Private Wars (1993)

For our PM flick this month, we're looking at Steve Railsback's one film for them, because who doesn't want to see what Railsback's up to in a PM actioner? And to prove that point further, this has also been covered by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Matt Spector at Bulletproof, Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List, plus Jon Cross reviewed it on Letterboxd, so I'm a little late to the party.

Private Wars has Railsback as a cop who's sufficiently on the edge, which leads to corrupt chief Michael Champion getting him booted off the force, which leads him to get a job as a PI and crawl into a bottle of liquor. But he's called back into action when an old friend's neighborhood is being terrorized by a gang of toughs. Something about this seems off though, why are these toughs so well organized? Enter The Ben Gazzara in Road House-ish Stuart Whitman, a land developer who wants to scare everyone out and develop the neighborhood on his own. Not only does he have Champion in his pocket, but his hatchet man is none other than James Lew. Is Railsback going to dry up enough to take all these baddies down?

This was a lot of fun. It was like PM's take on the off-beat action comedy, which ended up being perfect for Railsback, but also perfect for the too sweet van flip in the opening chase scene. I mean, that thing jumped higher than Lorenzo Lamas in Viper aka Bad Blood jumping over a car. I don't know what I'd expect a PM version of the off-beat action comedy to be, but this felt like it, and while we didn't get anything as fantastic as "Sweet Freedom," this also had a pretty nice soundtrack too. It did have some jokes that fell flat a bit though, like when Railsback initially turns down the request to help, the community auditions people to help, and the bit that follows is cringe-y at best, and doesn't age well at worst. Still, the action is exactly what we want from PM, especially the three-headed end fight scene, and with Railsback's fun lead, this has a lot to hang its hat on. That begs the question though, what do we do with the PM version of the off-beat action comedy? In terms of ranking, maybe top 30? Which, when you're talking about a studio with the output of PM, top 30 means you're going to enjoy your 90 minutes, you just may not have a classic on your hands. I think that's okay, not everything needs to be a classic, sometimes a fun 90 minutes does the trick. (Oh, and speaking of Lamas, scenes of him from CIA: Code Name Alexa appear on a TV, so he gets another tag, putting him three away from the coveted 40 Club!)

We're now at six Steve Railsback movies, but this is the first one where he was the lead, and I think a lot of it worked. I don't know if I see Railsback in a Recoil or Art of Dying, but for this role he nailed it--and nailed it better than some of the bits we get. I mean I guess who else plays a good drunk, but somehow can also beat up a bunch of bikers, then take on Vince Murdocco and John Salvitti in a fight in a holding cell? When his character's making love to Holly Floria, who is 20 years his junior, while his best friend is getting beaten to death, the demerits that we would give another hero don't stick to Railsback, it's like he can't help himself, but when the chips are down, he's ready with a pump action shotgun. In PM world, that's often all you need, and all the James Lews and Stuart Whitmans need to watch out when he does. He's got a decent amount of stuff out there that we still need to do, and some of it looks pretty good, so hopefully we'll see more Railsback on here soon, because he was a lot of fun in this one.

The late Michael Champion feels like he was created in a lab in Canada to be the perfect baddie in a syndicated TV show or Canadian city passing for an American city movie production, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that he was a Yank from Indiana, and had a long history before the 90s in American TV shows. I mean you look at him here, and it feels like he was plucked right off a Da Vinci Inquest set, even though he never did that show, or any show like it! Wonders never cease, huh? I mean, yes, his pre-90s stuff like Beverly Hills Cop he makes more sense as an American, and in Total Recall he was the recipient of the infamous "look who's talkin' " line, so I'd be forgiven for not recognizing him there, but I think post-The Swordsman he pivots into a full-on syndicated TV/DTV actioner look that feels like it was created in a lab in Alberta or Saskatchewan. We unfortunately lost him in 2021, but in the 90s he was a force that made movies like this just a bit better. Here's to you Michael Champion, you were one of the great ones.

As you can see, there are a lot of other names in this. First off, Art Camacho is now at 59 movies, as he plays the guy in the holding cell that Vince Murdocco beats up. Maybe for next month's PM flick we can do one he directed to celebrate him entering the 60 Club. And then we had stunt team Red Horton and "Broadway" Joe Murphy, with Horton listed as stunt coordinator and action director, but Murphy listed as a second unit director as well. They had some fantastic stuff in this, so kudos to them. Then we had James Lew and his too sweet mullet coming in with his 21st film on the site, which means he could be getting some Hall of Fame consideration; and Vince Murdocco with his 12th movie on the site, which I think when you're talking Vince Murdocco, that's not bad at all. Murdocco and John Salvitti team up with Railsback at the end to create the three-headed end fight scene I mentioned above. What happens is, Whitman calls in two out of town specialists who do a great job showing off how well they can use martial arts weapons, and each of them fight Murdocco and Salvitti, while Railsback fights Lew. What a beautiful way to make the most of the martial artists you have at your disposal, another win in the PM column.

Finally, is that a McDonald's in the background there? It looks like the Golden Arches, doesn't it? This is in the opening chase, and it's looped multiple times, so I got a lot of looks at it, but couldn't tell for sure. If it's not a McDonald's, it looks so similar that a McDonald's representative may have contacted them about it. Could it be a McDowell's kind of thing, but maybe like a gentleman's club? I love the idea of that, opening up a gentleman's club called McDowell's or whatever, using a sign that looks Golden Arches-esque, but people thinking they're getting fast food are getting exotic dancers and two drink minimums instead. "God, I don't want a private dance, I just wanted a couple double cheeseburgers!" Anyway, until we know for sure, I'm erring on the side of yes, which means this is the 22nd time McDonald's has appeared on the site. Are we going to have to induct McDonald's into the DTVC Hall of Fame? I don't even know how we do that, but I guess we'll see when we get there. (And yes, that is a man hanging off the front of that van. And I know, that means I've seen so many of these PM films that a man hanging off the front of a van is so commonplace that I'm more concerned about whether or not that's a McDonald's in the background.)

All right, with that, let's wrap this up. As far as I know, YouTube is the best way to watch this, and the version on there isn't bad. You can find it on my PM Entertainment YouTube playlist, and while you're there, why not subscribe to our channel? It's been a while since I've posted a new original video, but every podcast episode is on there.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107879/

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

To Be the Best (1993)

In 2026 I've decided to start something that I started last month without realizing I was starting it, and that's reviewing one PM for the first post of every month. That means we'll have at least 12 PM flicks reviewed this year. Not a bad deal, and I figured for our first one I'd do one I'd been meaning to do forever, which also has an exploding helicopter, so I can tick that off the list too. In addition to us, the PM Podcast covered this, plus Toyman at Bulletproof, and Karl Brezdin at First of the B-List.

To Be the Best is about a kickboxing/martial arts tournament, where the US team is one of many entrants, and their biggest competitor is the Thai team, composed of residents from the Bangkok Chinatown. The coach of the US team is former disgraced fighter Rick Kulhane (Martin Kove) and his two sons Sam (Phillip Troy Linger--and no, he didn't have to let it) and Eric (Michael Worth), who is the team's best fighter. The problem is the evil Alex Cord is hanging around, and he has $500,000 on the Thai team's best fighter Hong Do (Steven Vincent Leigh), and to make sure his bet comes in, he's threatening Eric's girlfriend (Brittney Powell). Will Eric throw the big fight?

This does exactly what you want PM to do, except the middle is a bit draggy, which we'll get to in a second. It starts with some underground fighting, where a man who's a cross between a poor man's Nick Vallelonga and a poor man's Johnny Roast Beef tries to get Worth to throw the fight, and when he doesn't, to show Worth he means business, he has his helicopter pilot take Worth for a ride, hanging him from a cord while he flies him around Vegas. The pilot gets a little too into it though, and crashes into one of the hotels, causing Worth to go flying into one of the suites. It's as amazing as it gets, only to be followed up in the next scene by another underground fight in LA that gets broken up by the police, leading to a two-pronged chase with one set of cops chasing some guys in a white car, and another chasing Linger (which he didn't have to let it) on a dirt bike. The problem was, the movie couldn't keep that kind of energy up, and things bog down a bit with some sparring montages, broken up by a nice bowling alley fight, and then it's just a tournament film, until the end, which is another fantastic group of great action set pieces to finish things off. I think where that leaves us, is this is a great time, and while it's maybe only a top 30 PM flick for me, that's still going to be a fun way to spend your 90 minutes.

We're now at 54 PM films, and this is one of those ones where you'd think it would've been done sooner, but for some reason it kept getting pushed back, and I think the only reason I bumped it up to now is the fact that it has an exploding helicopter, so I can chip away at my paltry number on Exploding Helicopter's Letterboxd list. And what a thing of beauty that helicopter explosion is, and while the movie isn't able to maintain that energy throughout, the fact that had it at all is why we come to PM films. This is also number 58 for Art Camacho, who's not only fight coordinator, but he plays one of the US team as a character named "Runt"--which at no point is that expounded upon, that's just the name they gave him. Definitely in 2026 he'll be our fourth member of the 60 Club. We're also seeing Martin Kove again for the first time since VFW in 2024. He's at 19 now, so we'll see if we get him past 20 this year. And then for our stunt coordinators, this film features the duo of Red Horton and "Broadway" Joe Murphy, with the former as second-unit director, and the latter stunt coordinator. They're at 17 and 16 films respectively, which I think are numbers we'll see get bigger as we do more PM flicks.

Two names that are finally getting tags are Michael Worth and Vince Murdocco. Neither have big numbers--five for Worth, 11 for Murdocco--but they both were such a big part of 90s DTV action, especially these PM flicks, that the tagging was overdue--especially if Ian Jacklin's been tagged, because they inhabit a similar space, though to Jacklin's credit, he has more tags than either of them with 13. Worth is the star in this one, and I think there's a sense that maybe PM was positioning him to do more stuff like this, but this ended up being his last film with them, I think due to him making Fists of Iron, which I believe no one that worked on that other than Art Camacho did another film for PM--Matthias Hues hadn't worked with them before, and Richard Munchkin only did some LA Heat and Hollywood Safari episodes. Murdocco is something else. Just saying "it also has Murdocco" evokes a sense of a certain kind of low-budget 90s actioner, and while that movie is often also a PM film, after 1994's Magic Kid II, he doesn't do any other films for them either, but he also wasn't a part of Fists of Iron, so I don't know if it was due to any kind of issues with PM. They may just not have had a place for him as they moved into different movies and got bigger names. I guess I get it, but how could you not have a place for Murdocco?

What the hell is going on in that image below? Are we looking at a potential 10.0 Mulletude mullet? Sure, the business on top is a little more manager at a hardware store business than you'd want, but the party in the back is almost Sunset Strip hair band rager--probably more like backstage afterparty at a Midwestern tour stop for a hair band, and maybe not the headliner like Poison, but an opening band like Trixter or Hurricane--but I'm quibbling on something that at least has to be a 9.8 on the Mulletude scale, and spending way too much time explaining why I'm deducting two tenths of a point, instead of basking the beauty that is that fantastic ape drape. And the thing is, it comes at a time when I'm not sure what's happening with this movie because it's mired in a bunch of fights and intrigue around Alex Cord being a dick, but then I finally get my shot of the Vegas Strip McDonald's so I can tag that, and then boom, I'm hit in the face that with Hall of Fame caliber mullet, and it's just all Tiger Woods on the 18th hole birdie fist pumps from there. I went back through our old posts, and saw that I gave the Barbarian Brothers a 9.8 for their mullets in Double Trouble, and I guess that's because they're more workman-like and added to the overall Barbarian Brothers charm, but that means I either need to go back and drop that rating, or bring this one up a tad. 9.9 sounds too high for this mullet, even as amazing as it is, so maybe the Barbarians need to go down to 9.5 or so.

Finally, one of the elements running through the film is Martin Kove's character's love of the LA Raiders. I'm sure it was just tossed in, but based on his character's age and when the team moved from Oakland, it wouldn't make a lot of sense that he'd root for them, unless there was some kind of quirk in his character or special unique reason for it, neither of which was mentioned. Being born in the late 40s, if he's from LA he'd have grown up with the LA Rams as his team, because the Oakland Raiders didn't move to LA until 1980, when he would've been in his 30s. To give you a history of NFL football in LA would give you a popsicle headache, but if you're not familiar with the league, you could look the NFL up on Wikipedia and find there are no Raiders in LA, the two LA teams are the Rams and the Chargers, but there is a Las Vegas Raiders. Two years after this film was released, the Raiders went back to Oakland, one year after the Rams moved to St. Louis, leaving the second largest city in the US without an NFL team, until the Rams moved back to LA in 2016, and the San Diego Chargers moved to LA one year later; and then in 2020 the Raiders moved from Oakland to Las Vegas. (I'm sorry, I said I wasn't going to get into it, and I did anyway, so hopefully the popsicle headache wasn't too horrible.) My point is, Kove's character should've been a Rams fan, but it's kind of more PM-ish that he rooted for the Raiders instead.

And with that, let's wrap this up. The Roku Channel has this, but when I watched it the audio wasn't synched, so I watched it on YouTube instead, which was fine. However you watch it, it's a solid addition to your PM experience, and one you should definitely check out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108346

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Ice (1994)

Recently Will from Exploding Helicopter mentioned his Lettrboxd list of films that have exploding helicopters in them (one of the best Letterboxd lists in my opinion) and I was sitting at a paltry 23% of them watched--of which 10% of those are Dolph and Daniels movies. In an effort to get some more of those films in, I'm doing one of the four PM flicks with exploding helicopters that I haven't watched yet. Also, this is a superfecta movie, because in addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action, Ty and Brett and Comeuppance, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this too.

Ice has Traci Lords as the wife in a husband and wife duo who rob ne'er-do-wells for insurance companies. They're hired to rob crime boss Vito Malta (Jorge Rivero), but then when her husband (Phillip Troy Linger) decides to keep the diamonds, all hell breaks loose. He gets the crazy grinchy idea of having Lords's estranged brother (Zach Galligan) fence them, but he's a mess and only gets them taken by a rival crime boss. When her husband is killed in a shootout, it looks like the only person Lords can trust is a local detective (Jaime Alba), who may or may not have a thing for her. Will she make it out alive?

This is a good ol' PM time. It starts with a robbery that was edited from the robbery in Ring of Fire II, which is why Evan Lurie is tagged--though not Ian Jacklin, even though I think he's in the scene too. Just tack on a little Michael Bailey Smith, and it's a totally different scene, right? From there, you have a great lead in Lords mixed with all the great PM moments you want, with exploding cars, that exploding helicopter I mentioned above, and a shootout at a semi-pro hockey game where multiple players are killed. Can you imagine, you grew up in the Northeast or Minnesota or Michigan or something like that, played some hockey in high school, move out to LA, and make it onto this semi-pro hockey team, only to be shot and killed by some mafiosos trying to get a bag of diamonds. Only in the world of PM, but it's such a sweet world, and we're happy to be living in it for 90 minutes.

We're now at 53 PM flicks on the site, which sounds like a lot, but I don't even think that's half-way through them all. It had been a while since we'd last done one, and in watching this I realized that was a mistake, I should be watching and reviewing at least one PM flick a month, because they're so good for the soul. We start with that opening robbery, which, as I mentioned above, was lifted from Ring of Fire II, but thinking about it from PM's standpoint, they'd think "how many people would've seen both of these movies, and then if they did, how would they be able to let everyone else know?" I mean, what was it in 1994, a BBS? Would there have even been a PM Entertainment BBS? I certainly wasn't looking for that kind of thing, I was asking my buddy to get all the moves to Mortal Kombat II--I remember how popular I was going to the arcade with the printout, complete with the sides of the paper that had the holes in it, showing everyone there the moves. So while I'm trying to do Mileena's Friendly, PM is laughing all the way to the bank after repurposing a robbery scene, and only thirty years later are we picking up on it, and we actually appreciate the ingenuity. It's all part of the PM charm, which is on full display in this one.

Art Camacho did fight choreography, making this his 57th film on the site, only three away from becoming the fourth member of the 60 Club. I think we have seven more of his PM collaborations left to do, but it's hard to know because he did so many different things for them, he might have other credits I didn't see when I scanned IMDb. And then for stunt coordinators, we had the team of Red Horton and "Broadway" Joe Murphy, one of the top PM teams along with Spiro Razatos and Cole S. McKay. I looked, and they should have 17 and 15 tags respectively, so I've taken care of that. That combination of Camacho with Horton and Murphy give us the action quotient we expect from PM, with some great shootouts, plus car flips and the helicopter explosion; and some great fight scenes, especially with Traci Lords. To complete the PM feel, we have Ken Blakey as DP/cinematographer. He makes sure the movie has the PM look we've come to know and love. We spoke above about how if you watch a lot of PM flicks, you notice things like them reusing scenes from previous movies, but also, this consistency with the look and the action creates this comfort food vibe, when you see that PM logo before the film starts, it's like smelling that burger on the grill at your favorite burger joint, and the first flipped car or person sent through a glass window is that first, juicy bite. Is that the best metaphor for PM? They're the Double-Double Animal Style of movie studios?

We're now at 5 movies for Traci Lords, three of which are PM flicks. Like the last one we talked about from her, A Time to Die, she's the star, and does a great job leading the film. Also like that film, it's kind of crazy to see her in her early 20s acting opposite these men who are ten and twenty years older than her, and not only holding her own, but in some cases making it look like these guys aren't in her league. There was a definite It Factor there that I guess never quite materialized, but in the early-to-mid 90s she had some great DTV stuff, much of which we still need to get to. Among the other names, I thought this was only our second Zach Galligan film, after Cyborg III: The Recycler, but I forgot he was also in Point Doom (directed by Art Camacho), and Storm Trooper (which if you haven't checked, has a great IMDb critics review page. Four reviews, ours, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and The Schlock Pit. Where are the guys from Comeuppance on that one?) He's great as the scam artist brother who's always getting into stuff. Michael Bailey Smith is here for his 8th time. Always great to see him, and it was also great that the new Fantastic Four movie gave him a cameo considering his great work as the Thing in the Corman version. Finally, Evan Lurie gets a 12th tag from his archive footage appearance in the Ring of Fire II robbery scene. It looks like we have one more movie for him, Death Game aka Mortal Challenge, and then we'll have his entire filmography covered.

Finally, we have a classic Taco Bell logo sighting. It was across the street from the hockey rink Zach Galligan kept the missing diamonds in. Here in Philly it's one of the few fast food places still in Center City, so I enjoy grabbing something there while I'm running errands. When this movie came out though, we had a location in the Fox Run Mall in Newington, NH, and back then you could get hard shell tacos for $.49 a piece. With a $10 allowance, I could do 4 tacos, and still had over $7 left to play Mortal Kombat until my parents or my friends' parents came to pick me up. It still is a pretty good deal, for $6 I can get three hard shell tacos, and while I was comparing PM to In-N-Out Burger, I like that I can swap the ground beef for black beans and remove the cheese for one of the few vegan fast food options. Add in some fire sauce and it's a nice slice of all right. As far as the Fox Run Mall, it's slated for demolition early next year, but I was able to go in one last time and get some pictures.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Plex or the Roku Channel here in the States, which I think is a good way to go. A fun PM flick, plus you can check another film with an exploding helicopter off your list. What's not to love?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107182

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

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!

Steel Frontier (1995)

This is one I discussed on episode 3 of Jon Cross's PM Entertainment Podcast, which was a really fun conversation, and now we're finally giving it a review here. In addition to us and the PM Podcast, Chad Cruise at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Outlaw Vern, Tom Jolliffe at Flickering Myth, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this as well.

Steel Frontier takes place six years ago, after the apocalypse, where the world is a big Mad Max-ish mess, and a horrible conqueror (Brion James) has gathered up a bunch of baddies and taken over all the peaceful tire farming towns in the LA County area. Is there any hope? Sure, as is often the case, a heroic lone drifter comes into town (Joe Lara). He starts off by joining the gang, and then does a bit of a Yojimbo move to get Brion James's gang to kill each other. Will he eventually succeed? And in true PM fashion, will he require a lot of explosions and car chases to do so?

This one jumped to number 9 on my all-time PM list (which you can find on the DTVC Letterboxd), that's how much I enjoyed it, and Jon felt the same way. This is PM doing the Italian late-80s Mad Max exploitation flick, but doing it in true PM style. The exploitation comes in the form of violence, with explosions and car chases, which is nice because we don't get the usual sexual assault or other sexual exploitation the Italian films liked to do. We get some great Joe Lara as the lead, Brion James is a fantastic baddie, and the addition of Bo Svenson as James's second-in-command was solid too. From there you get all the beautiful PM action goodness you expect when you see the PM logo on the spine of your VHS, including this massive chimney explosion that the IMDb trivia says is the largest PM ever pulled off--and that's saying a lot considering this is PM we're talking about! PM gets it right again, and we're all better for it.

Out of all the Joe Lara films I've seen--which isn't that many, he's only at 8 now on the site--this is my favorite. He's everything you want in the roguish, Western hero, and we can't wait to see him enter this town and take out James and all his baddies. Another place where this movie deviated from the late 80s Italian films is they didn't do the whole "hero captured and tortured by the baddies, then he recovers and gets his revenge" penultimate act, which was refreshing for me. While I liked Hologram Man better as a film overall, this is the better Lara film for sure, and it's too bad he didn't get more roles like this. By my count, we have 7 or 8 more of his films that we could review, and I don't know how many of those we'll actually cover because they look hard to track down, so he may top out at around 12 movies, and I think that's okay considering how good a job he does here.

PM is closing in on the 50 Club at the DTVC, we're only one away now, and this is one I probably could've used for that milestone, but I didn't want to wait on it too long after the PM podcast episode was released. That's okay, I think there are some great candidates for the big 5-0, there's no shortage of fantastic PM flicks. What makes this one so good, is it's their take on this post-apocalyptic/Mad Max subgenre, and they successfully make it the PM version, they never get away from what they were best at. In the PM Podcast episode, Jon interviews both Paul Volk and Jacobson Hart, and they give great insights on what made this work. Hart in particular talked about how PM didn't do sexual exploitation, that their "exploitation cinema" was the action, and they nail it, especially with two great chase scenes, and that aforementioned chimney explosion. When you see PM on the spine, or listed under company credits if you look a movie up after seeing the thumbnail on a streaming site, you expect a certain level of fun, low-budget action, and this one delivers on that in a way that exceeded even those expectations.

Part of why this works so well is the stunt team PM puts together. The stunt coordinator/second-unit director is Michael J. Sarna, who has done a bunch of other PM flicks--including my personal number two all-time from them, The Sweeper, where he was stunt coordinator under Spiro Razatos as action director--plus the David Bradley classic Hard Justice, and a personal video store mainstay of mine, The Perfect Tenant--which I can't believe I haven't covered yet! In addition to him, we have 50 Club member Art Camacho, and soon to be inducted 50 Club Member Cole S. McKay, plus "Broadway" Joe Murphy sans his stunt coordinating partner Red Horton. And as if all those names weren't enough, we have stunt legend Kane Hodder as one of Brion James's gang, though not credited as doing any stunt work. Guess with all the PM names they had they were able to let him take a break on this one! This is part of the PM magic, let these great stunt names do their thing, and the result is this high-octane alchemy that was the secret to their success.

Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Brian Huckeba's "Chicken Boy" role. As Jon pointed out, this was a kind of character that showed up in Ozploitation films that this movie is in the tradition of, and Huckeba goes all in on his performance. It just makes things that much more fun and memorable, and with low-budget filmmaking every little bit helps. When the guys at Comeuppance reviewed this, Huckeba commented on it, and if you listen to the PM Podcast episode, Jon interviews him in addition to Paul Volk and Jacobson Hart, and he gives Jon some great jewels when recalling his experience on set. It would be easy for Huckeba to look at this part as a one-off in his career, maybe something he shows his family 30 years later so they can all have some laughs, but the fact that he's still this enthusiastic about this part today is great to see. It's more fun for us to embrace it if the people involved are embracing it too.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi, Prime, the Roku Channel, and Fawesome here in the States. That's a great way to catch this, but also if you see it in the wild on VHS, pick it up. And if you haven't yet, subscribe and listen to the PM Entertainment Podcast on your favorite podcatcher. Jon is delivering the PM podcast we've wanted for years, you need to check it out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114537/

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Magic Kid (1993)

I knew I needed to get more PM on the site, and I also knew I was two movies away from getting Don "The Dragon" into the 40 Club, so I figured this wouldn't be a bad one to cover. Luckily it was on YouTube, because what Pluto lists as this one, is actually the sequel. In addition to us, Chris DePetrillo at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Magic Kid has Ted Jan Roberts as a 13-year-old martial arts prodigy from Michigan who, with his sister (Shonda Whipple), goes to LA to stay with their uncle (Stephen Furst) and his girlfriend (Sandra Kerns) when their parents (Lauren Tewes and Chris Mitchum) need to get rid of them for a few weeks. Turns out Uncle Flounder's an alcoholic inveterate gambler who's into mob boss Joe Campanella for 10 large, but when they come to collect, Roberts beats the crap out of them. Now the mob is out for blood, so upstanding Uncle Flounder has them running around LA while he figures out what to do, subjecting Roberts's 15-year-old sister to all kinds of adult males hitting on her, and needing Roberts to get them out of various jams. Who knows, maybe The Dragon can help?

This is as ridiculous as it sounds, but has this nice amount of PM that gets it over the goal line. Maybe not as many explosions or car flips, but plenty of fight scenes, where Roberts takes all manner of stunt guys and kicks, punches, and throws them into bodies of water, through panes of glass, and over balconies--and among those stunt guys we have Red Horton and Broadway Joe Murphy, the stunt coordinating team responsible for PM classics Zero Tolerance and T-Force, so it was nice to see Roberts throw them into pools or off balconies too. We also had Art Camacho as not only fight choreographer, but he played Roberts's sensei and hosted the tournament in "Michigan" that led the movie. There were some odd parts about the film, like how it was normalized that adult men were hitting on a 15-year-old girl, or how much of a degenerate Furst's character was despite being responsible for a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old, but when you see that PM logo, and see Wilson appearing as a version of himself, combined with Roberts as a fun hero, it just kinda works.

We're officially at 39 films for Wilson on the site. I say "officially" because we'd had to remove a couple tags due to some erroneous IMDb credits that have since disappeared. Part of the reason why he's taken a little longer than other DTV stars to hit that mark, is, like myself, he went on a bit of a hiatus, only the end of his in 2015 happened to coincide with the start of mine. Even as we're catching up, none of those newer ones other than New York Ninja really feature him in the lead the way his 90s stuff did, and while this movie only has him in a small part in the beginning--appearing in Roberts's dream no less--a smaller part in the middle, and then a nice fight sequence with Roberts at the end, it's more what his character represents here, that 90s action star that we all loved watching, and whose stuff from that time is still iconic. For all of us, he'll always be "The Dragon," and it was great to see him as "The Dragon" in this.

This is our third Ted Jan Roberts film on the site, after Hollywood Safari (which also has Wilson, and at that time was the last of his known DTV films that I had to review) and A Dangerous Place, so out of his six PM flicks, we're half-way through. It's interesting how PM tried to split the difference with him here. They had a young, martial arts prodigy, and at the same time there was this spate of martial arts films directed at kids, so they must've thought the mix was gold, the only problem was, PM weren't great alchemists. They tried to make Roberts the hero in a kids movie, but they didn't know how to pull it off tonally. For example, I mentioned adult males hitting on Shonda Whipple's character, who, even though in real life she was 19--which was weird enough for guys in their 30s to be hitting on her--was supposed to be 15. In one scene a bunch of surfers on Santa Monica Pier are hitting on her, and Sandra Kerns says "guys, the lady said no." What? "The lady said no"? The lady is 15! How about that be the reason they need to back off? There's another scene where Uncle Flounder has the kids sleeping on the beach to avoid the mob. And he even had the audacity to expect them to share a sleeping bag while he had his own. They refuse to let him get away with that at least, and force him to sleep without a sleeping bag, but still, it was a rough deal. And just the whole premise, a man who's almost 40 expecting a 13-year-old to beat up adult mob bosses that are after him for betting money he didn't have. I don't know that they got much better at this by 1997's Hollywood Safari either, but I think it's fascinating just the same that they were trying it.

Speaking of the 40 Club, we had two other members in this film, PM Entertainment in their 45th film on the site, and Art Camacho in his 54th. Also, this was directed by Joseph Merhi, the 13th film he's directed on the site, moving him into a four-way tie for third most among directors. What was interesting though were the other stars. Lauren Tewes as the mother was great. What a great get to have Julie, our cruise director, in a PM flick! Also I see that she was born in Braddock, PA, which is where John Fetterman was mayor, someone who is now known for one of the great heel-turns in politics. And then we had Stephen Furst, aka Flounder from Animal House, as the uncle. He does his best here, but because things were so tonally all over the place, it was a tough sled. Despite that, he came back to direct the sequel one year later. Finally, for Charles in Charge fans, we had Sandra Kerns, who never made another film after this, instead focusing on raising her kids in Pacific Pallisades. I guess if this was it for her acting career, this isn't a horrible way to go out.

Finally, we usually dedicate this paragraph to something silly or offbeat about me personally, but considering this film was shot in LA, I think it's important to mention the wildfires and the people affected--including potentially Sandra Kerns, if she and her family still live in Pacific Pallisades, we hope they're all okay. We watch so many films, especially from the 90s, that were shot in LA, it's a part of the world that for decades has invited us into the space where they live for our entertainment, but times like these remind us that people make their homes there, and like any of us, take for granted that that home will always be there. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by these fires, and hope everyone is okay. And God forbid you do need to evacuate, for God's sake, leave your keys in your car in case Steven Guttenberg needs to move it. For people reading who want to help, this CNBC article shows you charities that have been vetted, and how to spot scams: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/09/california-wildfire-relief-where-to-give.html

And with that, let's wrap this up. YouTube is your best bet right now, unless you can find a cheap DVD or VHS. This is more for PM or Don "The Dragon" Completists, of which I'm a card-carrying member of both, and if you are too, or either just one or the other, this will get you to the church on time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107482

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Ruthless (2023)

Back in June Ty from Comeuppance and I looked at this on the pod as part of our Dermot Mulroney double feature. We were excited about the prospect of a film called "Ruthless" that stars him and is directed by Art Camacho. When we got stuck in on it though, we discovered it had more "ruth" than we expected.

Ruthless stars Mulroney as a high school wrestling coach whose daughter was killed by a guy she was on a date with. Trying to pick up the pieces, he discovers one of the kids trying out for his team, Catia (Melissa Diaz), might be getting abused at home. So he pays her a visit and breaks her stepfather's (Mauricio Mendoza) arms and hands, thinking that'll solve the problem. Normally it would, but in the world of 2020s DTV, everything leads to a sex trafficking ring, and this is no different, as Catia's stepfather sells her to some group led by Jeff Fahey that operates this overly elaborate thing out of Vegas. Mulroney knows he's the only thing that stands between Catia being sold to some buyer overseas, so he gets in his SUV and breaks as many arms and legs as he can to get her back.

As Ty and I saw it, this suffered in three ways. First, Mulroney's character wasn't that likeable. I think they were going for the tough-love coach kind of thing, but he just seemed like a jerk to Catia. Second, the whole trafficking thing was too convoluted. When he gets to Vegas and infiltrates the baddies, he has to create an account and sign in? Is he making a purchase from a sex trafficking ring, or signing up for a loyalty account for his local cafe? And finally, the breaking bones thing was kind of not "ruthless." When you call a movie "ruthless," for us as the audience, we're looking for a killing spree. We come from the world of PM and Cannon, where guys get set on fire and kicked out of windows. Mick Fleetwood taking one between the eyes from Robert Patrick in a Vegas casino. C. Thomas Howell tossing Ed Lauter out of a biplane. Chuck Norris blowing up Richard Lynch with a rocket launcher. That shit's "ruthless." None of that works the same if the hero just breaks their arms. There were some positives though. Camacho's direction was solid, Mulroney's lead was enough to let us know that he could do this in more DTV actioners, and I also liked Melissa Diaz as Catia. I think as a Hulu time-waster you could do a lot worse, it just needed to be more to live up to its name.

This is now 53 tags for Art Camacho on the site, which is third all-time behind Dolph and Daniels; plus this is his 12th director tag, which puts him in a six-way tie for fourth all-time in that category, and four back of Fred Olen Ray for second-most. As his directed films goes, this is well behind Recoil, which for me is his best, but I think from there it's better than most. What hurts this film isn't his ability as a director, in fact I think that's what gives this a level of quality that keeps it from being a full-on miss. Maybe if this is called "The Wrestling Coach" it's not saddled with the expectations of what "Ruthless" should be, but even then the plot has holes in it that hurt it, and I don't know that as a director he was going to overcome that. As a fan of his work for a long time, we came into this with high expectations, but I also think it shouldn't be overlooked that he's directed a film that doesn't look out of place with the other DTV actioners on Hulu, like Wanted Man or Section 8, which is fantastic to see, especially knowing how much work he's put into getting to this point. Here's to you Mr. Camacho, 90s action wouldn't be what it is without you, and congratulations on the success you're seeing with this one, it's well-deserved.

Mitch at The Video Vacuum in his review of one of Cinema Epoch's Emmanuel-titled flicks complained that you can't name a movie "Emmanuel" and not have nudity--there's an expectation there that that name carries with it. I think the same is true of the title "Ruthless." I mean, look at that cover, a grimacing Mulroney putting a gun into the jacket of a well-tailored suit, with the tagline "One by one. He'll X them out." It's like it's setting up for a remake of Zero Tolerance--and how amazing would that be? Fahey as one of the baddies, along with a group of other character actors, like maybe Eric Roberts and Michael Pare, and Mulroney being like "you killed my daughter, now I'm coming for all of you." Instead, this movie had too much ruth. No one was "X'd" out, there was no tailored suit and gun, no Fahey in a casino taking one between the eyes, or the guy from Bosch getting tossed out of a window. If anything though Mulroney's performance here told us he could do that, we just need to see it. Maybe he and Camacho can get a do-over and make a "Ruthless" that's sufficiently lacking in ruth.

The human trafficking thing is an en vogue topic, especially since it's achieved this Satanic Panic-level among many Conservative types. Middle class women all over America are posting warnings on their Facebook about suspicious people putting empty water bottles and pieces of cheese on their cars parked at the local Hobby Lobby or Michael's, looking to ensnare them in convoluted trafficking rings that don't actually exist. That doesn't mean human trafficking isn't a serious concern that needs to be addressed though, it just isn't this thing like we see in this movie where Mulroney goes into a fancy hotel room and makes an online account and bids on the girl he wants. That's where I think this could've worked better, is if it was closer to what human trafficking actually is. Like let's say Catia's stepfather still sells her to some shady type, and he tells her mother that she ran away. Fahey isn't some rich business guy, he's just some lowlife who moves her around and connects with people online who pay to sleep with her. And Mulroney's character knows the stepfather's lying about Catia running away, and he investigates--then goes on a killing spree to find her--I'm not saying it all needs to be realistic, but had they played it closer to reality, it wouldn't have been so convoluted. Also the way they felt they had to tie in the daughter's killing to the trafficking ring, why not just have her be killed by a creep she went on a date with? It diminishes the real and more common issue of women actually experiencing violence in situations like that that have nothing to do with fictitious trafficking rings--and it still would've been enough of a motivation for Mulroney to want to save Catia.

Finally, in the podcast episode I mentioned my friend in college who talked about the fact that you can be "ruthless," but you can't "have ruth." I've played with the word a bit as I've been talking about this movie, but it is an interesting quirk in the English language. "-less" suggests "without," but how can you be without something that can't exist on its own? I did some digging (looked it up on Quora), and it turns out "ruth," comes from the verb "rue," which makes more sense. There was a noun form of "rue" that looked like "rueth," then "ruth," and it was from that that "ruthless" was born. At some point I guess we dumped that noun form of "rue," because spellcheck doesn't like "ruth," just the name "Ruth," but "ruthless" survived. The thing is, to describe a movie called Ruthless that isn't "ruthless," we have to have the noun "ruth" to show the thing it's not lacking by not being "ruthless." Like if the film was called "Penniless" but Mulroney's character had money, we'd say "he wasn't lacking in pennies" to critique the movie. The other thing is, if "ruthless" comes from the noun "rue," could we use the homophone "roux" and have a movie where Mulroney is a chef out for revenge called "Rouxthless"?

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu. It's not horrible, and you may find it to be a fun time killer, it just doesn't live up to that title, tagline, and cover image. As far as the podcast episode, it's number 162 in the archives, "Dermot Double Feature," where we look at this and Lights Out, another film starring Mulroney.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14670094

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Gunfight at Rio Bravo (2023)

This is one Ty and I covered on the site back in episode 128 in June of last year. After Red Prophecies was kind of a dud for our "Casper Van Double Feature" episode, we decided to give Nevesky a second chance, and the fact that this had Gruner and Hues didn't hurt either. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has done this one as well.

Gunfight at Rio Bravo has Nevsky as Ivan Turchaninov, very loosely based on the real life Civil War general of the same name, who instead of retiring to Chicago as he did in real life, has instead taken up shop in a small town in "East Texas." When Marshal Olivier Gruner shows up with a very dangerous prisoner, Matthias Hues, he hopes to house him in the local jail while he takes a load off. Hues and his gang have other plans, and his gang lays siege to the town in order to get Hues out. As luck would have it, Nevsky just happens to be a Civil War hero--though he'll never tell you that, he'll let Gruner and others tell you just how amazing he is. Now with Nevsky as their secret weapon, Hues's gang won't know what hit them.

This is your standard Nevsky vanity joint. Who's the man? Nevsky's the man. Were you not sure? Don't worry, he'll tell you again--or rather, as I mentioned above, have other people in the cast tell you while he looks on with false modesty. Now, when you get beyond the Nevsky vanity project element, there are some nice features. Scant runtime of 80 minutes which is even less when you factor in the credit padding. Gruner is great, and similar to Van Dien in Showdown in Manila, he could've probably carried the proceedings on his own. We also have a great baddie in Hues, and just when you think the Destro Effect is going to kick in, he threatens to set a church full of innocent people on fire--but even then, I still kind of rooted for him as the baddie. Finally, Art Camacho's fight choreography gives this Western a taste of Millionaire's Express, which is a nice touch. And that's the paradox of the Nevsky vanity joint: the "look at how cool I am" element can be insufferable, but the talent he's able to gather can make it all worth it, and I think ultimately, especially factoring in the runtime, that's what happens here.

We're at 51 movies for Art Camacho now, but you can see why I wanted Chinatown Connection instead of this to celebrate his 50th on the site. I think he does more work in this film to make it as good as it is, so perhaps on his end he would've preferred this as his 50th post, but to see him in front of the camera was fun too--and I think overall Chinatown Connection is a more fun movie. (As an aside, do we know why "funner" isn't a word in English? or maybe it is, because spellcheck isn't giving me the red underline...) This was one of the films he's worked on that he posted behind the scenes shots of on his Instagram, which always makes me more interested to see the finished product. There are a lot of great fight choreographers out there, but Camacho is probably the best in the DTV action world, and he shows it again here.

We last saw Olivier Gruner here about 2 and 1/2 years ago when we did Sector 4: Extraction. He's one that tends to get lost in the shuffle, which is why I wanted to get another one of his films on here. He's at 24 now, which means the 30 Club is in the conversation, and based on the number of films of his we haven't done yet, it should happen. We don't get a lot of great Gruner action the way we would if this was strictly his vehicle, but what we get I think is good. I was looking through his IMDb bio, and while there are a bunch of new ones we could do, I think we have a few from the 90s and early 2000s where he's more the lead that we should make a priority of too. Either way, we should avoid going another 2+ years before we see Gruner on here again.

And then our third Hall of Famer is the great Matthias Hues, who is now at 20 films on the site--which, we don't have a "20 Club," but is kind of a milestone just the same. He's a fantastic baddie, and one thing I like is how he's transitioned his baddie as his career has progressed. Early on, it was about his imposing figure coupled with his elite athleticism. I think only Dolph and Michael Jai White have that unique combination of size and athleticism Hues has, and in those 90s actioners he was in, he really made those movies special when he was in them as a baddie. Now that he's older, the athleticism is less of an element, but his personality and screen presence is so great that it more than makes up for it, so he still cuts an imposing baddie. Unlike Gruner, it's actually only been a few months or so since we last saw Hues, and with all the stuff he's been doing, I imagine we'll see him again soon.

Finally, I am in no way an expert on Texas, I've only been twice, once to San Antonio in 2009--which incidentally was during the H1N1 flu scare, and I remember going to the Alamo and a woman telling her significant other not to use the guest book pen--how I long for those simpler pandemic times--and then just this last year when I went to Dallas for work--and incidentally got to see the Texas Rangers play live, the eventual World Series champs, and only the second team I saw play live in their home park the same year they won the World Series, the other being the 2013 Red Sox. Anyway, I'm digressing a lot here, but my point is, with only these two short trips totalling less than two weeks, I knew enough of East Texas to know that this movie wasn't "East Texas," and I was right, it was Arizona. The thing I don't understand was why it needed to be set in East Texas in the first place. For historical accuracy, the Ivan Turchaninov this was based on had retired to Chicago by now, so this alternate, fictitious history could've just as easily happened in Arizona, or even West Texas where there actually is desert. If you only have to have been to East Texas twice like I have to know it ain't desert there, why not set the movie somewhere else if you have to shoot in a desert?

And with that, let's wrap this up. This movie has four things going for it: Camacho's fight choreography, Gruner and Hues, a scant 80-minute runtime coupled with credit padding, and it's free to stream on Tubi, Plex, and Freevee here in the States. I think those four should be enough to sell you, and then when you get those Nevsky vanity joint touches, you can have fun with them.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14388612

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Chinatown Connection (1990)

This is it, Art Camacho becomes our third member of the 50 Club, after Dolph and Gary Daniels. Unlike those two, he's gotten his tags mostly for his work behind the camera, but Ty from Comeuppance made the point that this would be a perfect film for Camacho's 50th on the site, because he has a larger acting role in it. I found it on YouTube, and planned to make it happen sooner, but between other posts coming up, and me not having the time to watch it, I fell behind on it, but now we're here, making it happen. In addition to us, Ty and Brett from Comeuppance, and Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List have covered this too.

Chinatown Connection has Lee Majors II as a cop on the edge who needs a partner, and Bruce Ly as a cop who never uses his piece and is training potential cops on the edge to use martial arts instead of killing people--one of whom is Mr. Camacho. Majors II and Ly are on the case after a series of cocaine poisonings. Who could be doing this? Ly suspects the local heroin kingpin, even after said kingpin professes his innocence. Turns out he might be right, because the kingpin could take advantage of the poisoning to sell his own coke. Corporate takeovers are rough in any situation. Will our heroes be able to stop this?

This is 90 minutes of pure fun. It's like this movie was made with us in mind. First off, it has some great action. Bruce Ly has some great scenes, Lee Majors II is a solid cop on the edge, and then the supporting cast, including  Art Camacho, do great in their smaller roles. But then you have the fun. Like when Majors II visits Bruce Ly, whose character is married to Brinke Stevens, and she asks him if he wants something for dinner. Instead of saying "that would be nice, what are you having?" or "no thank you, I've already eaten," he's like "I'm a meat and potatoes guy," as if whatever Asian inspired meal he thought they were making would be beneath him. She tells him she's making hamburgers, which of course he's into. What does any of that mean? Should we like Ly more because he eats American food? Are we supposed to sympathize with Majors II and be like "yeah man, I'd hate to be in that situation myself, who knows what she'd serve me!"? And then someone from the police lab shows up, accepts Stevens's offer of a beer, then doesn't drink it, nor does Majors II finish his burger, so Stevens is just making food and pouring beers for people who don't end up having them. The thing is, none of it matters, it all just adds to the charm. And that's ultimately what you have here, a lot of charm with some solid DTV action.

The DTVC 50 Club, a club with only two other members, but Camacho is unique because, as I mentioned above, he's here primarily for his work behind the camera. I must confess that I didn't know who he was before I started this site, but as I was watching more and more of these movies for reviews, I noticed his name coming up more and more. As a result of that, I may not have tagged him in all the films we've reviewed that he had a part in. With Dolph at 70, and Gary Daniels knocking on the door to the 60 Club with 58, it feels like Camacho could be a ways off from catching them, but the thing is, between his work with PM and my aim to get as many of those up in the near future, and the current work he's doing with big names like Michael Jai White, his tags could come in bunches. In 1990 he was still coming into his own, and I think as an actor here he does a good enough job and it's cool to see him in something like this, but it's really the stuff  he did in stunt work, stunt choreography, second unit directing, and as primary director that made him someone where you can say, 90s action wouldn't exist as we know it without his contributions. If there's anything you can glean from his performance in this that would give us an idea of what was to come with him, I think it's the sense that he was willing to do anything it took to be a part of this business, and I think that work ethic pushed him to give us the great stuff he's given us. He always says on his Instagram how blessed he is, but we too are blessed to be able to have the hours of enjoyment his contributions have given us.

Our leads were played by Bruce Ly and Lee Majors II. They were supposed to be giving us an East meets West mash-up kind of thing, which I think was where the "I'm a meat and potatoes guy," was supposed to be taking us, but they didn't explore that enough, and I was okay with that. The fact that they only had 90 minutes, and decided to spend more time with Ly infiltrating a cheese warehouse and finding coke in one of the cheese wheels, which meant skipping the perfunctory scene of Ly and Majors II at a Chinese restaurant and Majors II struggling to use chopsticks, was a solid decision in my mind, and helped make this thing a more solid actioner. I hadn't seen much of Ly before this, as I'm not as up on the Bruce Lee clones, but it looks like according to IMDb this was one of two films he made here in the States, the other being 1989's Open Fire with David Carradine. I don't know what happened after this to cause that to stop, but that was it, he went back to Hong Kong to work. Majors II is one we've actually seen on here before, in Ice Cream Man, the Clint Howard cult classic, which was also one of Art Camacho's 50 tags, as he was the stunt coordinator in that. According to IMDb, that was it for him, as he hasn't done anything since.

Look at that beautifulness down below. Bruce Ly, leaning against a wall, with that hairdo, a red Members Only jacket and tie. I was trying to think from a sartorial standpoint where that ranks on the all-time outfit list. Maybe it's something I should put together and start ranking. I mean, it definitely kills Sasha Mitchell's pants in Kickboxer III, and David Bradley's fanny pack doesn't even come close. I'd have to go back through the old posts and see, but this might be the best ever. I mean, I dig the simplicity of a good Richard Norton Canadian tuxedo, but do you really want to take the Pepsi Challenge with that against what Ly is rockin' below? I didn't think so. I was only 11 at that time, so I wasn't anywhere cool enough to wear something so sublime, but I think even being 11 I still count in the rule that says when a look come back around, you shouldn't wear it if you were around when it was first popular. So I was too young in 1990, and now it's lost to me forever, I can never wear something so fantastic, I can only look on in both awe and envy, as Mr. Ly wows us with his sartorial acumen.

Finally (as if there could be a finally after that paragraph), I think it's good to give Art Camacho a second paragraph since this post is in honor of him entering the 50 Club. I was trying to get a sense of how many potential tags he could have left, to see if he could potentially pass Dolph for most all-time. As best as I can tell, it would be close based on what he has out there now, and of that what I'd be able to get my hands on; but the thing is, he's still working, so his total is only going to go up. By the same token, Dolph is still working too, so he could put some space between him and Camacho. One thing I think I'll try to do is focus more on his directorial work and see if we can get that as complete as possible--some of his films aren't available, so we'll probably never be able to make it complete. By my count we have 11 of the films he's directed, which puts him 7th all-time, but Fred Olen Ray's 15 is second all-time, so he's not as far off from moving up that list. His next one, Ruthless with new DTVC favorite Dermot Mulroney, is supposed to be out soon, so I can't wait to check that one out.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As far as I can tell, YouTube here in the States is the best way to go, unless you can find it on VHS. This is the late 80s/early 90s DTV action you came for, so it's a shame it's not available in more places. And a final congratulations to Art Camacho for becoming the third member of the 50 Club. For the kind of hard worker he is, and for the great work he's given us over the years, it's more than deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099261

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.