Shepherd Code: Lapierre (2026)

This is one Ty and I covered on the podcast, episode 269 in the archives, and with the names involved, and because we'd covered the other two films on here as well, I knew it needed a written review too. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has also covered this.

Shepherd Code: Lapierre is a prequel to the previous two films, where we learn how our eponymous hero (Alan Delabie) came to be the guy we saw in those other two entries. After his wife divorces him (and he tells her "I'm disappointed in you" and "look at all I've done for you," because I guess he'd rather his wife be unhappy and stay married to him than file for divorce?) he gets a job from his boss, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, to keep a target safe, one Tania Edwards (Theresa Kassa from the first film), because Lapierre "knows how to handle women." Beyond the chauvinism in that, or that his wife just dumped him and his response was "look at all I've done for you," so maybe he can't "handle women," Lapierre takes the job, and proceeds to fall in love with Tania. Will the dancing and romantic dinners go to his head and prevent him from carrying out his mission?

This is a different movie from the first two, with less action and more drama. What does that mean for you the viewer? Exactly that. It's the opposite of the Elvis song that Dolph performed on a Swedish awards show, so if you're looking for a little less conversation and a little more action, this isn't the movie for you. There is an independent spirit aspect of this though that is worth supporting, an earnestness in what Delabie wanted to do here that I appreciated. To have a vision for a film, and despite limited resources have it completed it and available on places like Tubi where the whole world can see it is something to be applauded. And it isn't all conversation, we do get some fight scenes that look nice and have some inspired moments. On the other hand, the chauvinism should've been left on the cutting room floor. "You know how to handle women" is something out of 1966, not 2026, and something like that can make it harder to champion an indie effort. Overall though I think with this on Tubi and other free streamers here in the US, if you're looking to support independent filmmaking, this is worth a watch.

With an indie film like this, I think there needs to be a different calculus when evaluating it. For example, recently we looked at Kill 'Em All 2, and the question came up, "who was asking for this film?" Right? Did we need a sequel to Kill 'Em All? And the reason we ask that, is that movie is being distributed by Sony, which means they're expecting an audience to be there that will turn them a profit--and they were probably right, because Netflix picked it up. For this film, the "who was asking for this?" question is easier to answer, Alan Delabie asked for this. It was his vision, and he successfully got his vision on the screen and available for us to consume, which I think is fantastic. From there it's a matter of who the audience is, but I don't think we should create art with an audience in mind, we should let the audience find it. And to that end, the podcast episode on our YouTube channel had a comment from someone who really enjoyed this, even saying it was their favorite of the three. For me, I would've liked more action, but that's not the movie he made, and I think that's okay too, there's an audience out there for the vision he wanted to make, even if it didn't work for me, but I wouldn't want him to change his movie for me or anyone else.

We're on our fifth paragraph and only now getting to our film's Hall of Famer and 40 Club member, which gives you a sense of how much he's in the movie, but this is still Don "The Dragon" Wilson's 44th tag nonetheless. Six more movies to 50 could be tough based on how many we have left to do and ones currently in production, but maybe Delabie will make a few more Shepherd Code movies, and Cynthia Rothrock and Alexander Nevsky will make a few more Westerns, and he'll get there. Even if he doesn't get there, he's still one of the greatest to ever do it, and it's great to see him in anything, even it's a small part. Speaking of small parts, Eric Roberts and Patrick Kilpatrick each have one-scene cameos. One idea that Ty and I had to break up some of the monotony that we saw in the long stretches without action, was to have Lapierre call either Roberts or Kilpatrick from time to time, that way they don't need to shoot in additional locations, and can do their scenes at the same time they're doing their one scene with Delabie, but those calls can be spread organically throughout the movie for the audience to enjoy. Just a thought, but I think how a film uses its names when they can only afford them for a limited amount of shooting can really impact how the film comes across overall.

As many films nowadays are wont to do, we have our share of overhead drone establishing shots here, but one shot caught my attention. Before we see our hero in a workout montage showing off his skills, we get an overhead establishing shot of the MMA gym he's going to be working out in, and the roof is covered in solar panels. The gym is Shocx MMA training center, I believe in Brussels, so if you're in the Brussels area and need to practice your grappling or boxing, you can go there and know that they're using sustainable energy to keep the lights on. It's probably no surprise to you that I'm not much of a gym guy, but I do walk a lot, which also helps the environment, so I'm trying to do my part too. We all do what we can, but here's to you Shocx MMA for going the extra mile.

Finally, look at that gem. I think it's a Birmingham Barons hat, which is the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. They're most famous for being the team Michael Jordan played for during his retirement from basketball in the mid-90s, which, when the Major League Baseball players lockout happened in 1994, their games were aired on ESPN to make up for the lack of Major League games. As you know from any amount of time reading this site, I'm a huge baseball fan, and among my baseball bucket lists, one is seeing a game in every US state that has a professional team. Right now I have 12 plus DC, so I have a long way to go, and Alabama is a state I've never even been to before, let alone see a baseball game, so it's a trip I have to make at some point. Who knows, Major League Baseball is facing another potential lockout for the 2027 season, and if that happens, Minor League Baseball like the Barons will be my only option, so next year might be the perfect time to make it happen, and if I do, I have this movie to thank for reminding me to go.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on a whole host of screeners here in the States, including Tubi, which has the other two as well. The lack of action may turn action fans off, but if you're looking for something a bit different and you want to support indie film, this is a great way to go. Also, be sure to check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this one, 269 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36415829/

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

The Mark: Redemption (2013)

This weekend is Gary Daniels's birthday, and considering we haven't reviewed anything of his since we did The Gardiner in 2024, I figured I'd dip back into the religious film pool and do another of the three religious movies he did, which is a sequel to he first one we covered about 13 years ago. Will being a Daniels completist have me questioning my life choices?

The Mark: Redemption picks up where the first one left off, with Craig Sheffer and Sonia Couling awkwardly parachuting out of a plane in front of some poorly done greenscreen. The Rapture is still happening, as the priest from Ireland who fell off his horse in the 1800s predicted it would, complete with an antichrist who wants one world government called "The New World Order" and wants people implanted with tracking chips--the same chip Sheffer's got in him. So this antichrist sends Daniels out to get him, but to know where to find him, he needs to beat up a tied-to-a-chair Eric Roberts first. Oh by the way, there's trafficking too! We just need an ad telling us to buy gold, and some sea moss pills, and we'll have completed our Alex Jones bingo card.

When I did the first one of these back in 2013, I said I wouldn't make fun of the religious aspects, because I was the one treading on their turf to review a Gary Daniels movie. That said, as you saw in my synopsis, this isn't just religious, it's that intersectionality of White Nationalism and Christian Fundamentalism that's much more insidious than simple religion. When I was on the Red Dawn episode of the Exploding Helicopter podcast, I said if someone were creating a White Nationalist group, Red Dawn would be the first movie night in the recruitment process. This movie is more like two weeks in, you got the heads shaved, the swastikas tattooed on the biceps, but maybe there's some doubt creeping in as the recruits are feeling isolated in your compound in Northern Idaho, you throw this on and start yelling "this is what we're fighting against right here!"--the one world government, nationalizing industries, tracking chips in people, and whatever else you have on your alt right bingo card--and by the end of the 90s minutes those brains are fully washed again. Does this have any value beyond that? Daniels is kind of fun, Wych Kaos is the cinematographer, and Thai film mainstay Sahajak Boonthanakit is great in his small part. But even as a Daniels completist like me, I found myself questioning my life choices while watching this.

We are officially at 61 movies for Gary Daniels though, so maybe it was worth it. And as I said above, he turns in a fun performance. I don't know if he's rubber stamping the ideas in this movie, or he just needed a paycheck--or even more, maybe the coded language of things like "New World Order" weren't familiar to him. It's one thing to be religious, but the Alex Jones conspiracy stuff is another level. We have one more of these overt religious films of his left to do, The Encounter: Paradise Lost, and then there's one more he made in Thailand at that time, A Stranger in Paradise, that I've been trying to track down as well. Maybe I'll wait until I've tracked down that second one before I dive back in and do that last religious movie after how this one went. From there, it looks like he has his first movie since 2022's Repeater coming out soon, Lion Fist, so I'll be excited to check that out. While he's no threat to catch Dolph for most ever tags as an actor (and most ever overall), the next closest actor to him is Cynthia Rothrock with 47, and with a lot of her films not seeing releases lately, I don't see her catching Daniels for second anytime soon either.

As you're reading my review of this, you might be asking, "is it really worth it to say you've reviewed all of Gary Daniels DTV films?" The same question comes up when I mention needing to review Fat Slags for Dolph, people have been warning me off that one, but I have to do it at some point. But is it worth it? At the time as I'm watching something like this, as Craig Sheffer is talking about "Age of Accountability," or tells Sonia Cooling "you look hot in my mom's clothes," there is a sense that I'm making questionable life choices, and perhaps there's an Italian-directed 80s 'Namsploitation film shot in the Philippines I could be watching instead, or hell, maybe I could just rewatch Recoil on Tubi. On the other hand, to be able to say "I've watched and reviewed 61 Gary Daniels movies," it feels like I did something. What that something was, I don't know, but I did it. Now there are some limits to this. For example, Dolph was slated to star in a Kevin Spacey movie, and if that gets released I won't be doing that. But Fat Slags, that we'll eventually have to make happen.

The guys at Comeuppance talk about the "Sit-down Role," which is when an actor spends the bulk of the film just sitting. The best example is Dick Van Patten in A Dangerous Place, where his character is called "Principal," he never leaves his office, and the only thing that keeps his role from being entirely sit-down is when decorum dictates that he needs to stand when Erin Gray enters his office to discuss her son, Ted Jan Roberts. In this film, Eric Roberts is back in what is also almost a complete Sit-down Role, as the only time he's not sitting is when Gary Daniels moves him from one chair he's tied to to another. And the tied-to-a-chair seems to be the new bastion of the Sit-down Role, as we saw it a lot in the Bruce Willis Randall Scandals. It's like the film is saying "the guy has to be sitting if he's tied to a chair, right?" I don't know if Roberts went all the way to Thailand to sit in a chair and get punched in the face and talk about God, it's possible he shot his scenes in LA, but there's no way of knowing from IMDb alone, considering by my count he did 38 movies in 2013! Of the almost 900 credits he has on IMDb, this is the 18th film we've covered here, which I imagine isn't something a lot of people would've guessed, that Gary Daniels has over three times the movies Eric Roberts has on the DTVC, but when you look at his films, a lot of them don't belong on here, and I generally don't seek him out specifically, he just happens to be in something I'm reviewing for someone else, like another Gary Daniels movie he did, A Hitman in London aka Skin Traffik, which would've been another complete Roberts Sit-down Role--this time behind a desk using the phone--if not for a scene at an airplane hanger at the end. I guess it was a matter of "you need to fly home anyway, want to shoot a scene while you're here?" Maybe someday we'll accrue enough Roberts Sit-down Roles for him to get into the Hall of Fame.

Finally, I wanted to use this last paragraph to shout out a podcast I love that closed-up shop recently, Knowledge Fight. If you're not familiar with them, the show would make fun of and breakdown the lies and inconsistencies in Alex Jones's Info Wars show--"Knowledge Fight" being a play on the name "Info Wars." What I loved about it, was its hosts Dan and Jordan went beyond the click-baity aggregated clips and got into the heart of how the Alex Jones grift really worked, and I think because they were so good at pulling back the curtain, Jones never mentioned them, and it was understood that none of his other hosts could mention them either. When the news came that the Onion had found a new way to get Info Wars from Alex, at first I was excited, until I realized that they still needed a judge's approval--which they didn't get--and then found out they didn't include the Knowledge Fight guys at all. It led to Jordan doing a Twitch rant where he went scorched earth on the Onion, the aftermath of which ultimately led to Dan and Jordan ending the show; but I think it was a missed opportunity for the Onion to leave them out. To be able to air the show that debunked Alex Jones's grift on the Info Wars platform would've done more to hurt Jones's brand than Tim Heidecker doing an impression of him. Jones can do a shirtless rant about Heidecker being a Satanist or whatever, but he can't come at the Knowledge Fight guys for pointing out how Jones never really read an article he was saying proved his point about some conspiracy bullshit he's going on about, because if his listeners saw that they'd start to question things and stop buying supplements. Anyway, my Monday and Friday mornings aren't going to be the same without the Knowledge Fight guys there making fun of Right Wing grifters. Here's to you Dan and Jordan, you're two of the great ones.

And with that let's wrap this up. You can get this free on Tubi, but the question is, do you want to? How big of a Gary Daniels completist are you? I'm not asking this rhetorically, I'm saying if you're considering it, take a walk, clear your mind, and really think about how much of a Gary Daniels completist you are. I probably should've taken my own advice.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2563562/

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

Darkness of Man (2024)

This is one we covered on the podcast, episode 194 in the archives, with Sean Malloy from "I Must Break This Podcast," and with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Cynthia Rothrock, we had to get it on the site eventually too, so we're making it happen now. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Darkness of Man has Van Damme as Russell Hatch, an Interpol agent who was supposed to be protecting a witness, but when she's killed, he agrees to protect her son. Years later, said son is now a teenager, and said son doesn't get along well with either the grandfather who's taking care of him, or Van Damme, who acts as the guy driving him to school while living in an extended stay hotel. At the same time, the kid's uncle runs an organized crime ring, which is going up against the Russians in an all-out turf war. Will the son get caught in the middle? And if so, will Van Damme be able to protect them? Is this his chance at redemption after failing to protect the mother all those years ago? Oh, and isn't Cynthia Rothrock in this film?

When Sean and I were looking at Van Damme movies to cover, it was between this one and the two Kill 'Em All films, and Sean said he needed to do this one first because he'd already seen it, and wanted to cover it while it was still fresh in his mind so he didn't have to watch it again. And that pretty much sums this one up, it's a rough sit, and you don't want to put yourself through it again. Why? First off, it's long, 107 minutes. Second, we have a lot of moving parts, and to try and sort them all out, we have Van Damme's voice-overs. Third, there are random things that feel like they were grafted into the movie, like the fact that Kristanna Loken's character is a veterinarian. Finally, we have a lot of moments where not a lot happens. It's a recipe for a tough sit. There are some bright spots though. We have some fun Van Damme fights, and director James Cullen Bressack went for some old Film Noir tones, that, when combined with the cinematography of Pascal Combes-Knoke led to some inspired shot composition; and I think something does need to be said for filmmakers and stars trying to do something outside the usual DTV fare, so I don't want to dump on this completely, it just missed for me overall.

We're now at 35 films for Van Damme, even though he has 36 tags, because our 400th post was a Van Damme film fest, so it doesn't count for inclusion in the 40 Club. At 35, could he get there? In the hopper we still have Kill 'Em All, and then for DTV stuff left to watch, there's Swelter, Welcome to the Jungle, and We Die Young. That's 39, and depending on how we feel about The Gardiner, he could get there. As much as this movie didn't work, the thing I appreciated was how present Van Damme was, and how much he was trying to stretch himself and try something different. The fact that he's still doing that at this stage in his career, when he really doesn't have to--he could just be in the movie and cash the check--is refreshing, and is the reason why I'm still going to keep watching his stuff. (Though to be fair, Seagal is the exact opposite of Van Damme, and I still watch all of his stuff too.)

Cynthia Rothrock has a one-scene cameo, but a one-scene cameo is enough to get another tag, which puts her at 44. I don't even really know what she's doing here, she's the nurse checking in on Van Damme after he survived a shooting, and that's it. She doesn't even share the screen with Van Damme, who knows who she's even speaking to when they shot her lines. I thought when this first came out that she was higher billed on IMDb, but now I don't see her on the first page, so either I was wrong, or something changed and they shuffled the cast names to make her less prominent. It brings up an interesting concept in the world of IMDb, using listings on an actor's bio to sell a movie. Even if she's not on the first page of the movie's listing, when you go to Rothrock's bio, this is the fourth film from the top, and the only one of those four that's not rent VOD. If you click on it, and see it also has Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it's on Hulu, why wouldn't you want to see what that's about? And then you get this tough sit of a movie that doesn't know exactly what it wants to be, and Rothrock only has this one scene where she doesn't even fight at all. By then it's too late, Hulu and the movie got their stream, and you've been had. Will IMDb bait-and-switches become more prominent as we go on? We do have a couple movies in the hopper where she had bigger roles than this, The Last Kumite and Taken from Rio Bravo, so we'll be seeing more of her soon. Unless you're a completist like me, this isn't worth it if you're a fan of hers.

There are a bunch of other names in this, all playing parts of varying degrees. We mentioned Kristanna Loken above. She's the only other one who's tagged--still as "Painkiller Jane," because I haven't had the energy to retag her, even though this is only her sixth film on the site, so it wouldn't take that much work. It's crazy to think Painkiller Jane was still airing when we started the DTVC, it's been that long. We also had a couple James Cullen Bressack mainstays in Zack Ward, Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story, and Kristos Andrews. They play Russian mobsters here, and small, supporting roles. Then there were some nepo babies, with Weston Cage, and Van Damme's two sons Kris and Nicolas. Then we had MMA star Nick Diaz, former child star Spencer Breslin, and hip hop star Sticky Fingaz. I thought that was everyone, but totally forgot that Eric Roberts is in one shot where he orders a taco from a food truck. Your guess is as good as mine, but he was there.

One name I didn't mention, because I'm saving it for this paragraph, was the late Shannen Doherty. A 90s icon who grew to prominence with Beverly Hills 90210, then received a bad--and probably undeserved--reputation as being difficult to work with when she left that show. Soon she had two movies that were going to be her Hollywood breakouts: Blindfold: Acts of Obsession, which ended up going directly to the USA Network here in the US instead of getting a theatrical release; and Mallrats, Kevin Smith's follow-up to Clerks that wasn't as well-received, though I think people my age really loved it. Eventually she got on another TV show, Charmed, but that ended in more on-set strife, and from there she bounced around from TV movie to TV movie, which is where she ended up in the orbit of James Cullen Bressack, who cast her in a bunch of his films, with this one unfortunately being her last. I think one of the most enduring parts of her legacy is that when we think of 90210, we think of her, even though she was only on 111 of the show's 292 episodes, because she played such a compelling character, and they never really replaced her. Here's to you Ms. Doherty, you were one of the greats, and you'll be missed.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu here in the States. As I said above, it's a bit of a tough sit, and with barely any Rothrock too. Proceed at your own peril. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode we did on this, number 194 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23173980

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

Top Gunner (2020)

This is a film Ty from Comeuppance and I looked at on the pod when we did our Eric Roberts double feature back in April. That's episode 154 in the archives. As far as I can tell, no one else has touched this one. Maybe with good reason?

Top Gunner has Eric Roberts as an officer in the Air Force who has a training base for pilots in a remote location. When some of them cause trouble, he forces them to stay during the holiday weekend while everyone else is on leave. After a special forces team grabs a Russian bioweapon with the intent of getting it to scientists in Washington so they can reverse engineer a cure, they need to make a pit stop at Roberts's base. The problem is, the Russians are hot on their tail, and have waylaid them there. Will Roberts's rag tag group trouble-making trainees be able to fend off the Russians?

This isn't horrible, but there is a sense of, what am I doing here? They set up some corrugated iron shacks near an old abandoned highway, CGI'd in some planes, then tossed in a dash of Eric Roberts. Is that it for The Asylum now? This is their Top Gun: Maverick mockbuster? But then there's also a sense of "what did you want this to be, Matt?" which I also get, and I think if pressed, this is probably about what I expected, and the fact that I can at least say it isn't horrible is saying something--even if it's not saying much. The Asylum is like getting the generic Doritos, and I think there's always that first bite where I go in expecting real Doritos, and end up a little disappointed, when I only have myself to blame for not ponying up the extra couple bucks to just get Doritos.

There are three of these films, and I believe that's because this was supposed to be released to coincide with Top Gun: Maverick, but that film was delayed so much that they had to put out another movie in order to capitalize, and then once they did that they figured they might as well do a third. The second one doesn't have Roberts, but the third one does, and none of the three have anything to do with each other. This is now 36 films for The Asylum, which means they're close to one of the more exalted clubs at the DTVC, the 40 Club. On the one hand, it seems wrong to have them in a club like that--wrong enough that they're in the Hall of Fame even--but on the other, they've been doing this Mockbuster thing a couple years longer than we've been doing the DTVC, and they're still going strong...(ish). I think that has to count for something, and for that I applaud them.

Eric Roberts, who is known for his vast CV, is only at 16 films now on the site, which doesn't sound right, but when you look at the films he does and who's--or rather who isn't--in them, you get a better sense of why he's only where he's at. Is there anyone who's better at ranting with the wall of a corrugated iron shed behind him? Like were they borrowing a trailer on a construction site to do his scenes? When his wife called him about this, he was probably like "how many locations and how many wardrobe changes?" and she said "one location, no wardrobe changes, you're wearing an Air Force pilot jumpsuit the whole time." "So I gotta unzip my shirt to go to the bathroom?" "It's just one day of shooting." And like the trooper he is, he delivered.

One thing The Asylum got right was the fact that fighter jet dogfights can only get you so far, so they were smart to pad things out with this other plot about the bioweapon. The problem is, the other plot was kind of a dud too. What the movie should've been was 80 minutes of Eric Roberts in a corrugated iron shed yelling at young trainees. But then the problem there is, you can't get that much footage out of Roberts with the limited time you have to shoot with him. Could you loop it then? Like the same rant, over and over, maybe set to a Vaporwave soundtrack, and the trainees, when they're not flying CGI planes, they're struggling to get AOL and Windows 95 to work. I'm just throwing ideas out here, but I do kinda feel like my idea would be the best Asylum film ever.

 
Finally, even The Asylum isn't immune to the trend of not using numbers for sequels. Can we blame them though, when they're Mockbustering Hollywood, and that's what Hollywood's doing? I would love to see them full-on Mockbuster that. Like make the movie I described above, but call it "Herring: A Top Gunner Saga." If you're wondering, they did do their own Mockbusters for Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, called Road Wars and Road Wars: Max Fury, which is okay, but I feel like it's a bit of a mail-in from The Asylum. Why not go with Max Fury: A Road Wars Saga? Come on guys, you're slipping.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This is almost exactly what you'd expect from an Asylum Mockbuster on Top Gun: Maverick--maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but almost exactly. If you need a little Eric Roberts on a free streamer to pass the time, you could do worse than this. You could do better too, but you could do worse.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12226808

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

Pups Alone (2021)

I watched this recently for a podcast episode that I did with Mitch Lovell from the Video Vacuum, and figured I'd break from my documentary review on Christmas tradition to get this posted, because I couldn't think of a better time to do it later. In addition to Mitch on his site, our friend Sean Malloy at I Must Break This Podcast did an episode on this too, plus last year he interviewed director Alex Merkin, which is also worth checking out.

Pups Alone is about a widower inventor and his daughter and dog who gets a new job with a pet tech company, which moves him out to a gated community. When they get there, one of their neighbors, Dolph, discovers that the widower has an invention that translates a dog's thoughts into words, so he hatches a plan: while everyone who works for the company is at the Christmas retreat in Big Bear, he'll hire two bumbling crooks, one of whom is Nicholas Turturro, to steal the invention. At the same time, the widower's dog is staying behind, and when he gets wise to the bumbling thieves' intentions, he gathers up the rest of the neighborhood dogs to use the widower's Rube Goldberg contraptions to stop them.

And that's it... or is it? No that's like a fraction of it, there are also endless minutes of padding, endless scenes where the dialog goes on too long, and endless bad jokes like dogs farting in people's faces and blind elderly women getting robbed. They even used this cartoon story board device to advance the plot, and it was still too weighed down. "But Matt," you say, "this is a kids movie, of course you're going to be bored!" I hear you, so I went to a site called Parent Movie Review, which was listed on the critic reviews for this, to get a different perspective. Here is what the reviewer, Savannah Lee, had to say about her 5-year-old son's reaction to this: "my 5-year-old spent the whole run time jumping on the couch, leaving the room to find toys to play with, and just generally being uninterested. For a film to not even be able to hold his attention is a feat unto itself." And there you have it. I think even as a Dolph completists, the novelty of seeing him in Christmas sweaters or dressed like Santa--or playing, as Mitch put it, the Richard Kind scheming character--is tough for the kind of slog this movie is, and maybe that sums it up best.

Dolph Lundgren is 65 years old, and now has 65 films reviewed on this site. No one else has their age number of films reviewed, Gary Daniels is closest with 56 films at 59 years old. Since I started the site, we've called Dolph the Babe Ruth of DTV action, but with the numbers he's amassed, maybe the Wayne Gretzky of DTV is more apt. Either way, with the volume of Dolph we already have here, there was no way I couldn't do this film, so whether it was good or bad I was stuck with it. That being said, Dolph playing against type was on its own a fun thing to see. Mitch's Richard Kind comparison was the most apt, only he played him as a kind of hyped-up jock type, slapping the widower on the back and generally being rough with him like William Zabka in an 80s teen movie. During this DTVC journey we've seen Dolph fighting with foam sharks, wearing a toga in a Christian movie, playing the drums in a rock band, and even acting opposite TV talk show hosts Montel Williams and Jerry Springer in separate non-related films. Christmas movie was one of the few feathers he didn't have in his cap yet, so now he has it. I guess "you're welcome"?

The thing about the modern Christmas movie, is most are made assembly-line style for companies like Hallmark that need to pump out a bunch. We'll grab some former stars from the Island of Misfit Actors, find a nice, quaint, Canadian town to pass as an American one, then use any of three or four paradigms to create a nice 80-minute story that fits the beats of the constant commercial breaks modern TV has here in the States. While it sounds crass, one side benefit is no matter how rough the movie is, it'll always get us out on time. I think that's why my wife and I enjoy them. Here's Brandon Routh, former Superman, playing a kind, cooky fireman who needs to find homes for 9 kittens that were abandoned at the fire station. Oh wait, his former love interest is a vet who just happens to be home for the holidays? Sure, it's contrived, but Brandon Routh is fun, and again, the film gets us in and out on time. Because this move was DTV instead of made-for-TV, it had no such constraints; but couldn't there have been someone saying "this is too much?" One thing I know I get from the Hallmark Christmas movie is a modicum of restraint. Usually I'd like to see Nicholas Turturro mentally calling his agent while doing a scene where he has to pretend to react to having a dog farting in his face, but when the scene goes on forever, it becomes too much. 

The other piece of this is the talking dog aspect, which is usually an easy element to make work and anchor a movie like this around. The problem is, it too was kind of all over the place. First off, as Mitch pointed out, the dogs were kind of nondescript. I mean, I really liked Charlie, the star dog, but even he had a pulled-off-the-street quality to him. Pulled-off-the-street is good if I'm out and see someone walking their dog, at that point any dog who's jaunting around and sniffing things is great. But in a movie it takes on an early 90s shot on video with the director's friends kind of movie quality. Beyond that, the actual dog action was weird. There was this construct where Danny Trejo's bulldog character was the leader, or "Dogfather," and he had the other dogs harassing Charlie. It was an odd construct that weighed the film down in ways it didn't need. Then they tried to do the "dog hates the mailman" thing, but it was Charlie attacking the mailman, which I wasn't sure if in that case it was supposed to be an applause scene? Who likes to see mail workers attacked by dogs? And how does that endear me to our star dog any more? Animals should be an easy win for a movie, but here they ended up being another misstep.

Finally, as we've been doing lately, I want to get back to Dolph for a second paragraph to look at where we stand with his career. At 65, the next stop on the Dolph Train is the 70 Club. With that in mind, I have Section 8, Operation Seawolf, and 4Got10 all watched and ready to review. We also have Expendables 3 which I still have only done on a podcast episode, and then Sharknado 5, which only has him in a cameo, but he's in it. But would we want to review that for his 70th film? I checked, and for his 60th we did Female Fight Club, and that was a milestone as well because it was the last Dolph DTV flick I needed to watch--and depending on how you count Seal Team, I'm still caught up ahead of his 2023 releases. Looking at our past with him, we've also done some of his big screen releases, like The Expendables and Rocky IV, so Expendables 4 is probably in play as well. As I said above, it's been a great journey, and based on his upcoming projects, not one that's going to end anytime soon on his side, so it feels like it's on us to keep the site going so we can continue to catalog them.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This will unfortunately go down as one of the more difficult entries in our need to catalog all of Dolph's films here on the site. As of this writing, you can get this free on the Roku Channel here in the States. If you feel the need to dive in, I suggest planning multiple sits, maybe three or four. And to hear us discuss the film in more detail, you can check out our episode in the podcast archives. It was another fun episode, and great to have Mitch on as always!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6344584

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Alternate (2000)

We finish the month of October with the last of our 2021 Hall of Fame inductees, Ice-T and Sam Firstenberg. With that in mind, what better film to cover than one that starred Ice-T and was directed by Firstenberg? Well, I guess we'll see how good a film it was before we say. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance, Exploding Helicopter, and Cool Target have covered this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

The Alternate has Bryan Genesse as a CIA agent tasked with an interesting job: stage a kidnapping of the president to help boost the prez's poll numbers ahead of the upcoming election. He forms a team, including maverick former CIA guy Eric Roberts, they succeed in taking their target, only to have Genesse decide he'd rather make this a real kidnapping. Now only Eric Roberts can stop him, with his only assistance in the form of a Michael Madsen on a phone on the ground who is really only there to smoke and look cool for the camera.

 

Does it sound Die Hard-y? It does, doesn't it? The thing is though, it's a slimmed-down lite Die Hard. Shorter run time, not as many baddies to manage, smaller location, and fewer explosions. I think this film might have been a fun DTV actioner, the problem is, it fell into the trap a lot of modern DTV flicks do: it only had enough material for an episode of a syndicated TV show. This was especially rough when we get to the end, where it seems like our hero and the baddie are having their final showdown, but the slider bar is telling me there's 17 minutes left. How can this be? False endings of course. Oh, we thought Roberts had killed Genesse? There's still 15 minutes left, time for Genesse to pop back in again. It's like the cinematic equivalent of using a larger font and greater line-spacing to make that high school paper seem longer. By the same token, an episode of a syndicated TV show wouldn't have had the prodigious cast this had. So where does that leave us? Maybe our friend Will at Exploding Helicopter said it best: "What you get here is more Try Hard than Die Hard."

Last year when I had Jon Cross of the After Movie Diner (which just celebrated 10 years!) and Miscellaneous Plumbing Fixtures on to talk Fred Williamson, he mentioned having Ice-T in our Hall of Fame, and when he said it, there was a sense of "yeah, why isn't he in the Hall of Fame?" He's got pretty solid numbers (this is his 16th film on the site), has worked with a lot of the greats--Pyun, Firstenberg, Olen Ray, Williamson, Wynorski, and Camacho--, and it seems like no matter how good or bad the film is, he brings it. In this film, I found out in Marco Siedelmann's Stories from the Trenches that despite Ice-T only being in this for a short time, because his character was a CIA agent, he felt he needed to cut his hair. That kind of commitment takes a film like this, and elevates it simply from his appearance. I can't think of a better reason why he should be in the Hall of Fame.

 

Our other inductee, taking the director spot for 2021, is Sam Firstenberg. We know his rap sheet: Ninjas, American Ninjas, Dancing Ninja, Cyborg Cops, and Delta Forces. He helmed some of the greatest DTV flicks ever. I think with this one, you can see his skills in the way the film was put together, it seems more competent than your usual DTV fare; by the same token, you can see the limitations in both time and budget that prevented him from making this what he really wanted it to be. In Marco's book, he both said he really liked this film, and admitted to those limitations. I get that on both scores too. This feels a little more serious than an American Ninja 2, Cyborg Cop 2, or Breakin' 2... Electric Boogaloo; but, I can't let this film think it's so much better than those other movies, because the terrorists were taking out the CIA agents by blowing laced toothpick through straws because they could get them through security. Watching Eric Roberts and Bryan Genesse blowing through straws and then CIA agents grabbing at their necks and falling over isn't too far away on the silliness scale from Ninja III. Overall, this film is better, not worse, for Firstenberg's direction, and that tends to always be the case with his films, which is why he's being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

I already have the something for the seventh paragraph, so it's actually this sixth one I wasn't sure about. One idea was extolling the virtues of the one set Michael Madsen role. Maybe he's mailing it in, but it was a lot of fun watching him do it. The sunglasses, cigarettes, and gravelly voice always work. Another was the fact that this was supposed to be called The Replacement, but Ty from Comeuppance surmised--I think correctly--that the big screen Keanu Reeves film The Replacements came out the same year, so perhaps that's why they changed the name--though they didn't change Eric Roberts at the end saying "call me the replacement..." Or maybe it was the fact that Bryan Genesse wrote this, which is a fun fact, and I don't think it was a horrible effort, but it also makes me wonder if he or anyone else work-shopped the laced toothpicks shot out of straws idea. 

 

Finally, the president in this film is played by John Beck. I've lost track of how many times we've done a film that featured someone playing the president, but I believe this is the first mustachioed one. It made me wonder: when was the last time we had a mustachioed president here in the US? My guess was Teddy Roosevelt, and I was close--it was Taft right after him. In fact, we haven't had many 'Stache Prezes in US history. Most opted for no facial hair--I think Lincoln was the first with his non-'stache beard. Chester A. Arthur had a 'stache prior to becoming president, but as far as I can tell, in office he only had that mustache that connected to his sideburns, which in my mind is still a form of beard and doesn't count. That would make Grover Cleveland the first, and Harrison after him had a beard, so that makes Cleveland the second as well. From there we just have Roosevelt and Taft, and that's it--and not only that, Taft was the last prez to sport any facial hair. What that tells me is the entire premise of this film is off: why would the first mustachioed president since Taft be losing in the polls? That's less believable than the straw-toothpick darts. Just the slogan "Four More Years of the 'Stache" would win it, there'd be no need for all this Genesse tomfoolery to make him look better.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can currently get this on Tubi. While I say 90 minutes on Tubi is a good deal, this one feels like closer to 100, so keep that in mind. On the other hand, you have a great cast directed by Firstenberg, so that mitigates those issues somewhat. Congratulations again to Ice-T and Sam Firstenberg for being the last two of our 2021 Hall of Fame inductees. We'll see who gets inducted next year at this time!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203835

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

Skin Traffik aka Hitman in London (2015)

This is it, Gary Daniels, with this post, joins Dolph Lundgren in our most exclusive of DTVC clubs, the 50 Club. That's right, this is the 50th film we've reviewed that has Daniels in it, and only Dolph has more on here. It's an amazing and well-deserved honor for him as one of the best to do it. In addition to this review, we also did a podcast with Simon of Explosive Action, so you can check that out as well for more Daniels discussion. Now, without any further ado.

Skin Traffik has Daniels as a hitman who, in carrying out a job, accidentally kills the mark's pregnant daughter. Distraught, he goes dark in a bad neighborhood of London. As luck would have it, a bad brothel run by some bad Russians is in that same neighborhood, and he needs to sort those guys out and free the women, one of whom is Dominique Swain, and she enlists Daniels to help him find her sister. At the same time, Daniels's old boss, Eric Roberts, isn't happy he went dark, and in working with the angry people running the brothel, tries to take Daniels out.

 

This one isn't bad. From the description, it sounds like your typical hitman redemption by saving white slave victim who marries him and they live happily ever after, but that ain't this. Dominique Swain brings more nuance to that role, and I could also tell Daniels appreciated that this gave him more to work with than that standard tired trope. On top of that, his action scenes were top notch--I'd say some of his best, except he has so many great ones that he's set such a high standard on his own, so we'll stick with "great" to describe them. On top of that, while the massive cast individually isn't in the film much, they all do a great job in their small parts to enhance everything else about this that's good. I think this just works.

Again, Daniels is joining our most exclusive of clubs here at the DTVC. From a pure actor/star standpoint, there may not be many others who can catch him in tags and reach this club. Art Camacho at 46 would be next, but those are mostly behind the camera credits. Same with production companies like PM and Canon. Cynthia Rothrock is at 35, but I don't know if there are 15 more movies to do for the site for her. Don "The Dragon" Wilson is at 34, and I'm cracking some of his early stuff that barely has him in them, but same thing, are there 16 more? Perhaps it would be someone like Fred Williamson, who only has 18 so far but has a bunch out there that we need to do. It could be years before he gets there though. The fact that we don't have another actor outside of Dolph and Daniels in the 40 Club, let alone the 50 Club, should give you an idea of how big of a deal this is, and again, it's well-deserved.

 

From a performance standpoint, say what you want about this movie, Daniels brings it. Yes, some of his tags come from early PM films where he didn't have a big part, but most are like this, where he doesn't short-change us on the action. I think that's what I've always appreciated about Daniels, when it comes to action and martial arts scenes, he gives us what we've come for. I do think there was also a part of him that liked the idea of this being not your usual hitman redemption story, because he seemed to lean into that aspect. In that sense, I think this was a good one to look at for a post like this to honor his entry into the 50 Club. If you're looking for more Daniels to explore, I have a Letterboxd list where I rank them, which may be easier than clicking his name on the tags and browsing through 50 movies.

This film has a really prodigious cast, including Eric Roberts, who many think would have been the one with the most tags on here. He's only at 11 though. Obviously, with over 600 credits, he could be another contender to get to 50 and beyond, but because a lot of his roles are like this, a small supporting character, one to two locations, mostly sitting and talking by himself, how many of those do I want to tackle if they don't have a big name like Daniels attached? That's the thing though, he's done so many of these with DTVC Hall of Famers, it is possible that he could get to 50 just by the sheer volume of these roles.

 

Of the many others in this, one I really enjoyed was Michael Madsen. It was a very Michael Madsen-esque performance, which is all you can ask for when you see his name on the tin. He has a scene with Eric Roberts that may or may not have been shot with him, which is the kind of thing I love in a film like this. Jeff Fahey has a small part at the end that I also really enjoyed. Finally, the fact that they cast Dominique Swain in the part of the victim of white slavery was a really good choice. She added some harshness to a part that in a lot of action films is glamorized and there strictly for the hero to rescue and marry after. No one would have missed a beat if they'd just cast an Eastern European fashion model and called it good, but the fact that they didn't elevated this above the usual trope--which again I think was why Daniels went for this part too.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. You can stream this for free on Tubi right now, and I think it's worth a look. It's not perfect, but the action is there, and Daniels doesn't mail it in. What more can you ask for? Also, check out the podcast Simon and I did on this film. There are links on the left, or you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3120960

Sector 4: Extraction (2014)

Back in 2014, friend of the site Richard Pierce let us know that this film, one he did the screenplay on, would be coming out, and we had him on the podcast to tell us about it. Unfortunately not only did that episode get lost when Talkshoe had a server crash, but my unplanned hiatus ended up coinciding with the release of the film, meaning I never got around to it. When I got back into doing reviews again, and picked Assassin X for my Art Camacho post to celebrate him joining the 40 Club, I saw this under Gruner's IMDb bio and couldn't believe I still hadn't looked at it. Now it's time to right that wrong.

Sector 4: Extraction has Gruner as a mercenary (or "private military contractor" if you want to use the PC term) who takes a job in Sector 4, the most dangerous sector in Afghanistan, and he and his boys end up captured. He escapes, only to find out that his guys are still alive and being held there by Al Qaeda. His boss, Eric Roberts, is too busy chewing scenery to greenlight a trip back there to save them, so it's up to Gruner, after myriad training montages, to go back in and get his boys out. No man left behind.

This feels like a Gruner passion/vanity piece. I think whether you use the term "passion" or "vanity" determines on how you feel about it overall--or what you think of the fact that in some scenes Gruner's beard appears to have been touched up with Grecian Formula--I'm not knocking it, I have gray in my beard too, I'm just saying. It's not a traditional action film per se, it's more Gruner selling us on the fact that mercenaries aren't all the bad Blackwater stories we've heard; but also, that there is a toll that these things take on their families, and he's trying to reconcile that with his son who he's "leaving behind" as well while he does his missions, played by his real life son Nash Gruner. I think that story could have been compelling, but it was almost like they didn't want to go too far into it, and instead hit us with more training scenes. Calling them "montages" is a bit generous, I just didn't have another term for them, but they're too long for montages. The best analogy I can give is an old Family Guy sketch where Peter and Lois are watching Maude, and it's an extended version of the theme song, and Peter keeps yelling, "an then there's Maude!" These training sequences are like that, I kept saying "and next scene," but we'd reset and Gruner would go back to another drill. The thing is, with DTV, we don't know if those montage scenes were long on purpose, or if something else happened causing them to have to extend them to pad out the film. Either way, it's part of the overall vibe this film has, where you don't know if you want to call it a "passion piece" or a "vanity project," but again, I think how you see it will determine whether or not you'd like it.

Part of why this could be termed a passion/vanity project, is Gruner wrote the story, directed, produced, and acted in it. With that in mind, Gruner has done so many ones on here that we liked, and he is in the DTVC Hall of Fame, so if he wants to make a movie like this, I feel like more power to him. What does that mean for you as the viewer though? I think that's the framework you need to watch it in, you're not coming to this for Angel Town, Savate, or Nemesis, this is the movie Gruner wanted to make and the story he wanted to tell, and I do feel he's earned the goodwill to do something like this, it's just a matter of how much the elements that don't work get tedious versus us as fans supporting him in a project like that. It does straddle that line for sure.

Beyond the fact that this is a Gruner flick, as I mentioned above, the screenplay was written by one of our friends, Richard Pierce, and that more than anything is why I'm reviewing it--albeit much later than I intended! What he didn't tell us was he not only wrote the screenplay, but he also had a small part, and was associate producer. I think for all of us who do the kind of thing we do, it's a dream to be able to be involved in a film like this in even a small way, so to see him have this level of involvement was really cool. I feel bad that it took me over five years to finally make this review happen, but we're here now, and it's great to see it all. I promise the next time you need me to review something for you, it won't take so long!

One of the problems with the passion project/vanity piece, is that as a filmmaker, Gruner--or whoever does something like this--is tied to certain elements that might have been changed to make for a more compelling story. Take the aspect of the film with his son. It's his real son, and I think he wanted to add an element about how he's away from home a lot with his work, and he wants to fix that. The problem is, even if it is his real son, between the Grecian Formula and the younger ex-wife, it plays out the way we see in a lot of these films, where the lead is afraid to show his true age. The story we seldom get is the aging soldier who is coming to terms with the fact that he's not in his 20s anymore, and to that end, having an adult child who may have been born in 1990 and is now in their mid-20s, and Gruner as the father is realizing how much he missed in their lives; and maybe one of the guys he's rescuing is the young father of Gruner's real life son, and Gruner sees in the young boy the mistakes he's made, and that's the wrong he wants to right in addition to not leaving any of his men behind. The trope is too ubiquitous: lead born in the 50s/early 60s with girlfriend/wife born in the late 80s/early 90s. Get away from it, go deeper, have an ex-wife that was born the same year as you, and show us that aspect of life that we're all going to go through. As I said, I've got graying in my beard now too, it's not anything to be ashamed of, but I get why anyone would be just the same.

We haven't seen Eric Roberts since 2013, which isn't horrible when you consider from 2015 to 2019 I was on hiatus, but still, for someone with Roberts's massive IMDb bio, you'd think we'd run into another one between then and now, just based off the statistical probability. This is definitely in the realm of what Ty and Brett at Comeuppance call a "sit-down role," and while Roberts does stand from time to time, all of his scenes are in one location. There were moments where I even wondered if he shot his scenes with Gruner with Gruner, but when I saw them in the same shot I was disabused of that notion. People have pushed for Roberts to be in the Hall of Fame, and are often surprised to find out he doesn't have more films reviewed on the site. I honestly don't know why he doesn't have more films reviewed here either, but it's for that reason that he hasn't been inducted into the Hall of Fame. When I looked at his bio and the myriad films listed, one thing I realized is he doesn't do as many action movies, which we tend to skew more towards here; he also doesn't do as many like this with another established Hall of Famer. We'll see what we can do though about getting more of his stuff on here, because he's fantastic in his sit-down role in this, as he is in pretty much everything he does.

On that note, it's time to wrap this up. You can rent Sector 4: Extraction on Prime, or stream it for free here in the US on the Roku Channel. This isn't an action movie, it is more a Gruner passion/vanity project, and I think the way to determine whether or not you want to watch it, is to consider which side of the passion/vanity slash you're on. Either way though, congratulations to our friend Richard Pierce for his part in this. If anything, that was a great thing to see his name in the credits!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3099370

The Mark (2012)

My girlfriend and I were talking about my blog last week, and she asked if I ever did low-budget religious movies.  She's not religious herself, but said she likes to fall asleep to them.  Off the top of my head the only one I could remember doing was the Dolph Lundgren flick Final Inquiry, which was a religious film that I wasn't expecting to be religious.  Beyond that, I had trouble thinking of anyone in our neck of the blogosphere that ever did religious films.  I know The Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense once covered Left Behind, but that was about it.  In fact, many of my fellow low-budget movie bloggers explicitly said they wouldn't do movies like this because they weren't their thing.  That was my stance too, more so because I didn't want the trouble that comes from reviewing a religious movie: people get their dander up and like to pick fights, and that's the last thing I need to deal with.  On the other hand, as I was talking about it with my girlfriend, I was reminded that DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels had three religious films in the can that he shot in Thailand recently, and I was on the fence about looking at them.  Well, now we're going to try this one, and we'll see how it goes.  In this review I'm going to do my best to be respectful to everyone's beliefs, and also look at the film on its merits beyond its religious content, especially Daniels's performance.  Let's see how it went.

The Mark is about mercenary Craig Sheffer, a former army man who fought in Afghanistan, and a nonbeliever.  He's injected with a microchip against his will, and the company he works for sends him and Eric Roberts to Berlin for the G20 summit in order to show the chip off.  There's another guy though who wants that chip, and he hires mercenary Gary Daniels and his team to hijack the plane and get Sheffer.  Next thing you know there's explosions at 30,000 feet and then The Rapture happens and all hell breaks loose-- no pun intended.



I didn't care for this much.  First off, there was a fair amount of proselytizing.  I'm not complaining about that specifically, because I'm the one who came to this religious movie, it's not like the people who made it knocked on my door; but it did interrupt the flow of the film.  It was often inserted inorganically, which threw off the rhythm, especially in the early going.  Also, from a writing standpoint, we had some plot convenience theater, especially with Daniels's character who is knocked out when The Rapture happens, then is completely ignored until the very end of the movie.  I thought he was one of the chosen ones he was so absent.  Speaking of The Rapture, it was a good ending point for the film, but we still had 36 minutes of the film spinning its wheels before we got to the credits.  It was annoying, especially the whole thing with Sheffer trying to get into the cockpit.  We knew he was going to get in there, they only prolonged it to pad the film.  Finally, the special effects were Asylum bad, but with The Asylum, we know their films are meant to be fun and campy.  This movie was serious, so the bad special effects came off as crass and hokey.  For most of my audience who isn't religious-- and I think even for those who are-- there isn't much here beyond your classic unevenly written plane hijacking yarn; but because it has that massive religious element, I'd say it's a skip for anyone not interested in hearing that.

Gary Daniels though was really good here.  I was looking him up to see if he was born again or something, and the best I could find is that he's making films in Thailand right now, and that's where these were shot, so either the paycheck or the role enticed him.  I can see how the role though would've done it for him, because this isn't a bad baddie, and he makes the most of it.  He said in an interview I read that he's always looking for parts that do something for his career, and if I were a DTV film maker I'd cast him as a baddie in my next actioner, for sure.  Of course, I'd rather have him as the lead, but I think he's proven here more than any of the other baddie roles I've seen him in that he's not just a one-note hero.



Eric Roberts is in this as well, playing the devious corporate dude.  He chews up all kinds of scenery, and really takes the substandard dialog and makes it into something fun.  I noticed that he has more of these religious films to his credit than Daniels does, but I'm not sure that he's overly religious either.  I mean, it could just be that he's done more movies period.  His character doesn't get as much to do though until near the end, and it devolves into cliched villain stuff that Sheffer counters in cliched hero fashion.  I liked though that Roberts took this one-note and made the most of him.  He just seems to have fun being an actor, and playing villains at that.

We're seeing some more Craig Sheffer here.  Like Daniels and Roberts, I couldn't figure out if Sheffer was religious like this too, but unlike Daniels and Roberts who get to be baddies, Sheffer's character finds religion towards the end of the film, so if he doesn't believe this stuff, it might be a tougher bridge to cross.  I guess that's the challenge of being an actor.  Compared to his hero in Battledogs, the one in The Mark lacks the charisma that carried that other film.  I think The Asylum is better at writing heroes in their films because they write from a tradition of lantern-jawed 50s and 60s mensch-types in their modern send-ups of those films, and they've had time to hone their craft to make those guys more fun; this is definitely a much less polished hero written here, not always likable, walking around with a scowl on his face like he's a dad waiting in a long line at the Home Depot on a Saturday in late July.  The hero is the key in any film to make it work, and he has to be written well for that to happen.



Finally, I do want to touch on the theme of this movie quickly, and discuss how I think it might have been delivered better to the audience, both religious and non-religious.  It's that whole "the world is ending, and only the believers will be saved" idea, but because it's tied directly to modern events, and is set in modern times, it plays like a man with a placard around his neck bothering people in Times Square.  I think if the film were set like 50 years into the future, where the writers could have the freedom to create a total dystopian world for us to despise, and then introduce this same story with Sheffer and the microchip and The Rapture, it would have played better.  Still, the religious messages in either story, the one I'm proposing or the one we got, would have to be introduced to us organically, because, like we got here, when they don't feel natural, it throws off the pacing.

This is available on Netflix.  I'd like to say watch it for the great Gary Daniels, but the movie had a lot of flaws, and for my readers who aren't religious, those flaws will only be exacerbated by the film's religious bent.  I guess what I'd say is, if a high proselytizing content is problematic for you, I'd stay away.  Otherwise give it a look, you might have fun.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2058710/

23 Minutes to Sunrise (2012)

Here is another of the films submitted to us by Kevin at MTI Video.  This one I was really interested in, because it starred Eric Roberts.  He's a favorite here at the DTVC, even though we haven't reviewed nearly as many of his 300+ imdb credits as we should.  (Have you looked at his bio recently?  He has more post-production credits than most people's full CVs.)

23 Minutes to Sunrise takes place in a small Illinois town outside of St. Louis.  It involves two people who work 3rd shift at a diner, Eddie and Sheila (Dingani Beza and Jilanne Klaus respectively), and the odd assortment of patrons they have.  Two of them are Eric Roberts and a young lady with him.  There's something ominous about Roberts, and Eddie thinks he knows why, and because of that doesn't want anything to do with him; while Sheila wants to protect the girl.  At the same time, a young thug and his girlfriend show up, looking to rob the place.  They're all on a collision course to wackiness!



There were a lot of aspects of this that I enjoyed.  I liked the two main characters, Eddie and Sheila; I liked the sets and cinematography and the way those things set a great atmosphere of mystery and tension; I loved what Eric Roberts brought to the table, and the other supporting cast, including Nia Peeples.  What I didn't like was the ending.  I felt like it wasn't worthy of who the main characters were, and I felt like they deserved better than the ending they got.  I obviously can't discuss the ending without giving it away, but it was a disappointment.  Overall, the story had its slow moments, but it also had some great ones that would have made up for that; but for me, it couldn't recover from that ending.

Eric Roberts was definitely Eric Roberts here.  He was just smoking cigarettes and chewing up scenery.  It's amazing, for someone who does so many films, that he doesn't mail it in when he's in a low-budget film like this, but he doesn't.  I think that's what I love about Roberts, that he's a consummate professional.  Or maybe that he's always Eric Roberts in every film, whether it's this or The Expendables, it's Eric Roberts.  For fans of him, like myself, this definitely delivers, and in that respected I enjoyed it.



The film is carried by the stories of Eddie and Sheila, who create a kind of united front in dealing with the customers, and Beza and Klaus make those characters compelling enough that I wanted to root for them and I stuck with the film because I wanted to see them make out well.  Again, the ending doesn't provide that kind of fulfillment, at least for me, which was an extreme disappointment.  I think when you put in the work to give us strong, nuanced characters, and give us a reason to invest in them, we need that investment to pay off, otherwise the whole thing is shot.

As I mentioned above, Nia Peeples is in this, playing a wife who is having marital problem with her husband, played by Bob Zany-- he's not all that zany though.  She doesn't have that many scenes, but her role is one of the few that infuses some humor into the film, which was a good thing.  The young lady with Roberts was played by Haley Busch, heir to a massive beer company fortune that we won't name in order to avoid buzz marketing it.  I noticed that the director made sure to get a good shot of a nice microbrew in a convenience store scene, which was a nice counter to that.  The couple looking to rob the place were played by Tom Sandoval and Kristen Doute.  They were listed as being on a reality show called Vanderpump Rules.  I have no idea what that is, but maybe someone reading does.  All of these people did their thing as a supporting cast, and they all worked, though I would have liked to have seen more Nia Peeples.



Finally, we have Greg Warren playing a developmentally delayed man who dresses as a super hero and comes into the diner to get what appears to be his usual meal and coffee.  Eddie and Sheila know him and like him, and unless you have no heart, it would be hard for anyone else to not like him either.  The film maker though pulls a very mean-spirited move and has Sandoval's thug character rob him at gun point.  It happens off-screen, but when he comes back we see him with Warren's superhero money belt.  The thug character really has no repercussions from this, making it all the more mean-spirited.  I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy seeing developmentally delayed characters robbed at gunpoint, especially in the context of the rest of the film with the goodwill it was building through the Eddie and Sheila characters.  Maybe some people enjoy more mean-spirited fare in their films, but I don't.

And maybe that's it, this didn't work for me because it wasn't made for me.  Except, 90 percent of it, all but the superhero character getting robbed and the end, worked for me; so where does that leave someone who likes the more mean-spirited elements, but not the better-feeling elements that I enjoyed leading up to them?  I don't know, it's an interesting call.  This is available on DVD from both Netflix and RedBox, so those would be places to check it out if you are interested.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2009402/