Judgement Day (1999)

I was looking to get more Ice-T on the site, and I saw that this was on Tubi. In addition to him, it has Mario Van Peebles, was written by Fred Olen Ray, Cole S. McKay was stunt coordinator, and has stars from two of my favorite shows, Barney Miller and Beverly Hills, 90210. In that sense, it was less about whether I should review it, and more about why I hadn't done it already! In addition to us, Matt Spector at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Judgement Day is about an asteroid that's heading for earth in three days. Higher-ups Max Gail and James Eckhouse want to use a device developed by Linden Ashby to intercept and destroy it, the problem is, Mario Van Peebles and his religious cult have kidnapped Ashby because they don't want the asteroid stopped. Gail thinks he has a leak in his department, so he gets FBI agent Suzy Amis to track Ashby down, but she can't do it alone, so she gets Ice-T out of prison, because he has a score to settle with Van Peebles himself. It's a race against time now, will it be relief accompanied by smiles and hardy handshakes in the war room, or doom and destruction?

You can probably guess the outcome, and to be fair, who wants to be deprived of those smiles of relief and hardy handshakes after the planet's been saved? Especially knowing Wojo and Jim Walsh are in the war room hoping Linden Ashby's device works. On the way there, there's almost a 48 Hours interplay between Amis and Ice-T as they track down Van Peeble's base of operations, which is a nice twist on the disaster movie that I'm surprised The Asylum hasn't used more often. That said, the Fred Olen Ray story has that feel of a few story templates fused together, and it might not have worked, except for the prodigious cast I listed above. For example, in addition to Van Peebles, Tom "Tiny" Lister is his right hand man. A rival drug dealer Ice-T and Amis go to for info is played by Coolio. Amis's boyfriend is Larry Poindexter--and no, unfortunately he doesn't drive a car while blasting Guns N' Roses' "Move to the City." Once you have all these names, it's just a matter of getting in and out in 90 minutes, having a few good action moments spread throughout, and then letting those names cook, and I feel like this one does all that.

We're at 19 movies now for Ice-T, and I think this might be my favorite of his performances. Also his screen time in this is probably more than four or five of the other movies of his we've covered combined, which was refreshing too. He's in the Hall of Fame for a reason, and this reinforces that. The moment he's onscreen, you know it's going to be good, but then there's the mix of hard edge and off-beat and quirky that allows him to thrive in the 48 Hours paradigm. The other thing about Ice-T is he was a rapper first, and this movie uses one of his songs, which is also fantastic. I don't know if between rights issues or studio time if he recorded a fresh track that it's realistic to expect every Ice-T movie to have his music in it, but it would be nice if more of them did, because it was a great touch here. We haven't done one of his films in two years, so I need to rectify that and get more of his stuff up more frequently, because he's always a great time.

I'm going to try not to go too fast and furious (Vin Diesel style) as I get through the other names in this, but there's a lot, so buckle up. First, among Hall of Famers, we have Cole S. McKay as stunt coordinator, plus he's in one scene which you can see above. We're at 65 for him now, and I have at least one other movie of his in the can that I need to review, so he'll be up to 66 soon enough. Then we have Fred Olen Ray as screenwriter. I think this is the fifth movie of his we've done that he wrote, but because he didn't direct this doesn't add to that total for him, which I think stands at 17, second-most all time among directors. Mario Van Peebles is great as the baddie, he gives you everything you want there, and is a name we always enjoy seeing on the site. Same for the late Tom "Tiny" Lister, who plays Van Peebles's righthand man, and gives you everything you want in that role. Then we have Linden Ashby, someone we've seen a few times and probably should be tagged. His part's not as big, but it's vital, so it was good they cast someone like him in the role. I mentioned Larry Poindexter. He probably gets it the worst in this, but that's okay, he'll always have American Ninja 2. Then as a big Barney Miller fan, how do you not love Wojo? We've seen him here before too, in particular DC Cab comes to mind, but here he's great as higher up tasked with stopping the asteroid. Fans of Firestorm (not sure if there are any of those out there) would know Suzy Amis, who ended up marrying James Cameron after this and hasn't done another movie since. If you're going to go out, why not have it be an Ice-T DTV flick written by Fred Olen Ray and directed by John Terlesky. That's right, Deathstalker II and Chopping Mall's John Terlesky directed this, as he did another Van Peebles/Ice-T film we did a couple years ago, Guardian. Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the late Coolio in a one-scene cameo. I don't know how many movies aren't improved by a Coolio one-scene cameo, and this film certainly wasn't an exception.

One name you may have noticed that's missing above is James Eckhouse, aka Jim Walsh from Beverly Hills, 90210. I wanted to give him his own paragraph, because I think he's one of the best TV dads of all time, but he never gets included on that list. Maybe that's because he was a little young to be playing a father to kids born in the early 70s, considering he was only born in 1955, but I always loved how he and Carol Potter's Cindy Walsh were the two grounding forces on the show. That might be why the show wrote them out eventually, because I think they wanted to untether the kids somewhat and let them find their way without the Walshes there to provide stability. Who knows what the reason was, but I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with James Eckhouse's Jim Walsh against any other TV dad out there, other than maybe Hugh Beaumont's Ward Cleaver and Robert Reed's Mike Brady. So, here's to you James Eckhouse, you're one of the great ones.

Finally, we get two common movie lines in this. The first one is so common Will at Exploding Helicopter has a Letterboxd list for movies that feature it, and that's "we've got company," which we get when Tom "Tiny" Lister is trying to drive off with Van Peebles, his wife (Shireen Crutchfield), and their bounty, Linden Ashby, when Lister notices the cops are coming and gives us the line. The second one was "it's the 90s." Anyone who lived through the 90s knows what this means, anything that was considered outside the bounds of conservative, buttoned-up, Reagan 80s culture was now given a grudging acceptance with those three little words, "it's the 90s." Women standing up for themselves? "Hey, it's the 90s, am I right?" Gay people demanding more rights? "I mean, to each their own, it's the 90s after all." Sinead O'Connor ripping up a picture of the Pope? "Okay, let's not get carried away..." Here it's within an off-beat, quirky, and slightly homophobic back and forth between Ice-T and Suzy Amis that we get the line, when Ice-T asks why she's not married, then asks if she's a lesbian, to which he explains he doesn't have a problem with it if she is, because "it's the 90s." Maybe we need a little bit more "it's the 90s" in our society today, because, man "it's the 2020s" covers a whole host of bonkersness that I don't even want to start on.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi here in the States, which I think is a great deal. The names alone sell it, but in a sea of thumbnails on a streaming services, sometimes that's all you need. Hell, it's the 2020s, am I right?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221309

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

Gangland (2000)

I first saw this film on Encore Action. On my program guide it listed Sasha Mitchell and Costas Mandylor as its featured actors, which was enough for me. Upon watching it, I saw that it also has Coolio and Ice-T for about ten minutes at the very beginning, and the chick who plays Painkiller Jane for a few seconds somewhere in the middle. Now, seeing it again on DVD, I find out that it's selling itself, not on Sasha Mitchell and Costas Mandylor, the film's stars along with the chick from Renegade; but it's listing the three people who're in it for a total fifteen minutes of screen time. If I didn't like the idea of a Sasha Mitchell Costas Mandylor feature so much, I'd take the people who market this to small claims court for false advertising.

Gangland takes place three years from now in a post-apocalyptic future where a US dealing with nuclear fallout is also dealing with a flesh eating plague. Vincent Klyn (Warchild from Point Break) has a huge gang of dudes in leather jackets and pants that are threatening to take over what's left of the country. Tim Thomerson has developed a cure for the plague and plans to take it to the only safe zone in the country, Phoenix. Klyn catches him in an attempt to control the cure. While all this is happening, Costsas Mandylor meets Sasha Mitchell in jail (Klyn's reappropriated a local prison for his own ends.) They escape, bump into the chick from Renegade, and take down Klyn-doggy. All in a day's work.



This movie would be sweet bad action accept for one thing that really irks me: constant fade-outs. I hate constant fade-outs. It's like they're always going to commercial or something. I know these aren't the best film makers in the world, but do they have to make it so obvious? I've seen better film making on YouTube. Doesn't it seem annoying to them too when they're editing? Maybe it's just me...

Sasha Mitchell's the bomb in this. His martial arts technique is almost identical to Guile from Street Fighter II. It was so cool watching him go to work on bad guys, I almost forgot he couldn't act. It's too bad he doesn't do more work, because, at least to me, it's evident in a movie like this that he can hold his own. Of course, it was hilarious when he was yelling in anger about his brother's killing. I think someone should make a movie where he plays Cody from Step By Step and kicks people's asses. Now that's a hit.

Kathleen Kinmont's in this as well. I have a bad habit of calling her the chick from Renegade, and considering this is the second, and probably not the last film I've reviewed that has her in it, I should probably start using her name. I didn't like her in this, because she was trying too hard to do dark and brooding. I know her sister, played by Painkiller Jane, was killed off, but as an actor she didn't do the part well. She's better doing the off-beat kind of stuff she did on Renegade. Leave the brooding to Costas Mandylor.



I'm a huge Vincent Klyn guy. It's not like Man Crush level, but pretty close. No one else could pull off playing a character named Warchild in a movie like Point Break, and make it work. I think that's something pretty cool to hang your hat on. He's also a mainstay in newly inducted DTVC Hall of Famer Albert Pyun's films-- you may remember him especially in Cyborg. In this film, as in those other two, he does a great job playing an awesome baddie that we still don't want to root for. That's all we want in a bad guy, right?

Beyond the overuse of the fade-out technique, my other major issue was Klyn's second in command. He was some geeky ponytail guy who also was the film's writer and stuff. He didn't look like a kick ass bad guy, he looked like some creepy guy who might hit me with his sack of 8-sided dice to keep me and my friends from giving him a wedgie. He annoyed the piss out of me, and I was kind of disappointed that Costas Mandylor finally dispatched him by setting him on fire. He should've beat him to death with a keyboard in the middle of a LAN party or something. Who thought this guy worked on camera?



The two best parts about this were the bad one-liners and the fact that everyone from Costas Mandylor down to Tim Thomerson the scientist could fight. Best one-liner: Klyn asks Mandylor if he thought it would be that easy to kill him, and Mandylor says "We had to give it the ol' college try." Yes! Best fight came when Tim Thomerson, with no prior mention of him having any fighting skills, takes out some baddies in hand-to-hand combat. It wasn't just like hit someone over the head with a vase when he's not looking, he was blocking punches and delivering expert blows to the gut. It was like just by virtue of being in the movie anyone could fight. I loved it.

Before I recommend this film, I must warn everyone that I'm not kidding about how little Coolio, Ice-T, and Painkiller Jane are in this film. The box may make it sound like they're the main characters, but it's the old fashioned Direct to Video bait and switch. On the other hand, for myself, being the Direct to Video Connoisseur, Sasha Mitchell, Vincent Klyn, and Costas Mandylor are plenty good to make the film worth while. If that sounds like a good time to you too, pick this bad boy up. Just don't pay too much for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265198/

China Strike Force (2000)

I usually don't cover the myriad action movies that come out of Hong Kong here on the Direct to Video Connoisseur unless there's a special reason. This movie had a special reason. Actually it had two, but one was much bigger than the other. The little reason was Mark Dacascos, who is amassing a great resume for future consideration in the DTVC Hall of Fame. The second bigger reason is Coolio. Any time he's on the screen it's funny to me.

China Strike Force (Leui ting jin ging for you purists out there) is about two rookie cops, Alex and Darren, who are assigned to a special drug enforcement agency. At the same time Mark Dacascos, the only living relative to crime boss Uncle Ma, wants to smuggle drugs in with his childhood friend Coolio. Uncle Ma is opposed to the idea. He has a Japanese woman in town who wants her crime syndicate to do work with his. When Dacascos kills off Ma to carry out his plans, the Japanese woman is framed for the killing, and it is revealed she's working with the Japanese police. Finally she, Alex, and Darren work together to bring down Dacascos and Coolio before they can consummate their drug deal.

This has all the hallmarks of a quality Hong Kong action flick. Big stunts, well choreographed martial arts, very little to no computer enhancement. You've got guys riding dirt bikes onto the backs of trucks, a chase scene between a Lamborghini and an F-1 car, and a great finale with Coolio, the Japanese chick, and Darren balancing on a pane of glass however many stories up. Top that with a great fight between Darren and Dacascos, which was just the best of many well done fight scenes. Even Coolio fought well in this. It's hard to top the energy exuded in a movie like this.



The Coolio factor got me. When we were in high school, Coolio was doing his "Fantastic Voyage"/"Gangsta's Paradise" thing. The whole deal was ridiculous for us. Now that he's doing bad action movies, it's even better. My friends and I can yell out things like "Who Dere?" or "We can't go to da beach, we ain't got no car! Quit cahwin' me!" What's great is he doesn't even seem to be acting, he just does Coolio. Not the angry Coolio ranting about Weird Al, but the fun Coolio on Yo! MTV Raps Today with Dr. Dre and Ed Lover. I guess in movies where he needs to be more serious, he does the "I'm mad at Weird Al" thing, but in this movie, you get the MTV Raps Coolio, and I like it.


Dacascos is great here too. I was disappointed in the Hunt for Eagle Ones, so it was good to catch a movie like this to remind myself just how good Dacascos can be. He's great as both the bad guy in this, and a good guy in other movies I've seen. I read on imdb that he's really cool to meet at an autograph session, so if you hear he's in your town, go and get your China Strike Force signed. Or maybe your Cradle 2 Grave. I'm hoping the post-Eagle One movies he does are as solid as this. I've heard rumors that he's not doing martial arts roles anymore, and if that's true, it'll be a huge loss for us all.



The Japanese woman is extremely attractive. She's a model in Japan, and doesn't have a lot of movies listed on imdb. In this movie, she makes every scene she's in. It's surprising more directors haven't slotted her in films over here, just for the eye candy factor. I guess there are plenty of exotic Asian hotties already in the country for your various Jet Li, Jason Statham, and Jackie Chan films. Just the same, she's worth the price of admission.

This film's totally worth your time to rent or TiVo. Think of it as a great Hong Kong action movie, which in and of itself may not be enough to separate it from the plethora of action fare at your local video store, but one that has Coolio, giving it that added oompf to move it away from the pack. I can't imagine anyone who enjoys bad action not loving the Coolio factor. If you don't think he's as funny as I do, then pass this up. Also, if you hear Mark Dacascos is in town, and you need to grab a copy of this so he can sign, don't play full price, but go to your local Chinatown and buy a copy there.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266408/