Illicit Behavior (1992)

This is one that Jon and I covered on episode 231 of the podcast, back in October, when we paired it with Deadly Desire as part of a Jack Scalia double-feature, and I wanted to finally get it on the site because it has some other great names; plus we haven't done any Joan Severance before, and that needed to be corrected! In addition to us, Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this as well. Trigger warning: sexual assault and abuse are mentioned in this review.

Illicit Behavior has Severance as a housewife with a police officer husband (Scalia) who's known for getting into trouble, and can be a bit of a brute. She also has a brother who inherited a family bar and some other money, which she would like to have to herself. At some point in a therapy session with Scalia, she tells her psychiatrist (Adam-12's Kent McCord) that her brother sexually abused her when they were growing up. This causes Scalia to go to his bar and kill him. That starts an IA investigation by Robert Davi, whom Severance tells that Scalia has been physically abusive toward her. Will Davi fall for her feminine wiles, or get wise to her tricks before it's too late?

This has a few things going for it. First and foremost, we have the names, which, in addition to the ones I mentioned above, we also have James Russo as Scalia's partner, and Jenilee Harrison of Three's Company Fame as Severance's sister-in-law. Names like that give us as the viewer something to anchor in on as the story goes in all kinds of directions, like this one does. And that story, written by Erotic Thriller mainstay Jag Mundhra, goes to some places that I think would've been problematic by 1992's standards, but are much more so today. One of the most common counters to someone's abuse claims is that the victim is making it up to damage the reputation of the alleged abuser, and it leads to many people not reporting abuse at all--"who would believe me anyway?" The reality is abuse claims like this are seldom made up, but using the idea of it being made up as a device for Severance's character to manipulate the men in the story only exacerbates the problem. I don't know that that's something people can get beyond, but if you can, Severance turns in a great performance which does give this some value and makes it worth a watch.

Speaking of Severance, almost 1400 posts in, and she's finally getting her first movie on the site. This feels like a massive oversight, but as I've discussed before, my goal of doing a lot of Erotic Thrillers when I started the DTVC back in 2007 was diverted by all of the engagement I got on the action posts, and Erotic Thrillers were one of many genres that were left behind. With the new series of Jon and I doing Erotic Thriller double features on the podcast, it's led to more of those getting reviews here too, and will lead to more Severance as well, because this is one four films of hers we've already done. When we think of the Queen of Erotic Thrillers, Shannon Tweed and Shannon Whirry both come to mind, but I think Severance is equally worthy of that title, and I think each of them inhabit a unique space in the world of Erotic Thrillers, which for me leaves room for three queens. The space Severance inhabits is this kind of "awe shucks" pretty woman on the surface, who makes guys think she's just there for the taking, while below the surface is slowly--or not so slowly perhaps--wrapping them around her finger to get them to do whatever she needs them to do. Shannons Tweed or Whirry couldn't play that part, the same way Severance wouldn't be able to replace Tweed in Scorned or Whirry in Animal Instincts, but I like that if they're given parts that work for them, you know going in depending on who's on the tin what kind of Erotic Thriller you're going to get. As I said above, we already have a few other Severance films watched that we can review on here, so hopefully we'll see her again soon and make her a bigger part of the site.

Jack Scalia, not Joan Severance, was the reason we watched this though, as Jon and I thought it would be cool to do a Scalia double feature to tie the episode in with Jon's PM Entertainment Podcast, because Scalia had done his share of PM flicks too. I think the biggest thing Scalia brings to the table here is he looks the part, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that Severance's character would fall for him. At the same time, he does a great job of playing a hot-headed lunkhead, which makes a lot of his character's decisions more believable as well. If Severance is one of the Queens of Erotic Thrillers, I don't know if Scalia is a king, that title probably goes to Andrew Stevens, but Scalia has done his share of these, so he at least deserves some consideration--maybe he's the Duke of Erotic Thrillers. Compare that to Robert Davi, who has done his share of these as well, but this was one of the rarer ones where he's kind of a lead, as opposed to his usual roles as the lead's partner or as some kind of fly in the ointment making things harder for other characters involved. He does a great job selling himself as the lovestruck dupe who's willing to do anything Severance tells him to do because he needs her so bad. Scalia and Davi make a great yin and yang, two New York Italian-Americans who were born in the early 50s, Scalia in Brooklyn and Davi in Queens, transported to Los Angeles where they're easy pray for Severance. 

I don't want to dwell on the fake abuse aspects of this because it can be triggering and I don't want to do that, so I'll just say quickly that I think that plot device was used because the classic "woman simply using her feminine wiles to get men to bump off other men for her" may have seemed too worn at that point, especially for someone like Jag Mundhra who had written a lot of these. There's another problematic aspect of this though that I do think using this device is more of a commentary on and the way it's used here turns the notion on its ear. It's the idea that men who save women from some kind of abusive or dangerous situation are somehow deserving of their romantic love as a result. It's a bad trope we see a lot in action movies--Seagal saves a beautiful woman half his age from a trafficking brothel, and she professes her undying love to him, that kind of thing. Here Severance feigns the damsel in distress role, and Davi thinking he's "won" her by protecting her from Scalia, is none the wiser that she might have ulterior motives. So while we have one element of this that's problematic and shouldn't have been a plot device, there's this other element that exposes another problematic trope at the same time. Maybe next time they can find a way to do the second thing without the first.

Finally, you'll notice my screen of Severance has her in a St. Louis Cardinals cap. You knew that was going to happen if I saw an MLB baseball cap in a movie. I was trying to think of where else we'd seen MLB baseball caps on the site before, and how many we had at this point, but because I haven't tagged them, it would be hard to tell, but I think either way this is our first St. Louis Cardinals one. Of all the MLB baseball games I've seen (according to my MLB Ballpark app, it's 76 and counting), I've only ever seen the Cardinals once, when they played here in Philly during Albert Pujols's last season in 2022, which makes him the player with the most career home runs I've ever seen play live (his 703 home runs 7 more than Alex Rodriguez, who I saw play with the Texas Rangers in 2002). I've never been to St. Louis before--or the state of Missouri for that matter--but as a lifelong baseball fan that's a park and baseball environment I've always wanted to experience. Maybe someday I'll be able to make the trip out there and make it happen, but at the very least we have a reason to spotlight them with this paragraph in this review.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently catch this free on Fawesome, which I think is a good way to go. Just remember depending on who you're watching this with that descriptions of abuse play a big part in the plot, and in ways that are not always handled well. And check out the podcast episode we did as well, number 231 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104485/

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

Dark Breed (1996)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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T-Force (1994)

This was the feature film on a recent episode of the Exploding Helicopter podcast (which if you haven't checked it out yet, you should!), and my first thought was "let me check out my review on it."  Turned out I didn't have a review for it yet, because it was one I had watched and planned to review before the unplanned hiatus.  I guess now is as good a time as any to take care of that.  In addition to being featured on the Exploding Helicopter podcast, our friends Ty and Brett reviewed this over at their site, Comeuppancereviews.net.

T-Force takes place in the near future, and in that time robots are prevalent.  The newest creation: robot cops.  After terrorists led by Vernon Wells take over a building, and the robot cops swoop in and take out a bunch of innocent bystanders at the same time they take out Wells and his men, a decision is made to scrap them altogether.  The problem is, they have a sense of self, and don't wanna die.  Jack Scalia and one of the robot cops who didn't join his robot friends are all that stand in their way.  The robots' way I mean, not Scalia and the other robot...

This is the real deal PM Entertainment.  That Vernon Wells building takeover happens right away, so they don't waste any time with the good action--I think they blow up a helicopter in the first 15-20 minutes.  It's classic PM in the sense that, just when you think the plot may get in the way of the action, they hit us with a too-sweet action sequence to keep us happy.  The only complaint, and I don't know if you call this a complaint, is I felt it suffered from the Destro Effect, in that for me, Evan Lurie as the head robot baddie was way cooler and more likable than our "hero" Jack Scalia.  That's because Scalia's character was essentially a racist.  Between the fact that Lurie is already cooler than Scalia, and then Scalia's character is hard to root for because he's a racist, you end up needing Lurie to kill so many innocent people to make him more unlikable than Scalia, and I don't know if the movie quite gets there.  But Destro Effect aside, this is good PM Entertainment doing its job for you.

Out of all the great DTV action stars, I think I missed Evan Lurie the most during my hiatus.  Unlike people like Dolph, who I might encounter in a non-DTV context, I'm only seeing Evan Lurie in flicks like this.  The reality with this movie is, he shouldn't have been the baddie, he and his partners Malibu and Jennifer MacDonald should have been the heroes, roaming the LA area, blowing up stuff and making cool faces.  I mean, that's essentially what PM gave us with this, it was just, knowing they were the baddies, we understood it all would have to come to a bad end Lurie and his crew eventually.  Here's to you Evan Lurie, you're one of the great ones.

I think this is the first Jack Scalia film we've done here at the DTVC, which is surprising considering he's been in a lot of PM Entertainment flicks.  As I mentioned above, his character was a tough one to root for.  Again, he's already working uphill because he's not as cool as Lurie; but then they make his character a racist against robots.  He changes his tune after he works with the robot in Lurie's crew who doesn't go rogue, but why did he need that to not be a racist?  It's like when there's an incident of violence against women in the spotlight, and some guy will say "I have two daughters, so I think this is horrible."  Why do you need to have a daughter to think violence against women is bad?  And why do you need to be partnered with a robot to think not all robots are bad?

This movie had two messages that it was trying to convey.  One, the nature of self, what makes us human, and furthermore, what gives us the right to stake our claim to life on this planet.  If we create robots, can we just shut them down when we want, or do the robots have a say?  You could also say this about animals we slaughter for food, right?  We breed the pig, but the pig doesn't want to die when it's time any more than Evan Lurie did.  The difference of course, is that the pig can't blow us up.  The second message had to do with immigration and the idea of immigrants coming to America and taking jobs away from blue collar workers.  The problem with that is, they never quite resolved Scalia's mindset on that, rather just had him forget it when he befriended his robot partner.  What's interesting about both of these debates is how they've evolved 25 years later.  In terms of the nature of self and who has the right to live, the plant-based protein market is huge now, but not because people think pigs are sentient creatures, but rather because environmentally factory farming is killing us.  As far as the immigration issue, that has blown up worse than we could have imagined in 1994, with the way Trump revived it as a boogie man and rode that hysteria among white, working class voters to the 2016 election.  That might be why Scalia's character is so hard to root for today: we can see him in his MAGA hat now, and that makes him all the more gross.

Usually that previous paragraph is the one I use for the seventh one, but I couldn't end a PM Entertainment post on that note.  Seeing this again after seeing so many newer DTV flicks for the blog recently, I'm reminded of why I got into this in the first place.  PM Entertainment got it right more often than they got it wrong, and this is a prime example.  How easily could they have gotten too bogged down in the two themes I mentioned above?  But not only did they not let that happen, they had some real kick-ass scenes.  When we see that logo at the beginning of a movie, we know we're going to be in pretty good shape.  Just a smooth-talking Evan Lurie robot in a ponytail blowing up helicopters.  What more can you want?

This is the PM Entertainment you came for.  Sweet action, fun baddies with Lurie and Malibu, and plenty of schlock to go around.  As of right now, this is available to screen on YouTube, so I would check it out if you haven't already.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111345/