Betley Mitchum) and their gang of thugs. Through police and mayoral corruption, and heavy handed tactics, Harvey Morris is gearing up to buy out the town for his own enterprise. The townspeople are too scared to act, all except for Sheriff Charlie Prescott (Richard Dillard) who is proving to be a pain in Morris' arse.

When the Sheriff dies under mysterious circumstances (his car is run off the road by Harvey and co., then set alight), Nick Prescott (Kevin Sorbo), his son, returns to town to get to the bottom of his death. As he digs deeper and deeper, Harvey and the boys make his life and his friends lives harder and harder. Townsfolk start dying but his tracks are so well covered by the afformentioned police and mayoral corruption that not even FBI agent Kate Jensen (Yvette Napir) can help. That's when Nick Prescott takes matters into his own hands!

I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this. It's more of a slow burner than a frenetic action film, but I think that is what you want from a vigilante justice style movie. The overall feeling is that of a western, and that is epitomised by the ending scene between Prescott and Harvey Morris which sees the two at twenty paces with fingers on their triggers, silos exploding in flames all around them. That's not to say that there isn't any action until the final fifteen, but that's really where it all kicks off.

We of course get a bar brawl, which is standard procedure for films like this; Prescott gives one of Morris' thugs a lesson with a pool cue. Most of the other violence in the film is that of Morris and his gang intimidating the townsfolk, including a nasty rape of the diner waitress Crystal. That alone should help set the tone of this film for you - it's gritty, like the town itself and the people within it. It's not at all dissimilar from Dolph Lundgren's Missionary Man, except that instead of a motorbike Nick Prescott rides a horse and a pickup truck, but the general story of a town overrun with corruption and thugs echoes this plot considerably.

Sorbo seems born to play this kind of role. He doesn't need to emote any more than a grimace and a twirling of a club and sawn-off shotgun. He has a physical presence that makes for a believable vigilante and looks at home in the country threads and riding horseback. He actually looks quite threatening in the final fifteen when unleashing The Payback that the title indicates, beating on the bad guys with solid punches and pipes to the face.

Buckley is okay as the bad guy Harvey Morris, but he doesn't have the presence needed to be threatening. Honestly if it wasn't for his backup support thugs his clock would have been cleaned within the first ten minutes. I know I would have tried to pull that beard off his face and make him eat it while begging for more. The lead thug with the handlebar moustache was far more threatening, and he did all the dirty work anyway. Morris looks more like a crazy cult leader.

This was a solid movie that's (for the most part) well acted, not overly melodramatic and provides the correct amount of action needed to sustain this kind of film. Tripp Reed (Rapid Exchange, Time Under Fire) provided solid direction with no silly camera tricks added to provide a fake polish. It's also not overly long at 90 minutes on the nose. I'm looking forward to checking out the sequel to this - Walking Tall: Lone Justice - which sees Sorbo reprise his role of Nick Prescott also directed by Reed.

The Video:

A very pleasing and crisp 16:9 transfer with a solid soundtrack, as one would expect from a modern DTV film. There is a refreshing level of film grain, demonstrating that this was not filmed on cheap digital cameras. Runtime 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

Quite hard to locate the Australian R4 editions put out by Sony, I found this as a used rental.

Trailer:

More Screens:

U.S. Seals 2 (2001)

2011-12-31T17:59:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

Infiltrate. Detonate. Annihilate.

Movie Review:

I love cookie-cutter military action films. I really do. At least when they are done well, anyway. U.S. Seals 2 is one such film. After seeing the review over at the DTV Connoisseur, I knew I had to have it. And when I found it in a UK combo set containing U.S. Seals, U.S. Seals 2, Operation Delta Force and Operation Delta Force 2... for £0.01, I simply could not refuse.

Michael Worth (Fists of Iron) is Lt. Casey Sheppard of the US Seals, under the command of Major Nathan Donnor (Marshall R. Teague). After a botched capture operation where Chief Frank Ratliff (Damian Chapa) executes the hostage, and then later on brutally rapes and kills his sensei's hot daughter Nikki, the team is disbanded and Ratliff makes himself disappear. Years later a military nuclear scientist, Dr. Jane Burrows (Kate Connor) is kidnapped by mercenaries and flown to a secret island to build a bomb for... you guessed it, disgraced ex-Seal and now arms dealer Frank Ratliff. Sheppard is re-instated reluctantly as a Seal and forms a team (in 48 hours, naturally) who can rescue the girl and stop the creation and use of a nuclear missile.

Sheppard's recruits consist of a rag-tag bunch of born-again criminals, gun-for-hire mercenaries and martial arts experts - including Kamiko, the twin sister (and same actress) to murdered Nikki. The catch is they can't fire weapons on the island due to the methane fallout from a decade old meltdown; one spark and the whole place will go up. This creates a few logic flaws with plenty of car engines turning over and cigarettes being smoked, but whatever. It's the movies.

I had a whale of a time with these seals! (get it? That was a pretty good pun). Isaac Florentine (of Shepherd Patrol, Bridge of Dragons, Ninja, the Undisputed sequels) sure knows how to direct a good action sequence and this movie has plenty of them. We start with a fast military shoot-out at night on a pier, that interrupts an illegal dealing (with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene with Velizar Binev) and sees flaming cars hurtle into fuel barrels. Simply amazing B-action! As good as this scene is, it doesn't hold a candle to the hand-to-hand combat and martial arts exhibited at the film's half-way point.

The scene in question shows the Seals going up against Ratliff and his men, and is the best scene in the movie to these eyes. Ratliff stands up high on a ledge with his buxom blonde by his side then calls on his 'army' to attack. As it's a no-gun policy, his 20 strong team encircle the good guys and much arse kicking ensues. Kamiko rocks her samurai swords, Sheppard uses his feet and the others use a combination of knives, lead pipes and their fists. The Major has a sweet 'air gun' that somehow propels projectiles that bury into a person and melt, without gunpowder. The fight with Artie (Andy Cheng) was proper old school material combining a chain link rope, fancy footwork and a rag at high speed, defence style 70's martial arts.

The lines in the film are delivered direct to camera and sometimes comes off pretty amusing, though the acting is never why we watch these things anyway. The most amusing part of the film was the total over use of the 'woosh' sound effect. Whenever anyone swiped a sword, pulled a gun, kicked their leg or even just turned their head we were treated to a 'woosh' sound. It was hilarious and whilst many would start groaning after ten minutes of this, I just kept laughing and laughing. There's also an underwater scuba diver fight to giggle at.

This may only have a PG rating but the violence is fast and often brutal. There are at least three guys that get swords through their stomachs, and the act of seppuku in the first act. That being said, it's a fairly bloodless affair for the most part. Not quite cartoon violence but somewhere in between. I am also pleased that no attempt was made to create any romantic relationship between Sheppard and Kamiko; that would have simply slowed the picture down.

U.S. Seals 2 is a solid mercenary bad-actioner from the turn of the century, with a great director and writer managing a solid cast. No messy Avid-farts and epilepsy-enducing techniques utilised here either. Good stuff indeed, and easily the best penny DVD I've ever bought. There is a part 3 to this series as well, US Seals: Dead or Alive aka Frogmen Operation Stormbringer! With a subtitle like that, it has to be awesome.

And, Happy New Year!

The Video:

Solid fullscreen picture, very crisp and good colours and blacks. Punching soundtrack with clear, audible speech. Fine and dandy. Runtime 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

Amazon.co.uk on a four-pack set for one penny + postage. Cheapest DVD I've ever bought retail, and there are two double sided discs in this!

Trailer:

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Android Apocalypse (2006)

2011-11-27T22:26:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

Yesterday they wanted each other dead. Today they need each other to survive.

Movie Review:

I'm a serious sucker for SciFi (or SyFy) channel movies and lately I've been on a real kick with them. Giant alien bugs, mutated crocodile-octopus-dinosaurs, and dozens of Henchman #3's from the channel's serial output of the Stargate franchise. Android Apocalypse is another ex-rental I picked up in a bulk lot and quickly shelved for a rainy day. Well it didn't rain today - far from it, it's excruciatingly hot here in Sydney - but I felt it was the right time for some SyFy.

It's a post-apocalyptic future and humanity's last survivors are walled up in the final city of Phoenix. As the air outside is mainly toxic, and roaming mining ships that have gone mental shoot at anything that moves, so androids have been invented to do all the heavy work. Not everybody appreciates their help and a new form of racism begins against these so called 'cogs'. One of these cogs, DeeCee (Joseph Lawrence) is ordered to rescue the son of a Phoenix executive who has wandered outside of the city. This he does, but he takes a hit from one of the roaming droids and needs to go Terminus to be repaired.

Jute (Soctt Bairstow) is a factory worker whose job gets taken by an android and takes his anger out on another droid, disabling it. This is treated the same as murder in the new society so Jute is shipped off to Terminus prison. He shares not only a prison truck with DeeCee, but is tethered to him as well. When the truck is attacked by roaming service robots and all other droids and prisoners killed (quite bloodily, in the DVD version of the film - think Benny in Total Recall), the two leg it through the sand dunes being hunted by a sort-of vigilante android team.

Oh, and there is a mad genius Varrta, played by Troy Skog, who unknown to his superiors is building an android army to take over the city. And he's turning himself into an android. And he does so by harvesting green fluid from the back of human people's heads. That's right, green brain fluid. Still, I was pleasantly suprised here. Many SyFy films you watch once, start getting a bit tired towards the end but stick through it before saying; "Well. There you go." Android Apocalypse I didn't check the time until 45 minutes in which is a great thing for a film like this. It moved at a swift pace for the most part and the handful of fight scenes involving Lawrence and Birstow were decent enough.

So let's just get this out of the way: Joseph Lawrence was in Blossom, the 90's teen series, and in 1994 was voted one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world in People magazine. How funny is that? So just how did this hunk do as an android? Pretty well actually. He echoed the 'nice' android that we've seen in Automatic and Solo - the kind of droid that knows how to find but doesn't like to. But when threatened - which happens quite a bit in the film - he will retaliate with much arse kicking. They didn't go all out to demonstrate that DeeCee is an android; no crazy on screen displays about power levels and targeting systems. He does get his arm lopped off at one point though and leaks green fluid.

Scott Bairstow does a fine job as the bitter man whose job is replaced by a 'cog'. It's the same relationship we've seen in plenty of sci-fi movies; Enemy Mine being a good example. Hatred turns to distaste turns to acceptance turns to friendship. At the same time, DeeCee does the same as Olivier Gruner in Automatic and learns to become more human. The relationship works well and the two team up to return to the city, which is when they discover what Varrta is up to.

I actually quite liked the little universe that the producers made in this film and the use of limited sets worked well. As well as the normal androids you have 'police' droids that dress in motorcycle helmets that reminded me of the ones in THX-1138. The oversaturated lighting for the outisde shots did well to demonstrate the near toxic air that Jute had so much trouble breathing. A lot of the city interiors were quite cool with all the bright lights and flashing colours you expect from 'the near future'. The only real downfall was the pretty lame excuse for the mine, which was just a glorified sandpit, and the mineral was.. well, just sand.

All in all, a decent little sci-fi actioner that's a bit more sci-fi than action. If you get the DVD version you will get the sporadic moments of gore as well that I imagine are not included on the SyFy channel transmitted version, hence the US dvd subtitle "Extended Version". Oh and hey, Director Paul Ziller gave us Bloodfist IV and Shootfighter II. Recommended.

The Video:

Sharp and probably filmed on digital video, anamorphically enhanced for the Region 4 DVD. Nice clear, explosive sound. Runtime ~90 mins.

Sourced From:

Ex-rental DVD from a video store.

Trailer:

Bizarrely I couldn't find a trailer for this at all, though you can find the whole movie on Youtube. Go figure!

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Special Post: More crazy films from Ghana

2011-11-17T13:50:00.001+11:00

Earlier this year I made a special post about a film production studio from Ghana called Ramon Film Productions. It still seems that obtaining those films on DVD is going to be impossible, but not all hope is lost.

Recently another studio from Ghana - who I'm assuming based on their YouTube name are called Ghallywood Direct - have started dropping trailers for some of their new action films. They are just as insane as Who Killed Captain Alex and the other films from Ramon, perhaps even more so.

Check out the trailers below for the full insanity!

2016

12:00

Nkrato

Obonsam Besu (Devil May Cry)

Cheers to Geeza for pointing these out to me.

Mars (1997)

2011-11-07T19:54:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

Where there is life there is also death.

Movie Review:

For some reason I have been really anxious to see this movie ever since I created this blog. I think it was the DVD cover - it spoke to me in a bad sci-fi kind of way that really intrigued me. I kept putting off buying it as the only option was importing it and I knew I only wanted to spend a couple of bucks on it, but then I did a trade for a copy of Blood Hands with a Canadian friend of mine and here we are. Total Recall on the cheap is what I was expecting. Did it deliver?

Olivier Gruner plays renegade law enforcer Caution Templar who arrives on Mars after receiving a message from his brother of some urgency. When he arrives he learns that his brother is dead. Not only that, but he uncovers a mystery that explains that the deadly plague that is killing the workers of this mining planet may be suspicious in nature, and that The Company are involved. With the help of a female doctor with a bizarre hair cut (Shari Belafonte), Cautions fights his way to the truth while being chased by company law enforcers who want him dead.

This was pretty good and moved a long at a fair clip. It was totally Total Recall done on the cheap, that's for sure. We have the constant orange dust of the planet outside, the cheap and sleazy living domes on the inside that are filled with prostitutes and strip bars with flickering lighting. There was the annoying sidekick character (though this one didn't turn out to be a mutant with five kids to feed). And of course we had the 'is he a bad guy' head of the company that runs the planet and his team of mainly incompetent goons. About the only real difference was that the main girl in Mars is an educated Doctor researching the cause of the plague, and not a full time plaything for Gruner.

Gruner fills the Schwarzenegger role admirably though the character he plays and the supporting storyline are different enough to make him stand out. And you gotta love that name - Caution Templer. Being that his character is a "Keeper" - an almost religious-like servant of the company - the surname was appropriate. But.. Caution? When his brother was in his death-throws at the beginning and his last words were "Caution... Caution..." I had assumed he was talking about the package he carried; perhaps it contained bio-weapons or some sort of alien artefact. And then Gruner walks onto screen with his identification card "Caution Templer". I did snigger a little.

The main reason to check out a Gruner film is to see him kicking arse and he did plenty of that here. In fact from the small selection of Gruner films we have reviewed here so far (Crooked and Automatic - yes I am aware I haven't checked out the revered Nemesis yet), I think this one demonstrates his capabilities the most. There are rarely any scenes, especially in the first and third acts, where Gruner isn't round-housing come guy into a glass table. His acting is the usual Gruner affair; stare blankly, speak softly and kick things good. Though in this case his voice is DUBBED, so it's not his own voice speaking softly! Quite why the producers decided to do this is beyond me. It's not like he was hard to understand in Automatic.

I got a kick out of seeing Lee de Broux in this, better known (to me, anyway) as the cocaine dealer boss in Robocop. You know the one: "Mikey, blow this cocksucker's head off!" He was the head of security in Mars and had a bit of a cuddly uncle thing going on, not wanting to get too involved and trying to keep order and not get fired. There is also an appearance by another 'that guy' bad guy Nils Allen Stewart who turns up as beefcake thugs in many movies.

It looks like there is something exciting on the horizon. If IMDB is to be believed, 2012 will see the release of a new Albert Pyun film entitled "Red Moon" which stars Kevin Sorbo, Michael Pare, Olivier Gruner and Sasha Mitchel from the Kickboxer sequels. It appears to be a sequel to previous Pyun film "Tales of an Ancient Empire" which everybody above except Mitchel had been a part of. I've not seen Tales yet and its IMDB score of 2.8 does not fill me with confidence, but I'm kind of hoping that Gruner and Mitchell will be pitted against each other in a show of kickboxing awesomeness.

Anyway, Mars is worth checking out and is a low budget sci-fi actioner on par with something like TC-2000. Pick it up if you see it cheap

The Video:

Fullscreen video that is pretty decent but the audio seems a little distant and muddy at times. I had to turn the volume right up, but then the music would sometimes overpower. Runtime 90 minutes. Note: the screenshots here I found scattered around the internet as my DVD wouldn't read in the computer for some reason.

Sourced From:

A trade with another fellow bad action fan.

Trailer:

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The Ninja MIssion (1984)

2011-10-23T14:21:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

Agents of destruction. Warriors of darkness. Professionals of death.

Movie Review:

We need more ninja movies on the blog. There needs to be more ninja movies on all blogs, even blogs about gardening. This little number comes from Sweden and is dubbed in English, though I think the actors were attempting to speak English during filming as it all syncs up well. I knew nothing about this going in, so was quite surprised about what I ended up watching. Read on.

Polish actor Krzysztof Kolberger stars as Mason, a CIA operative and apparent Ninja. After thwarting a street attack on a young woman he has been sent to protect, Nadia (Hanna Pola), Mason explains that her father Markov, a well respected Swedish scientist who has discovered a new method of creating limitless energy, is being held captive by the Russians and she is being hunted as a bargaining tool to make him divulge his work to the enemy. She's also a nightclub singer (and we have to endure a number, performed in a see through blouse). Mason loses her in the club when a machine gun massacre breaks out and she is whisked away, unconscious, to Russia.

At the same time another team of operatives have arrived in Russia to bust out the professor. During their daring and violent escape (involving darts to the head!) over the water the team are killed by Markov's own gorgeous assistant Natassia (Sirka Sander) during a firefight with the Russians. She convinces Markov that they were killed in battle and to get into a waiting helicopter bound for Sweden, even though it has a Russian flag on the side. Unbeknownst to him, he is not being returned to Sweden but instead being hidden away in a Russian palace to finish his work, but convinced that he is now in Sweden he does so. When word of this treachery reaches the CIA, Mason and a small team are sent to Russia to retrieve Markov and his daughter themselves. It's time for.. The NINJA.

This is obscenely violent. Sweden may not have made many gritty action films in the 80's so they made up for it with over the top gory deaths. I'm talking the Ninja decapitating assailants through the jaw and seeing the aftermath in ultra slow motion. In fact, all the deaths are filmed in slow motion to capitalise on the prosthetic blood and gore! When Mason is given his James Bond style briefing and is outfitted with some 'new toys' - one being a set of darts that cause the head to explode when they hit their target - you start anticipating the inevitable gorefest; and boy does it eventually deliver. The last twenty minutes are up there with the best horror movies of the period. Branding irons, eye gouging, flying fox samurai sword decapitations, crossbows of toxic gas and the aforementioned head-exploding darts. Pretty full on stuff, but it sets it apart from the Cannon Ninja films.

The title of the movie is a little misleading as the Ninja plays a definite back seat to Mason just being a CIA operative. There was really no need for him to dress up as a Ninja to complete the mission, but I guess VTC (the production company) wanted their own Swedish "Enter the Ninja" to put on the books. There's also a helicopter versus jeep chase to bring us back into standard action fair, something you wouldn't normally see in a Ninja film.

One thing that I can't work out with this movie is if it it takes place in some kind of alternate future. Why would I think that? Simple; the guns. When all the pistols in The Ninja Mission are fired they make a hysterical PEW PEW PEW laser sound. See the trailer below for an example. If not the future then I think the producers were trying to go with the sound of a silencer. I won't say that it's distracting because it adds to the fun quite a lot, though it is strange.

It's hard to write much more about this, as the plot is so straightforward and the action has to be seen, not described. The acting is fine, the dubbing not off-putting and the action top notch - if you can handle the bloodletting. The cold war scenery in Russia is nice to look at as much as Nadia and Natassia are. Recommended.

The Video:

As watched on tape - the old Australian issue by K-Tel - this was fullscreen as most tapes are. Picture was clear and the sound was fine. There is a DVD set available in Germany of Ninja Mission and its sequel and another Swedish action film called Wardog, all in widescreen.

Sourced From:

K-Tel VHS won off eBay. I think that German DVD set would be a wise purchase though.

Trailer:

More Screens:

Tigershark (1987)

2011-10-16T22:08:00.001+11:00

Tagline:

Don't mess with Tigershark.. he BITES!

Movie Review:

"These coins and this finger are gonna cause an awful lot of trouble."

It wasn't my intention for this blog to be so utterly focussed on so many jungle action movies filmed in the Philippines. Truly, it wasn't. It's just played out that way! There were dozens upon dozens of the things made over there, where the jungle could pretend to be anything from Vietnam to Cambodia, and the local population willing to chump up as cannon fodder without hesitation. Here's another near-gem from the tail end of the decade, Tigershark.

It's your standard story here folks. Sensei Tava Parker (Mike Stone, Tojo Ken in American Ninja 2) is having a relaxing life teaching karate to kids in Hawaii dojo, since the Vietnam war ended. He has a bimbo model girlfriend, Karen (Pamela Bryant, Don't Answer the Phone) who refers to her boyfriend Tava as "Champ". She manages to get kidnapped along with her friendswhilst doing a photo shoot in the Sudan. Tava's old 'Nam pal Cowboy (John Quade) and his sidekick Tony (Roy Alvarez, McBain) see the kidnapping and call Tava. Tava flies over from Hawaii determined to rescue his girl and make the kidnappers pay. Tava is the kind of badass that can pin tossed coins to the wall with darts, so expect violent payback!

This is gloriously by the numbers and all the better for it. The action is a little light on for the first half hour but some of the lines delivered by Cowboy are so funny that you are distracted enough anyway. Plenty of the action cliches are here for your enjoyment. With the girls discovered to be being held in a communist camp, Tava, Tony and Cowboy go to their rescue. Although this is the Sudan and weapons wouldn't be hard to find, Tava went to the effort to arrive in the country "crippled" with crutches - that conceal a DIY machine gun!

"In 'Nam we called him Tigershark, because he stalked like a tiger and attacked like a shark."

Tava enters an illegal pit fight in order to rescue his girlfriend from the corrupt Colonel Barro. The fight itself is hilarious as the two combatants (the other being the Colonel's chief warrior, or something) are tied by their hands with a chain and wear boots with studded metal spikes on them! Mike Stone is pretty buff, actually, I'm surprised he didn't do more movies of this ilk; perhaps even a Tigershark 2. I loved the 'Nam flashback that Cowboy had - complete with Days of Our Lives style screen-wobble back-in-time effect - of Tava kicking VC arse. That had me laughing for a good solid two minutes.

Cowboy and Tony are amusing characters, the former running a bar and the latter running a taxi company. John Quade was a veteran actor by this point, having done countless TV movies and serials in the 70's like Bonzana, Gunsmoke and films like Papillion. In his warm weather clothing and with his bumbling antics, he reminded me of Mickey Rooney. Tony helpfully has a brother in the Civil Army that he calls upon in the third act to help fight the commies, so that's why he's in this picture.

"I'm a lover, not a fighter!"

The Colonel is the usual slimy official we are used to in this sort of movie, spouting out lines like "You Americans! You think the rest of the world will stand aside for you? No more!" while forcing American women into prostitution. There's a Russian 'comrade' called Vladamir (of course) with an over the top accent who wants to trade opium with the Colonel for money, and the aforementioned white women. Seriously these two characters were picked from the lowest branch on the tree of cliche, and I love it.

It would be naive of me to suggest you couldn't work out how this all ends, so I'll get to the point. It all culminates in an explosive action sequence involving Tava firing missiles from home made crossbows (that Tava fires by pulling the string back with his teeth) and a pistol in the other hand, and Tony and Cowboy providing backup, to rescue Karens friends still captured. Huts explode, the girls are saved and everyone returns to Hawaii to paddle on canoes into the sunset.

Definitely a solid piece of 80's Jungle action that is worth hunting down a used VHS for. Unbelievably, Tigershark currently sits at 1.6 out of 10 on IMDB - that's the kind of score that Ulli Lommel movies get, and is unfairly awarded. It's a movie called Tigershark, what were these people thinking? Look at the poster! This isn't going to be Citizen Kane folks! From the director (Emmet Alston) of other such 80's classics as Way of the Ninja, Nine Deaths of the Ninja (Shô Kosugi and Brent Huff!), New Years Evil and Demonwarp.

The Video:

For a 22 year old VHS this sported a pretty decent picture without many dropouts and good sound. Pleasing colours overall. IMDB says this is meant to be framed at 1.85:1 but I didn't notice anything majorly cropped; perhaps this tape is open matte. Runtime 95 minutes.

Sourced From:

The Australian Premiere VHS.

Trailer:

Unfortunately the only trailer I could find was in German but it gets the point across.

More Screens:

Robowar (1989)

2011-09-30T17:58:00.001+10:00

Movie Review:

This review has been a long time coming. In fact I had sent a copy of this obscurity to Matt over at the DTV Connoisseur for review, which he did here. I'd randomly tripped over this film during an internet search many years back, watched an online copy and fell in love. Robowar was the movie that opened my eyes to the world of 1980's Italian Hollywood rip-offs and continued my love affair with the amazing director of schlock, Bruno Mattei (credited here as Vincent Dawn). I've reviewed his awesome Strike Commando series and Brent Huff's fantastic Cop Game before; but Robowar is, as far as I'm concerned, the jewel of Bruno Mattei's very shiny crown.

Robowar is essentially a Predator rip-off, but with parts Terminator, Robocop and Filipino jungle war action madness to boot. Reb Brown and his team of mercenary fighters are recruited by the military to hunt guerrilla fighters in the jungle - OR SO THEY THINK. They are picked because they are the best of the best; and because of their nickname of B.A.M - Bad ass mother-fuckers. The mission is of course a ruse, as the B.A.M. soon find out that they are sent to stop an out of control robot called Omega 1, a prototype droid that has gone amuck in the jungle, once they notice that guerillas start getting shot at by firey red laser death just as the B.A.M. are.

Reb Brown is fast becoming one of my favourite actors of the 80's. Sure he's no thespian, but man does he have fun in the roles. From Yor the Hunter of the Future, to Sgt. Michael Ransom in Strike Commando, Dave Ryder in IMDB Bottom 100 movie Space Mutiny and here as Maj. Murphy Black, Reb Brown yells, shoots and beats up dinosaurs straight into the warmest cockles of my heart. He doesn't get as many great lines in Robowar as he gets in Strike Commando, but he does yell a lot and mow down half the jungle with his machine gun so that's fine by me. He also struts into this movie on a boat wearing a blue tank top with a PICTURE of a boat on it. Amazing.

The characters in Robowar are carbon copies of Predator's; you get the double-crossing officer that sends them on this mission and accompanies them, revealing the true mission half way through. There's the beefcake with a giant gun (Romano Puppo, Cop Game). The guy that wants to take on Robo with a knife (Max Laurel, Cop Game). The wise-cracking guy that dies early (Jim Gaines, Blood Hands, Strike Commando 2). And... well, we get a guy in a beard smoking a pipe. This is the single funniest image I've ever seen in an action movie and I present it for you below. Oh and they also rescue a girl that was being chased by the militia for sport (Catherine Hickland from Sweet Justice and Witchcraft, with Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff!).

The robot itself is absolutely hysterical. We are treated to it as early as the opening credits where we see through its eyes in Predator/T-800 vision and its incoherent robotic babble. ON TARGET ON TARGET. RECEIVE RECEIVE. FIRE FIRE FIRE. There is some contention out there in Internet-land that the robot is saying GREASY GREASY, which if true, is the funniest thing I've ever heard. The closest example of a droid that sounds like this would be the non-Number 5 robots (i.e robots 1 through 4) from the Short Circuit movie. If one of them shouted GREASY GREASY when firing red laser death at Number 5 I think I would have lost it.

And the robot's costume. Hahaha. It's the cheapest mix of a motorbike helmet and bondage suit leathers you will ever see. He has wrist mounted lasers which, I have to say, actually look halfway decent when being fired (that firey red laser death again). With respect to other effects in the movie, they are all practical and most of the time massive explosions of unarmed huts. OH and the music! The theme song to Robowar is pretty fun, but the best song is this power-rock ballad that's actually quite a fast song, and is played solely when the B.A.M. are SLOWLY CREEPING THROUGH THE JUNGLE. The misuse of this song is brilliant; it's the kind of song to play to a kickboxing match and not when soldiers are trying not to make the leaves rustle to loudly.

The key difference to Predator is the reveal of the Omega 1 - stop reading this paragraph if you don't want to know the answer - as it just happens to be Reb Brown's old Vietnam war buddy under that suit, who he thought had died (cue flashback) By the end of the film the robot is tired of wrecking havoc and looks into Rebs eyes, lowers his mask and in a very "I cannot self terminate" pre-homage to Terminator 2 (who says these Italian rip-offs cant inspire future Hollywood blockbusters!) says "DESTROY ME. DO IT.", handing him a detonator remote. Reb then jumps down the waterfall that's in every Bruno Mattei Filipino jungle movie and the Omega 1 blows to bits.

his isn't just sci-fi silliness, this is an all out action extravaganza. After all, it's a ripoff of three of the greatest 80's action movies made so you would expect the explosion-quota to be high. Some of the scenes are frame-by-frame accurate to Predator (see the video below the trailer for comparisons) so there are moments when the B.A.M. lay waste to the jungle with automatic weapons, throw grenades and knives at militia members (complete with lines that even Schwarzenegger would reject) and try to take out the robot by whatever means possible.

So yeah. Robowar. You'll have an absolute whale of a time with this and I was giggling with schoolboy glee remembering the best parts of the movie as I typed up this review. Best movie ever. An absolute crying shame that this is not on DVD. I'd love for Midnight Legacy to make this their next release - are you listening guys? I might just watch it again now.

The Video:

This is not available on DVD, not in any legitimate fashion anyway. There were a few VHS releases around the world but the Japanese one is the best as it's widescreen. It took me a long time (and a not unsubstantial amount of money) to track down an original tape, but for most people going "grey market" will be your best option. The DVDR's of the Japanese tape will have burned-in Japanese subtitles but aside from that, it's a pleasing picture with clear sound. Runtime approx. 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

eBay, on Japanese VHS, for a princely sum.

Trailer:

Comparison to Predator:

More Screens:

"Don't Move." (not as good as "Stick Around").

Maximum Security aka Maximum Revenge (1997)

2011-09-04T18:52:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

They are society's most dangerous criminals. They are our only hope.

Movie Review:

Paul Michael Robinson is Mace Richter, a cop on the scene of a hijacking. The SWAT are taking too long to get there so Richter goes in himself to take out the bad guys. He is caught unawares when the primary hostage turns out to be in on the hijacking and tries to shoot him, but Richter shoots him first. Apparently nobody on the plane noticed that the guy had a gun and the chief of police needs to assign blame to somebody for killing an important Arab oil tycoon, so Richter goes down for six months in prison and the other hijackers escape. Side note: Richter's captain is called Hightower - best name for a Captain ever.

We flash to nearly six months later where for some reason instead of being freed, Richter is being transferred to a brilliant new prison that is impossible to escape from and has saunas for the prisoners, or something. The warden is giving a tour to reporter Tracy Quinn (Landon Hall) when the same terrorists from the hijacking break in and hold Quinn and the warden hostage. The warden manages to knock out his guard henchman and for some reason decides to open all the prison cells and let Richter and the rest of the prisoners out to deal with the terrorist threat. Oh, and there's a bomb that needs deactivating.

This is inept, but somewhat entertaining anyway. There are many things wrong with the movie but overall it's on par with something like Dudikoff's Executive Command, with two soft-core sex scenes to boot. Director Fred Olen Ray has been at this game for years now, churning out the lowest of the low budget genre movies. He has over 120 directing credits to his name and sixteen movies with the word Bikini in the title. That gives you an idea what to expect from Ray's films - cheap trash. He has worked with some of the 'best' in bad-action including Don "The Dragon" Wilson (we've reviewed Inferno aka Operation Cobra earlier), Michael Dudikoff and Matthias Hues. This won't be the last Fred Olen Ray movie to be reviewed on this blog.

There's a couple of punch-ups with added kick-fighting between Richter and various henchmen that are okay, but nothing amazing. Paul Michael Robinson looks like he can hold his own as a minor action star (he's in Don Wilson's Prophet, Antonio Sabbato Jr.'s The Chaos Factor, Active Stealth with Daniel Baldwin) but his career is littered with soft-core porn for the most part. That's a bit of a waste for bad-action fans as he has the physique and acceptable acting qualities required for the genre. There's a fair bit of gun-play going on as well, mostly the bad guys executing hostages.

John Lazar's Murdock is the main bad guy here. He is mainly known for his role as Z-Man in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls though was also the funny sorcerer Jarek in Deathstalker 2. He is as camp as a row of tents in this and his hilarious whitened flat-top hair do cracks me up in every scene he's in. His final rant about "camel-jocky Jihadists" (his words, not mine!) is worth the price of entry alone. The girl on the cover, Katya (Monique Parent, another henchman) is disappointingly underused, but that can be said for most of the cast. She spends the whole movie holding the gun in the cover photo and NEVER fires it. This is immensely disappointing as the gun is massive and would take out a wall.

The other prisoners are the typical kitchen-sink variety; a tough Spanish guy called Gonzales who provides the audience with all the "adios muchachos" cliches we need, a scared white collar criminal that has never fired a weapon before, a beefcake that could tie two trucks together and an explosives expert that insists we're gonna get through this. He'll come in handy when the bomb needs to be defused in the final second (and it is). There's a hilarious throw-away subplot with the beefcake and him when the beefcake admits he can't read, and he responds "When we get outta here, we'll make that happen." What the hell!

The two soft-core scenes were totally unnecessary and just cringeworthy. The first one came out of nowhere involving characters we never see again, and the latter one involves Robinson channelling his 'prowess' from the Emmanuelle movies with Landon Hall. A sex scene in most action movies goes for 45 seconds and is fairly discreet and may serve a purpose. These go for what seems like five full minutes (though probably not) and are there for the sake of being there and because the girls in question have large... assets. I guess we can't blame Fred Olen Ray for trying.

This is one oft those movies you'll pick at; like the absolute ease at which the terrorists "break" into the jail in the first place, and like the bomb ticking in the basement that is set for 60:00 on the clock and we are informed by Katya that they have sixty minutes until detonation, yet we clearly see the clock counting down in decimals - 16:89 is not a measure of time! Anyway, Maximum Security is utterly stupid and completely derivative, but there are worse ways to spend 80 minutes. If you see it cheap as I did or it's on late (late, late) night television and you have plenty of beer on standby, you may as well check it out - at least for John Lazar's hair.

The Video:

Soft, full frame, cheap. What you expect. Runtime 84 minutes.

Sourced From:

The Australian DVD by RAAM multimedia, available for $2 at all purveyors of crap cinema.

Trailer:

Sorry, couldn't find one!

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Cop Game (1988)

2011-08-30T21:37:00.001+10:00

Movie Review:

"I'm gonna put your asses in a sling!"

I adore Bruno Mattei's films, I really really do. Only he can make schlock this entertaining. Made the same time as Born to Fight and Strike Commando 2, and with the same star Brent Huff, you know you are going to be getting some Vietnam War mayhem filmed in the Philippines and that can mean only one thing: exploding huts!

Not a straight-forward war movie like Phantom Soldiers or the previously mentioned Strike Commando's, there are scenes of urban action in this as well. From the beginning: some masked soldiers in American military uniforms attack and kill a member of the elite Cobra force while he's taking a bath. Obviously this looks bad for the American army so they want it dealt with quietly. That's when two cops, an American, Morgan (Brent Huff) and a Vietnamese, Hawk (Max Laurel) are brought in to find out who wants Cobra force dead and to deal with the situation outside of military jurisdiction.

That's the plot in a nutshell. I really don't need to explain much more do I? I'm sure you can picture it already, and what you picture is probably right on the money. Morgan and Hawk run around Saigon streets chasing informants through food markets. Morgan and Hawk get involved in a car chase that sees them flying over train tracks just in the nick of time. Morgan and Hawk burst through doors with artillery laying waste to half the Vietnamese army. When they make it into the jungle it gets even more explosive with rocket propelled grenades, helicopter mounted chain guns and exploding hut after exploding hut. That's also when the plot, such as it is, thickens as Morgan and Hawk learn new truths about who they are looking for.

Morgan: "Jesus Christ cock sucking mother fucking son of a bitch!"
Hawk: "You took the words right out of my mouth!"

It goes on like this for 90 minutes, barely stopping three times to visit the same nightclub to watch the same six people dancing. Oh and there's a smoking hot blonde informant that may be a Russian spy. Some of the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense, and the continued use of the Vietnam war theme - even though we clearly see late 1980's cars and clothing - has been seen and done a million times before, but it really doesn't matter. Seeing soldiers declare that the scenery is beautiful before tearing it up with mounted artillery never gets old. Bruno Mattei, I love you!

Huff is on top form again, roughing up anyone that needs roughing up to get answers out of them, or just plain shooting them when they don't co-operate, spilling out a few hilarious lines as he does. Max Laurel - as far as I can tell a native Filipino - is a great second banana, getting in on just as much action as Huff does, and also another grunt from Robowar (Mattei sure likes using the same actors again and again). However, the best part about the movie is the music. Sure most of the music is standard electro-symphonic rock like all these 80's Italian/Filipino movies, but most other movies don't get their own theme song! Cop Game features the song Cop Game played half a dozen times, and only half of those times is it really appropriate, but all of the times it's just glorious. Don't believe me, listen to it yourself.

"His name's Captain Kirk, just like in Star Trek!"

Romano Puppo, another Italian and Filipino action movie staple, is in this too. He was Cpl. Neil Corey in Robowar, Alex Bross in Born to Fight, Ratchet in 2019: After the Fall of New York... and it goes on like that. He's not the focus of the movie but he is the one that "knows just the two guys" to pull off this mission and makes a few appearances throughout. Mattei had the balls to call him Captain Kirk as well, which is just hysterical.

The gorgeous Candice Daly plays the female of the piece, Annie, first showing up when she leaves a message in lipstick for Morgan on a bar room mirror that she has information for him. It's a shame she didn't have a bigger part really but when she was there she provided a nice contrast to the otherwise male-dominated movie.

So it's pretty obvious that I really enjoyed Cop Game. Stuff explodes, countless clips are emptied, cars are chased and the day is saved. The journey may make little sense but it's a fun ride all the same. You're only going to find this on Dutch or Japanese VHS or grey market DVDRs sourced from the same tapes, but it's completely worth your time. Not quite Strike Commando or Robowar quality but not far behind.

The Video:

If you've seen any Italian or Filipino action film on Japanese VHS before then you know what you are in for. Soft, desaturated, murky blacks and overly bright whites. Still, it's perfectly watchable and in widescreen to boot. Runtime approx. 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

eBay, for more than a little, less than a lot.

Trailer:

You'll have to make do with the screenshots and the videos I linked throughout the review!

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Tactical Force (2011)

2011-08-25T00:03:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

This drill just got real.

Movie Review:

I had looked forward to this ever since it appeared on IMDB a few months ago. Steve Austin, Michael Jai White and most interestingly Michael Shanks all together in a SWAT action film. It sounded good on paper and I've enjoyed Austin's DTV work more than most people, so I had high hopes for Tactical Force. Plus I got a real kick out of seeing Shanks listed alongside those wrestler and martial arts types!

Hunt, Blanco and Jannard (Michael Jai White, Steve Bacic and Lexa Doig) are members of a SWAT team headed by Tate (Steve Austin). When called to the scene of a store robbery, Tate and his colleagues throw away the rule book and go in all guns blazing, killing most of the suspects and causing a quarter of a million dollars worth of stock damage in hilarious fashion. The Chief (Peter Bryant) is unimpressed, and not being swayed by the fact that they rescued all the hostages, demands that the team go for retraining - part of which is physical exercises at a training facility (essentially an abandoned warehouse).

Unknown to them, Russian bad guy Demetrius (Michael Shanks) is already on the scene with his double-crossing goon Kenny (Michael Eklund) trying to locate a hidden package. To make matters more complicated, a rival gang of Italian criminals led by Lampone (Adrian Holmes, also in Austin's Hunt to Kill) and Storato (played by regular DTV bad guy Darren Shahlavi) are also there to retrieve the same package. These armed but fairly non-threatening bad guys shouldn't be a match for a team of elite SWAT, except for one thing: Tate and co. only have non-lethal training ammunition with them. And it doesn't help that both sets of bad guys call in their own re-enforcements...

This was amusing, and stupid (and cheap), but really quite fun. Honestly I was smiling the whole way through this. A lot of the time it was a "I can't believe they just said/did that" smile but there was also a few "that was pretty cool" smiles. The main point: I was smiling, which means I enjoyed it. From the beginning that was like a team version of the opening scene in Cobra, through to the final humorous camaraderie about how they are going to get fired, I was having fun with this. The action is why we are here though and it's all pretty decent quality. I can believe somebody would hire Austin as a SWAT team leader; he certainly has the physique for it. So does Michael Jai White, who brings the house down with his one liner at the end before firing an obscenely large weapon ("Wait, I need a line..... okay, I got one!").

Steve Austin gets the lead role but in general, everybody gets a chance to show off their skills to some degree in this. The only downside is that that means we only get one real decent fight from Austin and Jai White especially, and not against each other as they are on the same team. Austin does get to go toe to toe with another wrestler, Keith Jardine, who is fairly new to DTV (he was in Death Warrior, Unrivaled and again with Austin in the upcoming Recoil) but he does a decent job as the hired thug. In fact he delivers lines better than Austin, though I don't think he could pull off a leading role. I'm happy to be proven wrong, though. The other two members of the team Jannard and Blanco are both sassy and slightly annoying, though don't take centre stage very often. I wonder if an Austin and Jai White buddy comedy would work?

I loved Michael Shanks in this. I'm a big Stargate SG-1 nerd and have watched Shanks lend himself to a few SyFy channel movies too, but to see him in an action movie - with a hilarious Russian accent, no less - was a great laugh. To these eyes, he stole the show, and was easily the most likeable and lively character of the bunch. He has a way of making everyone else he talks to seem stupid, even with a comedy accent. His partner in crime (literally) is Ilya, played by the quite striking Candace Elaine, who channels the likes of Trinity from the Matrix and Katya - Jeremy Irons' girl in Die Hard 3 - as she is the first to brutally draw blood in the movie.

I guess some downsides would be the cheapness of the production in certain aspects. Every scene change involves a bad side-wipe effect that grated after a while. Being modern DTV it is of course filmed on digital HD cameras, but that's not hugely a problem as most of the movie is filmed interior, and thankfully the ADHD directing technique so frequently used in modern action films was not evident here, although some of the fights were a little too closely zoomed. Peter Bryant as Chief Barnett was an.. interesting choice for the Captain. He was funny but just didn't have the presence to do the "I aughta nail your arse to the wall!" type of Captaining. Seriously they need to iron out Ronny Cox again for these roles, he was great in One Man Force.

This is a good time. Austin isn't the strongest actor but he brings the beef well enough, and there's plenty laughs to be had (some intentional, some not) and the action is perfectly solid. I'll watch Michael Jai White kick shit anytime, even if it's only in one or two scenes. The gunplay was fine, the use of the tiny budget was well done - there's about three locations in total, and how much can an abandoned warehouse cost to rent? - and the comical bad guys were fun, especially Shanks' hamming it up as Demetrius. Oh, and there's a car chase! Worth checking out.

The Video:

Well what can I say; it's modern DTV filmed on HD cameras, it looks fine and sharp with no obvious issues. Sounds great as well. Runtime 90 mins. approx.

Sourced From:

Region 1 disc hot off the press!

Trailer:

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Dog Watch (1996)

2011-08-21T12:14:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

Sometimes trouble wears a badge.

Movie Review:

Here we are with another Nu Image cop movie. I was kind of expecting another One Man Force after reading the back of the DVD cover - "a tough cop who packs a wallop in this no-holds-barred police thriller" - but what I got was very different. That's not to say it was bad - Dog Watch is quite a decent watch - but it's certainly not Explosive Action. In hindsight though, I should have realised what this was by the use of the word "thriller" - the marketing term for "slow and methodical" and anything but Explosive Action. There's still enough cop-shoot-drug-runners and roughing up snitches to keep the pure action fan interested for the most part.

Sam Elliot plays Charlie Falon an aging, drunken, racist and sexist cop who has seen a lot in his time and that makes him cynical and angry. The last time I saw Sam Elliot he was also playing a rough cop in my first review of Shakedown with Peter Weller. He's far more rough in Dog Watch than he was in that movie and unlike Shakedown there aren't many laughs to be had here. After a night drinking with his partner at a strip club (of course), Falon readies himself to go home. When he goes to find where his partner has gone to in the back alley he finds him dead on the ground being, what he presumes, attacked by another man. In a drunken rage, Falon beats the man to death and dumps the body in the river.

A lot of Dog Watch is classic good cop/bad cop police procedural. Once paired with his new partner Murrow (Esai Morales) the two are assigned to the case of finding out who dumped the body in the river. As the movie progresses, Murrow becomes more and more suspicious of Falon. At the same time Falon investigates who the guy he killed was and why he had killed his partner. What Falon discovers is that the man was an undercover cop and didn't kill his partner at all. Not only that, but the corruption in his precinct is what actually lead to the death of his former partner.

There was a definite noir tone to this film. The moody saxophone music rarely let up, the city was always in darkness and some shots, like the final monologue delivered by Esai Morales to the camera which then pans on a longshot to the cityscape, belong in a crime movie from the 40's. It was an interesting way to construct the film and once I had gotten over the fact that I wasn't going to get any exploding cars it was all the more intriguing. I genuinely wanted to see how the ending would play out.

Esai Morales was pretty good as the new partner cop. He was less wet behind the ears than most "...and here's your new partner, Detective Jimmy", "Boss I don't want a new partner!" relationships. Because of the lack of humour in Dog Watch, the straight-laced performance gave him more credibility and wasn't the butt of Falon's jokes. We are also introduced to his fiance whom Falon is rude to over the dinner table. The Captain, traditionally the hard-arse of the police procedural, is the only one that provides any humour to the proceedings. He's overly large, forgetful and shouty, often going on rambling tangents about food and such. Also look out for Dan Lauria (the dad from The Wonder Years) as a detective working the same case as Falon and Murrow who may not be all he seems.

I didn't really like how the producers had to emphasise Falon's racism in the early moments of the movie ("One day you'll come home and find a Jap in your house telling you to get out!") but I guess it adds to the duality of the character. On one hand he is caring and has a lot of love for his former parter; so much so that he lashes out in the lockers and showers in a fit of rage. On the other hand he thinks women should stay in the kitchen and that presenting take-away food to a guest is an insult. Overall it makes it kind of hard to like the character, but perhaps that was the intention.

The Video:

Solid, full screen picture. Sound is a little quiet at times but nothing that isn't solvable with a little extra volume. Runtime 95 minutes.

Sourced From:

Ninth Dimension R4 disc for $2 online. It's deleted so you may need to hunt around a bit.

Trailer:

WARNING: This is quite a spoiler-filled trailer!

More Screens:

Freefall (1994)

2011-08-04T22:46:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

The first step's a killer.

Movie Review:

I was pretty excited to trip over this in a charity shop. Eric Roberts and Jeff Fahey in a Nu Image produced mid-90's action film involving freebasing off cliffs? The gorgeous Pamela Gidley aka Cherry 2000 as the lead heroine? Directed by John Irvin who was also responsible for Arnie's underrated classic Raw Deal? Where do I sign?

Fahey is Dex Dellum (great name), the owner of a wildlife magazine that employs photographer Katy Mazur (Pamela Gidley), who is also his fiancée. He sends her to Swaziland to take photos of a rare bird for his magazine but in the flight over she sees a man jump from a cliff, presumably to his death. When trying to get help from the hotel manager, Grant Orion (Eric Roberts) waltzes in all cocky delcaring himself not dead. It turns out he's a movie stuntman and a bit of a womaniser as he quickly gets Katy into bed (but... she's engaged!!) They go bird watching and it's all rather romantic but it soon ends when Katy's drink is drugged and she falls unconscious.

When she awakes and returns to London to a hotel room, her belongings are quickly ripped apart by Customs who are looking for something but won't say what. Her passport confiscated, Katy goes to see Grant one last time at a restaurant but they are soon under attack by machine gun fire. Even the chef, pissed off at the destruction of his kitchen, gets in on it with his cleaver. Fleeing to Grant's hidden fortress, he explains to Katy who he really is, how Dex Dellum is involved and who she can really trust.

This was not really what I expected, but overall I enjoyed it. I didn't think I would after the first half an hour of sight-seeing, bird watching, bad come-on lines, Jeff Fahey's Foghorn Leghorn accent and the softcore sex scene that went on longer (and from more angles) than it really needed to. But by the 45 minute mark (yes it does take that long) the action kicks in. This isn't a smash-em-up or beat-em-up movie by any stretch of the definitions; the action quotients come from undercover agents, guys in suits with sunglasses, cops who aren't really cops, etc. Lot's of twists and intrigue keeps this movie kicking along at a decent pace, after the first half at least.

If you think Jeff Fahey's accent was funny, wait till you see Eric Roberts' hair. The poster doesn't do it justice. He has it filled with so much brill cream that it stands on end like he's taking a part in Grease. Other than that Roberts' plays the character pretty straight and even pulls out a decent one liner at the end of the film: "Now that's what I call shitkickin'." When the action does arrive we get a lot of firefights out in the open in parks, restaurants etc. as assassins try to take out Grant, Katy or both. There's a cool scene in Grant's fortress where a squad of soldiers manage to break in and Grant has traps laying in wait for them. He finally trips a fifteen second timer and he and Katy jump from the building just in time for it to explode.

There's a guy in this called Warrick Grier who plays a crazy albino "doctor" in a lime green suit. He has no lines; all the acting is done by his insane facial expressions as he gives the semi-comotose Katy a shot of something to make her talk. He was an odd one out in Freefall, and looking at his filmography the guy always plays fifth-banana roles like "Cop" in John Barrett's "To the Death", "Margie's Lover" in Peter Weller's "Styx", "Da Costa" in JCVD's "Wake of Death". Most recently he played a guy called Calin in Death Race 2, a movie that I really need to get around to reviewing.

I guess that my only real complaint is that the editing of the first half could have been shaved by at least ten minutes and brought this sucker in around 84 minutes runtime. It is a bit blah in the beginning, you need to perservere and realise that you aren't in for a 'edge of your seat' ride, more likely a raised eyebrow every now and then. After the intial excitement from picking up the disc and realising who was involved in it, I suppose I am a bit dissapointed that I didn't get the roller-coaster ride I wanted, but that's probably my fault. What I did get was a pretty okay "conspiracy thriller" with a bit of action and some unintentional hilarity. We didn't really need to see a sweaty Eric Roberts having a go with Pamela Gidley in quite so much detail though, thanks very much.

The Video:

Pretty soft Midday Movie feel to this R4 disc by Ninth Dimension. Full screen presentation with washed out colours and generic sound but it's all serviceable and the dark scenes aren't that muddy. IMDB says this was filmed in 2.35:1 scope ratio but I find that hard to believe; though the Wikipedia entry says the movie was prepared for theatrical release before being dumped on VHS so I guess it's conceivable. Runtime 94 minutes.

Sourced From:

Charity shop for a few dollars.

Trailer:

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Sniper: Reloaded (2011)

2011-07-31T21:52:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

Deep in the Congo: Marine... Peace Keeper... Killer.

Movie Review:

I was a big fan of the first Sniper film when I was younger. A kid at school obsessed with military weapons leant me a copy on VHS and told me it was a great movie. He was right. Different to the usual action movie I was used to, Sniper was more about stealth and outwitting your enemy. A thinking mans action movie with Tom Berenger as the Sniper and Billy Zane as his protege. Berenger has starred in two direct-to-DVD sequels that I have sitting on the shelf but have not gotten around to watching yet but this is the first time Zane has returned to the franchise. Sniper: Reloaded is the fourth in the series but is really something of a reboot (hence the "Reloaded" monicker).

Sniper: Reloaded stars Chad Michael Collins as Sgt Brandon Beckett, the son of Berenger's character Thomas Beckett, a fact reaffirmed early on when a photo of Thomas is displayed pinned to his son's paperwork (can we even call that a cameo?). The movie is told as after-the-fact events, detailed by Beckett during a pre-court marshall breakdown with his superior officers wanting to know what happened in the Congo. He explains, that when on a routine peace-keeping mission with his team for the UN, new orders are given to locate, retrieve and protect a Jean Van Brunt (Rob Fruithof), a local Congo resident of European descent of interest to the UN. Upon retrieving Van Brunt, he is shot at by a sniper and killed, the team of soldiers firing back and trying to find cover. One by one Beckett's team is killed by the sniper, so Becket makes a run for it. He is shot and falls into a pit, unconscious, and presumed dead by the sniper assassin.

When Beckett awakes he is having his wounds attended to by a local hunter, Martin Chandler (Patrick Lyster), who rescued him. The two go back to the house of Van Brunt looking for a reason as to why he was a target and discover his teenage daughter, armed and minding the fort. Beckett decides to take her to the safety of the UN installation but first they detour back to Chandler's camp. It's been overrun by milita stealing the orphan children he was safeguarding and a firefight ensues. The rebels escape with the children... and this is when Richard Miller (Billy Zane) is informed that Beckett (son of Beckett) needs some assistance and flies over to the Congo.

Zane doesn't show up until the 38 minute mark - I was beginning to get worried we were looking at a bait-and-switch here, but his involvement worked well in the story and there was no real need for him to show up earlier, so I wont hold that against the producers. He brings the laughs in this with his dry humour and antics. He is so straight-forward and efficient that it becomes funny at times as he quickly moves from one item of business to another. In his first scene training junior snipers on the agony of long missions, he is asked 'What do you do if you need to pee?' and he simply replies "Go in your pants. I love it so much I'm going in my pants right now." Zane also has a great Dolph Lundgren from the opening scene of The Expendables moment ("Too low") in the final minutes of Sniper: Reloaded; let's just say he shoots a little too close to somebody with a high powered rifle and we get to see the aftermath of it.

There is some great location work on display here, as you would expect being filmed in Africa. Lot's of opportunities to take National Geographic style footage of giraffes, rhinoceros and elephants in the wild. I was a little disturbed at the hunter saying how beautiful Africa and the animals are, knowing full well he probably wants to mount a lion head on his wall. There's also some interesting camera work during the fire-fights; a camera is mounted onto the rifle so that you can see the soldier's face as he shoots at enemies. There's a bit of the Saving Private Ryan fast-motion camera work as well that is as nauseating to me as it was in that movie, but it's not used that often. A lot of the shots are rightfully taken through the scope of Beckett or Miller's rifle.

Chad Michael Collins is the lead here and he does a fine job, though Zane's character trumps him in the coolness stakes. Chad makes for a very believable young soldier and I must not be the only one to think so; his previous roles on TV have been soldiers almost consistantly. Being a sniper movie he doesn't get any punchfighting in - it's all strictly firearms in this movie - but it's all very solid material. Pistols get pulled out for close encounters and it's all very clean and methodical on the goodies side, with the baddies firiing automatic weapons wildly at anything that moves. All except for the antagonist of the piece, the mysterious sniper that shot Beckett in the beginning. A small bond builds between Beckett and Miller and there's a couple of decent scenes of Miller training his new sniper protege.

I guess I should mention the eye-candy of the piece, newcomer Annabel Wright as Lieutenant Ellen Abramowitz. Her inclusion is pretty limited and it feels as if the producers hired her then worked out what to do with her afterwards. There's a brief, restrained sex scene where you don't get to see much of anything and then she's occasionally holding a pistol or wearing an officer's uniform. Not much to the character at all. All the other characters serve their purposes well but they just couldn't give her a decent part.

I really enjoyed Sniper: Reloaded overall. The acting was good accross the board, the action was quality and asside from a few boring moments in the middle - mainly during the forced attempt at building a relationship between Beckett and Abramowitz - it moves at a swift pace with a few good twists and turns. The ending sets it up for a fifth movie in the franchise too, and if the quality is at least as good as Reloaded I say bring it on.

The Video:

Typically gorgeous anamorphic widescreen print with explosive surround sound that we've come to expect from modern action films. The african landscapes pop on the screen and the night-time scenes are not crushed into blackness. Runtime 91 minutes.

Sourced From:

Region 1 disc from eBay for about $10.

Trailer:

More Screens:

Cartel (1990)

2011-07-17T23:45:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

It's kill or be killed in this all out action thriller!

Movie Review:

Cartel is a by-the-numbers actioner done extremely well. Ever since I saw the (very early) review on The Direct to Video Connoisseur I knew this one would be for me but it's taken me a year to track down a copy. It really is great that there are other action movie blogs out there that review the best and worst of 80's and 90's bad-action (that's a legitimate sub-genre as far as I'm concerned), simultaneously bringing to light great films from a better time in cinema, but also taking a hit on the films that just don't cut the mustard (Olivier Gruner's Extreme Honor was taken off my list thanks to this review). I hope in that regard that Explosive Action is also fulfilling a greater purpose.

Enough of that. Cartel sees Miles O'Keeffe (Ator the Invincible!) as helicopter pilot for hire Chuck Taylor. In this instance he was hired to transport what he thought were medical supplies, but upon landing his chopper is raided by the feds and the packages are found to be carrying cocaine (of course). The awaiting cartel see the bust and come in all guns blazing beginning with an uzi on a motorbike and ending with a car chase and fight onboard Chuck's own ride. Cartel leader Tony King (Don Stroud; Twisted Justice, King of the Kickboxers) is arrested along with Chuck, however King's number two guy Rivera (action bad-guy go to man Gregory Scott Cummins; Stone Cold, Caged Fury, Action U.S.A., Cliffhanger) manages to escape.

With Chuck serving time for narcotics possession alongside Tony King they have to get along, but it isn't easy. King insists that Chuck work for him and he will arrange an early release through his contacts. Chuck refuses the deal and as a result, King sends his goons Rivera and co. to kill his family; his sister is raped and murdered, her son shot and his own wife nearly killed. When she recovers she follows the cartel trying to get information on their actions and reports to Chuck who forms a plan to escape from prison, take out King and his goons, destroying the cartel and gaining his vengeance.

The action scenes are what stands out and they are very good. We get many machine gun shootouts, a few prison beatings and shivs - corrupt guard included - car and helicopter chases, cars smashing through walls, a shootout in an underground car park, and a car crash with an explosion so good we are shown it in slow motion three times from different angles ala Executive Target. Cartel isn't as completely over the top with action as that movie but it's consistent and with purpose. Some of the gun violence is pretty brutal with blood gushes and painful shots to the bone.

There's also a few scenes in Cartel that are hilarious. The whole photo-shoot with Chuck's sister is a laugh riot as she poses with the camera trying to make computers and cereal appear sexy. There's a brilliant montage of 'happier time' memories, like pushing children on swings, as Chuck reads a letter from his girlfriend in prison. Chuck even manages a one liner; he drops a guy off a building and says "Enjoy your flight!". Arnold would be proud.

One small thing that could be considered a negative is the rape and murder of Chuck's sister. It's a pretty callous scene that goes on for a while with lot's of screaming and the slimy antagonists enjoying it too much. It was actually a bit of an uncomfortable watch which brought the roller-coaster action ride to close to being 'real drama' - something none of us want. It does at least create a realistic reason for Chuck to break out of prison and avenge her death as it wasn't a pleasant one at all. The only other thing that annoyed me was Chuck's girlfriend Donna (Crystal Carson) who used up all of the non-action scenes begging Chuck not to do anything rash, not to take the law into his own hands, blah. Thank god he didn't listen to her or he'd still be in prison today.

O'Keeffe is a solid action star, and his portrayal of Chuck is cool and calm. It looks like there are a few more movies of his that would be worth my time. Zero Tolerance with Robert Partrick is one that is sitting on the shelf awaiting a review so I will get to that one in due course. One I'd love to get a hold of is Liberty & Bash, a buddy-cop flick with O'Keeffe playing "Liberty" and Lou Ferrigno playing Bash! Don Stroud is a great mob boss type villain who totally gets his deserved comeuppance in a great finale scene at a shipping yard. Gregory Scott Cummins is always good in these roles, the slimy second banana with a switchblade; a total joy to watch.

Once again IMDB ratings demonstrate just how untrustworthy they can be. Cartel currently stands at 2.8 out of ten; that's an extremely poor rating. To put it into perspective, the piece of shit Future Fear sits at 2.6. These two movies aren't even on the same field; hell they aren't even playing the same game. Cartel is a solid 5 movie, no question - but for fans of bad action (and that's you, loyal blog reader) Cartel ranks around an 8. Solid action, very little needless plot exposition and a bit of humour to spice it all up. Even the slightly longer runtime for a movie like this doesn't hurt it. Great fun and well worth hunting down however you can.

The Video:

This DVD release from JL Entertainment is an odd one. It's a Region 4 NTSC disc that appears to be a direct port, even including the opening ident, from the out of print Region 1 Simitar release. All they did was slap an Australian ratings advice on the front so I'd say the legitimacy of the release is up for question. Still, there is nothing technically wrong and the full-screen picture looks fine and the sound clear, so I'm just thankful that they bothered. Runtime around 100 minutes, complete with the worst DVD menu in history.

Sourced From:

A random DVD store for $9.95. You will only find this in smaller stores and eBay; major chains certainly won't carry this title.

Trailer:

One of the laziest trailers I've ever seen!

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Mission of Justice (1992)

2011-07-05T23:10:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

Out of Uniform. Out of Control.

Movie Review:

This is some simply superb early 90's action right here. I truly couldn't ask for much more with this movie. The action was fast and flowing and of a high standard. The story was honest and simple, never trying to be more than it sets out to be. And most importantly, Mission of Justice is never boring. It also never slides into the realm of tackiness by sending Wincott off to strip clubs or including pointless sex scenes.

Jeff Wincott is Kurt Harris, a cop who is partnered with Lynne Steel (played by karate expert Karen Sheperd; Blood Chase, Righting Wrongs, Cyborg 2) arrests a guy for beating his girlfriend. Harris' Seargent chews him out for this because the guy was a good snitch and sets him free. He immediately goes back to his girlfriend; Harris and Steel (great combo!) race over to protect her but are too late, he's already beaten her to death. When Harris brings him in a second time and gets chewed out yet again by his Seargent, he punches him in the face, earning him suspension. Harris opts just to resign.

We are also introduced to the Peacemakers; a sort of martial-arts peace-keeping vigilante group from the "Mission of Justice" that appears to have the approval of the city to act as its guardians, and is helmed by Dr. Rachael Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen; Red Sonja, Rocky IV, Cobra), also an aspiring mayoral candidate. One ex-Peacemaker, who left because he didn't agree with Larkin's methods, is boxing champ Cedric Williams (Tony Burton, a real-life boxing champ and also the trainer of Apollo Creed in all Rocky movies) and good friend of Harris. He's paid a visit by the good Doctor who wants him to come back to the team but he won't have a bar of it. After receiving a thrashing from Rachel Larkin's henchman (and brother perhaps?) Titus Larkin, played by the always good Matthias Hues he remains unconvinced and is killed by Nielsen with twin blades to the neck.

What ties the two stories together is Harris, who goes to see the scene of the crime, finds a flower near the crime scene. Later that night he spots the same flower on TV being worn by none-other than mayoral candidate Dr. Rachel Larkin. Putting two and two together, Harris decides to pose as an aspirational member of the Peacemakers and gain revenge from within.

Jeff Wincott seriously brings his A-game to this one. In fact this must rank up there as one of his best. His martial arts skills are on great display throughout and yes, he actually beats people senseless with those two sticks he's holding in the poster. There is very little gun fire in the movie outside a few thugs with handguns; it's just arse kicking and face punching. A real testosterone filled movie. Wincott stays within his acting limits and that makes his character more believable. Any emotive scene is kept to its bare minimum; about the only cornball scene in the movie is the right-out-of-the-cliche-book segment when after he learns of the death of his friend, Harris sits on his couch with a bottle of whiskey getting hammered, looking lovingly at a photograph of the two together. He then gets pissed off seeing the Doctor on the TV and hurls the bottle at it.

There's very little (intentional) humour in the movie though on this occasion that's fine. Outside a few one liners that are hardly worth mentioning, Wincott et. al. keep their straight faces on. Brigette Nielson isn't playing for laughs at all, but you do have to giggle a little at her evil portrayal of the Doctor. She keeps boot-licking lackys at her side at all times and could easily pull off an eyepatch and stroke a cat on her lap. Whenever she is in 'thug' mode and out protecting her assets she has her hair tied back and up, which makes her look exactly the same as her character in Rocky IV.

Part of Harris' induction into the Peacemakers is a running of the gauntlet fight that sees him punch and kick out about twenty armed men; totally awesome fight scene, right up there with the best. There is also a kick-arse fight in a car chop-shop that's just nuts and vintage Hong Kong style 'everything but the kitchen sink' action. Wincott uses whatever he can pick up to bludgeon or incapacitate his assailants; electrical cord, neon lamps, pieces of car. Guys get thrown into piles of boxes, chucked out windows, it's just great. And did I mention that Matthias Hues is in this? He's always a sign of classic bad action and his contribution to Mission of Justice is no different. He even speaks a few times which must be a highlight in his career, and he's in it enough so that I don't feel cheated.

Special mention must go to Karen Sheperd who doesn't let Wincott take all of the action. She's very good at her martial arts, right up there with Cynthia Rothrock. Another skilled martial artist in the film is Harris' new Peacemaker buddy Sal (Jeff Pruitt, an accomplished stuntman and bit-part player in Martial Law, Sword of Honor and Wincott's Open Fire) who also displays great skills in arse-kickery. Mission of Justice is a great fun movie with plenty of re-watch value.

The Video:

I watched the new release Australian disc put out by RAAM Multimedia. It sports a clear 4:3 transfer though there are some scenes that look claustrophobic enough to indicate this was probably filmed in widescreen. The audio is also clear and the punches crack nicely on the stereo soundtrack. I noticed a small video glitch about the ten minute mark but it was only there for a few seconds. Runtime approx. 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

Go-Lo variety store for a whole $2 RRP.

Trailer:

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I think I've successfully captured the feel for this film with the following collection of 'fight-faces'.

Solo (1996)

2011-06-30T00:03:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

Part Man. Part Machine. Total Weapon.

Movie Review:

Have you seen Soldier starring Kurt Russel? Or Indio 2: The Revolt with Marvellous Marvin Hagler? Then you've seen this movie. Forgetting the fact that Peebles is a robot, Solo could be considered a mash-up of those two films (though Soldier actually came out two years after Solo). It's that same old story of a soldier trained to believe one thing from his superiors and peers, and learning the real truth when he's thrown into the thick of it. It just so happens that this time the soldier is a robot.

Solo (Mario Van Peebles; New Jack City, Hard Luck, Gunmen) is a prototype robot made for the army; an android killing weapon designed by the military and utilized to enter into a Latin American war to destroy the rebel natives fighting simply to maintain their freedom. On the mission his helicopter crashes into a mountain and he is badly injured and is nursed to robotic health by a native boy and the other villagers. He learns that these villagers are being harassed by a local militia who demand that they build them an airstrip, or something. Contrary to his programming, Solo develops an affinity for the villagers and decides to help them fight back. This displeases his creators who send a destruction order out for Solo, lead by the raving lunatic Colonel Madden (William Sadler; Hard to Kill, Die Hard 2 and my favourite role, The Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted!).

This is a pretty okay deal for the most part. The first 10 minutes and last 20 minutes are, as usual, the best part of the picture, but there's enough action throughout the middle to keep you entertained. It gets bogged down a bit with Solo learning how to dress in robes, comprehending figures of speech and understanding 'this human emotion called love', but for the most part it moves at a fast pace. It's all very polished and has the look of an expensive Hollywood production. I'm sure this probably bombed at the box office and would have been right at the moment when action fell out of favour with Hollywood for a decade, with all the action heroes (Van Damme, Seagal, Lundgren) going DTV. There's plenty of exploding huts, exploding helicopters and backflips (through explosions) to keep people entertained so what more do you want?

Mario Van Peebles plays a good deadpan robot, though he always looks like a kitten that's been mistreated. Arnie pulled off a deadpan yet manic robot face. Peebles looks more like a gentle giant. He still gets the job done and the 'humanity' that he displays forms the centric part of the plot. He also manages to kick a bit of arse, easily dispatching foes in hand-to-hand combat, absorbing hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and pretty damn good at those backflips. His fights do tend to have a PG-13 rating vibe to them with no real believable damage occurring on screen.

Barry Corbin is in this as the General that calls all the shots. I think he might even be wearing the same uniform he wore in Wargames a decade earlier. Adrien Brody (Splice) has a small but crucial role as Bill, the creator of Solo, who of course wants his creation back in one piece; quite an early feature film role for him. William Sadler as Colonel Madden is the highlight here and is as cold as ice to his team, his colleagues and definitely to Solo; he totally goes off the rails by the end and is a joy to watch.

Like I said previously, the final act was the highlight of the movie with the biggest body count, largest explosions and most rounds of amunition (and arrows) fired... and then Super Solo turns up. Solo 2.0, or Solo: The Upgrade if you like. It's on like Donkey Kong in a Robocop versus Robocop 2 fashion as the two cyborgs proceed to tear each other apart. It's a bit of a surprise which person gets "upgraded" to serve this purpose and the final fight is pretty damn decent, if a little short.

This isn't a bad jungle action film with a difference, if you let your expectations drop just a little. It looks flash - something Hollywood does do well - but it's pretty standard stuff within, with a little too much saccharin dripping from Solo's learning experiences. Still, it doesn't deserve to be associated with the death of Hollywood action as much as it would appear on the surface, but there really wasn't much big action at the cinema for a while until the comic franchises came back in to favour again and the Bourne movies took over. That's a shame really, as it's not all that bad and worth your time at least once.

The Video:

This early R4 DVD has held up well. A nice 16:9 scope transfer and a punching soundtrack. No problems here at all. Runtime around 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

From a used store for a few dollars.

Trailer:

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Game of Death (2010)

2011-06-25T23:25:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

They picked the wrong man to cross.

Movie Review:

Wesley Snipes has churned out quite a few DTV films in recent years since his tax issues, though they have generally all been okay at best. The Marksman, Unstoppable, The Detonator.. all okay but nothing amazing. Chaos with Jason Statham was probably the best one with lot's of twists and decent action to boot. Undisputed went to cinema so doesn't count, but that's a really good one. His most recent effort is Game of Death; how does it fare?

Snipes plays Agent Marcus, a CIA agent given an undercover job to do. He's been instructed to get in good with Frank Smith (Robert Davi), a powerful but corrupt businessman, earn his trust then take him out. Six months later Agent Marcus has done just that and is the personal bodyguard to Smith. On a routine drive, Smith suffers a heart attack. As well as that the car is being followed on the ground and in the sky by Agent's Zander (Gary Daniels) and Floria (Zoe Bell). It's soon apparent that Zander and Bell have turned to the dark side as they kill the chopper pilot and infiltrate the hospital where Smith has been taken by Marcus.

At gunpoint, Zander and Floria demand that Smith and his treating nurse Rachel (Aunjanue Ellis) take them to the bank vault of wealthy business associate Redvale (Quinn Duffy). Snipe has no real love for Smith but he is determined to stop Zander and Floria from taking advantage of their undercover positions for their own financial gain. That, and they keep shooting at him. By the way the whole movie is told as a retrospective in a church by Snipes to priest Ernie Hudson.

I really enjoyed this one. I would go as far as to say this would be the best Wesley Snipes direct-to-video release so far. The plot wasn't overly ambitious - at it's heart this is a heist movie - and the acting was good across the board. More importantly the action quotient was solid, with equal amounts of shootouts (bringing back the silenced pistols was refreshing after a lot of machine gun shootout movies I've reviewed recently) to punchups. Snipes doesn't even actually have that many lines when it comes down to it. The movie is more interested in stealth action than constant babbling, which worked for me.

There's been a change of plan Marcus. We're taking the fucking money.

The only real downside I found was the usual frenetic directing that is so favourable these days. I've seen far worse but there was a lot of avid farts and scenes that go black and white for no real reason ("art"?) and some of the fights are shot too close, but not all of them. There's a couple of good kickfights and firefights that are easily seen and it's great to see that Snipes and Daniels still thrown down properly when given the opportunity. I guess also the retrospective way of telling this story could be seen as a downer, but it does let us see Ernie Hudson as a priest taking confession from Snipes which is fairly amusing. Hudson is always the fourth Ghostbuster to me.

Actually I was really surprised as to how much Gary Daniels features in this. He is the main bad guy but I was still expecting his role to be limited to ten minutes somehow. Gary probably has the same amount of screen time as Snipes. His portrayal of Zander the rogue CIA agent was cool, calm and ruthless - he shoots anyone that even looks sideways at him - and makes for a great bad guy. He also gets a pretty damned good final bout with Snipes on the top of a building that doesn't hold back any punches.

Equally good was Zoe Bell, best known for her stunt work in Kill Bill and then as a character actor in Death Proof. She has started getting decent roles in Bitch Slap, Gamer and her own starring vehicle Angel of Death. She put on an American accent for us in Game of Death which blended well with the others though after hearing her strong kiwi accent in Death Proof it came as a bit of a shock. Her best scene here is a standoff in the hospital with Snipes, both shooting at each other from behind walls as Bell explains to him the details of the plot as yet unrevealed.

This is a good one and worth your time. If all you had seen of recent Snipes work was 7 Seconds and The Contractor and wasn't convinced, I say give him another go. This is 85 solid minutes of entertainment with only a few minor drawbacks. I'm really hanging out for Snipe's Zombie action/western Gallowwalker which seemed to have been stuck in post-production hell for years, and even it's official website seems to be down now. Apparently it has had a DVD release in Scandinavia just last April so hopefully a more easily accessible DVD will eventuate shortly.

The Video:

Sharp as a pin prick with lot's of colour, strong detail and deep blacks. High definition goodness filmed in scope. Runtime around 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

Zone A blu-ray release from Amazon.

Trailer:

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Crooked aka Soft Target (2006)

2011-06-19T10:49:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

Don't ever trust the law.

Movie Review:

Talking with a work colleague the other day I postulated that there are three tiers of action hero: A-level stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Bruce Willis. B-level stars like Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Wesley Snipes and Steve Austin. Sometimes A and B level stars mix - B-level stars may have had prolific A-level careers in the early days, and A-level stars may take a pay dive every so often to appear in something smaller. But then there are the C-level action stars who never really get above their stature, rarely invited to play with the big boys. I can't think of two actors that epitomise this more fully than Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Olivier Gruner. Perhaps we'll allow Billy Blanks to the party as well; bless him and his Tae Bo.

When I tell my friends what movies I watch on the weekend for this blog I usually get looks of puzzlement. This would definitely be one of those movies that would result in head scratching from anybody I tried to explain it to. Nobody in regular film-going circles knows who Don or Olivier are but I got real excited when I found that they were both in the same movie. Not only that, but stars from the past like Fred Williamson, Gary Busey and hell even Martin Kove were in this as well! That's solid direct-to-video action gold on paper... but in practice?

In short, not really. The basic plot of Crooked sees Fred Williamson in a glorified cameo role along with another detective protecting a snitch in a hotel. While the two play cards the snitch orders in some prostitutes (unusual for protective custody, but there you go). One of the girls freaks out and decides to wait in the bathroom while the other gets on with the job. That's when the cops are attacked by assailants known to the snitch and are killed. That's right Williamson is already out of the picture and we are ten minutes in. The snitch is killed after revealing he has money hidden in a locker but has lost the key. The girl waiting in the bathroom, Angel (Diana Kauffman) finds the key on the floor and makes a run for it.

Detectives Danny Tyler (Wilson) and Phil Yordan (Gruner) arrive on the scene and it's obvious the two don't get along. Gary Busey as Chief John Rouse, who spends the movie with crooked glasses and talking into his lapel.. actually maybe that's why the movie is called Crooked?.. thinks it's a great idea to pair this mis-matched couple of detectives up to find the missing Angel and protect her from the killers still on the loose. Martin Kove as Jake Lawlor spends the movie standing in hallways drinking coffee, until the final act when he finally picks up a weapon.

So you can see already it's a Don and Olivier vehicle and everyone else is just along for the ride. It could still work, right? Eh, sort of. The production values here are pretty bad; think early 2000's Seagal DTV movies as he was making his transition from silver screen to small screen. Bad lines, bad delivery, bad acting, bad shaky cameras, bad stock sound footage. The shaky cam was so bad at some points that the two cups of tea I had just had felt like coming back up again. IMDB says the budget was 2.5m. That's pretty low in this day and age and it shows, quite badly. At least a car gets blown up, that's a good use of the budget.

Danny, Phil and Angel stay on the move throughout the movie and whenever they stop they are eventually attacked. This leads Gary Busey to believe there is a leak among his team and he keeps a "close eye" on them. Martin Kove continues to stand in hallways. Olivier and Don try their best to be the new Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee in Showdown in Little Tokyo mis-matched buttoned-down cop and get's-the-job-done cop, but there is very little chemistry between them and the lines they are given to recite don't help. Phil in one scene tells Angel to her face that she is a "fucking whore" and in the next scene buys her lunch. This needed a better writer.

Enough of that crap, how's the action? Mediocre for the most, but Olivier and Don still bring the swinging high-kicks to the table which is good. Don brings his angry fight-face a few times which is outstanding and easily the best parts of the film. Some of the fights (there are a few) aren't too bad but again they suffer from being zoomed in too much with shaky cam and off putting generic punch, kick and firing sounds. The shootouts are quite average and at one point one of the thugs that attacks Don looks like a bum off the street, complete with beanie and grey beard. At least the picture from the cover with Olivier firing two pistols cross-arms actually occurs, which is more than can be said for most DTV action covers. There's a totally inappropriate dual sex scene that borders on soft-core between Phil and his wife and Danny and Angel. If you ever wanted to see Olivier Gruner in a foamy bath with a girl who has breasts the size of watermelons, Crooked is for you.

It sounds like I hated this movie; not so. I was entertained and didn't fall asleep. I just expected more from the cast but for that, in this case, I am blaming the crew and to a lesser extent the budget. Actors can only work with what they are given and what they are given here, for the most part, is bland and unfulfilling. Worth a rental or 99c pickup, but keep your expectations low.

The Video:

Nothing to write home about but a good enough widescreen picture on the R1 disc (under the title Crooked). The sound is fine except for the obvious budget issues that's caused by bad microphones. Runtime around 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

eBay for 99c.

Trailer:

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The Hit List (2011)

2011-06-14T23:38:00.001+10:00

Tagline:

Who's on your list?

Movie Review:

This one came out of left field. One day it was just sitting on store shelves and available online to buy. Out here in Australia we don't always get DTV films on time. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s 2009 movie Wrong Turn at Tahoe only came out in the second half of 2010 for us. Dolph Lundgren's Direct Contact took 18 months longer than the US to come out domestically and at one point we were at least two Seagal movies behind the UK. With The Hit List, the US only got a month head start on us.

Allan Campbell (Cole Hauser) is having a real bad day. He's in deep with a loan shark who has already given him a black eye and he has one more day to pay his debt, which he can do when he gets his promotion at work. Unfortunately he is passed over by the new kid Brian Felzner (Sean Cook) who has brown-nosed his way to the top. Going home depressed, Allan is hit with a double whammy when he discovers his wife sleeping with his best friend Mike (Drew Waters). Realising his day is turning into an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, Allan goes to a bar to get drunk. After a few too many straight Jack Daniels, Allan meets Jonas Arbor (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a sick man with a bad cough who doesn't sympathise with Allan's predicament but is instead brutally honest about how he arrived there. He then tells Allan that he is a contract killer.

Allan laughs it off but Jonas insists it's true, and asks Allan to write a list of five people he would like killed if it were possible in a scene that somewhat echoes Strangers on a Train or The Designated Victim. Playing along with the game, Allan fills the list with all the obvious candidates - his boss (for passing over the promotion), the new kid (for stealing the promotion), the loan shark (for the black eye), his best friend who slept with his wife... and at number one on the list his wife Sydney (Ginny Weirick) for cheating on him. The next day Allan goes to work with a bad hangover and learns from colleagues that his boss was murdered the night before. Allan freaks and tries to find number four on the list before anything happens to him... and then find his wife.

This was really, really good. Probably one of my favourite DTV films of recent times. I really enjoyed being able to know the plot early on. Some people complain that a story like this is too obvious; following a too generic formula. I tend to complain when a movie is too complex for its own good. You know from the time that Allan and Jonas meet that Jonas has five people to kill on his list and it's just a matter of time before he makes it to number one. This plot device is refreshing to me in a way, and as the production on the film was relatively high it made for an exciting ride to an inevitable conclusion. Instead of wondering what will happen next, you know what will happen, but are left to wonder just how it will be carried out.

Cuba Gooding Jr. really proves that at one time he was worth an Academy Award here. Jonas is cold-blooded, calculated and crazy, and a great example of what a man could do when he no longer has any fear left. It's also a superb demonstration of twisted loyalties. I think Jonas actually believes he is helping Allan, even saying after knowing him for two hours that he is the best friend Allan will ever have. I guess that's true to an extent; killing for a friend is a pretty big deal. But really, Jonas has just gone a little nuts and is taking his frustrations out on the world, justifying himself by making the kills serve a purpose in someone else's life.

I'm not familiar with Cole Hauser but he was good in this too. Apparently I've seen him before as I've seen Pitch Black, but not since it came out. He does a really good job playing the ultimate man down on his luck sad case applied to a guy that's too nice to get angry (even his wife says they don't fight with passion anymore) and tries to reason with Jonas before he kills again and again. Also worth mentioning is Detective Neil McKay (Jonathan LaPaglia), the officer who is trying to put together all the pieces of the case and work out if Allan is actually the killer.

The action is pretty solid throughout as well. Obviously people get killed on the journey to the primary target, but not always as straight forward as could be imagined. There's a pretty sweet car chase that sees a cop car explode and the ending scene is very reminiscent of The Terminator. Cuba Gooding Jr. is no martial artist so it's guns and cars here only folks.

I read a review that said The Hit List was a poor man's Collateral. Now I've not seen that movie (it is a Tom Cruise movie after all, an actor I've never liked - no, not even Top Gun) but I don't see why a $6 million dollar budget action movie has to be compared as 'poor man's' to a movie that cost $65 million. I mean yeah I get it, technically it is the poor man's alternative being one-tenth of the cost of the Hollywood blockbuster but to use the term in a negative light isn't really needed when the film, in my opinion, is actually really good. You can say that Bloodfist is the poor man's Bloodsport, but don't compare DTV action to Tom Freaking Cruise.

This is good fun and worth your time, definitely. I wasn't even annoyed by the cinematography as there weren't any jump-cuts or speed ups to my knowledge (just a couple of flash backs). One of Cuba Gooding's upcoming movies is alongside none other than action hero Dolph Lundgren in the explosively titled "One in the Chamber", by the same director as the Hit List William Kaufman. Can't wait to see how those two get along in a movie together!

The Video:

Just like most modern DTV action, sharp and clear HD sourced video and a thumping, explosive soundtrack. All good. Runtime approx. 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

Region 4 DVD bought in store.

Trailer:

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