Repo Jake (1990)

Our friend Jon Cross over at the PM Entertainment Podcast has been doing a celebration of PM films this month called "SePMtember," and I thought I'd get in on the festivities with this PM flick I'd been meaning to watch for a long time. In addition to us, we have a legit Murder's Row of other reviews, with Chris the Brain from PM, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and Simon from Explosive Action all having covered this as well. A sign that I'm long overdue to join the party.

Repo Jake is an early PM joint featuring the great Dan Haggerty as the eponymous hero, a burly fellow from Minnesota who moves out to LA temporarily because he hears the repo business is booming out there. Once he gets on with a repo company, it doesn't take much for him to rise to the top of the rag-tag fun group of fellow repoers--and fortunately the people he needs to repo cars from are just deadbeats, we wouldn't want to have to think about people struggling to make ends meet and falling behind on their payments during the recession in the early 90s, would we? Anyway, one of those deadbeats is a pimp and porn producer, and after Jake repos his car, he gets revenge by threatening Jake's new lady friend. Now he has to win a demolition derby-style race for said pimp--oh, by the way, Jake was a former Indy car driver. Wonders never cease.

There are a few places you can go with this. From a PM standpoint it's fun to see the seeds of some of the things that would be hallmarks of their films appear here, like people being thrown through windows, exploding cars, and Cole S. McKay appearing in a scene. The wave is starting to build here, and it's like we're wading in the water, watching the wave come in, waiting for those PM classics to come in push us to shore. There's also the 90s nostalgia. I loved seeing Haggarty come in on a Trailways bus--try not to think of someone with his massive frame having to sit on a bus from Minnesota to LA though, Christ, I'm 5'7" and my back and knees are seizing up just thinking of that trip! But the third element is taking it as a film on its own merits, and that may be where it falls a but flat. We get the classic PM action to start, but they hadn't developed that every 10-15 minutes rule yet, so we get dead spots too. The race scenes were hard to follow, and I couldn't make out where anyone was. And then the music, if it wasn't a wailing harmonica, it was a Casio preset whimsical theme. With all that in mind, while I usually use the term "connoisseur" ironically--and I guess I still am here--you have to really dig this kind of thing to enjoy it, which I did, but not everyone will.

We're now at 52 PM flicks, and if it seems like I've been covering a lot of them lately, you're right. This is three months in a row with a post, four months out of the last five, and 7 of the last 9. This is the earliest one we've watched in a while though, you can tell from that early logo, and between the logo and the script on the opening credits, it was a lot like Shotgun, only without the too-sweet theme song. There were other hallmarks of PM that we could see here too. Like when one of the repo guys fell asleep, and some of his coworkers put lipstick on him, then woke him up and sent him out on a job. That was it, nothing else happened, like the kids who put the pizza box in the oven in Riot and then after Chinese food with Daniels, are never heard of again. Another hallmark I mentioned above was Cole S. McKay, who had a scene driving a car Haggerty is trying to repo. Before you know it, Haggerty is on the hood hanging on for dear life while McKay is driving all over the place. It was a great way to get McKay's 62nd tag on the site. We also have Merhi's direction with Pepin's cinematography on a Jacobson Hart script, and Paul Volk working on post-production. With all these names working together, they were able to refine their craft with each successive movie, which I think more than anything was what made PM so great, each film was part of the process, not just a one-off.

This is only our second Haggerty film on the site, the other being Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan, which we reviewed in 2013. It does seem odd that 1300+ posts in and this is only his second film, especially when we have a classic like Elves that I discuss with Mitch on the podcast every year around Christmas. And it's in that mid-80s to mid-90s period where he did a lot of DTV damage, so I probably should make an effort to get more of his stuff up. He does have another PM flick, from the same year as this, Chance with Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, where Haggerty also plays a repo man, just not the same one he plays here. The thing about him that's so great is he has this avuncular quality that always makes him endearing to watch, whether it's as a race car driving repo man in penny loafers like he is here, or when he's tearing it up on Battle of the Network Stars. For all the things about this film that didn't work, he's definitely one that does.

We generally don't do our McDonald's paragraph this early in the post, but it is the 16th film we've had with a McDonald's, so I feel like maybe they've moved past the penultimate paragraph territory. And the thing is, similar to Presidential Portraits, I wasn't always tagging them in the past, so sometimes when I rewatch things we've already reviewed, I catch one and add the tag. Could we see McDonald's getting into the Hall of Fame on the Danny Trejo rule? I've looked at other fast food places, and none of them appear as much as McDonald's, I think in part because the one from this film and the one on the Vegas strip are in a lot of films from this period. Recently I made a trip to Chicago to see a White Sox game (ballpark number 14 for me!) and before my flight back I hit the McDonald's flagship location, where they have some international offerings, including the Big Arch Burger. Not to be confused with the Arch Deluxe, the Big Arch is two quarter-pound patties with white American cheese and this Arch sauce, along with some other accoutrements. The white American cheese was a bit strong for me, but otherwise I liked it. The best way to describe it? It's like what the rest of the world must think of American cuisine in the form of a burger.

Finally, for our actual finally paragraph, would you look at that sweet, late 80s Texas Rangers cap. There's a little mark in the middle, which I think was meant to obfuscate it enough to avoid MLB's lawyers calling to complain, but otherwise it's perfect. In 2023 I was lucky enough to be in Dallas for work, and was able to get a Lyft over to Arlington to see a Texas Rangers game (ballpark number 11). I looked online, and no place makes this version new anymore. As far as the ballpark, if you get a chance, it's worth seeing a game there. When I went, I got a cheap seat in the upper deck, but one of the ushers told me to sit in the section below that because they hadn't sold out, something I've never had an usher do before. The problem with the park though is there's no public transportation out there, and it's not in Dallas. For someone who goes to games here in the Northeast, and who doesn't drive, being able to take the subway--or even a light rail option--is much nicer.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can get this on Prime, which is a great way to go. It's probably a deeper cut PM, you've gotta really like movies like this to enjoy it, but if you do, I think you'll have a great time like I did.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340312

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Take Cover (2024)

This is one that Will from Exploding Helicopter and I covered on the podcast, back on episode 213, as part of our Scott Adkins double feature with Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday, and I figured why not review it now and get in on the Snipetember festivities. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Take Cover has Adkins as a mercenary sniper who, after killing an innocent person, wants to retire. If only it were that simple, right? His boss (Alice Eve) is okay with that, as long as he does one more job for her. Again, if only it were that simple, right? And sure enough, when they get into the hotel suite he and his spotter (Jack Parr) are staying in before they do their job, they realize they're sitting ducks for a sniper who wants to get them! Now this beautiful hotel suite is a death trap, with it's large windows that have a fantastic view of the city providing very little cover from the assassin's bullets. As luck would have it though, two young women were sent up before the shooting to keep our heroes company, and while one dies off right away (Alba De Torrebruna), the other (Madalina Bellariu Ion) lives and proves to be quite helpful. Will Adkins make it out alive?

This is another one of your classic we have enough material for a 42-minute episode of a syndicated action series, but not enough for a 90-minute movie. Adkins does the best Adkins he can, be he doesn't get a lot of Adkins moments; and then Alice Eve as the evil mercenary leader is wasted in a kind of Eric Roberts sit-down role--the fact that she has to do a wardrobe change at the end seemed like a big ask for her part. I think the biggest fail for me though was how our heroes would do things that seemed strategic, but had no strategic effect. "Everyone turn all the lights off so he can't see inside here." Great, we'll do that... except the sniper has the same ability to see inside and shoot at them? Then why did we go through all the trouble to turn out all the lights? Our closest thing to an Adkins moment came when a clean-up crew went to the suite to finish everyone off, and Adkins took them out, but even that felt perfunctory, as if the people making the film were like "we need something to break-up the monotony of this siege." Finally, we get Chekhov's silk bedsheets, where this idea of using silk bedsheets to make an escape is brought up a few times in the film, and pays off in this silly sequence of Adkins parachuting out of the hotel suite using said silk bedsheets. It tonally felt off, and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to take it. All that said, if this were a 42-minute episode of an action series, where maybe Alice Eve's character had been developed over multiple episodes before that, we'd probably call it one of the best episodes of the series, and maybe that's wherein the rub lies: the idea of this script being in mostly one location was too enticing to pass up, so they made the movie, even if they were stretching to fill the rest of the time.

We've now done 31 Scott Adkins movies here on the site, and many of the ones before it are high-octane actioners directed by some of the best in the business like Jesse V. Johnson, Isaac Florentine, and James Nunn. That means he's set a high bar here, and not every movie he does will live up to that. I can also see why he would've done this project. Like if I read this as a short story while on a plane or a train or something, I'd have been into it, and I'm sure that's what intrigued him too as he read the script. The other thing in his favor is his presence elevates this beyond a total stinker. He's still fun to watch, and he plays these mercenary/special forces characters well--even when he's parachuting out of the building using silk bedsheets, aided by a not-well-disguised greenscreen. Maybe all these Adkins free streamers like this are telling me I need to get it over with and pony up the $5.99 and rent Diablo. And they're probably right, but I want to wait it out because I know eventually it'll make it to a streamer, so in the meantime you'll have to settle on reviews of movies like this.

This is our first time seeing Alice Eve on the site, and after how great she was as Typhoid Mary on the Iron Fist series, and how the cover of this makes it seem like an Adkins/Eve actioner, I was disappointed that she only had an Eric Roberts-esque sit-down role. I know out of the Netflix Defenders series Iron Fist is considered the weakest, but one of the bright spots for me was Eve's Typhoid Mary, especially after the sautéed in wrong sauce version in Elektra (through no fault of Natassia Malthe). Even the Iron Fist version was kind of sautéed in wrong sauce though, because it changed a lot of her backstory. In the comics, she's one of the top Daredevil antagonists, and one of the top female supervillains overall, so the fact that in the MCU she only has this short moment has been disappointing--though to be fair, we haven't gotten any more of Elodie Yung's Elektra after The Defenders mini-series either. Throw in Taskmaster, who, even though he was a male in the comics, would've been great if that version of the character was played by Olga Kurylenko--but instead they give her this weird version in Black Widow who gets an even rawer deal in Thunderbolts*--and between those three, Typhoid Mary, Elektra, and Taskmaster, you'd have a pretty sweet Disney+ series. It's one of those things where, as much as Kevin Feige and his MCU get things right, they do still miss from time to time, but the great thing about comic book content is you can always fix it. If they brought Olga Kurylenko back as the comic book version of Taskmaster and just said "yeah, that version of me that was injured in the building collapse was a plant, while the real me was learning all these skills," I'd totally be okay with it, especially if it's to team her with Alice Eve's Typhoid Mary and Elodie Yung's Elektra.

Is it me, or is DTV filmmaking becoming more cynical? I mean, I guess it's always been cynical on some levels, and this trend of doing films that take place in as few locations as possible isn't so much a trend as it is something that we've seen for a long time. Is Fred Olen Ray converting a grocery store into the inside of a space ship for a space romp film any different from this movie leveraging one location to save money? Something about Ray doing it though seemed more fun, didn't it? The other thing I think is we see this the most from the most cynical of DTV producers, Randall Emmett. Bank robbery stand-offs, sieges in underground bunkers, or cat and mouse chases through small wooded areas, culminating in the worst of them all, whatever Armor was. It's like when he's in his office with his collaborators coming up with script ideas, the first thing they do is find a way to set it in as few locations as possible. "Hey Randall, our location scout found this great mansion in the country in Georgia we can use." "Excellent! Find a CW drama alum, call up Bob De Niro's agent to see if he wants to shoot a couple scenes as a local sheriff, and we'll write some kind of home invasion-turned Die Hard rip off." "Chad Michael Murray's agent said he's free. Can he hold an assault rifle though?" "Who cares, by the time we get there, we'll have already generated enough streams to make our money back." Maybe this movie isn't as crass as that, but it's in the context of that crassness that I'm watching it, and every misstep it makes reinforces that crassness, even if it's not trying to be that. I guess like when the kid comes late to practice and everyone has to run laps, Randall Scandal ruined it for everyone.

Finally, who doesn't love a good Chekhov's something other than a gun? Will actually has a list of them on Letterboxd, which you can check out here. Part of Chekhov's Gun though is the payoff. As the audience, when we see the gun in the first act, we don't just want it to go off, we want a dramatic death, or even a dramatic almost death. It's interesting, because in my writing I try to keep the principal in mind, while also adhering to Ernest Hemingway's counter that inconsequential details can have value too. In my novel A Girl and a Gun, the main character Justin is friends with an NFL football player who's close to retiring. To drive home how much of a toll the NFL is taking on him, while the NFL player and Justin are talking, I have a league official show up at his hotel room to interrupt their conversation because the NFL player needs to take a drug test. For me, the inconvenience of the drug test itself was the plot point, but I discovered after that readers expected the results of the drug test to play a part later in the story. Chekhov's anything is so ingrained in us that without the payoff it can be confusing, or even disappointing. That gets us back here to this film, and Chekhov's silk bedsheets. I don't know what kind of payoff I expected with that, but the silly shot of him using the sheets as a parachute to escape the hotel room wasn't it. I think I thought maybe he'd do an old Batman show and climb down. The fact that the payoff wasn't good though brought the film back to that Randall Scandal crassness I talked about above, making something they thought was clever turn into a detriment.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can still stream this on Hulu, plus at one point it was on Tubi as well, so it may make it back there at some point. I think this is strictly for Adkins completists, or if you're struggling for more Snipetember picks. Also, if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode Will and I did on this, 213 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28129054

And if you're interested, you can purchase A Girl and a Gun over at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and Kindle unlimited. I always appreciate the support!

Taken from Rio Bravo (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered on a podcast episode, episode 210 in the archives, part of our Xumo double feature with 12 to Midnight, and with all the names involved, it was only a matter of time before we reviewed it on the site too, so here we are. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Taken from Rio Bravo is a sequel to Gunfight at Rio Bravo, with Alexander Nevsky reprising his role as a fictionalized version of Union Army officer Ivan Turchin. This time, some young women have been taken by dastardly traffickers (led by Dolph movie mainstay James Chalke), and it's up to Nevsky and his sheriff friend (Joe Cornet, who also directed) to track them down and rescue them. Along the way, they get some help from a Native American tracker (Don "the Dragon" Wilson), and they encounter all manner of ne'er-do-wells who impede their progress. Finally, as they near the young women and are about to achieve their goal, an old foe enters the fray. Who could that be? I mean, if you read the cast list, you probably know, but still, pretend you didn't so you can be surprised. Will Nevsky and Cornet prevail?

When you do this kind of thing long enough, you find yourself saying things you never thought you'd say, but here I am saying this movie needed more Nevsky! Usually I'm railing against what I call a "Nevsky vanity project," but here he's really realized his version of Ivan Turchin, and when you have a fun gunslinger hero like that in a Western, you want more of them! What happens though is this gets too bogged down in the particulars of trafficking, which also gives us more Chalke than we needed. One scene that stood out involved Chalke wanting to take one of the women he trafficked back to a cabin to have his way with her. It went on too long, and ultimately didn't go anywhere, and while this is happening, we're missing an opportunity for Nevsky to take out more men in a saloon or something. All that said, I think this is the closest Nevsky's come to making this approach work, where he's the star and he casts a bunch of other stars in smaller supporting roles, and I think the Western and the use of his version of Ivan Turchin as the hero is a great formula for him. The runtime is also great at 80 minutes, so he keeps it lean, which always helps. Now he just needs to swing the pendulum back a bit in the other direction and include more of himself as that hero, and I think he'll have it.

Art Camacho is now at 56 tags on the DTVC, which used to be good enough for third all-time, but since we've tagged Cole S. McKay, it's now fourth-best. Either way, Camacho brings his talents as fight choreographer to this, elevating fight scenes and giving the film a sharper feel than its budget would normally allow, which is why you bring him in in the first place, but it's still always great to see. He also has a scene as a character named Camanchero who has a fight with Nevsky, which we don't see often, he's usually behind the camera, so I had to get a screen of that. Between all the PM stuff of his that we still need to get to, and the new stuff he has coming out that looks promising, 60 Club and beyond is more a matter of when than if. One of the greatest to ever do it, and he gives us that here.

We have three other Hall of Famers here who, in true Nevsky style, only have small roles, but they're fun to see, and it gets them more tags. First off, this makes 47 for Cynthia Rothrock, so we're closing in on the 50 Club for her, and with all she has out now, three more movies should be easy enough to make happen, except when you dig deeper, you see stuff that is either only available to rent, or isn't available at all, so unless that changes, it could be a while for her. In this movie, she has a small part as the older sister of the two women that get kidnapped, including one small fight scene which was pretty good. Then for Don "The Dragon" Wilson, this is 42, so still a ways from 50, but unlike Rothrock, he does have a few that we haven't done yet on free streamers, so we'll need to make those happen. Here he plays a Native American, which didn't make any sense, except they could've used the fact that Wilson isn't genetically of Native American descent as an opportunity to show that "blood" shouldn't exactly be the determiner of being part of a first nation, the same way that someone can become American without having been born here. Finally, we have Matthias Hues reprising his baddie from the first film. Unlike Rothrock and Wilson who are in the 40 Club, this is only 22 tags for Hues. I think a big reason for why that is, is I don't necessarily seek out Hues movies, he just happens to be in the ones with people I do seek out. But considering how much he does, I imagine we'll stumble into another 8 movies of his at some point along the way.

Like the previous installment, this took place in "Eastern Texas," despite being shot in Arizona, which doesn't look anything like "Eastern Texas." From there, they're supposed to be going to the Mexican border, because apparently even in the Old West, middle class conservative trafficking panic was about middle class white women being kidnapped and taken to Mexico--though Nevsky didn't go far enough and have one of the women find a water bottle on her car, which I guess showed some restraint. Anyway, the other thing is East Texas is much further away from the Mexican border than West Texas. As I said when I reviewed the previous one, why not just set the movies in West Texas? What is it about "Eastern Texas" that it needs to be there, despite it being shot in Arizona? But then another thought hits me: why does it matter? I'm watching a 2024 Western where Don "The Dragon" Wilson is playing a 60s stereotype of a Native American, harkening back to when movies would have Italians do that, and I'm concerned about the location accuracy? But that's the kind of content you've been coming to the DTVC for since 2007, right?

Finally, in looking at these Nevsky vanity projects, where he gets all these stars and they all have smaller parts, the question then is, "Matt, what would you do if you could get names like Rothrock, Wilson, Hues, or Gruner in a movie?" Yes, I would definitely want them to be in it more, even if they only have a day or two of shooting. And then I have a top five for what my one scene would be, because I would definitely not try to make myself the star. Number 5 would be the standard henchman machine gun shimmy death. Get me in a blazer, maybe put on a ponytail wig, and cut to me shimmying to death while one of the names I mentioned above is hosing me down in Uzi fire. Number 4 would be the knife throw, preferably between the eyes, but if I gotta take it in the chest, that's fine too. I could be lurking around, holding my gun, and then one of the heroes lets fly, and in the next cut I'm falling over with the knife in me. For number 3, it's gotta be taking a Wilson roundhouse kick to the face. With it being a Western, if I fall into a trough of water, all the better. And if you're thinking "Wilson can't get up that high anymore," I'm only 5'7", so it won't be as difficult. Number 2, taking a scorpion kick to the head by Rothrock. This time I wonder, with me being only 5'7" if that makes it harder, because my head is a lower target than some of the taller guys she does that to. Finally, number 1, me as a front desk security guard, Matthias Hues takes me out, preferably with a silencer. Might be difficult to pull of in a Western, but if I'm giving you a movie with more of the stars you want, I think you'll indulge me.

And with that, let's wrap this up. In addition to Xumo, it looks like this is available on more free streamers, including Tubi and Prime. I think with the names and runtime, it's not a horrible watch if you're not paying or it's included in your streaming package. Also check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this, episode 210 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20202928/

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Devastator aka The Destroyers (1986)

It's been a while since we've done some Cirio H. Santiago, so we were long overdue, and this one was on Tubi and looked like a gem. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Eoin at Action Elite, TarsTarkas.net, and When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines have all covered this as well, plus it was included in Bulletproof's Cirio H. Santiago Countdown.

The Devastator has Rick Hill as a former special forces guy who's called to a small California town after a former Army buddy that lives there dies. Turns out there's a lot more afoot, as a baddie is growing weed there in the Green Triangle, and he runs the town with an iron fist, including the sheriff, who's complicit. Well Hill ain't complicit, so he rounds up a bunch of his old crew, and they go back to take on those dastardly weed growers. They won't know what hit them!

This is a ton of fun. Hill is exactly the hero you want him to be, the baddies are sufficiently bad, the old Army crew are sufficiently colorful, and the action does what it needs to do. We get plenty of stuntmen shimmying to death from machine gun fire, falling from high heights, or flying through the air after explosions go off behind them. On top of all that, we have a 79-minute run time. That's right, when you're 19 minutes in, you only have an hour left! They just don't make 'em like this anymore, but at one time they did, and we're fortunate that they're on free streamers like Tubi.

We're only at 11 films for Cirio H. Santiago here on the site, which isn't great compared to some of the other directors we've covered. I count 20 between 1981's Firecracker and 1994's Stranglehold that we could review that we haven't yet. That means we have a lot of work to do, but with how much fun his movies are, and the indelible impact they've left on the world of low-budget action cinema, that work will be well worth it. And of the ones we've covered, this is one of my favorites. Santiago doesn't play around, he gets in and gets out in 79 minutes, and doesn't waste any of that time, either giving us action scenes or plot exposition scenes that lead to action scenes soon after. Santiago is one of the best to ever do it for a reason, and this film is a great example of that.

If our Santiago tags are lacking, we're only at seven films now for Rick Hill, but when I look at his IMDb bio, I don't see many more that we can do for him, maybe another six? While he may not qualify for one of our high-tag clubs, he could get Hall of Fame consideration, because he's one of the great leads of low-budget action. I think this is right up there with Deathstalker for one of his best movies, Hill just carries it from start to finish, he's a leading man you have to root for, and it's so much fun to see him blowing up baddies. Whether it's Santiago, or another B-movie stalwart like Fred Olen Ray, Hill seems to understand what's asked of him in these films, and he delivers it. I'm going to do my best to try to get the rest of his DTV flicks up here, because the more Rick Hill the better.

In 1986, I don't know if we could've seen the current US, where many states, including California, have legalized recreational cannabis, but had we had any sense back then, we'd have seen how making it illegal leads to this underground economy where crime lords like the baddie in this film can have power and kill people. No one should be dying so people can smoke weed. And even with the legalization on the state level, it's still illegal federally, which affects where and how it can be grown and sold. Here in Philadelphia, for example, it's not legal in our state, but it is decriminalized in the city, so people can go to New Jersey and buy it there then bring it back. Why? All that tax revenue is leaving the state. But the question is, if it was legalized in this state, would we have nice rural family farms growing it, or would it be a baddie like in this film, only instead of an illegal cartel he'd have a massive corporation, a legalized form of cartel if you will (and if you won't, that's okay too). I guess what I'm asking is, in a world of legalized weed, is there still a place for someone like The Devastator to come in and have to sort our evil growers?

Finally, would you look at that beauty! A vintage Detroit Tigers cap! And in the image above that we have a rumpled San Francisco Giants one. In addition to those two, a baddie wears a New York Mets cap, and I swore another wore a Yankees one, but it was blink-and-you'll-miss-it, and I kept missing it. Baseball caps don't really look like that anymore, which I'm okay with, I prefer the modern '47 Brand Clean-Up style, and I have it in a variety of teams. When I started going to more games in 2018, my plan was to get a cap for every ballpark I visited, both Major and Minor leagues, but at $30 a pop, I realized that was too expensive, so now I do souvenir cup sodas, since I'll need a beverage anyway. I also collect them when I see other sports, so I have a bunch of them now. If you're curious, the Mets and Yankees do the best job with them, it's like they're competing with one another to see whose is better. The worst? The Philadelphia Phillies. Ever since they made it to the World Series in 2022--made it, not won it--they changed the style from the standard, shorter and wider version, to something that's taller and thinner. Why, I don't know, I guess they wanted to make it harder for me to stack them with all the others I have, because they made it to the World Series in 2022, not won it.

And with that, I'd say it's time to wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi here in the States, among other streamers. If you're looking for some fun, low-budget action that gets you in and out in 80 minutes, this will do the trick. Also, if you haven't yet, check out the Bulletproof Cirio H. Santiago Countdown, where yours truly did a write-up on Dune Warriors! The link to the site is on the left sidebar.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089023

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Dark Breed (1996)

We received some very sad news last week, Rick Pepin, the P in PM Entertainment, passed away. I wanted to post something in his honor, and this is one of the films he directed that I'd been meaning to review anyway. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, the guys at Comeuppance, Simon at Explosive action, and Fred Anderson at Ninja Dixon have all covered this as well.

Dark Breed is about a group of astronauts, including Jonathan Banks and Felton Perry, that return to earth and don't seem like themselves. Former astronaut and soldier Jack Scalia is called in to contain them. But when Robin Curtis is captured by the big wig in charge, Cutter (Lance LeGault), and beaten by two mustachioed gentlemen; and then his ex-wife, who was also on the failed space mission, takes him to a diner and tells him that everyone, including her, have been infected by aliens--but fortunately she's been infected by a good alien, not the bad aliens the other astronauts were infected by--Scalia knows this goes much deeper. Now they need to stop both the bad aliens and Lance LeGault. At least Scalia is handy with a rocket launcher.

This is up there as one of my favorite PM flicks, slotting in at number 12 all-time on my PM Entertainment list. A big part of it is Cole S. McKay's action sequences, which I think are some of the best from PM, including a fantastic car chase where Scalia's character is riding a satellite dish that's being towed by a bread truck like he's on an inner tube attached to a speed boat on a lake. I saw some reviews on IMDb and Letterboxd calling this just a cheap rip-off of Predator or Alien, but how can you watch a car chase like that and have that opinion? I think Fred Anderson in his review summed up my thoughts, saying that even if it is a mix of all those other movies, the action is what makes it such a fun time. Beyond that, Scalia is the perfect hero, giving us plenty of bad ass moments, like when he takes a rocket launcher from a sergeant below him, and shows him how to use it, turning his baseball cap backwards in the process--perhaps giving us the one exception to the rule that men over 40 shouldn't wear their baseball caps backwards. Then you add in the supporting cast, with the great Jonathan Banks as the head alien baddie, Lance LeGault chewing scenery as the head government baddie, a trio of great leading ladies with Robin Curtis, Cindy Ambuehl, and Denise W. Scott, and then the inimitable George "Buck" Flower as an unhoused individual who encounters the aliens. This is the too sweet PM you came for.

It's hard to describe the legacy Rick Pepin, with his production partner Joseph Merhi, created with PM Entertainment. 90s action wouldn't be 90s action without them, but also would 2010s action be what it was without guys like Spiro Razatos and Cole S. McKay having the freedom to do the crazy stunt scenes they did in these films. In wanting to do something in Rick's honor, I decided to review one of the films he directed, even though his work as cinematographer created what we know of as "the PM look," because Jon Cross from the PM Entertainment Podcast said these sci-fi movies he directed were what he especially enjoyed. I think out of those, I'd put T-Force and Hologram Man above this, but it's not far behind them. For us fans of action movies, it doesn't get much better than PM Entertainment, and with Pepin being the P in PM, he leaves behind something that he and Merhi created that I don't think will ever be matched. Not to mention personally giving me hours of enjoyment with all the fun movies they produced. Here's to you Mr. Pepin, you truly were one of the great ones, you'll really be missed.

We're now at 61 movies for Cole S. McKay, but we're closing in on October so we can officially get him into the Hall of Fame. And while I wanted to do a movie he directed for his induction post, this would've been a great one for that too. It also would've been a great one for his entry into the 60 Club, which ended up being Save Me due to movies getting shuffled around and our need to do The Stray for Michael Madsen's passing, but with this being the post in honor or Rick Pepin, we can't use it for his 60 Club post either. Looking at all the films I've seen that he was stunt coordinator/second-unit director on, I have this behind Hologram Man as his best, maybe just above Skyscraper, though it's close. I mean just the car chase with Scalia's character riding the satellite dish, I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with that against any of Spiro Razatos's great PM stuff, and McKay had plenty of other scenes in this that were great as well. He also gets a cameo as a guy attacking George "Buck" Flower, before one of the aliens beats the crap out of him. We'll get him in the Hall of Fame in just over a month, the question is, how many more tags will get before then!

This is our second Jack Scalia film on the site, the other being T-Force, so I'd say that's a pretty good two-film run. He has plenty of other DTV stuff out there for me to review, including The Silencers from this same year, which was also directed by Rick Pepin and action-directed by Cole S. McKay, so we know I'll have to do that one eventually. He's just fantastic here, everything you'd want in an action lead, total bad-assery. Speaking of two-film runs, the only other time we reviewed a Jonathan Banks film was Last Man Standing, a film I have at 4 on my all-time PM list, three places higher than T-Force, so Banks's might be better than Scalia's! Unlike Scalia though, Banks doesn't have a lot of other DTV stuff, so we may not see him again unless he finds his way into a Randall Scandal or something in the future. I recently finally got around to watching Breaking Bad, which he was fantastic in, so seeing him here now gives this an added element that I enjoyed. 

Finally, the Lance LeGault's character in this was named "Cutter." I don't know about you, but every time I hear "cutter" I think of Coors Cutter, Coors's non-alcoholic beer from the 90s. I did like most nowadays, and looked Coors Cutter up on Wikipedia, but the info is scant. They said the beer was introduced in 1991, revamped in 1994, but now mostly discontinued. I remembered it as part of that early 90s non-alcoholic trend that included O'Doul's and Miller Sharps. The one my grandmother drank was Genesee, which I thought was cooler than any of them, and I think if I needed an NA beer that's probably what I'd get. There's been a new trend recently in non-alcoholic beers, with Heineken joining in, and some companies exclusively brewing NA stuff, which I see advertised for sale at sporting events, after venues stop selling alcohol late in the games. For me, I don't drink much anymore anyway, but when I want to enjoy a beer without the alcohol, I get a hop tea instead. You get the hops taste without any of the alcohol side effects--though if I getting them to have while watching one of my teams play, I make sure I get the chamomile ones, because I don't need any additional caffeine while I'm stressing out about the outcome!

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States, which I think is a good deal. This is one of my favorite PM flicks, well worth checking out. And also a great one to watch in honor of Rick Pepin, a legend who, with his partner Joseph Merhi, gave us hours of fantastic movies, for which I will be forever grateful.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116026

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Aftermath (2024)

This is another one Ty from Comeuppance and I covered on the pod, episode 214 in the archives, which we paired with Armor, the Stallone Randall Scandal that we've already reviewed. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Aftermath has Dylan Sprouse as a returning combat veteran with PTSD who's back home in Massachusetts, where he and his sister (Megan Stott) are driving over the Tobin Bridge into Boston. As luck would have it, a woman (Dichen Lachman) in police custody is being transported across the bridge as well, as she's set to testify against a terrorist group composed of former special forces soldiers, led by Mason Gooding. Gooding and company aren't fans of her doing that, so they blow up half the bridge, blockade the other half, and are essentially holding everyone who was trying to cross at that moment hostage until they can get her. Will our fly-in-the-ointment hero Sprouse be able to take them all down?

This wasn't a bad deal. Sprouse is solid enough as the hero, Gooding is solid enough as the baddie, and there's some good action that gets you to the church on time. With all the other options out there to watch though, is that good enough? Our review will be only the eighth critic review on IMDb, which for a direct-to-Netflix film with a very limited theatrical release is pretty small. Even in the current ecosystem where critic reviews for direct-to-streaming DTV flicks isn't as high as it was five or six years ago, you'd think high teens or low twenties would be the minimum for this, not seven or eight. I think a big reason is the lack of names. Probably the biggest is Dichen Lachman with her run on Severance, but she's not a star and not on the cover, so the film isn't really selling her--and to be fair, they made Dylan Sprouse look like one of Paul Walker's younger brothers on that cover, so they're not even selling the film on him either. That's too bad though, because while this isn't exactly mind-blowing stuff, it's an entertaining pizza and beer movie, and in this world of myriad streaming options that isn't always a given, so if you get it, you should thank your lucky stars and take it and run.

Let's start with Dylan Sprouse as the lead. Usually in a circumstance like this, he's paired with an aging Hollywood star with a bigger name who they maybe got for one day of shooting, is in maybe two locations, and maybe spends 15% of his screentime not sitting, while Sprouse does all the heavy lifting. It was the classic Randall Scandal formula, while Bruce Willis is tied to a chair, any one of Jesse Metcalfe, Chad Michael Murray, Jamie King, or Ashley Greene are out there running around and punching Michael Sirow or whoever. For Sprouse though, that lack of the big name means fewer eyes and critic reviews find their way to his movie, but I also think it allows him the freedom to show us more of what he can do. Like if they had an Alec Baldwin grimacing and barking orders on a headset from a command center every 15-20 minutes, his face on the tin would get more streams, but I think it also would've weighed things down and taken some of the focus off of Sprouse. It's the modern streaming catch-22: the known face on the tin gets more interest, but the need to shoehorn that character in--played by an actor who's just trying to get it over with too--hurts the overall quality of the movie. Hopefully more of us in the review community will cover more of these to get the word out on them. Either way, Sprouse was solid here, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of what he can do in this space.

Ty and I missed that Mason Gooding is Cuba Gooding Jr.'s son, it took Rich at the DTV Digest to tell us. I don't know if that knowledge would've changed how we felt about his character though. Gooding did a great job playing him, but I think the thing older viewers like me are going to have to get used to is the take younger actors like Gooding will bring to roles like the big baddie in an action movie. This isn't the scenery-chewing fest you'd expect by an actor born in the 50s and 60s, or even someone like Chad Michael Murry in Fortress, who was born in 1981, and even though Murray brought a different energy from those older actors, you could still recognize what he was doing. And to that point, I don't know if we've seen anyone from Gooding's age cohort in a role like this, but I think that different energy added a unique element that helped elevate the film. I'm sure the filmmakers could've found a name actor born in the 60s to play this part and have them chew all the scenery, and we probably would've been okay with it, but I liked that they went this route, and it was good to see that Gooding was up to the task. 

All that said, Gooding's baddie did one of the worst things I could think of a baddie doing: blowing up the Tobin Bridge. Really, blowing up any bridge that sees a lot of traffic in a major city is a horrible thing to do. Not just the poor people trying to get home who were stuck and held hostage for however many hours, but the millions of people whose commutes will be negatively affected for months. I mean, what selfish bastard could do something so shitty? And the thing is, in American cities, public transit infrastructure has been so diminished that there's no way it could handle the added stress of so many more people using the system. Maybe that's the whole point of the movie though, to remind us that America has pivoted over the last 75 years or so to the least efficient mode of people movement, the car, at the detriment to the most efficient, high-speed rail, and while the idea of a terrorist group blowing up a bridge like this is an extreme example, our crumbling infrastructure means more bridges will be falling out of commission, and the fact that we've diminished our public transit systems to such a degree that driving is the only option for most Americans, these kinds of infrastructure concerns will be that much more burdensome, leading to billions of dollars in lost revenue, something we could prevent by spending a fraction of that to invest in better transit systems. So as much as the baddie is a jerk for doing this, I think the movie's message that we're too car dependent, even in a city like Boston that has a robust transit system by American standards, is a good one.

Finally, you're probably thinking "wasn't that the 'finally' paragraph?", which in many cases it would be, but I wanted to mention that Tanner Zagarino has a small part as one of Gooding's henchman. Yes, he's the son of DTVC Hall of Famer Frank Zagarino. The part is small, Sprouse takes him out early, then steals his mask to infiltrate the rest of the baddies. I looked at his IMDb bio, and the only other things he did of note are Pool Boy Nightmare, a Lifetime movie costarring Jessica Norris (of Santa's Summer House fame), which Jay Harangue did his magic on on his YouTube channel; and The Price We Pay, a heist thriller with Stephen Dorf and Emil Hirsch that, based on the IMDb description, is probably too much for me, but the guys at DTV Digest covered in episode 250 of their show. Anyway, none of that is what we at the DTVC want though, we need Airboss V with Tanner taking over his father's role, or hell, maybe a Project Shadowchaser reboot! Could we get Bryan Genesse's son to co-star? I think you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down, aren'cha?

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Netflix, and it's available no matter your pricing tier. If you're looking for a 90-minute actioner to get you to the church on time, this will do it. Also check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this one, 214 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26545708

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday (2022)

This is it, Scott Adkins official entry into the 30 Club! While we no longer display the list along with the 40 and 50 Club, it's still an exclusive club, and great that we were able to get Adkins in. This was also a film we covered on the podcast, episode 213, the "Scott Adkins Double Feature," which we did with Will from Exploding Helicopter. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof and Outlaw Vern have covered this as well.

Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday picks up where the first film left off. Mike Fallon (Adkins) is now living in Malta and still carrying out hits. To keep him sharp, he has Wong Siu-ling (Sarah Chang) as his Cato, attacking him at any moment. When his old friend Fred (Perry Benson) comes to town, looking for a lady that he met online, Fallon decides to have him help with his hits, which works great, until a hit gets put on the son of a local mob boss. Now said mob boss is holding Fred hostage while Adkins has to protect the son from all manner of assassins that are looking to claim the bounty--including his old mentor Big Ray (Ray Stevenson)! It's going to take everything in Fallon's bag of tricks to make it out of this alive.

This was a lot of fun. Some of the humor was a bit much, like when the mobster's son is covered in diarrhea after he passes a watch with a homing device on it through his system, but overall, a lot of this works. It's also a labor of love from Adkins, and that commitment shows, not just from him, but everyone else involved. The stunts are top notch, the fight scenes are electric, and the performances are exactly what you'd want to get us from action sequence to action sequence. I also liked that it was set in Malta, instead of set somewhere else and shot in Malta. That, combined with a lot of the UK inside humor (some of which I got and some I didn't), gave the film a further authenticity that got it over the goal line, especially when a movie like this needs to be made on a budget. It might be a little extreme in mixed company, and the diarrhea part probably isn't great if you're eating, but if you and some like-minded friends are looking for a fun actioner, this is worth it--again though, probably more just a beer movie than a pizza and beer movie.

I haven't seen Diablo yet, but when Jon Cross told me about it on season 2, episode 22 of his After Movie Diner podcast, it sounded like a candidate for Adkins's 30 Club post; but this one, which is a passion project of his, feels like an equally worthy one, because you can feel his desire for this to work in every scene. It's a 90-minute reminder of just how great he is, as if we needed it. Whenever we add a new member to one of the clubs, the question is, what's next for them, and in Adkins's case, we already have Take Cover and Incoming in the can and waiting to be reviewed. From there, once Diablo is a little cheaper to rent, or even better on a streaming service I already have, we'll cover that, and then I see another 10 or 11 more that need to be covered, so 40 Club is easy, as long as we get the reviews in. He's one of the best in the game right now, so it's good we can add him to the 30 Club finally.

This is unfortunately one of Ray Stevenson's final films, which is really sad, because his larger-than-life presence added an extra element to all the movies he was in, whether it was something like this, or a nine-figure-earning blockbuster like the Thor films. My two favorite roles of his have each been covered here, in Kill the Irishman and Punisher: War Zone. The moment Adkins sits down across from him while he's having his English breakfast, that presence is alive in the film, and even though he's not in it as much, you can sense him looming around the proceedings, so we know, no matter what Adkins does, he'll have to deal with Big Ray eventually. Technically Canary Black qualifies to be on the site, because it didn't make $1 million at the box office, so we could see him again. Either way, Mr. Stevenson, you truly were one of the greats, here's to you!

As a kid, the Pink Panther movies played on WSBK TV38 in Boston, usually on a TV show called The Movie Loft that aired movies when the Red Sox or Bruins weren't on. I absolutely loved them, and I loved that this film added the Cato element with Sarah Chang's Siu-Ling character. I think may favorite was Pink Panther Strikes Again, when the film looks like it's wrapping up and Inspector Clouseau is in bed with the leading lady, only to have Cato show up, hanging out over the canopy over the bed before falling in and a fight ensues. It was the hardest I'd ever laughed at anything to that point, and there haven't been many times since then that I've laughed like that. Nothing happened in this that was that funny, but it was fun enough to be reminded of it and have that element in the film. If Adkins does more sequels, hopefully they'll bring her character back for them.

Finally, we have a killer clown as one of the assassins. In real life I feel like professional clown is a noble pursuit, something very few are cut out for. Take me, for example, it's not one I could do, because I don't drive, and you need to be able to drive the small car. My favorite TV episode of all time, and one TV Guide called the greatest, involves a clown, the famous "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where she can't stop laughing at his funeral. Similar to the scene from Pink Panther Strikes Again that I mentioned above, there are very few times I've laughed that hard. As of this writing, all of the episodes are on Hulu, so you can check it out, season 6, episode 7--and back then TV shows weren't serialized, so you don't need to have seen all the episodes before it to understand what's happening, you can just fire it up.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this on many major streamers here in the US, so if you have Prime without commercials, that may be the way to go; or if you don't, Tubi is the best out of the others when it comes to ad breaks. And also check out the podcast episode I did with Will from Exploding Helicopter on this one, number 213 in the archives. And finally, congratulations to Scott Adkins for his entry into the 30 Club, it was well-deserved, and the 40 and 50 Clubs await!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9669176

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!