The Shepherd Code has Alan Delabie (who also wrote, co-directed, produced, and action directed) as a guy who's known as the best in the elite bodyguarding world. That is, until he falls for the woman he's guarding, and she ends up dead! As he tracks down the killer, a jerkoff named Edson (Silvio Simac), his handler, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, has another job for him. But he's retired? Just one more job. So he takes it, shepherding a rich girl (Victoria Axensalva) through the UK, and as luck would have it, Edson is the jerkoff who wants to kill this girl too, so Delabie can protect her and get his revenge all in one go. It's really convenient, like steam-in-bag veggies.
What do you want me to say about this one? It's close to being one of those Samurai Cop/Miami Connection kind of deals, but considering the earnestness with which Delabie tries to pull this off, it's kind of endearing. The Wilson is scant, and that may be the thing that hurts it the most, but who knows how much time they got him for. I think the thing that both hurts it, and makes it fun in a Samurai Cop kind of way, is the holes in the plot. Like near the end Delabie and Axensalva are walking in the woods to meet the baddie, and she stops to tie her shoe, and he just keeps walking, leaving her behind, which causes him to lose her and the baddies to find her. How is the best bodyguard in the world that oblivious to where the person he's guarding is? It's like a parent in the 80s forgetting their kid at Chuck E. Cheese's. There's something so Continental European guy who's totally full of himself and doesn't care about anyone else about it. But again, does that kind of thing make it worse or better? It depends on your outlook, but if you're up for it, it is only 79 minutes long.
It's been almost 2 years since we last saw Don "The Dragon" Wilson on the site, and that review was another with scant Wilson, Scorpion King IV. I was looking at his bio on IMDb, and there is a bunch of stuff he has out now that I can do, like Diamond Cartel, which Ty has told me I need to watch, and Hitman Agency, which are both on Tubi. He's an interesting one, because he was at 39 movies, but we discovered IMDb had added films to his filmography that he wasn't actually in, like The Siege of Firebase Gloria, which meant he ended up losing tags. Now we have him at 38 films, so he's within striking distance again. We're also close to our 1300th post, so I figured we'd tie the two together to make it into a Wilson celebration. Who better to celebrate than one of the all-time greats? He's the reason Ty and I watched this, and he'll be the reason I do the sequel that's listed on IMDb. With guys this great, you gotta watch them all, and I've got some catching up to do.
Our hero of this passion piece/vanity project is Alan Delabie. If you go on his IMDb page, he has a series of fake magazine covers saying he's the best dressed man in the world. Let's not get carried away here, Alan. For me, I think Delabie would be great in a film helmed by Wilson as a member of his team. Give him a couple nice fight scenes, establish he's a dependable member of Wilson's crew, and maybe wrap with a death where he gets shot or stabbed--or both--and Wilson lifts his head off the ground and says "don't die on me man!" to which Delabie chokes out "finish the job!" then croaks. Maybe Wilson gets a little misty-eyed, but then nods, sets his head down, and moves onto the next scene. Could Delabie do that? Maybe direct and action direct some films where Wilson is the lead and he's a supporting character? I doubt it, so we'll see what the sequel to this looks like--at the very least, hopefully his best bodyguard in the world character will learn to pay attention when the person he's being paid to guard is tying their shoe!
In all these movies, I find someone with a smaller role to root for, and in this case it was "Rachel the Waitress" played by Natasha Killip. This poor young woman works as a server in a local cafe that looks more like a rec center, and is stuck dating a jerk who is so bad, she finds herself hitting on Delabie and complementing him on his jacket, which causes said boyfriend to crack foxy with Delabie, and get his ass kicked for his troubles. Later, when a bigger jerkoff, Edson, arrives, her jerkoff boyfriend can't help himself, and Edson kills that ass. Just trying to make it as a server in a cafe, she doesn't need all that BS, but maybe Edson did her a favor. I saw on IMDb that a sequel to this is coming, and Rachel the Waitress is in it, which I think is great, but maybe Delabie could get with the times and call her "Rachel the Server." Just a thought, but here's to you Rachel the Waitress, you're one of the great ones.
Finally, in our never ending saga over streamers, this film is only free on Tubi, which most of the time is a great deal, but when I went to get images for the review, Tubi had rolled out new features that disabled others, namely the search bar and My List. Normally that's not a big deal, because I could find this somewhere else, but it's not on anything else for free. The way I managed to get the movie qqueues up on Tubi was by clicking the link through the Letterboxd page. For low-budget indie filmmakers out there, let this be another lesson: try to get your films on multiple streamers, because you don't know when the one your movie's on will be down. I guess we can score another one for physical media.
But by the same token, Tubi will be fixed eventually, and you can get this on there for free. This is a fun one in the Miami Connection vein, but also gets you that much closer to being a Wilson completists, and who doesn't want that? Apparently a lot of people, because it doesn't have a lot of Letterboxd reviews, and we're only the second IMDb critic review. Oh, and Ty has watched it as well, because he and I covered it on episode 167 in the archives.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27419829
And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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