Checkmate (2025)

This is probably the perfect movie for a review that was supposed to be the last one of February, but technically is the first one in March. It also has Lorenzo Lamas in it, someone we haven't seen in a long time, so that was a selling point too. I don't usually do the procedural serial killer film, but based on those other factors I thought I'd give this one a try.

Checkmate has Joyce Glenn as Brittany, a police detective in Louisville who's been put on ice after she shoots a hostage in a stand-off. Her psychiatrist (Sarah Pribis) has to clear her to go back to active duty, but isn't sure she wants to do that yet, so office work it is. But when a killer is using a chess theme to toy with the police department, the fact that Brittany knows a lot about chess has Captain Sommers (Lamas) make the tough call to put her on the case. And she's coming up with answers, but when a rich kid ends up as one of the victims, the weight of the state government is coming down on her, and she only has 48 hours to solve the crime before the feds are called in. When the ME gives her a clue to who the killer might be, can she figure it out before it's too late?

Again, this isn't exactly a genre I watch a lot, so some of the issues I have with it might be things that people who like these movies more don't see as a problem, but overall I thought this was a pretty good deal. The main issue for me was the story got repetitive. Person murdered, crime scene moment, Brittany finds a new clue, Lamas tells her she only has X amount of time to solve this, problem with boyfriend or father, wake up from a nightmare, repeat. For me, to get to the 90-minute mark, I could've done with less of that, and more of a few different areas. One, I think more between Brittany and her boyfriend Brad (Andra Fuller) could've replaced one of the murders. Early on we get the sense that he's kind of a creep who can't get the hint that she's not interested, which we find out later isn't the case. And developing that relationship more would've developed Brittany's character more as well. Two, Brittany seems to be the only woman working in their department. If that wasn't meant to be important, we needed at least one other woman, but if it was, that could've been explored more too. Finally, this was shot and takes place in Louisville. That's a unique location, all anyone knows about Louisville is the Kentucky Derby and baseball bats, but the movie didn't lean into that uniqueness at all. It could've been set in Anywheresville, USA as a result. All that said, this does what you want a movie like this to do, Glenn was great in the lead, I liked Dorien Wilson as the father, and Lamas was solid and we got a good amount of him--I don't want to spoil much more beyond that though. I think if you like serial killer procedurals, this one is worth checking out.

Normally we start with the film's Hall of Famer, but I wanted to discuss Joyce Glenn here first because she's the star. The only thing I want from a lead character in a movie is to be able to root for them and care if they succeed, and she gives us that. I think it's particularly important here, because there's this added element of the case is about to be taken away from her, so if we don't care enough, we'd be like "fine, let the Feds handle it." This is one of the things I like about these Tubi Originals, they give an actor like Glenn who's been doing more supporting stuff a chance to lead a film, and while you need to have a thick skin with this kind of thing (some of the reviews of these are harsh, to say the least), if you take it and run with it like Glenn did, hopefully other people making movies will see it and cast you as the lead in their projects as well. I don't know that a movie like this could have a sequel, because you can't have it be "Checkmate 2" and go back to that chess well again, but can it be a sequel if it's not called "Checkmate 2?"; but I think another serial killer procedural with Glenn at the lead and Lamas and Wilson back would be worth the watch.

We last saw Lorenzo Lamas back in October of 2021 when we covered Atomic Eden, where Lamas had a cameo at the end, so he got the tag. And I think that's why I hadn't done another Lamas film in so long, because I was afraid they were going to be like that with scant Lamas, and at least Atomic Eden had more names to discuss. I took a chance on this one though, and I'd say we were rewarded. He has a solid supporting roles as a good leader who cares about Glenn's character, believes in her, and wants her to succeed. This could've done that the other way and had him be a jerk who's opposing her, but doing it the way they did allowed Glenn to lean on Lamas's experience in the scenes they had together, which gave the movie a more organic feel overall. (The same thing is true of her scenes with Dorien Wilson, so I wonder if the filmmakers decided to go with more of that, than her scenes with Andra Fuller's Brad, because there was more chemistry between Glenn and Wilson or Lamas.) This is now 36 movies for Lamas, so the 40 Club is something we should aim for with him. I have him seventh all-time among DTV stars, but with Adkins at 8 close on his heels, we should get him to 40 before Adkins hits that mark at least. I see our old friends The Asylum have another Tubi Original with Lamas in it, President Down, with Gail O'Grady as the Commander in Chief, so we'll have to do that at some point. Also, based on how he looks here, could he play the lead in a Jim Jarmusch biopic?

I want to get into the people involved in creating this a bit, because I think they're worth highlighting as well. First we have director Jamal Hill, who grew up here in Philly. He has a fair amount of directing credits to his name, including Deuces with Larenz Tate and Meagan Good, and that shows in the film we get. It's competently made, even if it was a genre film made on a budget, and in some ways it's the genre film made on a budget that needs a solid professional director to carry it home, because it's easier to miss things when everything's tight and done on the quick. Our DP was Tyler Eckels, whose work I'd also seen in 72 Hours, a Phillippe Phactory film Ty and I covered on episode 224 of the DTVC Podcast. Unlike that film, which wasn't as well-lit or the color was turned down in post-production, here we get some nice shots, especially with the Louisville skyline in the background; and overall this movie looked nice, which we don't often see nowadays, everything's usually darker and more washed out, so that was refreshing too. I did think the screen POV shots like the one below weren't as effective, but that might've just been me. And last but not least, the screenwriter was Patrice Escoto, and I think she does a solid enough job on this. I wondered though how much of her script she expected to be in the final product. There were some lines that felt more like placeholders that look good in an initial draft, but when spoken out loud don't sound as natural. Also the story gives away the game in the opening scene, which may not have been as obvious in writing it, but seeing it live I think they could've used a couple more red herrings. The story does a good job in making Brittany a compelling lead though, and Glenn then takes that and fleshes it out, which is the most important thing. 

Finally, as I've mentioned a couple times, this took place in Louisville, Kentucky. I've been to the state of Kentucky before, but not Louisville. I bring this up because I think for most people, outside of the Kentucky Derby, we don't know much about Louisville, and it felt like this movie missed a trick in not giving us a more complete view of the city. I browsed Google Maps a bit, and saw a place called Burger Boy that looked like a nice deal, and even if they couldn't shoot there, could Brad have brought food from there when he and Brittany had an eat-in date?--instead of the "Thai" he said he was bringing, that ended up just being a salad. I also saw a coffee shop called Blak Coffee that looked nice, and even if you couldn't have shot there, maybe Brittany brings her dad a coffee from there when they meet at the park. It doesn't have to be like Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, but Louisville isn't New York or Chicago, if a film features it we need more to make it its own character in the story--or at least I'd like more.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As a Tubi Original, it's available on Tubi, so you can stream it for free, you just have to deal with commercials (which, there's one for a credit card collaboration with a retail chain that has this song that goes "wake up call," but it sounds like "wake up, Carl," so that gets in my head and my cats are wondering "who's Carl?" as I'm singing it to them). I think this is worth checking out on there, especially if you're a fan of these kinds of procedurals, and hopefully we'll get more like this from the people involved in the future.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35675045

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

Atomic Eden (2015)

After seeing how great Mike Möller was in Ultimate Justice, I was excited to see what else he had for us, and found this on Tubi. Throw in The Hammer, who I'm always saying I need to do more of on the site; and then Lamas tacked on in some way, and this seemed like a no-brainer. As we know though, it's often the no-brainers that turn into the not-so-good ones. In addition to us, our friends at Bulletproof Action have looked at this as well, so you can see what they thought as well.

Atomic Eden has Williamson a private military contractor who's been hired for a big job retrieving an item in Chernobyl, so he needs to round up his old crew and go in there to make it happen. As is often the case though, things aren't what they seem, as a bunch of men in white hazmat suits and gas masks descend on them, and now they need to do everything they can to fight their way out. Will they make it out alive? And exactly what is this device that they're risking their lives to retrieve? Is it worth all this trouble? And how does Lorenzo Lamas figure into all this?

Man, that's a great question, right? Is it worth it? I can ask the same thing about this movie. I mentioned that I was watching it to Ty from Comeuppance, and he asked, based off the name "is it a space slog?" I responded "no, it's a one location slog." I think that unfortunately sums it up. There were some pacing issues, especially with this device where the film starts at the 20-minute mark where they get ambushed in Chernobyl, and then goes back to Williamson rounding up his crew. That was clunky and caused me to lose interest a bit. Then we have the crew interacting with each other, which was also clunky. Then the action starts, and it's mostly the crew getting picked off like the cast of a horror movie. I don't know, I like that device in a horror movie, but action movies are not meant to be "Last Girl"-type constructs. Beyond all that though, We got a good amount of Williamson, and he was great in that good amount of him; I like Möller's fight scenes, which were fantastic again--and well-choreographed by him; and I liked his pairing with Hazuki Kato. To some extent, the movie might have been better if it were just those three kicking ass and taking names, rather then adding in a bunch of characters who are just there to be developed then killed off.

This is the space reserved for our requisite "we had planned on doing more Williamson on the site, and we've been woefully derelict in fulfilling that promise" paragraph, but when I looked I saw that the last Williamson was Jackson Bolt in June, and with the last one before that being Down 'n Dirty in February, it seems like we're doing a new Williamson every four months. When you compare that to Dolph, who's about one every three months, and Seagal is actually where Williamson, averaging about one every four months, I guess that means I have been doing more Williamson on here. And what I liked about this one was how much Williamson we got. It seems like a lot of his newer ones have less of him in them, and I can't blame him for that considering he's done plenty of great ones and he's in his 80s now; but here at 75, he could still get after it, which may bode well for some of the other DTVC Hall of Famers out there that are over 60.

Someone who isn't pushing 60, Mike Möller, who showed up again with some really fantastic fight scenes. The problem here was we had so much else going on with all the other characters, that we didn't get as much of him as we'd have wanted. His stuff is absolutely electric, you could put him up there with guys like Iko Uwais, the problem I think is Uwais speaks fluent English, which allows him to carry the non-action scenes off better. I don't know if we'll get Möller on that level, and it looks like after Ultimate Justice he went back to strictly German films. I feel like with the proliferation of action films being shot and produced by guys like Jesse V. Johnson, Ross Boyask, and Daniel Zirilli, there has to be a place for Möller in at least one of them. We need more of this guy!

The Lamas extra was an interesting twist. I had no idea he was in it until his name came up in the credits. It was a nice surprise, since we hadn't seen Lamas in over a year, when we did Gladiator Cop, which was really just him in edited footage from The Swordsman. This is now 35 for him, and out of all the actors in the 30 Club, he's probably best poised to get into the 40 Club. I have one in the can that I've seen already, Bordercross, which was taken off of Tubi before I could get images of it; and then I saw a few others are available on Tubi as well that I could make happen. We haven't moved anyone into the 40 Club since Cannon went in, so it'll be interesting if Lamas is that one.

 

 

Finally, this film used baddies in gas masks to allow them to have only a few stunt actors be as many as possible. A great trick for stretching the budget, and beyond that, I personally enjoy that approach: it's like this mass of endless, faceless killers coming to get them. I guess that added to the "Final Girl" horror element we had here, but I liked it better from the standpoint of the bad guys than from a plot device with all the heroes getting picked off one-by-one. I get too that it probably sounds inconsistent. How can I like one thing and not the other? My response is, "how can I not?"

And with that, let's wrap this up. Free on Tubi isn't the worst deal, but because of a lot of the extraneous character development and unevenly paced plot, the 90 minutes feels closer to 120, which hurts. I think if you're looking for more Williamson, and want to see what Mike Möller can do, this might do the trick for you though.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2974726

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

Gladiator Cop (1995)

After having done The Swordsman on here, I figured I'd do the sequel as well, since both were on YouTube, and I wanted to get more Lamas on the site. Sometimes it's a matter of be careful what you wish for. In addition to us, our friends Ty and Brett have covered this one over at Comeuppance, so you can check their site out to see what they thought. Now, without any further ado.

Gladiator Cop is a sequel to The Swordsman insomuch as taking footage off the cutting room floor from the first film and adding in some new stuff can make it a sequel. Lamas reprises his role...err...the footage of him from the first film is reused, as the museum head from the first one steals the sword of Alexander and gives it to a background dancer from the Bad video to use in underground swordfighting tournaments. Enter James Hong, who wants his warrior to fight Lamas to settle another reincarnation score from two thousand years ago. How can Lamas fight him if he's not really in this movie? Put a mask on another actor and you're all set.

I had no idea this movie was like this. I saw the first one, then just jumped into this one, and realized they were using footage from the first one. And even the things that I didn't recognize, I could tell they'd just been pulled from things in the first one that didn't make the final cut. That makes this a unique kind of bait-and-switch. They essentially Richard Harrison-ed Lamas into this sequel to take advantage of his popularity at the time on Renegade. Then, 16-year-old Matt is supposed to go into my local video store, see Lamas on the cover, and think "oh hey, that's Reno Raines! Let me check that out." Check and mate. Where does that leave us though? I mean, there is the novelty that this movie exists as it does, but it also has the feel of two films cobbled together without the charm of Godfrey Ho's ninja films. If the person playing Lamas in the fights had been wearing a ninja costume with the word "Ninja" on the headband, I think we would have enjoyed it more.

Of the other Hall of Famers, I can think of two who have been in similar circumstances. Cynthia Rothrock was in 24 Hours to Midnight, where someone else played her in a ninja costume; and then Fred Williamson did a fourth Black Cobra film where they just used footage from the previous ones and cobbled it together. The thing is though, those other two were made outside the US, and outside of SAG's jurisdiction. This on the other hand, as far as I could tell, was SAG sanctioned, and even had James Hong in it to boot. Also, it wasn't just Lamas's footage that was reused, they did the same thing with Claire Stansfield. I mean maybe Lamas signed off on it: what easier way to get a payday than to be in a film you don't have to shoot for. Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal would die for that kind of deal.

 

We last saw James Hong here in 2013 when we did Guns and Lipstick. When you think of someone with the volume of credits he has (I'm seeing 440 and counting on IMDb), a situation like this has to be right up his alley. I mean, he probably has some of his own credits like this where he never set foot on the set and they used old footage. What he does here is gives the film a level of credibility it desperately needed, and while it may not have been enough to ultimately save it, he was still a welcomed sight, like a familiar face in a crowd of strangers, and it had that same effect of putting my mind at ease; but then we'd have another Lamas recycled scene and my brain would go fuzzy again.

We've done some Godfrey Ho flicks here on the site, so we're not any strangers to this kind of thing. Reportedly Richard Harrison was told he was doing 2 ninja movies, which turned into 20. I also don't know that he was compensated for the other 18, whereas I'm pretty sure for Lamas to be credited and his scenes used in a SAG film, he needed to be paid for this. As I mentioned above, this doesn't really have the charm that those Ho flicks have; but beyond that, I do wonder why more studios haven't employed this technique. Seriously, do we think Bruce Willis would balk at a paycheck for a film he didn't have to act in? He looks almost the same in every movie too, how hard would it be to cobble together footage from five of those DTV flicks he's done recently? Bringing the Godfrey Ho approach back to the world of modern DTV could be a great thing to see--or it could kill the industry.

 

Getting back to Lamas, this marks his 34th film on the site, which begs the question, does the 40 Club and beyond beckon for him? On the one hand, when we look at how many newer films he's been in that we haven't touched yet, we say yes, we still have a long way to go; but on the other, after this one it looks like we've exhausted his best stuff in the late 80s to late 90s window, so how much more of his stuff do we want to do? Is it worth it to just do his movies just to do them? We could ask that about a lot of Hall of Famers, and I guess what I'll have to consider is factors like, who else is in the movie, what kind of quality is it, and if no one else is in it, how much is the Hall of Famer in it? And how important is it to get Lamas more tags at this point? He's already cemented his legacy as one of the best DTV stars ever, and for anyone looking to get into his stuff, we pretty much have all the best right here--I think Killing Streets is the only one I'm missing. I guess we'll play it by ear and see what happens.

And with that, it's time to wrap this one up. You can stream this on YouTube right now, and for me that's the best way to do it. It's a fascinating entry into the Lamas catalog--not sure if I'd go as far as to call it good, but it is fascinating. James Hong also makes you feel better about yourself as your watching it, and the fact that you're streaming it for free on YouTube helps as well.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109905

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015)

We kick off our first annual Shark Week celebration with the third installment in The Asylum's Sharknado series. Though these are technically TV movies due to the deal The Asylum has with SyFy to release them, to me they've always been DTV in spirit, and the kind of film the site was made for, so worth us checking them out. In addition to us, our friend Fred the Wolf at Full Moon Reviews has covered this, so you can go to his site to see what he thought of it.

Sharknado 3 picks up where part 2 left off. In the aftermath of the last Sharknado, Ian Ziering is hailed as a hero and is honored in a ceremony at the White House with the Golden Chainsaw. As luck would have it, another Sharknado is building off the East Coast just in time to attack the White House and ruin the ceremony. This storm is headed to Florida, where his family is vacationing, so he needs to shoot down there and save them. In the process, he and his team discover that this is bigger than the other ones, perhaps becoming a Sharkicane! The only person who can help now is Ziering's estranged father, played by the Hoff.

The natural go to here is to say the franchise is jumping the shark, but I have a feeling that's exactly what The Asylum and everyone involved with making this want us to say when we see this, so I'm not taking the bait. (Though I guess I already did just by writing what I wrote...) When I looked it up, this one didn't do as well as part 2 did when it aired, so we could already see the wave cresting and the enthusiasm waning, yet they still did three more. It makes sense, because, with a $2.4 million budget, if over 2 million people watched it, those are a lot of eyes seeing advertisements, which necessitates at least a 4th to see how much further they can take it. And the next thing you know we've got six. For The Asylum as newly inducted members into the 30 Club--and the only non-Hall of Famer to be in--these Sharknadoes represent their biggest successes, and while there are others, like Android Cop, that I prefer, it's still nice to see The Asylum reach these heights, coming from where they did when we started this blog, covering films like Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. In that sense, I feel like it's worth celebrating their success overall, no matter how one feels about whether or not by part 3 they've jumped the shark--but I get it too if you don't have that soft spot in your heart and you're thinking "enough already" by part 3.

Still the most fascinating aspect of this for me is Ian Ziering. Loved Steve Sanders on 90210, despite the fact that I think I was supposed to like Dylan or Brandon more. There are still shades of Steve Sanders in Ziering's Fin here, which makes it that much more fun to watch--not to mention the added touch of the car he's driving in this having the same license plates that his Corvette on the show had. Seeing him do well in this franchise post-90210 is as good a reason as any for me to root for this series to succeed, it's just hard with the rinse-repeat nature of it to keep the novelty going. But, as you can imagine, I'll still be back here at some point for number 4, and will still be reminiscing about 90210.

We did have a Hall of Famer in our midst, 30 Club member Lorenzo Lamas has a short cameo--so short, he didn't even have a still frame of just his head in the shot for me to get a good screen. True to our rule though, except for the time we couldn't find Don "The Dragon" Wilson in Siege of Firebase Gloria, we always get the Hall of Famer's shot in the review, so here was the best I could do. If you follow Lamas on Instagram, you'll see that he's looking to become a pilot, so this cameo role was made for him. I also like that he played a character named Sergeant Rock, both in reference to the great comic book of the past, but also to Lamas's role as Chilly D (short for "Chilliam Davis" I believe) in the film Body Rock. For a short cameo, this was a fun one.

We can now add Mark Cuban to the list of names who have played the President of the United States in a film we've reviewed here on the site, joining Roy Scheider, Rutger Hauer, Vivica A. Fox, Mel Novak, Charlie Sheen, and Jerry Springer. I know of him mostly as the owner of the Mavericks, but recently he's receded a bit from being the more outspoken and controversial owner he was when he first bought the team. In 2011 his Mavericks won the NBA Championship, the biggest irony of that being, before 2011 he was the guy fans most loved to see fail; but in 2011 LeBron went to the Miami Heat to form a super team, which made them the schadenfreude darlings of the league, so by the time the Mavericks made the Finals against the Heat, sentiment had done a 180 and everyone was rooting for Cuban and his Mavs, and I don't think he ever lost that luster fully after. All of that made his appearance as the President here much more fun.

That was probably more basketball talk than anyone would have wanted, but when a film intentionally jumps the shark like this one did, sometimes you run out of things to discuss. The thing is, when I compare this to some other DTV franchises we've looked at on the site, is it really any worse? By Bloodfist VIII they had devolved into just actioners featuring Don "The Dragon" as a guy taking on the world--and not even the same guy in each film either! The Kickboxers featured Sasha Mitchell in 2-4, with two and four directed by Albert Pyun, and then 5 had Marc Dacascos. By the time you hit that fifth one, we have a baddie from Space Mutiny forming his own kickboxing league, and killing anyone who doesn't join. And with the Bloodsports, by Bloodsport 4 we had Daniel Bernhardt fighting in a Dark Kumite run by Benjamin Franklin. I think the big difference between those and the Sharknado franchise, is those other ones played it straight, where as these ones they're in on the joke. I get it, how can you play a tornado of sharks straight? It just means the shelf life may not be as long.

And with that, I think this is a good time to wrap this one up. Right now you can stream it, and the rest of the Sharknado films on Prime. I don't know if they're binge-worthy, but consumed as one-offs, they can be a fun time. As you can imagine, we'll be back here at some point in the future to cover part 4.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3899796

The Swordsman (1992)

I'm not sure why I've never reviewed this one before. It's right in that early 90s Lamas sweetspot, where he had the hair and the leading roles to match. Unlike Final Impact, which I thought I'd already done, this one I just totally missed on. I guess now's as good a time as any to get back on the train and make this one happen. In addition to us, our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this as well, so you can go to their site to see what they thought--also TV Guide reviewed it. Their site is a bit tricky to navigate, but it was cool to see their name on the list of external reviews.

The Swordsman is not a film about Lorenzo Lamas's many relationships with women in Hollywood, but, rather, is about how he's the reincarnation of Alexander the Great, and he subconsciously wants his sword. How does he get it? By entering the seedy world of underground fencing. There he encounters Michael Champion, a man made for this kind of baddie. Could they have met sometime in the past? In addition to this, Lamas is working with Claire Stansfield, who's an archaeologist and museum curator who also believes in reincarnation. Get your eye protection ready when these loose ends come together.

So you've read that synopsis, and now you're curious how the film was. I get it. As you can imagine, even at a 92-minute runtime, which this film clocked in at, it's hard for a plot that convoluted to not get in the way. Underground fencing circuit is something that either sounds great on paper, or is a great Peter Griffin 15-second aside joke on Family Guy, but when you're seeing it in front of you, with Lamas in his bandana and fencing outfit, it's hard to take it seriously. I wish the film had a better budget, because it would have been nice to see Lamas as Alexander the Great conquering stuff. I think the problem is, the sword fight is hard to make action-packed, because it's so violent and deadly, that it can only have one outcome, and we know it's coming. With hand-to-hand stuff, unless there's a neck break or someone gets kicked out of a window from high up, we don't need to have that final outcome, which allows for some suspense in the actual fight. Maybe this is me just trying to make sense of a film sauteed in wrong sauce.

The Lamas was pretty sweet though. As I said, the early 90s was a great time for him, as we had more films like this where he was out in front in the lead, full man mane, shirt optional. If you look at his 1992, it was like a Scott Adkins 2019: he had this, Final Impact, Snake Eater III, CIA: Code Name Alexa, and then an Italian TV movie that I've never seen called Flesh and the Devil. At the same time, Renegade was starting as well, which is what I knew him best for at this time--it was like I saw him in Renegade, then saw him on the covers of movies at the video store and figured I'd check those out too. I've given him a bit of a hard time for the scant parts he's had in his more recent roles, but considering what his output was during this era, I realize I should be more forgiving. He definitely put in the work.

As a fan of another syndicated series, Highlander, which was totally centered on sword fighting, I think I have some ideas on why this didn't work. First off, that was a five-act show, which forced it to have things happening at the end of each act to keep us from leaving during the commercials. This was a movie, so it didn't have that impetus to keep things exciting at regular intervals. Also, Duncan MacLeod was always having to deal with things non-sword fight related. Maybe this could have used a car chase to liven it up a bit. On top of that, they weren't just fencers, they were people with different swords who chopped each other's heads off. The one thing they did get right along with Highlander though: the hero's man mane. Can't ever forget that.

The idea of the seedy underground fencing ring is a concept that I think could have used more exploring. In this film, it's Michael Champion's means to an end as far as finding the sword and drawing Lamas out for their immortal reincarnation battle. How would it work just as a device in and of itself? Maybe a college fencing team at a fictitious private institution. Some kids get an offer from a seedy fellow from the underworld. We have a hero, a young, naive kid with a lot of talent. Does he get enticed to join in order to get some money to impress a girl he likes? Maybe he's from the wrong side of the tracks himself and he has demons to fight? How does the killing happen though? I guess with anything action related, we can find a way to fit that in.

Claire Stansfield is back, this time as the archaeologist/Lamas love interest. We've seen here here a few times before, in the Dolph flick Sweepers (which according to IMDb was her last feature film role), Best of the Best II, and the Shaq film Steel. There's a sense that she's here to add a touch of class to the proceedings, like it can't be that ridiculous with Claire Stansfield as an archaeologist saying everything is okay. Unfortunately though, her character devolves into damsel in distress-dom, and with that goes her ability to prop it up any further. You did the best you could though, Claire, and we appreciate your efforts.

And with that, let's wrap this one up. For Lamas's 90s output, it's not his best, but it's not his worst either. It has its draggy moments as the convoluted plot needs room to unfold, but we also have the fun of Lamas in his man mane-iest, Claire Stansfield giving the film a touch of class, and Michael Champion as the exact kind of baddie a movie like this needs. On that score, it can be a bit of a fun nostalgia time waster, but I wouldn't rent it for that, rather stream it for free instead if you can.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108268

Final Impact (1992)

I had always thought I'd reviewed this one before, but when I was putting together my Gary Daniels list on Letterboxd, I realized that that not only wasn't the case, but I hadn't even seen it. It was something I needed to rectify as soon as possible, which I'm doing now. In addition to me, this has also been covered by Comeuppance Reviews, Movies in the Attic, the Video Vacuum, and Fist of the B-List, so you can check out their sites to see what they all think. Also, if you haven't already, check us out on Letterbox. We have lists on movies we want to see, ones we have queued up to review, and lists like the Gary Daniels and Dolph Lundgren lists.

Final Impact is a PM Entertainment flick with Lamas as an old fighter who loses a big match and opens a strip club/fighting ring after. When the Ohio State Champ, Michael Worth, shows up and wants him to train him, Lamas thinks this kid has what it takes to beat Jake, the guy that took him down years ago.

This is what I'm talking about right here. Maybe it could have used more fighting, but beyond that it's just a fun PM Entertainment flick. Lamas is great in the lead, Worth does his part as the young upstart, and Kinmont holds the whole thing together. At the same time, there's plenty of stuff you can get a kick out of, like Lamas's fight with Jake at the Neon Graveyard in Las Vegas; or even the idea of the oil wrestling/strip club/karate club that Lamas runs, which, to be honest would actually be kind of a cool idea if it weren't for the state boxing commissions and the fact that people could die if they got a bad concussion in one of the fights. Now I'm meandering and it's only the third paragraph.

We haven't seen DTVC Hall of Famer Lorenzo Lamas since 2012, and I don't know about you, but I've missed him. I was going through some of the old posts, and at one time he was second to Dolph with the most. While he's still one of only 6 actors in the 30 Club, he's now only tied with Rothrock for the fifth most. I think for an indication of why, we can go back to the last film of his we'd done, Mexican Gold aka Return of the Outlaws. He's all over the cover and barely in the film. And we were finding that a lot. Couple that with the fact that there were movies like this out there of his that I'd thought I'd already done--The Swordsman and its sequel Gladiator Cop also come to mind--and you can see how he stalled while someone like his co-star in this, Gary Daniels, blew past him and into the 40 Club with Dolph. Recently I was on the Jacked Up Review Show podcast with Cam Sully, and I put Lamas 10th on my list of top DTV stars, behind Adkins at 9. It's possible I need to rethink that, that I may have been hasty in having Adkins jump him so soon.

Speaking of Gary Daniels, he only has a small role in this, but when you combine it with smaller fighter roles by another Hall of Famer, Art Camacho, and PM Mainstay Ian Jacklin, the three together work as a kind of PM fighter showcase that was really fun to see. While this is going to go down as a tag for Daniels and Camacho, like I did with Rothrock in the Saber Raine review, it won't count as a film for them, so I won't push any films they've done with bigger parts down my queue. I was going to say that in the past that kept me from doing more films with Daniels in the lead, because I didn't want to do too much Daniels all at once, but the truth is he has the second most tags after Dolph, and Camacho has the third most, so it doesn't really matter. As long as I can find the films, I can do the reviews.

As I mentioned above, Kathleen Kinmont's part was the emotional glue that held things together, especially with Worth and Lamas. Nowadays we applaud someone who can take a low-budget script shot on the quick and do more with it--look at Vivica A. Fox's success with David DeCoteau's "Wrong" movies. I think when we look back at Kinmont's PM career, we find she was just as professional and maybe even endured more--her lovemaking scene with Wings Hauser in Art of Dying comes to mind, and I can see Fox or another actress saying "that's not happening." Coming back to her PM Entertainment films after my hiatus, I think she's one of their unsung heroes, and hopefully as more of these films become available to the various streaming services out there, her contributions will be better recognized.

Finally, with this movie, PM will have 35 reviewed on here, putting them only a few away from Cannon as a movie house--Millennium has even more at 61, but I'm not sure where to put them. For PM to pass Cannon in tags would be a huge feat though. It may also mean I need to consider adding in Pepin and Merhi to the Hall of Fame, considering I already have Golan-Globus and Roger Corman in there. It's a testament to what PM meant to the DTV action world in the late 80s/early-to-mid 90s, and how a site like this wouldn't have been possible without them.

But the site is here, so it's time to wrap up. Right now this is on Tubi and Prime. It looks like a full-screen transfer, which isn't the worst thing in the world--you get to remember what it was like before widescreen TVs. If you want, I still have an old 13" TV kicking around if you really want to have the full experience.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104267

Return of the Outlaws aka Mexican Gold (2009)

This was on my radar because it has Lorenzo Lamas in it. Anything with a Hall of Famer will always make my radar. It's probably been in my Instant Queue for two or three years now, and when Netflix finally decided they were going to dump it, I decided I needed to finally watch it and review it.

Return of the Outlaws is about some bad guy who gets out of jail and is looking for the gold he and his buddies stole before he went in. So he goes to the first buddy, and when that guy isn't forthcoming with his info, the bad guy kills him and his wife, leaving his son an orphan. This brings the local sheriff into things, but when the bad guy is let free on a technicality by a crooked judge, the sheriff thinks something's up and wants to find out what. At the same time, this bad guy meets up with some other friends, and finds out his gold is being stored in a safe in a loony bin. Now he just needs to find a way in and get it.



Notice I didn't mention Lorenzo Lamas's name in the synopsis. Guess how much of him is in the film? Exactly, and we'll get into that later. The bigger issue is whether or not this is a good movie, and I'm sure you have a feeling where I'm about to go. The thing that derailed this the most was how all over the place the plot was. Weird interludes that really didn't advance the plot, and even as padding didn't make a lot of sense. Large tracts of character development that, again, didn't get us anywhere and made me wonder why they felt the need to do it. The plot was saddled with elements that hindered as opposed to added depth to it, like the whole thing with the orphaned kid. Then, on top of all that, they did barely anything with the insane asylum, throwing it in as an afterthought. That's where this film could've made it's money, but, ended up being another bad decision in a movie full of bad decisions.

As always, we reserve this paragraph for a film's Hall of Famers, so here's where we'll talk about Lamas. He plays some small supporting character, a guy in jail who seems to know more than he's letting on, helping the sheriff out from behind bars while he plays solitaire. The biggest question I have is why? Why were you in this Lamas? Who were you doing a favor for? Was it about the money, did you need it that badly, and was it the bulk of their imdb listed $1.1 million budget? The worst part was seeing Lamas at the end in his Old West outfit, wondering what could've been if this had been a Lamas-centric western.



The insane asylum miss was one of the biggest disappointments. It was one of those things too where I'm watching the film, they're talking about the gold in this loony bin, and I'm expecting some really good stuff, but I'm noticing that a lot of time is being wasted on interludes and useless character development, and the amount left for insane asylum scenes is dwindling. Again, this is where this movie should've made its money. The insane asylum with the gold in it shouldn't be the afterthought, it should be the goal, the denouement, if you will-- but I know you won't because you didn't.

The other standout for me in this was the beautiful Samantha Lockwood, who plays a hooker that the bad guy is in love with, and whom he hopes to run away with after he gets the gold. She's actually been in another film here at the DTVC, X-treme Fighter, which also has Lorenzo Lamas in a criminally underused role, and has the distinction of being the only "X" titled film we've ever reviewed. Because of the poor writing, her character seems to come out of nowhere near the end, playing a bigger part when she was more of a background character for most of the movie. Her character should've been a bigger deal from the start, it would've made more sense.



Finally, I want to end on the images I've included for this movie. No, not the fact that all the ones in the post are Lamas, though I did do that on purpose because I was annoyed that he was so underused here; no, I'm mentioning the images because, as you may have already noticed, they look stretched, almost as if a full screen image was turned into widescreen. I want to make clear that this was a Netflix thing, not the film makers or distributors. For the most part the film looked like this, but occasionally it popped back into the original aspect ratio, which looked much better. The thing is, I saw this one right after Watch Instantly was down for a night, and considering the movie was going to be dumped the next day, I'm wondering if these were new issues with the film that Netflix decided to just let lie with the film on its way out anyway. I wonder too if the film makers have any recourse for something like that.

Because, even if the film is sauteed in wrong sauce, it deserves to be shown right. Anyway, you see Lorenzo Lamas in a western and you think you might want to check this out, don't. This is a painfest, with very little Lamas to lighten the load. Stay away.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830593/

Undercurrent (1998)

I found this used on DVD at the bargain bin of our local record store. After my discount for spending my accrued frequent buyer points, the movie came out to: $.49. Even if this thing sucks-- and I have a good feeling it will-- fifty cents for a Lorenzo Lamas flick I haven't seen yet is worth it.

Undercurrent is a pseudo-Neo Noir starring Lamas as some down-on-his-luck former cop going to see his old cop buddy (Frank Vincent) at his old cop buddy's strip club down in Puerto Rico. What happens next? His silent partner, a local mob boss, wants Lamas to sleep with his wife so he can divorce her and keep his cash, and Lamas is stuck because that old cop buddy is into the mob boss for some money. But like in all Noir flicks, things aren't what they seem, and Lamas needs to navigate these shark infested waters before he's bitten.



This was pretty painful. The first like hour or so is just a slow burn-- like really slow. By the time the hour mark hits and we start getting any semblance of intrigue, it's too late, they've already wasted too much time. A lot of the issues stem from the front loaded plot. Lamas's Noir hero is too altruistic, and as such, it takes us a good twenty minutes before he's even willing to accept the job. Then we get another twenty minutes of him convincing the wife to have an affair with him. This is all crap that easily could've been told in Cliff's Notes form to the police detective. On top of that, the end was pretty drawn out, and with the opening that was already too long, the film couldn't afford that.

That's too bad, because I think Lamas would've been great as a grittier Noir hero, maybe something like Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, a guy who isn't all nice. The fact that he's doing a guy who doesn't deserve it a solid hurt a lot of what could've made this film fun. Make Lamas a bad guy, an opportunist, who takes the job because he wants the dough. It was like it was afraid to go bad in some parts, but went bad in others, and almost every choice was the wrong one. As far as Lamas goes, this is tag number 29 for him, meaning he's one away from that prestigious 30 mark. Hopefully we'll get him there soon.



Just a quick question: do you think Embassy Suites likes having their brand associated with cockfighting? Did they sign off on that? Is cockfighting a sponsored event in Puerto Rico, and that's why the Embassy Suites logo is on that mat? The funny thing about the cockfighting is that it's the second Seinfeld connection in this, the other being Brenda Strong as the mobster's wife. She was the woman who never wore a bra, then walked around with it on the outside, causing Kramer's accident and lawsuit.

I'm a huge Frank Vincent fan, and while he was good here, I would've rather seen him as an out and out mob boss himself, especially because the kid that was playing the mob boss couldn't hold a candle to Vincent. He's currently in a vodka commercial with Diddy and (what looks like ) Luke Goss, where he meets Diddy and his entourage at their private jet, and takes them around Vegas VIP style. The commercial should just be Vincent, in a tux, in Vegas, doing whatever. I'd buy that vodka in a heartbeat, and I don't really drink vodka.



Is that Hunter S. Thompson? I guess not, but it looks like him, right? Funny thing about that, it was in another Lamas flick, Blood Angels, where there was a guy dressed like HST in one scene. I wonder if Lamas is a Hunter S. Thompson guy. Probably not, I think he's more a FOX News guy. I'm guessing about all of this of course, I have no idea who Lamas likes or who Lamas reads or who Lamas votes for.

But I know who I vote for, I ain't votin' for this movie (like how I did that?). Even at fifty cents, it's a tough sell if you don't have a review site and need to fill in posts. It just took too long to get to the important stuff, and by the time we got there, it was too late.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145551/

Blood for Blood aka Midnight Man (1995)

I figured it was probably time to get more Lorenzo Lamas on this blog, so here we are. I'd been waiting on this one because it's on Hulu, and I'm not a big fan of Hulu as far as this kind of thing goes, i.e. watching a movie for a blog. It's hard to capture images, because there's a "Buffering" logo that remains on the screen during a pause, meaning I have to do a moving print screen and hope I caught the look I wanted at the right time. Then all the images are slightly different sizes, and the function to scan through scenes is not as user friendly as Netflix Watch Instantly. Anyway, probably more than you wanted to know about that kind of thing.

Blood for Blood is about a gang war in LA between the Russians and the Cambodians-- though none of the Cambodians are actual Cambodians. Anyway, foremost among these (non)Cambodians is Lorenzo Lamas, a cop who's brought in by a special task force so he can translate on a surveillance mission. And with that, things go bad, and Lamas is pulled in deep, so deep he has James Lew after him and his family. Will he survive? And what does Mako have to do with all of this?



This was a mess. Cambodians? Cambodian secret mystical warriors? And Lorenzo Lamas is one? All of that would be all right if the action were there, but it wasn't. In spots it was good, but overall we had big spots of stuff that I could've cared less about. When I think of a movie that did this well, Samurai Cop-- sans the bacon grease scene-- comes to mind. That's what this should've been, completely let loose and over the top. Do I want Lamas fighting Lew with his daughter crying to her mother in the next room? No, I want Lamas as a playboy that hits on as many women as possible and beats guys up with some mystical Cambodian energy that he's fully aware of and is carried off without any irony. All right, the Speedo scene in Samurai Cop was a bit much too, and we definitely don't need to see Lamas in a Speedo, but otherwise Samurai Cop would've been the way to go here.

Lamas isn't as bad an actor as movies like this make him out to be. When he gets a good script-- or he's allowed to be a baddie-- he's pretty good. But when he gets something rough like this one, where he's supposed to act on substandard, kitschy drama that has no business being in a bad actioner like this, it goes pear-shaped quick. Whose idea was it to saddle Lamas with this whole "I've never been in a shootout, I'm all stressed out about it" thing? And the family man crap was too much too. He needs to be single, flying in there by the seat of his pants, pushing the envelope, going completely against department regulations. And he can still be a secret Cambodian warrior, it'll just be a much more fun one.



James Lew, also not Cambodian, but playing one. He has some weird weapons in this too. One was a rope with a knot on each end, and he'd whirl it around and stuff. It looked pretty silly. Not as silly as the cape with blades on the end. That's a rough way to go, getting caped. Had this movie gone the Samurai Cop route, all of that stuff would've been great, but when you've been pounding me inside all night with crap about Lamas and his family and his bad dreams, I'm not going to take that fat one over the plate and hit it out-- I can only enjoy the fun stuff so much after all that pain.

Movie sucks? Better get Mako. And it almost worked. We needed more Mako though. We needed Lamas in a Mako led training montage. We needed Mako in Hawaiian shirts. Maybe Mako selling Italian ices near the beach, I don't know, we just needed more Mako. There was a lot of crap that this movie that didn't have to have that replacing it with Mako would've made better.



I'm not overly familiar with Cambodian culture, but I'm not so sure the people making this movie were either. There was no explanation why they were Cambodians, especially considering none of the actors playing Cambodians were Cambodians. There are not only so many cool things about Cambodia from a historical/cultural standpoint, but there is also a lot of turmoil due to the Pol Pot regime that could've been explored too. Again, what was the point of using Cambodians, if you're technically not going to use Cambodians?

It seems like Lamas has more stinkers than classics, and this is definitely in that former category. It wasn't just that it had limited action, it was the crap that went on when there wasn't action that hurt so much. Sometimes these actioners try too hard to be something other than an actioner, and as a result, we get something messier than it had to be.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110508/

Lethal (2005)

Based on the Netflix description of this one, I thought I was going to get some sweet Frank Zagarino versus Lorenzo Lamas action. Maybe not that sweet, but sweet enough. Zagarino and Lamas can really mix it up if given a chance, right?

Lethal has Heather Marie Marsden as a mercenary who comes into possession of a weapon or the codes to activate a weapon or some such crap. It wasn't all that important to the people making the film, they were too worried about Marsden's past as an FBI trainee, her dad's untimely death on an FBI mission, and how FBI agent Frank Zagarino liked her dad. Also, there's some tool FBI agent that had a romantic past with Marsden that the film tediously inserts into the plot just to twist the knife even more. Oh yeah, and she has a teen sister she's taking care of, and Russian mob boss Lorenzo Lamas kidnaps her to get Marsden to give him the weapon or whatever.



What do I always say is rule number 1 to a good action movie? Don't let the plot get in the way, and this movie breaks that rule in an excruciating way. Too much backstory, too much crap about Marsden's past, too many characters floating around that we really don't need, and in the end, it was all too heavy and weighed down whatever bonuses the film offered. On top of that, the action was often shot with Matrix-wannabe camera effects that caused vertigo in the best instances, and looked trite and gimmicky in the worst. This should've been streamlined: keep Marsden as the heroine, but make her a lone wolf, maybe Yojimbo-style, pitting Zagarino against Lamas, cut out the sister, the love interest, the backstory about the dad in the FBI, and just give us a taut, stylish action thriller. Is that so hard?

Rule 2 would be to avoid what I call The Destro Effect, essentially don't make the villain cooler than the heroes. Yes, Lamas's Russian accent was atrocious, but his baddie was great. This is the second time, after Blood Angels, that we've seen Lamas do a great turn as the bad guy, though in Blood Angels he was much more sinister, which controlled The Destro Effect. Here, he was just having so much fun with it, and with heroes that were either poorly written, too bogged down with baggage, or removed as heroes through plot twists, that a strong Lamas ended up stealing the show.



Do I think Heather Marie Marsden can carry a DTV actioner? Absolutely, but not this one. Lethal made plenty of bad mistakes for any lead character in an action flick, but some were exacerbated because she's a woman. First, the baggage between the kid, the dad, and the love interest weighed her down too much. Second, she had only few decent action scenes, one at the beginning and a couple at the end when she and Lamas and Zags mixed it up, and in between all she did was fire guns-- and often the way she held them looked awkward. Third, her very first scene has her in her underwear as she's helping her sister get ready for school. What this did was create a sense of vulnerability that worked against her as a strong lead-- and the bad writing after prevented her from recovering that lost mojo. I get using her looks and sexuality as a way to disarm guys, but there were no bad guys around-- it was like we were voyeurs or peeping toms, and the whole point of the peeping tom is control and violating a woman's sense of herself, which does not a strong hero make. Not only that, but the one time they had her use her looks to seduce a man to get what she wants, it doesn't work, and she gets past the guard using another tactic, meaning that scene was totally useless and moved the plot nowhere. It wasn't Marsden's fault that she didn't work as the heroine, rather it was disappointing that she was given such poor material to work with. Besides, if they were really sold on Marsden as the lead, she wouldn't be taking a backseat to Lamas on the cover.

Zagarino is almost totally wasted. I don't know whose bright idea it was to give him a lesser part, and throw in some superfluous character as Marsden's romantic love interest. Get rid of that guy, and beef up Zag's part, and most importantly, give him a fight scene with Lamas. I'm telling you, the Yojimbo plot would've made this fantastic, could've provided the vehicle to showcase Marsden as the lead, given Zagarino a better part to showcase his martial arts, and kept Lamas as a great baddie without The Destro Effect.



I shouldn't have been surprised that this movie committed another action movie sin, though one that ranks much further down the list than the couple we've discussed above. This one was the classic "baddie doesn't understand the concept of restraints on a prisoner" or in this case, the much worse "baddie forgets the concept of restraints on a prisoner", which then leads to what we in The Biz call Plot Convenience Theater. When Lamas first kidnaps Marsden's sister, she has her hands cuffed behind her back. Then, for some reason, for the final showdown, he brings her out to meet Marsden, completely unrestrained. Guess what happened next? Yep, the sister has the freedom, now that she's inexplicably unrestrained, to help her sister to defeat Lamas. When a movie is this sautéed in wrong sauce from top to bottom, crap like this is just par for the course.

This is available on DVD from either Netflix or Amazon, but I'm telling you to stay away. Marsden is hot, Lamas is excellent, but everything is just ten kinds of bad. Bad idea for a movie, made worse in the execution.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366711/

Blood Angels aka Thralls (2005)

I first saw this about four years ago, around the time I was first starting the DTVC, when it aired at 2AM on Sci-Fi (now SyFy). I wasn't entirely fond of it, and though it was a Lorenzo Lamas flick, I put it on the back burner, wanting to hit more of his 90s DTV action classics first. Then Netflix put it on Watch Instantly, so I put it in my instant queue, and forgot about it again. The vegan straw that ended up breaking the carnivore's back was when Netflix put the warning out that they were about to dump it from Watch Instantly, which put my cheeks to fire and made getting this done a priority.

Blood Angels, aka Thralls, is about a group of women who were turned into some kind of slave style vampire by vampire master Lorenzo Lamas, and held in a white room of a mansion, shackled at the ankle. They escape with a plan to turn themselves into full vampires so they can go back and take Lamas out. The only thing they have to do is perform some ritual on the night of the Winter Solstice, which they plan on doing through the help of a rave they're running. Only problem, Lamas is after them, and he's less than stoked that his possessions have run out on him.



This wasn't too bad. I'm not sure why I didn't like it so much then, but I don't have the same animosity now. The whole thing was pretty much played for laughs, a vampire/horror/comedy so to speak, coupled with a lot of hot bodies, including the female stars. I had two big problems with it though: first, to do a comedy like this, the key is to not let the joke get stale, which is kind of what happened here. On top of that, it's hard to do comedy while at the same time falling back on a lot of cliches that traditional horror films like these use, especially the drawn out "who's going to stop Lamas's evil ritual before it's finished?" plot device, which was so tedious in the context of the rest of the film. The other problem was that a good chunk of the film's appeal was based on the appeal of the female stars, both for their beauty and their abilities as strong, no nonsense vampire business owners; but so much of that appeal is diminished by how dimly lit the rave scenes were. In fact, we only see the women clearly when they're being held as slaves by Lamas. In the end, it's one of those things where the intentions were good, which made the film fun, but there wasn't enough focus, which made the film not as much fun as it could've been.

I'm probably going to take a lot of heat for this, because Lamas isn't the most popular of our Hall of Famers here at the DTVC, but he acquitted himself very nicely in Blood Angels, especially in the comedic realm. No, I'm not getting soft on my old age, I'm dead serious, the guy was legitimately funny. He has this one great scene where he rips a drag queen's head off, throws it to his friend-- another drag queen-- then tells him "I think you'll need to find another ride home." To me, that's pretty fantastic. The problem is, even though he's top billed, the cover tells the true story, because he only has a supporting part as the head baddie-- though maybe that's not so bad, because it didn't give him a chance to get stale like a lot of the rest of the humor.



I want to say it started with the Blade series, but somewhere along the line, among the many powers vampires possess, a mastery of martial arts became one of them. "I'm bit, now I have superhuman strength, like to hang out at raves, and can do Kung Fu." For women, it's supposed to have the added effect of empowerment, the idea that beefy, musclebound oafs can be taken down by thin, seemingly diminutive, pretty girls. We get a good sense of that early on when one of the vampires takes out a gang of thugs planning to sexually assault her and her sister, and then the theme comes full-circle when the girls team up to take down Lamas. I bring this up because, while this is the trend, the most popular vampire saga of the moment, the Twilight series, bucks this by featuring a diminutive female lead who is protected by her stronger vampire beau.

This film took place in Iowa, but was shot in British Columbia. I don't get that. Why can't it be set in British Columbia? Maybe get some shots of Vancouver in there too. I've never been, but I hear it's the most beautiful city in North America. Has it been proven with American test audiences that on average, we don't enjoy a film as much if we know it takes place in Canada? It must be the same focus group data that was used in the 80s to determine that Journey should get the most airplay on nationwide corporate radio stations. The other aspect of this I didn't get was the idea of city dwellers versus those from the country. In Iowa? Is there that big of a disparity between Des Moines and the rural outskirts? I only mention this because I grew up in Maine, and I didn't see that much difference between the people from Portland-- the state's biggest city-- and the people from the more remote locations I'd been to.



One cool thing in Blood Angels was this quick reference to Hunter S. Thompson. One of my earliest influences in writing was Thompson, and I know a lot of other writers in the country would say the same thing. It's hard not to be inspired after reading his stuff, and though I don't see as many of his fingerprints in my current state as a writer, when I go back about ten years and look at old drafts, I'm almost mimicking him entirely.

This is no longer available on Watch Instantly as of this posting, which means you can either get it on DVD or wait for it to pop up on SyFy again. It's pretty nondescript, and other than the Lamas humor, it doesn't really bring anything special to the table. I'd say you could do a lot worse at 2AM, you're procrastinating on that final paper, and you see this on TV; but to go out of your way to find it isn't worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404496/

Night of the Warrior (1991)

This is one of the few Lorenzo Lamas joints from the late 80s early/90s that I hadn't already seen, so I was stoked to finally get a hold of it. It just sounds awesome, right? "Lorenzo Lamas in Night of the Warrior", I mean, how can you go wrong there, right? Ty at Comeuppance Reviews did this one a little while back too, if you want to see what he thought and compare with me.

Night of the Warrior has Lamas as a fighter, fighting for Luke of "Luke and Laura" fame, in order to pay off the mortgage to the exotic club he and his mom own (played by his real life mom Arlene Dahl). After the mortgage is paid off, he thinks he's done, so he goes off to win over art history major/waitress Kathleen Kinmont, who is turned on by his amateur photography/exploitation of the local homeless population that are his subjects. Anyway, Luke needs him to do one more fight, because a Korean mob boss will kill him if he doesn't, so Luke leans on him, using Lamas's mom and girlfriend for leverage.



Let's get one thing straight first, this is not an action film per se, but rather an attempt at a modern Film Noir piece. The problem is, writer Thomas Ian Griffith, though an English Lit major at Holy Cross, is no Dashiell Hammett, meaning Night of the Warrior has it's good moments and its bad, but overall doesn't quite work. The music and cinematography definitely had that Noir-ish vibe down; but then you had these attempts at action movie clichés, like the kidnapped girl; and then there were some of their Noir themes that they didn't follow through on, like Kathleen Kinmont's character, who started off very well rounded, and finished off very blah, or the introduction of Lamas being framed, which comes and goes rather quickly and effortlessly. It was like, it had too little action to be good for the action film fans, but didn't handle the Film Noir aspects well enough to be good for those fans either, so we were left with nothing. Oh, and I can't forget the bad Madonna video scene with Lamas and some other dude fighting while covered in mud at the beginning.

From the Lamas perspective, this looked pretty good at the beginning. No, he didn't do the Noir protagonist who is also a photographer as well as Michael Paré in Sunset Heat, but had the writing stayed true, based on the beginning, I think he would've still done well. But then there was this odd dramatic aspect, that wasn't written well, didn't look natural, and made Lamas look foolish. I don't know, at the beginning, when he's in the diner hitting on Kathleen Kinmont, there was a sense that he might pull this off. Who knows if, given the chance, he might have done it. As far as the action goes, he has a few good scenes, but also a couple weird ones, including a fight with his crippled friend. The less said about that the better.



Kathleen Kinmont got a bit of a raw deal in this one, because she started off strong in that Noir-ish female lead, then her character was almost written out of the film altogether, only to come back for the sole purpose of being kidnapped. It had never crossed my mind before that she'd make a great lead in a Film Noir picture, but it makes sense after seeing it, because she's smart-- which comes out on-screen when the role allows her to-- very pretty, and can wear the hell out of a short black dress. I had a feeling, though, that Thomas Ian Griffith, in writing her character, might have been over his head, because there's a scene early on where she and Lamas are in his apartment, and she tosses him a camera and tells him to take her picture. Then she asks him how to pose, and he says that's not how he works, so she starts trying to affect sexy poses for him. It was way too unnatural. The sexier thing would've been to have her not try to be sexy, but just be who her character is, and have him capture that and see her sexiness naturally. Anyway, it wasn't long after that before she was almost done completely, her character devolving into an action movie damsel in distress.

I'm not sure which is cooler, that Lamas's mom starred in this, or Luke of "Luke and Laura" fame from General Hospital. On the one hand, it's his mom, which is cool; but on the other, Lamas being a soap actor himself, to be paired with such a luminary as that is huge. The only thing cooler would've been if Rick Springfield did a movie with Lamas too. Favorite Rick Springfield song? I may have to go with "Don't Talk to Strangers", even though, like everyone else, I love "Jesse's Girl" too. Also of note, the late Bill Erwin-- who just died recently at the age of 96-- plays Kinmont's uncle. Great cameo from him.



I'm wrapping up with this seventh paragraph for all my horror readers out there. That's right, Ken Foree, from one of my all time favorite horror films, Dawn of the Dead, stars in this as Luke's hatchet man. This is actually the second Foree film we've done, the first being Dolph Lundgren's Army of One (which I should note is my most popular Dolph film on here by views, by virtue of the fact that people searching for nude pics of Kristen Alfonso are directed there. No joke). One of the best lines from a horror film ever is in Dawn of the Dead, near the beginning, when Foree and Francine are in the helicopter about to escape, and he tells her "I lost a lot of brothers." "Real brothers, or soul brothers?" "Both."

This is a bad deal. Don't be fooled by the title or the cover, there's very little action, and the Film Noir material isn't handled well either. The payoff just isn't there to warrant a recommendation. As far as availability, you can buy it new on DVD, but for some reason or other, Netflix doesn't offer it, so for the price asked, it's not worth it anyway.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102535/