Final Heist (2024)

I'd been meaning to do this one for some time, mostly because it was written by Richard Pierce, who's been a guest on the pod and friend of the site. Also it stars DTVC favorite Tim Abell, and we always enjoy seeing him in a film too.

Final Heist is about a crew of bank robbers who plan to quit after one last score, but one of their crew, Liev, (Justin Chu Cary) gets shot and arrested, so the other members, including Willa, his partner and mother of his child (Camila Banus) agree to split and not have any contact. Six years later though, their daughter Sofia (Gabriela Merid) is diagnosed with a rare heart condition, and the only way she can survive is if she gets a partial donor. Her father would be a great match, except he's in a coma after the prison warden (Tim Abell) had him beaten up. So the only thing to do is get the rest of the gang back together: Hailey, Flynn, and Kenzie (Jasmine Shanise, Virginia Ma, and Shonte Akognon respectively) for one final heist--to steal heart tissue they need to save Sofia. Is this gang up to the task after all those years not doing any heists though?

This wasn't a bad deal. It hits all the spots of the usual heist movie, only the crew is all diverse women, and the heist is stealing heart tissue instead of money. How many times have we seen a heist movie with a Cam Gigandet in the lead and a crew of tatted-up spiky-haired white guys that are a mix of Randall Scandal mainstays and former UFC fighters, where they need to do one last job because Gigandet's character's daughter needs money for an operation? Because this movie is giving me something different, I have to give points for that. Then they have Tim Abell as the baddie, and while he's only in the movie at the beginning and the end, he does such a great job in those early moments that he casts a shadow over the rest of the film that we want our heroes to overcome. The movie's not perfect though. For example, an undercover reporter working with Liev is mentioned, but that character never materializes; and then at the end we need to make a lot of Bob Beamon leaps of faith when it comes to heart surgery. The other thing is the movie drags a bit in the middle, but that, along with the heart surgery leaps of faith, is mitigated by the fact that we only have an 83-minute runtime, which always helps. I think if you're looking for a nice time killer, this will do the trick, especially since you can get it on Tubi.

Because we know Rich and have had him on the podcast, you're probably expecting this paragraph to include inside information, like me asking where his original script may have deviated from the finished project, because the movie also lists the director as a co-writer, so he probably took Rich's original script and altered it to fit the realities of their production. But because I watched this the night before I'm writing the review, I didn't get a chance, so maybe we'll be able to ask him on a future podcast episode. Also, I thought I'd given Rich a tag for the other film of his we'd reviewed, Sector 4: Extraction, but for some reason I didn't, so we've corrected that mistake here. This film is very different from Sector 4: Extraction, which was more of a vanity project for the star, DTVC Hall of Famer Olivier Gruner, this is more you're classic heist film with the unique elements I listed above. Either one from a writer's standpoint is fantastic to have made though, and it's really cool to see all the credits Rich has on IMDb now. In terms of future ones to get that tag number up, there's plenty of stuff available, so we look forward to watching more of those, and having him back on the pod as well!

The other name readers of the site will know from this is DTVC favorite Tim Abell. He gives us the performance we'd want from a Charles Napier in a 90s film, the kind of baddie who doesn't need a lot of screen time to affect the proceedings, and the reality is I can't think of many current actors who can do what Abell does here. His baddie is this perfect mix of sinister and smarmy, and he plays it so well in the few scenes he has in the beginning of the film, that his presence looms over everything else even if we don't see him again until the denouement. It's the kind of thing that takes something that's more paint-by-numbers like this, and makes us root for the protagonists, because no matter what, we don't want to see that guy win. A masterclass on how to play a great baddie, especially with limited screen time.

You may have noticed there's no genre tag for this review, only the "prison" subgenre--and even that's a stretch, because this isn't exactly a prison film. That's because I couldn't think of a proper genre for it to fit into. IMDb said "Crime" and "Thriller," which are two genres I don't have tags for, but also, "Thriller" doesn't really fit for this, and what the hell is "Crime" as a genre? For the genres I have, there isn't near enough action to qualify for that; it has some offbeat moments, and the "offbeat heist" score that plays as they plan out the job is pretty ubiquitous, but I don't think it's necessarily a comedy per se; "suspense" is a genre we use, but again, going back to that ubiquitous offbeat heist score, that betrays any attempt at serious suspense, and is also a reason why I wouldn't call it a "thriller." I guess there's the subgenre of "heist" films that this fits into, and maybe I should start tagging that, but I have so many tags now that that could add a lot--like would I need "Die Hard" for a tag, or "tournament fighting" or "romp comedy"? I did a scan to see how many other movies don't have genres, and while there aren't many, there are some. For example, Dolph has two, Shark Lake, which has the "sharks" subgenre tag, and Final Inquiry, which is unique in that it also doesn't have a subgenre like "sharks" or "prison" either. 

Finally, one of the production companies working on this was MarVista Entertainment, who has been around for a bit, but browsing IMDb it looks like the only other movie of theirs we've covered was one of the Lost Boys sequels, The Thirst. Anyway, this isn't about MarVista Entertainment, it's about how the name "MarVista" makes me think of how Steven Williams said the name "Marvosa" in Bloodfist VII, which was one of the greatest things ever. As I said in my review for that, I think they added a character named "Marvosa" just so Williams could say it. I think that should be a rule at MarVista Entertainment, at least one character needs to be named "Marvosa." That would up the average reviews on IMDb for their movies by at least a point, and when you're working on tight margins with films like Tubi Originals, that point could be significant.

And with that, I'll dispense with the free advice and wrap this up. As a Tubi Original, you can currently stream this free there, which I think is a good way to go. The diverse cast and the twist on the heist film elevate it beyond the usual paint-by-numbers heist film, and the short runtime with Abell as a great baddie gets you to the church on time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30254708

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

Caged Fury (1990)

For the second of two films I'm doing for Seth at The Lost Video Archive's Week of Hong, I'm taking a look at Caged Fury, a women in prison film with James Hong, Erik Estrada, Michael Parks, and Richie Barathy, among others. It looked like it could be intriguing. Let's see how it did.

Caged Fury is about a girl named Kat who goes out to Hollywood from Utah. Along the way, she picks up a girl who was hitchhiking and didn't like her driver after he tried to get payment out of her in a carnal way. In LA, this hitchhiker hooks her up with her boyfriend, who just so happens to know a talent agent. If a thing sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and she and her hitchhiker friend end up in a faux jail, filled with white slaves. Luckily for her, she made friends with Erik Estrada the night before, and he and his buddy, Richie Barathy, are looking for her. Plus, her sister, who looks nothing like her, is also on the case. Then there's police detective James Hong. All three of these forces must be able to put something together to stop this.



But can they make this movie any good in a very limited capacity? I'm going to have to say no. It's probably one of the things that truly derails this film, the fact that Hong, Estrada, and Michael Parks aren't in this that much. I liked Barathy, and when he goes ape shit on the faux prison, taking fools out-- including Ron Jeremy-- it's pretty fun. Best part for me was when he kicks through a wall. There were some other moments that were funny in an 80s/90s B-movie kind of way, plus some familiar faces like Melissa Moore and Gregory Scott Cummins, and all of that together might-- might-- make it a fun choice on a bad movie night. On the other hand, there isn't enough T-n'-A to make it a good exploitation flick, but there's also too much of a dark aspect to make it a really fun movie too, and that makes this kind of hard to fully recommend.

We'll start with Hong again, though there isn't much to work with here. He has like two scenes. That's it. Our heroine's sister goes to the police station to find out what happened to her sister, and talks to him; then later, his dumbass partner takes the emergency call from our heroine, and it's Hong who puzzles out that she's the girl her sister was looking for, and they manage to trace where the call comes from, though not in time to save a bunch of women from being shot to death by the guards. He still has that trademark tongue-in-cheek humor that makes having him in this, if only for two scenes, a lot of fun. Still, I just wish there were more of him.



I believe this is our first women in prison film at the DTVC. I don't know, it's always been a genre that sounds like fun at the time, but, when done wrong, can be very disquieting. There isn't so much a chauvinistic quality to them, as opposed to a seeming desire to see women put through a lot of violent, sexual abuse, which doesn't work for me. Just women in jail with shower scenes and lesbian scenes and a butch guard and warden who get their comeuppance later, that sounds good, but that's not always what we get, and that's not what we got here, which was too bad.

Erik Estrada looked like he was primed to be this film's star, only to see him drop off the map like Hong and Parks. How did this happen? He and Barathy beat up a bunch of bikers early in the film to save our heroine, then he's gone, then he comes back with Barathy to investigate the girl's disappearance, is shot in the arm, and then proceeds to let Barathy save the day, while he swoops in at the very end and gets the girl. Not one of Estrada's finest moments.



Michael Parks plays our heroine's father, and he has some really good scenes, including a couple with some genuine emotion. How did Michael Parks find himself in these kinds of movies? But this was the kind of thing he did, and has done for a long time. It's been good to see him used in some more mainstream films lately. He's a guy who definitely deserves his due, and even I need to showcase him more on here.

But this week is about showcasing James Hong, and, unfortunately, this film doesn't feature him much, and suffers for that. Thought it had its moments, it needed more from its stars to carry a plot that wasn't sexy and exploitation enough, but too dark to have fun with. Ultimately, this is a pass for me, but with its availability on Watch Instantly, you may want to take your chances.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097004/

Ring of Death (2008)

I didn't do my homework on this one, didn't see that it was a TV movie. In the past I have made exceptions for TV movies, usually only if they have a Hall of Famer or future Hall of Famer, in particular The Asylum flicks that have been popping up on SyFy lately before their actual DVD release. For Ring of Death though, I had no idea until I looked it up on imdb tonight for the review that it was made for SpikeTV, which, in the past has been good about airing great DTV flicks, so maybe I shouldn't be such a stickler. I don't know.

Ring of Death has Johnny Messner as a disgraced cop or something who takes an undercover gig investigating a state prison where the warden, Stacey Keach, is running an underground fight ring. If Messner does this, he not only gets a job with the FBI, but his kid goes to college. Sounds like a good trade off, no?



Even though it was kind of lackluster, I'm not sure I would've been so hard on it if it wasn't so dependent on bad jumpcut editing. One scene in the prison yard was so bad, my eyes hurt. I'm not kidding. It wasn't just jumpcuts, the camera was really shaky too. Seriously dude, just sit still for Christ's sake! It was like sitting next to a dude in college with Shaky Leg Syndrome, only worse, because I was trying to focus on a picture. What the reliance on gimmicky crap like that tells me is: "we don't think our movie is good enough. We think our actors suck, our fight choreography is crap, and our ability to shoot a movie is one step above kids making a short on YouTube." And the reality is, that is a total disrespect to the actors, fight choreographer, and everyone else involved with making the film-- but hey, if that's what you want me to think, who am I to argue?

The biggest thing we as an audience have to buy right away is, can Johnny Messner carry a film like this as the action lead? I don't know. The way it stood, with the way much of his character was written, and the way he looked, it was bad punchfighting movie, and in that sense, the whole thing was a turn off. On the other hand, he wasn't a total miss. I was trying to think where I'd see him fit though. Could he do something along the lines of the Michael Dudikoff role, like say Bounty Hunters? I could see that.



Stacey Keach was fantastic as the baddie. Equal parts evil dude and dandy. The accent was hilarious. His performance was one of the things most wasted by the gimmicky editing, though to be fair, in a good chunk of his scenes, they went with the close-up still shot. Keach was one of the few things that made this movie for me, and almost saved it from itself.

This movie had perhaps the worst chase scene in the history of movies. Our hero, in his plan to get himself incarcerated, strikes a police officer and steals his car, right in front of the police station. Two cars pursue him in what is a definite low-speed chase, but with constant jumpcuts and shaky camera work making us think a high-speed chase is going on in front of us. I've seen more excitement from car commercials. I mean really, do they think we're that stupid that we can't see that? Total lack of respect for the audience there.



Do you recognize this guy? Jonathan Chase, the guy who ate the Gingerbread Man in The Gingerdead Man. Here he played what was a very mean-spirited part, a kid who was caught dealing drugs and is sent to state prison, is way too fragile, and ends up shanked by some baddies that want to send a message to our hero. Too bad, because we know from The Gingerdead Man that he has loads of talent, and could've done more if he had been given more.

This is a pass for me, even though you had a great performance by Stacey Keach as the baddie. Too punchfight-y, and too gimmicky with the bad edits and shaky cam, essentially telling me the movie isn't worth my time anyway. Next time I'll do my homework and stay away when I see the word "TV" next to the release date on imdb.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229764/

Locked Down (2010)

This film fell to me after a few above it on my Netflix queue weren't available. I was skeptical, because my previous experience with UFC movies hasn't been great; but Vinnie Jones and Bai Ling (Ling Bai?) gave me some hope. Let's see if I was right.

Locked Down is half Death Warrant half Undisputed II, as Tony Schiena plays our framed cop hero sent to prison and forced to fight in a prison fighting circuit run by a crime lord he put away a while back, played by Vinnie Jones. After your classic prison film cliche scenarios are out of the way-- from the chief guard beating our hero with a billy club, to the old prisoner that our hero is lucky enough to have as his cell mate that shows him the ropes (and suddenly becomes his trainer), to the near shanking in the laundry room-- we get our final showdown between Schiena and his man, while an internal affairs hottie investigates his case so she can clear his name. That's pretty much it.



A big warning here to anyone with epilepsy. I'm not being facetious, this is a legitimate concern. There are so many half-a-second jumpcuts that it could cause a serious issue. I grew up with a girl who had epilepsy, and she said she wasn't supposed to play the Nintendo because it might induce an epileptic fit. Well, if the Nintendo could do it, this film could really do it. Also, if you're prone to seasickness, you might have trouble with this film too, because in the few spots we get a shot for more than a half-a-second, the camera is moving all over the place. I could go on about the non sequitur theater in the dialog, or the fight scenes that were good but not that good, or the fact that Bai Ling was almost wasted, and Vinnie Jones didn't have as much license to be cool either, but none of that matters as much because I just couldn't see anything! All right, maybe it matters, because this was your new classic get a bunch of buff tatted dudes in a room, slow down the footage for a second, crank up a Disturbed derivative song, then just watch the tatted dudes punch each other in 80 cuts; but I think this was even worse than that.

Igniame if tihs psot was wtitern eleirtny lkie tihs? How mcuh wluod taht scuk? Taht's waht it's lkie wnithcag tihs mvioe. If my bolg lkoeod lkie tihs, no one wloud raed it. It's fnitsrrutag, huh? The wlohe pniot of wniacthg a mvoie is to see it, rhgit?

I'll stop that, but you get the point. I listened to some of the commentary, and I got the sense that there was a genuine effort here to deliver a decent product, that they didn't think the audience was stupid, that they weren't using this constant cutting to prevent us from seeing their shortcomings as directors or fight choreographers, which makes the end result perhaps more puzzling. In another element they had in the fights, our view would be obstructed by other spectators, which I guess was meant to give us more of a feel of immediacy. In the commentary, they rued the fact that they couldn't find more extras for those scenes. Are you kidding? The whole reason we watch a movie, especially at home, is so we have an unobstructed view. I'm not watching Locked Down to see pieces of a fight around the head of some dude in front of me, and you're saying you wanted more heads in my way? Come on man. And at another point, they talked about the two tatted bad asses they had for a fight, and how cool that was. Sure, it would've been, if all the fights weren't two tatted bad asses, or if we had even been able to see it! If we had more traditional martial arts one-on-one battles-- that we could actually see too-- this change of pace with two huge tatted beasts would have been great. By that point though, we'd seen too much of it, and it came off as old hat.



Films like this are notorious for non sequitur theater. Between the scripts that are rushed to completion, the dialog that ends up looking better on a quick read-through than it does when acted out, the actors that don't exactly have the pedigree to understand when this stuff sounds silly or doesn't fit and try to act through it anyway, to the quick shooting schedules that mandate keeping takes that really don't work just to make sure they had something. I get all of that, and so when some non sequitur theater rears its ugly head, I try not to be too harsh on it... but (there's always a but, huh?), there was one scene we were put through at the very beginning that was too much. Our hero has sex with his girl after a long time away undercover. The sex seems great, but after, she, apropos of nothing, turns on him and says he's never around and he doesn't care about her. Schiena, instead of saying "um, honey, did you take your medication?", he's like "what do you want me to do, it's my job..." and the whole thing becomes weirder and weirder as the acting and dialog becomes worse and worse. The thing is, none of it was necessary. He had no other love interest until the very last scene, so it's not like they needed to get her out of the way; plus, they had no need for the internal affairs character anyway, so she could have played his girlfriend from the start. Why did he need to be framed at all, if he's already an undercover cop, why not just send him in to take down the fighting ring? That one little wrinkle, that he was framed instead of sent in, was not enough to keep it from being a Death Warrant rip-off, so why not go all the way? The thing is, all of these issues would be forgivable if we just had some great action that we could actually see.

The music isn't bad, but I think maybe it's used too often as a crutch, and the director himself admits that he wanted the music to get the film through certain scenes. That's not the way to think about music in movies, though. You want there to be some conflict, that the two are bringing something that the other isn't to the table, in order to create one whole experience. What we got here, because the music was filling in too many gaps in the movie, was a series of glorified music videos. Imagine if Vinnie Jones smashing a guy's head in the car door in Snatch was done in the style of this film: Jones would toss the guy into the open car in slow motion, at the same time, we'd hear a driving guitar rift, followed by a rest, like da-duh, rest, da-duh, rest, da-duh; then Jones goes to the car door, the high-hat kicks in, and we see the top half of the door's window, moving to shut; then some guy kicks in with a noise like "bro!", and the music begins in earnest. From there, we're getting bombarded by images of Jones' face, the bottom half of the body hanging out of the car quivering with each impact, the hood of the car with blood splashing in it, a shaking air freshener (probably something ironic) hanging from the rear view mirror-- all in quick succession, all to a driving Disturbed derivative. I get that you want to showcase these bands and get them some exposure, but either you're making a movie, or you're making a music showcase, and if it's the latter just let us know, and we'll go somewhere else for our action movie.



I love Vinnie Jones and Bai Ling. I also loved a lot of the UFC fighters in this, and Tony Schiena was kind of cool too. The thing is, none of the people on the cover, Vinnie Jones, Bai Ling, Rashad Evans, or Kimobo Slice, are in the film much at all. I get the thinking behind why Tony Schiena isn't on the cover, because he's not as well known, but why not make him known? At least put him on the cover with these guys. And as far as Bai Ling, she was a prison guard, and only had one hot scene with Vinnie Jones, and that was it. Anyone who saw Crank: High Voltage, knows how great Ling can be, and for this film not to even try beyond that one scene was a real disappointment. Jones was a little better, but it was really more the idea of Jones we were seeing, as opposed to him being Jones, if that makes sense? We accepted him as his character in the film, because of all we'd seen him in. Essentially, after Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, movies like this cast Jones knowing they don't need to build his character much-- he's like ready made Contadina crushed tomatoes, the question is, can you add the right ingredients and cook the dish properly to make the most of those crushed tomatoes?

And the answer is no, a resounding no. But that's not to say the film makers didn't have good intentions, or that they can't bring it the next time around. I think we'd all agree, no matter how postmodern our philosophies, that the one trait every movie needs to have, whether it's Ran, Koyaanisqatsi, Pulp Fiction, or One Man Force, is it needs to be visible. We need to be able to see it. I think that's kind of a big deal, and that's where this movie missed the mark. Hopefully next time around, they'll rectify that, and we'll be able to (literally) see what they can do.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1597033/

Lik Wong aka Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki (1991)

I decided to wrap up this look at Hong Kong cinema with a bonus post on one of the most notorious films in bad movie circles, Riki-Oh. I first came across it on the old Daily Show with Craig Kilborn, when he used the shot of the guy's head being exploded for his Five Questions segment. Then a buddy found it on this new thing he subscribed to called Netflix, and he burned us all copies on this new thing he had called a DVD burner.

Riki-Oh is about a dude in a prison who punches holes in people and shoves nails through them and strangles them with their own intestines, and sometimes he takes similar abuse back from his fellow inmates. Can he beat the evil warden and prevail?



Back when the guy getting his head exploded was shown on The Daily Show, I was like "I need to see the movie that was from", but when my buddy rented it and screened it for us, we were all like "okay, we get it, this is ridiculous and over-the top gory. No no, we get it, seriously. Do something else in the frickin' movie!" It was like a bag of Doritos and Mountain Dew. They taste great, but would I eat them for supper? If each great part of this film was by itself in its own movie, it would've been great, but all together, it's just too much. Too many Doritos and a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

And that's where I get a lot of heat for my opinion on this, because people rattle off this or that scene and are like "how can you not like that?", and it's like, I do like it, it just got to be entertainment by repetition after a while. Again, just like Doritos. They taste amazing, and I love empty calories as much as the next guy, but sometimes I just gotta mix in a fast food cheeseburger and fries or a hot dog or something too. I guess if Dolph Lundgren DTV actioners are my fast food, Yasujiro Ozu's films are my healthy meals that balance out my system. It's good to have both.



I don't really know what to write about for the fifth, sixth, and seventh paragraphs. The scene where a dude gets strangled with his own intestines, maybe? By the time that scene happens, I'm already like "dude, I need more to eat than just Doritos, or I'm going to be sick." In theory, that's just such a great idea, though, strangling a guy with his own intestines, but in and amongst everything else in the film, it loses any charm. It's like watching The Family Man and being bombarded with sentimentality for 100 minutes. When the kid says something cute again, I'm totally desensitized.

I guess I should throw out a couple examples that to me do this kind of over-the-top gore comedy thing really well, so people won't get the erroneous impression that I "just don't get it". Bad Taste, Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh, Blood Diner, Street Trash, and Dead Alive. Yes, these all definitely had the Mountain Dew and Doritos for supper aspect, but what they did in addition was pop through the door with a bag of Wendy's Triple Cheeseburgers and say "hey, you can't just have Doritos and Mountain Dew for supper!" Each of those films I listed had so many different characters, so many other jokes, so many more things going on-- it wasn't just Riki punch through bad guy... Riki shove guy's head into nails... Riki-- you get the idea. Hey, I'm up for an over-the-top cheesetastic played-for-laughs gorefest as much as the next guy-- they were my bread and butter in high school-- but Riki-Oh just didn't quite have it for me.



I'm struggling for a seventh paragraph... hmmm... did anyone catch that Tottenham/San Jose friendly on Saturday afternoon? I'm an Arsenal guy, so I was hoping San Jose might pull the upset. I have to admit that Gareth Bale looks pretty good, though, huh? He seems like he's just going to pick right up where he left off last season. Even though I'm a Gooner, I have to admit it is cool having them as the fourth EPL team in the Champions League-- though I wouldn't be saying that if Arsenal didn't finish ahead of them!

If you want a different take on Riki-Oh, check out Mr. Kenner's review at Movies in the Attic. It's actually as a thank you to him for all the help he gave during the Hong Kong cinema series that I'm reviewing Riki-Oh myself, so thank you again, it was definitely appreciated as always. If you were so inclined to pick it up, it's unfortunately no longer available on Netflix, but I'm sure you can get it on Amazon or something. Even if I didn't dig it, I can't deny it's a cult classic.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102293/

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

When last we left the Undisputed gang, they were in a Russian prison, and Michael Jai White had just busted Scott Adkins' knee to shit and won a big prison tournament. Now they're back, with Adkins reprising his role, and DTVC favorite Isaac Florentine (Ike-Flo to those in The Biz) taking the helm again as director. This could be good.

Undisputed III picks up where part 2 left off. Adkins is recovering from his bum knee, and trying to be the fighter he once was. He defeats his current prison's champ, and is entered into an international prison fighting tournament in Georgia-- not the Peach State, but the country. Anyway, when he gets there, he finds out things aren't kosher, as he and the other fighters are sent to do hard labor and other crap so they'll be less able to win and beat that prison's champ, some Colombian dude. Can Adkins overcome all this and win his freedom?



This would've been so hot if they had focused more on the great Florentine fight scenes and less on the whole set-up of the prison and the plans to rig the tournament. Sweaty buff guys hitting rocks is great for a Pride Film, and I'm not knocking that as a genre at all, I'm just saying, we signed on for an action flick, and based on some of Florentine's other work, and what we got here when it happened, we know he can deliver. I mean, every fight scene was great-- the problem was, between the first round and second round in the tournament, there was this huge gap of blah. Fuck plot and character development-- or at the every least, mix it in with the action so there isn't a huge block of blah in the middle. Contrary to what the script writers may think, all that shit doesn't matter, it's the action that counts. If I want character development, I'll check out an Ozu film on Watch Instantly.

That being said, Scott Adkins is great again, and I liked his character here better than in Ninja, just because he wasn't running away from anyone. In fact, a huge improvement over Undisputed II was how little we had to endure Adkins's character being beaten up by guards and what not. I also understand that, he being the best fighter and star of the film, we don't want them to overdo it and have too much of him fighting. Fair enough, what we got was plenty and spectacular. I just wanted less boring plot and sweaty buff guys breaking rocks. Another great Isaac Florentine and Adkins pairing nonetheless.



We have another Baller Blockin' alum, this time in Mykel Shannon Jenkins, the guy who played Garr in the Hip Hop classic. Here he was great, but didn't have anywhere near the material he had in his few short scenes in Baller Blockin'-- but who does. I think this is a good place to demonstrate why I might be hard on a film like Undisputed III. There's Baller Blockin', without a wasted minute of film (mostly because they probably decided making a movie was harder than they thought, so they gave up and slapped a "To be continued..." on the last scene), then I got this where I'm like "I thought this was an action flick". I watch DTV because I don't want character development, too much plot, etc. There are too many places I can go to if I want that sort of thing where they'll do it well. If you need character development, give it to me in an action filled flashback. If you need plot, give it to me in between explosions as the characters are escaping a shootout at an abandoned warehouse. Otherwise, don't waste my time. There's plenty of Godard on Watch Instantly.

An as far as being a DTV director goes, Florentine is really starting to make a name for himself and put together that résumé that earns one a spot in the DTVC Hall of Fame. Currently there's only one there right now for his directorial work, Albert Pyun, though Cirio H. Santiago will be in the 2010 class. Could Florentine be there in 2011? It's too soon to tell, but he's well on his way.



I just saw a great film recently called North Face (Nordwand), which was about rock climbers in 1936 trying to conquer the infamous Eiger North Wall. In the review I gave on my Tumblr blog, I discussed how it was extremely scary, yet no one was tortured to death or had their eyeballs gouged out. Anyway, the other great element the film used was the juxtaposition between the climbers bivouacking in the freezing cold on the side of a mountain, while the onlookers partied away in the luxury hotel at the base. This film employed the same contrast, showing the crime bosses betting on the fights in this luxurious hotel in Tbilisi, while the fighters languished in the horrible prison. I don't know if Florentine or the script writers got the idea from Nordwand, but I couldn't help notice the similarities.

This is definitely a better film watched in a group so you and your friends can talk about other things during the blah parts, and then dig the too sweet fight scenes that really make the movie. Really, it's a four-star film that's twenty minutes too long, making it a solid three-star film, which in the end isn't that bad, is it?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156466/

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

After how great Blood and Bone was (good enough to make number nine of my Top Ten DTV Films of the 2000s), it was only a matter of time before we got more Michael Jai White up here. I'm not sure what we'll do with Black Dynamite when it's released on DVD Tuesday, because it was given a limited theatrical release, and seems more like an indie flick as opposed a DTV film that tried to make it in the theater. It smells like a wild card post to me, right? But before that happens, White has some DTV films that need reviewing, starting with Undisputed II: Last Man Standing.

Undisputed II has White as Ving Rhames's character in the first one. I didn't see the first one, but from the ads I was under the impression that Rhames was the bad guy. Well he's not here, I mean White isn't, he's the good guy. While in Russia trying to make cash, he's framed for drug possession and sent to a nasty prison, run from the outside by a Russian mobster (wanna guess who framed him?). Anyway, at first he refuses to fight, but then realizes it's the only way he'll get out, so he agrees to fight their champ. 

This was pretty good. There were some weird scenes, like White chained to a metal tower outside, and the other inmates feeding him little pieces of bread. A little too 9 1/2 Weeks for me. The fight scenes were great, though, especially the two bouts between White and the prison champ, Scott Adkins. The prison aspect of it made it less cool than Blood and Bone, because there White could be the man without prison guards beating him down constantly. Overall, though, a good deal.

Michael Jai White is great. It still astounds me that someone like Treach would be crammed into a role like the lead in Art of War III when a solid talent like White would've killed it. Black Dynamite comes out on Tuesday, but I may not get it done then, because of the other films I have to do, especially the comic book ones. Speaking of which, it still annoys me that he was completely wasted in that Dark Knight movie. He'd actually make a great Batman, now that you think of it. As far as Undisputed II goes, again, the prison aspect and his having to succumb to guards and whatnot makes it not as awesome as Blood and Bone, where he just gets to tear it up. Still, his fight scenes are great, and I'm glad they found a way to work his whole skill set into the movie, not just boxing. 

According to IMDb, this uses footage that Direct Contact used, which in the beginning also took place in an Eastern European prison. I know these guys are supposed to be tough, but the idea of an Eastern European prison freaks me out, enough to say I'd want nothing to do with going to Eastern Europe just to make sure I'd never end up in one. It's like there's the prison film, the corrupt prison film, and then the corrupt Eastern European prison film, which is just like the hardest of the hardcore. One interesting case is Bloodsport 4: The Dark Kumite, which is filmed in a prison in Eastern Europe, but takes place in a prison in New York. I would say still pretty hardcore, because we all know it ain't New York.

In the first Undisputed, Ving Rhames is playing a Mike Tyson type character, which is interesting, because Michael Jai White played Tyson for a TV movie. Based on the plot of Undisputed II, you could almost see something like this happening to Tyson, I mean think about it: if he was busted abroad for having a bunch of coke, or anything bad, would you be surprised? Would you be surprised if Tyson did or was accused of doing anything? On that note, today is the twentieth anniversary of Tyson losing to Buster Douglas. If you remember that like I do, do you feel old? I remember Mike Tyson's Punch Out became just Punch Out after that, and Buster Douglas had a Sega game for him, which was replaced by an Evander Holyfield one when he beat Douglas.

I want to make a quick mention of the director, Isaac Florentine. This will be his fifth film reviewed at the DTVC (Savate, Bridge of Dragons, Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon (co-directed final scenes), and Shepherd: Border Patrol). That's a pretty impressive resume, considering Bridge of Dragons is in my top ten DTV films of the 90s (which will be released soon!), and Shepherd is in my Top Ten of the 2000s. On March 2nd, he has Ninja set to release, which looks good, and features Scott Adkins, who played the prison champ in Undisputed II, as the hero. That release date is the same date as the much anticipated Bitch Slap.

If you haven't seen this yet, it's worth a look. I'm sure you've seen better, but I know you've also seen worse, which makes this a pretty good deal. The fight scenes are great, the plot maybe less so, but who cares about that? We don't watch movies like these for compelling storylines.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443676/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Hard Justice (1995)

With my recent push to get more of the gems from the late 80s and early 90s, it was probably only a matter of time before I made this one happen. This was another of those films that I saw when I was in high school, forgot about, and was reminded of by some of my readers. Then I rent it, see it again, and think "how did I forget this?"

Hard Justice has David Bradley as an ATF agent that goes undercover in a jail to find out what happened to his friend, who was murdered. This of course comes after an explosion laden gunfight in a waterfront warehouse. As the film deteriorates into the usual action prison film where everyone's in on it and shanks come from all sides, Bradley discovers who he can trust, who sucks, and how many times he can go from beating someone down to getting beaten down himself in solitary.



Death Warrant is perhaps the best prison film ever. Then Live by the Fist. That being said, this is no slouch. The opening scene is just amazing-- I don't even know if words can properly describe how awesome it is-- and from there it doesn't stop, leading up to a sweet prison riot to end the film. When you think 1990s DTV action, this is what comes to your mind. The only demerit I can give is the use of a helicopter at the end of the movie that wasn't blown up. Come on guys, don't get lazy on me, blow that fucking helicopter up.

I've never been a big David Bradley fan. Maybe it was how he spent most of American Ninja 4 as a prisoner as opposed to out there kicking ass. Outside the Law wasn't so hot either. But here he really makes his money. This movie came packaged with Outside the Law on Netflix, but if you go the Watch Instantly route, only Outside is available. Total ripoff. I am going to revisit some of the other films in his catalog based on the strength of this last movie. He hasn't done many, and he hasn't made a film since 1997. One of the most fitting things about his bio is he's listed on imdb as "David Bradley (V)", which means he's the fifth David Bradley, but (V) is also the term imdb uses for Direct to Video.



Of course the other big draw in this film is the great Vernon Wells. I don't dig the face tattoo, and he seems to take a little off the amazing Australian accent, but overall he's pretty good. He plays a rival supplier of all things contraband in the prison to the people Bradley's investigating so, despite the fact Bradley's a cop, Wells is his ally. According to imdb, his crowning achievement, Bennett in Commando, will be shown on AMC this 4th of July. This is the kind of gem that is done a disservice by commercials and censoring. How does one guess when the seminal line, "Let off some steam, Bennett" occurs when there's commercials? How graphic will that scene even be? AMC shouldn't even show movies like that.

Japanese That Guy Yuji Okomoto plays the bad guy in this. You may think you don't know who he is, but trust me, you do. I looked him up on imdb, and he's been in six other DTVC movies: Ticker, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, Fortress 2, Mean Guns, Bloodfist V: Human Target, and Nemesis. I guess I should probably tag him, and maybe get rid of some of my tags for other, more superfluous actors. In case you're wondering, he was also in Pearl Harbor, perhaps the most soul crushing film ever made. Another major That Guy in here is Charles Napier. I'm not sure anyone embodies the That Guy concept more than him. When you see him, you just go, "Hey, it's That Guy." Looking him up on imdb for this review was the first time I even learned his name.



One thing about this and a a lot of other prison films was the lack of prison jumpsuit. As far as I can tell, nothing means prison more than the jumpsuit, yet so few prison action films ever employ it. One of the advantages to the jumpsuit, obviously, is that it's harder to hide things in it than say a pair of jeans-- no matter how painted on they might be. I've never actually worn a jumpsuit in my life, prison or otherwise. I don't know, I guess the idea of unzipping my shirt every time I had to take a leak never really did anything for me.

You need Hard Justice. It's one of those things you could live your whole life without, fine in the knowledge that you have everything you want, then, after you've seen it, you can't imagine your life without it, and the idea that your life wouldn't have been quite as bright and you'd have never known, makes you pause a little bit.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113261/

The Circuit 2: The Final Punch (2002)

I had planned on posting this later and putting up a different Gruner film, Automatic, in this spot. The issue wasn't with Gruner, but Lorenzo Lamas, who's also in the film. I didn't want to have too much Lamas in too short a span, and I was excited about the prospect of Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. But that's stuck with the label "Very Long Wait" in my Netflix queue, and who knows when I'll get it up now.

The Circuit 2 takes place sometime after part one. Gruner is engaged to the hottie Australian reporter he had been hooking up with, and life looks good. But reporters in action movies always end up where they shouldn't, and Gruner's woman is caught investigating a prison fight ring. The guards and a beast of a prisoner work her over and leave her to die. Lamas, Gruner's woman's colleague at the paper, gets Gruner in at the prison, and he makes his way through the ranks to get the proof he needs against the warden.



If the first one was silly, with Gruner punching bottles into the ground and whatnot, this one did it one better. The jail made no sense. If I'm a Californian, I'm less than stoked that my tax dollars are going to that place. Gruner came in as angry as he was in part one, but he replaced the punching bottles with a knit cap and cigarettes. The addition of Lamas was good, but I think I would've liked more. He's just above the cameo level. Gary Hudson was a solid addition as a prison guard, but nothing was done with him either.

This is good Gruner. It was nice watching him beat the crap out of person after person in that jail, but that's really all it was. There was nothing in the jail for him to overcome. All he had to do was show up and fight. His final fight with the baddie was poorly choreographed and went on forever. The problem was they had a dude who was just too big to make the fight look exciting on screen. Best of the Best 2 had the same problem, but they rectified it using sticks. A movie fight needs speed.



Lamas is the resident Hall of Famer here, but it's certainly not his movie. He plays a newspaper editor trying to quit smoking, who occasionally ends up in situations where we see him fight. In one some thugs meet him at his car with a beef over an article he wrote, and he and Gruner beat the crap out of them. It sucks right now that Mega Shark is stuck in Netflix limbo. They need to get their shit together toot-sweet (tout de suite).

We've reviewed quite a few prison films here at the DTVC. The two best, as far as I'm concerned, are Live by the Fist and Bloodsport 4: The Dark Kumite. The first one was amazing because it had Jerry Trimble and George Takei. The second one was great because the premise was Ben Franklin running a fight ring in a New York that resembled Romania. This film was nowhere near as good as that. I'd put it right behind Bloodfist III. It wasn't as bad as In Hell, but how much of a compliment is that. This was essentially Bloodsport 4 without Ben Franklin, and had it featured him or another Founding Father (Framer), this paragraph would've been different.



I think this film might have been afraid to use Gary Hudson. He started out so promising. Why he wasn't running the show as the head baddie is beyond me. I considered actually doing this entire post about Hudson, but I wasn't sure if I could write 8 paragraphs on him, or even five if you take out the opening, synopsis, and closing paragraphs. But I can do one, and that's what I'm going to do. He can't carry a film on his own like a Lamas or Gruner, but when you give him that secondary role as baddie or hero's partner, he's got it. We'll explore a film where he used better later on with Martial Law.

So this is a good deal. It's not Gruner's best, and it's scant on the Lamas, but it's serviceable. I wouldn't plan your night around it, but if it's on late at night or something, you could do a lot worse. If you've seen everything else by Gruner, give this one a try.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321704/

13 Dead Men (2003)

A friend of mine called me a few weeks ago to tell me he'd found two potential gems cheap. One of them was this film, and when he mentioned it had DTVC Hall of Famer Lorenzo Lamas and the often hilarious hip hop star Mystikal, I was immediately amped. Then I tempered my amped-ness, knowing first that this film could be a potential Lamas bait-and-switch; and second, knowing that I've seen too many of these and been let down too many times to get my hopes up.

13 Dead Men is about some no named actor who's on death row for killing a cop, and who knows where a lot of money in stolen diamonds is. The warden wants to know where they are before he's executed. Lamas is his former partner, and he wants to break him out so he can find out too. Mystikal is just some fat dude in jail who can beat people up in poorly choreographed fight scenes.




Funny in parts, but overall a total disappointment. First off, the dialog was edited. What? All Mystikal does is swear, so all of his speaking parts sound like S%#T (sorry, couldn't pass that up). Why would someone do that? The movie's bad enough as it is. The fights were poorly choreographed, which hurt, considering the film was directed by famed fight choreographer Art Camacho. Lorenzo Lamas was the only one who knew any martial arts in the picture, so even his fight scenes sucked, because he wasn't fighting anyone trained to make it look good with him. And don't get me started on Mystikal's fight scenes. It looked like an old serial western without any of the charm.

Lamas doesn't mail it in here, which is a testament to his professionalism, if nothing else. Still, it was such schlock fare, that it hurt either way. I guess we can at least feel okay that we weren't hit with the Lamas bait-and-switch, like Succubus, because he's in this film for at least a third of it. The next film of his I have lined up is Terminal Justice, and he's listed as the main protagonist in that one, so hopefully we'll have a better product. Hopefully.




Mystikal. I really don't know what to say. Maybe if I'd had a chance to hear him swear it would've been all right. Without his real lines, though, he was a shell of himself, and left with his acting skills and ability to fake fight on screen, he sank. Okay, maybe he sank because he weighs so much. Was that bad? I've battled the bulge myself, so maybe I should be a little more sympathetic. Just the same, I would love to see Mystikal on Celebrity Fit Club.

This is the seventh film directed by Art Camacho I've reviewed here. I don't know if it was his decision to edit the dialog, but if it was, it may have been his worst ever. I don't know him personally, so I can't say for sure, but if he cut all the swears out, he's gotta be regretting that one. Okay, maybe he's not, maybe he doesn't care anymore. Maybe he does, though. Maybe the decision to clean up the language wasn't his, and it's something that's haunted him to this day. What if he's like the kid from my high school that was watching one of his basketball videos at a party, and says "I made a bad decision there", to which my buddy says "why, what does it matter? You think some D-1 school cut your scholarship because of that decision?"-- which almost started a fight. I still haven't gotten around to adding in tags for all of Art Camacho's other roles in films other than director. Maybe I'll do that someday.



One final footnote to this review: the night after seeing 13 Dead Men, my friend's girlfriend dug out some of her old mix CDs, and one of the songs she had was Joe's "Stutter", which featured Mystikal. I didn't remember five years ago thinking it was as funny when he jumped in with his "watch ya self" in his trademark raspy voice, but this time we were dying. I guess, as in all things in life, when you're irrelevant, you're really irrelevant.

I have to say this is a major gamble. If the edited version is the only version, then this sucks. If, and this is a big IF, because I don't know for sure, but if there's an un-edited version out there, then this might be serviceable. And if you find one, tell me, because I'd really like to know.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367136/

Live by the Fist (1993)

This movie was a suggestion from my friend over at Movies in the Attic (a link to which you can find in the section titled "Other Great Sites"). I checked out the trailer on YouTube, and knew I had to shoot it to the top of my Netflix queue. You're talking Jerry Trimble and George Takei, does it get any better? Sure, Heat was able to boast the first ever on-screen pairing of Pacino and De Niro, but in my mind, Trimble and Takei was a much more anticipated combination. Sometimes I wonder how I get to be so lucky.

Live by the Fist has Trimble as an ex-Navy SEAL who's framed for killing a woman he tried to save from being raped. He's sent to a corrupt Philippine prison, where he befriends George Takei, a kind of wise man leader of the inmates. Takei's trying to contact a human rights group chick to draw attention to inhumane treatment from the warden and guards. Trimble, as you can imagine, is always in trouble, and always has to kick some ass. He kicks plenty until the calvary's called, and he and the human rights group chick can escape.

Now this is what I'm talking about! Amazing! It just frustrates me to know I sit through so much crap, when all DTV directors have to do is watch a gem like this to understand what makes quality cinema. Where do I begin? First fight scene, we hear this amazing electric guitar riff in the background. Think WASP "Blind in Texas" with a little early 80s Crue and mid 80s Dokken mixed in. And that riff plays during every fight scene. And it never gets old. Every time I heard it I did a Tiger Woods hitting a birdie putt at 18 in the Masters to seal the win fist pump.

Trimble shows up here. It's amazing to think I'm just north of 200 posts at the DTVC, and this is the first time a film of his was reviewed. Actually, I found out looking him up on imdb, that that's not exactly true. He was in a gang in Seagal's Today you Die, and I totally missed him because also in that gang was Karo "The Heat" Parisyan. Anyway, this is the first film I've done that he stars in, and I'll have to make sure I do more, because he was the bomb. He has this awesome voice that's like the best parts of Martin Sheen, Joe Estevez, and Judge Mills Lane all mixed together. And he's a very solid martial artist. I can't think of a better guy to root for.

I know you all want to know, and I'll tell you: how awesome was George Takei? Was the voice there? Did he say anything fantastic? The voice was there, but he didn't have any too amazing lines to go with it (not like his trip to Howard Stern's show). His character name is Uncle Coronado, which is probably good enough. I mean, just having Takei is really enough. As long as he's there and talking, the viewer's usually entertained. I'm surprised more DTV film makers-- as in all of them-- don't cast Takei more often. If I made movies, he'd be in all of my films. I'd break the bank to get him, too. If my budget was 2 mill, I'd take out a loan and give him 3. I mean, come on, it's George Takei.

Roger Corman produced this, and that brings up a question I get all the time: why isn't he in the Hall of Fame? Who better to be in a DTV Hall of Fame than one of the creators of the genre? Well, the reason is that before Albert Pyun was inducted last year, only actors were allowed in. Perusing Corman's vast production credits, it looks like he's produced 10-15 movies that have already been reviewed on the DTVC, which would put him second behind Dolph Lundgren for most times tagged. Look for his induction to the HOF this October.

The prison sub-genre of the bad action movie comes up often. When I watched bad action in the 80s and 90s, I'd say one out of five took place in a prison. It's just such an easy way to make a movie: the set's cheap, wardrobe's a cinch, and the plot can be written in a day or two. Unfortunately the (to my eyes, anyway) overrated Shawshank Redemption changed the way we look at prison films. Maybe I don't speak for many people, but I'll take a Live by the Fist over Shawshank any day. The guitar alone makes it for me, but I also think Jerry Trimble is a better actor than Tim Robbins.

Do you even need me to do the last paragraph? You what I'm gonna say. Rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to, but get your hands on this puppy. It's frickin' awesome. It's also only 77 minutes long, which has to be another selling point. Who needs a 3-hour epic, when you can watch this twice in less time.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107430/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight (1992)

I caught this recently during a Bloodfist marathon on ShowtimeXtreme. I have friends with the channel, but unfortunately, they will probably be dumping it soon. I know when I had the channel myself it provided hours of enjoyment; but it is expensive, and I can totally understand them not keeping it. Perhaps we can get the channel as a tax write-off at the DTVC head offices.

Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight is the first of the series to feature Don "The Dragon" Wilson as someone other than the guy he was in the first two. In fact, all of them after III do that. Anyway, here he's in prison, and he sees his buddy raped and murdered, so he kills the guy that did it. That garners him bad attention from the cats that dug the dead guy, so he's forced to fight to survive. Richard Roundtree is his cell mate, and he's close to parole. He also represents the inmates at their parole and appeal hearings. The question is: will his supporting Donny kill him before his release date? We know it won't kill Donny Dawg.

Almost every action hero has to do the perfunctory prison flick. Don got his out of the way very early in his career, and I must say that was a good move. Though this movie is atrocious, we can forgive him for it, because he didn't have a lot under his belt. That being said, he better not do anymore, like Van Damme did, because the results could be disastrous. I think Crooked was a far better movie choice than In Hell.



One thing I dug about this was the sheer volume of fighting in it. There could've been more if they'd just removed the plot completely, and I can't say I would've been upset with that, but I think the amount they had was enough. In one scene, Dragon fights this big dude in the laundry room. He kicks the guy backward through who knows how many hanging sheets. I'm not sure exactly what they were going for, whether that was a scene played for laughs gone wrong, or if they really thought it would be a cool effect and just got carried away, but it looked like something out of the Three Stooges.

Richard Roundtree's in this, unfortunately not reprising his role as Shaft. As a kid, the Shaft movies were to my mind the most amazing things I'd ever laid eyes on, and as an adult, my opinion hasn't changed much. We get flashes of what made Shaft great here, like when Roundtree goes upside a dude's head with a bat, but nothing like the scene in Shaft in Africa when he killed a bunch of dudes with a car; and none of the great lines like the classic "Close it yourself... Shitty!" from the first one. I think the film makers were a little over their head when they cast Roundtree, and as such, weren't able to use him to his full potential.



This film had all the depraved hallmarks of the routine prison film, which I assume is meant to show us how gritty the prison environment is, but in the end just look whacked. This is especially true in the beginning when D "The D" Dubs' friend gets raped. Eww. Just the same, the film does a solid job in tempering this depravity, especially with how Don is able to get justice against both the warden (played by the assassin in Hard to Kill, an interesting connection between Don and Seagal) and the baddies in prison; and with the way they wrapped up Roundtree's story. I left this movie without the icky feeling I'm usually left with after other prison flicks, and I guess in that respect this film is a nice slice of all right.

If you see this again on ShowtimeXtreme or something, and you're up late typing or paper or battling insomnia, a fella or a lady could do a lot worse than watch this bad boy. On the other hand, if you spend any money, or set aside any time to watch this, you will feel sorely cheated. It's what we in The Biz call nondescript, and in my mind, nondescript is no good.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101481/