Countdown aka Serial Bomber (1996)

For our next 2024 Hall of Fame inductee, we have the man we've termed The Seagal Whisperer, Keoni Waxman. Since we'd already done all nine of his Seagal films on here, I decided to go earlier in his filmography for his induction post, and cover this film here, which I found on Tubi. (More on that later!)

Countdown aka Serial Bomber has Lori Petty as an FBI agent in Seattle trying to take down serial bomber extraordinaire Jason London. When his Japanese national girlfriend is arrested, Petty and co. think they have the key to bringing him down, but when Yoko, an officer from Tokyo PD (Yuki Amami) shows up to escort the girlfriend back to Japan, London gets antsy and starts to up the game with his fancy bombs placed around the city. Now it's up to Petty and Amami to bring this guy to justice, while a soundtrack of late 90s alternative music plays in the background.

This wasn't bad. Yes, by the end the whole cat and mouse thing had gotten tired, it may have worked better as an episode of a late 90s syndicated TV show; and there were a few incidents that were a little off, like Jason London beating up Petty's mom, or when a bomb squad expert seems to have solved the wiring London put together for him bomb, only to have him get blown up anyway--London was plenty diabolical without any of that. The biggest key for me is Lori Petty, who is fantastic in the lead; and then we have a great supporting cast, including London and Amani, plus James Le Gros as the FBI chief, which was sweet to see, but made me wish we also had BoJesse Christopher hanging around too. The music was fantastic as well, 90s alternative, none of which were hits, but they sounded like songs that were hits, which is nice enough. For a late 90s free streamer, this does what you need it to do, and sometimes that's all you need. 

For his yeoman's work on Seagal films alone, Waxman was deserving of a slot here in the Hall of Fame, but now that he's joining other Hall of Fame directors with his tag count--this is 13 for him, which is a three-way tie for third--it was really overdue. This is the earliest of his films we've reviewed, coming out two years before Sweepers, which we know he had some friction making with Dolph. I liked this better than Sweepers, telling me that he probably didn't have those same issues with Lori Petty, but he also said he learned from his experience on Sweepers, which probably made him more amenable to an even more demanding star like Seagal, leading to him directing Seagal in nine films between 2009 and 2017, plus all the True Justice episodes. One thing Scott Murphy from All 90s Action, All the Time and I have noticed as we've been going through all of Seagal's DTV flicks fpr the DTVC podcast, is Seagal often works with a director two or three times, and then that's it, meaning Seagal's people probably sign them on for more than one film, knowing how bad Seagal is to work with. I can't imagine Waxman signed a nine-picture deal, meaning he had to have re-upped at some point, or that there were line producers like Ben Sacks who were like "hey Keoni, we need you again," like that friend with a pick-up truck who's always getting called when someone is moving. He's had five films since his run with Seagal was over, one of which we've done here, The Hard Way, but according to IMDb he doesn't have anything in development right now. Even if he's taking a break, he's put together a Hall of Fame resume, and is  truly deserving of his induction. Here's to you Mr. Waxman, you're one of the greats.

 
This is our third Lori Petty film on the site, but the first real DTV one, because the other two were Point Break and Tank Girl. 1996, when this came out, was only one year removed from Tank Girl, and when I looked at her IMDb bio, that looks like her last big screen big budget production. From there she's bounced around between television appearances, voice work on Batman and Superman cartoons, and now microbudget horror films that could use her face on the tin to sell streams. On the one hand I don't get it, because she's great here, like she was great in Tank Girl and great in Point Break; but on the other I do, because I think for as great as the 90s were, they weren't ready for a Lori Petty. Now in the 2020s it feels like we have too many Lori Pettys, but none as great as she is, it's almost like the idea of being like a Lori Petty is enough now. Back in the 90s, other actors cut their hair short and did a Lori Petty-like performance to show their range, but no one made a career of being a Lori Petty the way they do now. Had Lori Petty been born in 1993 instead of 1963, every prestige TV show, indie movie, and blockbuster would have her in it. Instead, she was born in 1963, ahead of her time, but still able to shine in roles like this. I saw that she had a PM flick in 2001, Firetrap, so you know we'll make that one happen soon, meaning this won't be the last time we see her here.

Was Jason London Eminem a few years before Eminem was Eminem? It looks like it in that shot there, doesn't it? 24 when this movie came out, he's every bit the young Gen Xer with his hair, and his beanie, and his big coats. You could've seen him hanging out with Ian on The Grind with Eric when they did the alternative song. "Oh, they're playing Sabotage, where's Ian? There he is, with his messy hair and post office jacket!" There's also a little Eric Nies in this performance too, London is both alternative Gen Xer and pretty boy Gen Xer. But then we have to throw in the 90s baddie who's good at everything and has everything figured out. He knows how to wire the bombs, find out information on the FBI agents after him, break into places and leave tapes everywhere, and is pretty handy with a gun if you need him. All at 24. I was looking at his IMDb bio to see how his career arc got him here too, and he doesn't have the big screen hits Petty had. In '93 he was the star of the indie hit Dazed and Confused, then appeared in a couple Aerosmith videos, but it was mostly DTV and TV appearances from there, meaning this film may have been a step down from those things, but par for the course for what he was being offered. This is now 7 films for him on the site, and while we don't specifically seek his films out, with the volume he does, we'll no doubt see him again.

Finally, I usually save my "where you can find this" for the eight paragraph, but this was an interesting one that required a longer space to vent. IMDb said this was on Tubi, but when I searched it didn't show up, and when I clicked  the link on IMDb it didn't show up either. Letterboxd said the same, but same lack of result. Letterboxd also said Freevee had it, but when I checked Amazon the same thing happened. So I checked Plex, because sometimes they have things that others don't, especially 90s actioners like this. They told me they didn't have it, but gave me links to Tubi and Freevee too. And that's how I got it, I clicked the link in Plex that took me to Tubi, and that's where it worked. How does any of that happen? I mean, searching for "Countdown" didn't reveal it on Tubi, and looking up Keoni Waxman didn't reveal it, but clicking through the Plex link? I'm not sure how it works, but at least I was able to watch the movie and get screens for the review.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As I said above, you can get this on Tubi here in the States, but if you don't see it when you search, try clicking through the link on Plex. This isn't horrible, despite its flaws, it's a fun time with the all names and the nostalgia for the late 90s. And congratulations to Keoni Waxman on your Hall of Fame induction! It was truly yeoman's work directing all those Seagal DTV actioners, but someone needed to do it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115953

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/

Realm of Shadows (2024)

This is another film producer Joe Williamson asked us to review, a horror anthology from writer/director/actor Jimmy Drain, featuring names like Mel Novak, Tony Todd, Vernon Wells, Richard Tyson, and Harley Wallen, a director we usually see when Joe sends us a screener, but here appears in a cameo at the end. Let's see how this one did.

Realm of Shadows is less an anthology and more a collection of short films made my Jimmy Drain, many of which feature him as the male lead. They deal with issues like witches who are feminists (haven't seen that trope before!), women who get impregnated by warlocks (sans Mia farrow and John Cassavetes), and spells to make women have sex with guys (a little on the rape-y side post-Cosby). Around these short films we have a group of witches trying to get a dagger, and using a Ouija board to get it. Suddenly at the end, Tony Todd shows up, Vernon Wells reveals himself to be leading the witches, and Harley Wallen and Richard Tyson look like witch hunters ready to take down the dagger witches. And then the movie ends.

And that's the movie. The most interesting and most exciting stuff all comes at the end. I can't knock it though, if I were Jimmy Drain, it sounds like a great idea: package all my short films, then get some big names to do some small scenes around them, and voila you're swimming in Tubi streams. I think the problem I had with this compared to other anthologies Joe has had us look at, is those ones were collections of short films all with similar themes, and all done by different directors, so we get unique voices and performances, which is something we needed here. The other thing is I think some of the stories had issues. Again, we probably never should've done the "spell cast to make a girl like you" paradigm, because it always had overtones of foregoing consent, but post-Cosby it should be totally off the table--though to be fair to Mr. Drain, the cellphone his character has looks like something out of 2008, so maybe he made it pre-Cosby? Also, the loaded trope of the feminists who are really just man-hating witches is also both dated and probably never should've been a thing to begin with. There were a couple shorts that were done more like silent films--perhaps because the audio was bad when they recorded them?--and while I liked that idea, we needed some inter-titles to know what was going on. I'm all for people making it happen in a creative field, and Jimmy Drain's short films here are no different; but I think overall, I just could've used a bit more from the stories, and more of the great stuff at the end.

My number one performance was Tony Todd, who I love anyway. This is now 7 films for him on the site, perhaps the most memorable being his turn as a baddie in Sabotage, but even here, he's just another level in the few scenes he's in. We have two names that are hitting their 12th film on the site, Mel Novak and Vernon Wells. Novak of course is a mainstay in the films Joe asks us to review, and he's always a lot of fun, playing a priest in the bumpers between shorts, who's then later revealed to be buddies with Tony Todd. That's the movie I need, those two as priests vanquishing evil. And perhaps that evil could be in the form of baddie Vernon Wells, who in this just appears at the end when he's revealed to be the one directing the witches coven seeking the dagger. It's always great to see these guys in movies, and despite having scant roles here, it was no less great to see them.

Often when I'm reviewing a movie, I pick my favorite supporting character, and here I had a clear winner. Look at how great that guy above is. He's either a priest, or he's selling beers in the stands at a baseball game, or he's a transient short order cook who may or may not have a rap sheet and who may or may not occasionally sleep out of his Chevy Ranger as he's traveling the country, starting over in a new city after he's worn out his welcome in the last one. As a priest he's telling Jimmy Drain--who I guess in this short is a college professor, or a grad student teaching English classes?--not to succumb to temptation when one of his students wants to hook up with him. What Drain apparently cuts out is our priest asking Drain after for $20 to float him through to payday. I don't know who he is, because his picture isn't on IMDb, and with these being shorts, characters were in and out so fast it was hard to know who anyone was--and I have a hunch the no image on IMDb is by design, the last thing he needs is the landlord in Des Moines that he skipped out on finding out where he is, or that guy in Poughkeepsie that he owes $500 to. Either way, here's to you this guy, you were fantastic.

Jimmy! Jimm-May! I love that the creative force behind these films isn't James Drain or Jim Drain, but Jimmy Drain. "Who do you put your bets in with?" "Jimmy the Drain over on 2nd and Wolf. They call him 'the Drain' because all your money goes down the drain with him!" Being of part-Irish decent, I've had family members call me "Matty" before, the same way my late grandfather was a "Jimmy," so not only I can appreciate it, I like that he's embracing it. I can also appreciate that he had all these short films, and he wanted to package them into something that can make him money. The problem was, the best stuff came with his bumpers and the final denouement, which I think made the shorts look worse by comparison. I hope he makes that second movie that the end of this one teases, because I think it could be really good. While I appreciate why he packaged all his shorts into this film, I'm rooting for him to make it happen with more full-length features.

Finally, look at that phone. I think I last had one like that in 2012. After that I got my brother's iPhone 4, and have been using iPhones ever since, going from that to my wife's i6, which I broke, forcing me to get the SE I have now. My dad has never been up on technology, but he finally had to get a flip phone when my mom got rid of their landline. He was saying how he never uses it, and I tried to explain to him how much I use mine for. The obvious one is texting, but it's not just phone texting, but messaging on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X. I use Apple Pay to make almost all of my purchases, plus I can ride the subway or the bus here in Philadelphia with Apple Pay, along with the subways/buses in New York, Boston, and Chicago. That means in those cities, I don't need to bother with getting a subway pass or ticket. My train tickets and plane tickets are on my phone, along with any sporting events I attend. If I'm lost, I can open my phone and find out where I am so I don't need to ask strangers for help. There's also the bad, like how I have all my work apps on my phone too, so I can see off hours when someone is pinging me--but even that can also be a good thing, because I can step away from the computer during work hours and still be available if someone needs me for something. Seeing that old phone made me a bit nostalgic, and there was maybe a romantic sense hearkening back to a simpler time, but how much better was that simpler time? Needing to get tokens or have a unique card for every city I went to to ride their subway? Making sure I had my plane ticket and boarding pass, and didn't lose them? I remember my friend forgetting our tickets to Gwar and realizing it when we were three hours from our dorm at UMaine. He had to buy us all new tickets when we got to the show in Worcester. Now he'd have the tickets on his phone--unless he still has a phone like that one.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States. While it has some moments, the thing I really want to see is the next movie that's teased at the end. By the same token, I'm always a proponent of supporting indie filmmakers, and you can support Jimmy Drain by just streaming this. It's a nice use of 90 minutes of your time, and you may find yourself enjoying some of the stories.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10619392

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/

Chief of Station (2024)

It's October, and you know what that means, Hall of Fame inductions! We're starting with director Jesse V. Johnson, who has been steadily creeping up the all-time director tags list, so I figured it was time to get him in, and with his newest film on Hulu, this made sense as the one to go to. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Chief of Station has Aaron Eckhardt as a CIA agent who sees his CIA agent wife die in a horrible explosion in front of him. Six months later, the CIA IG is giving him the business about it, which gets his gears going. Could there be more to her death than just the accidental gas main leak the authorities were chalking it up to? After he does some digging, turns out it was just an unfortunate gas main leak, and the rest of the film is Eckhardt wandering aimlessly through grocery stores and enjoying coffee at cafes in Europe... NOT! Ho ho, didn't see that coming, did you? It's as spy thriller-y as you'd expect, as Eckhardt has to see which Johnson mainstays he can trust as he tries to get to the bottom of things and save his son, who the baddies grabbed while the son was getting some in Croatia.

This is a pretty good deal. As far as Jesse V. Johnson goes, I wouldn't put it in my top five of his films, but for 90 minutes on Hulu, it's going to be better than the bulk of the DTV stuff you'll find on there. Eckhardt is great in the lead, and then Johnson pulls in some great names in supporting roles that have worked with him before, like Olga Kurylenko, Daniel Bernhardt, and Nina Bergman, plus a fun performance by Alex Pettyfer. There are some parts earlier on where things are a bit slower, plus we have a gratuitous torture scene that was unnecessary--more on that later--but when you have a tight runtime, great names used well, and solid action when it's there, those things can be forgiven in a way that a longer movie with a bunch of names in one-scene cameos and a lot of bad computer effects can't. 

When I looked at the names of directors who were already in the Hall of Fame, I realized that Jesse V. Johnson was going to be passing some of them for tags once we started catching up on his filmography (this one at 13 ties him for third all-time with Hall of Famer Sam Firstenberg), and when I factored in the longevity of his career as a director--roughly 25 years--and some of the classics he's done, like Avengement or Savage Dog, I saw it was time to get him in. When you go from 2017 to 2024, he has 13 films released, and while I haven't seen them all, the 10 I have seen are all pretty solid. To be able to pull that off in the current DTV climate, where budgets are shrinking and the more cynical approach is to just slap a bunch of names on the tin and get in and out for as little money as possible, Johnson has been able to successfully navigate that and continue to provide a level of quality that us action fans appreciate. Much deserving of his Hall of Fame induction this year, here's to you Mr. Johnson, you're one of the greats.

The last time we saw Aaron Eckhard, it was in the film Erased, which we've not only reviewed on the site, but featured in a podcast episode, all the way back in episode 13 in the archives, a little over ten years ago in September of 2014--and that film also had Olga Kurylenko. It looks like he's now working as a DTV leading man, as this is the fourth of five films he's had come out between 2023 and now. I really liked him here, he's the kind of leading man you'd want in a movie like this, whether he's just looking good in a suit, wandering aimlessly in a grocery store as he thinks about his late wife, scowling at a computer screen while he's trying to make sense of the cryptic data in front of him, or beating up a bunch of guys at a poker game while a mustachioed Russian spy Nick Moran looks on. I could joke that he's an elevated Thomas Jane, but we saw from One Ranger that Jane brings something completely different to the table--Jane wouldn't have worked as well as the lead in this film, and Eckhardt wouldn't have worked in One Ranger the way Jane did. I don't know how much we'll get into Eckhardt's burgeoning DTV oeuvre, but based on the numbers, I imagine this won't be the last time we see him here--he has another with Johnson in production, Thieves Highway, so we know we'll be doing that one at least--and if this performance is any indication, I'll be looking forward to it.

Speaking of Kurylenko, she has a smaller, but very impactful part in this. She's kind of Ghost in the Machine-ish, only Johnson teases her earlier in the film, so I guess Chekhov's Kurylenko beats Kurylenko as Ghost in the Machine. Her entry is such a badass scene, and even though her character wears a ski mask at first, you know it's her before she removes it. She comes in while Aaron Eckhardt is being tortured for information and saves him, which made the torture scene unnecessary--if she's just going to save him, why not have her come in before he has needles stuck under his fingernails and charged with electricity? The other problem with it was it required bandage continuity, because Eckhard had the fingers that were used in the torture wrapped, but some scenes it looked like they weren't. Just save us the discomfort of having to watch that, and the script supervisor the trouble of having to keep up with it, and have Kurylenko save Eckhardt before he's tortured, it's so much easier. Anyway, Kurylenko has a ton of stuff in her filmography that we need to get to, plus, a bunch of new things coming--and I can't wait to see her on the big screen next year in Thunderbolts--so it's just a matter of me getting caught up on it all. She's continuing to make a name for herself as one of the top women in the action world, and I can't wait to see what else she has for us, but for now, she's great here in a smaller role.

Finally, a name that is probably overdue for his own Hall of Fame induction, Daniel Bernhardt is great in this as a baddie. I was trying to figure out why he wasn't in already, and I think it was because, while he was a mainstay in the early days of the site, especially with his Bloodsport sequels, in the late 2000s when bigger names like Seagal and Van Damme were dropping down to DTV, and names like Bernhardt were getting fewer leading roles, instead of trying to force it with lower-tier stuff, he went with smaller parts in bigger films. Stunt work and fight scenes in movies like The Matrix Reloaded, which led to bigger things like John Wick, it didn't mean he wasn't doing DTV stuff, but it wasn't as much, and I kind of lost track of him myself--though when I look at his tags on here, which is now at 16, I've haven't completely lost him, he's had some recent reviews. I think it's just an oversight on my part, but we can pencil him in for next year's inductions.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Hulu in the States, which I think is a good deal, but if you live in an area where this is a rental only, you could do a lot worse. And congratulations to Jesse V. Johnson on entering the Hall of Fame! It's much deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21301418

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/

Wanted Man (2024)

This is one we did on a podcast with Mitch from the Video Vacuum--who has also since reviewed it on his site--so it was only a matter of time before it made its way here for a review. In addition to us and Mitch, Chris from Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Wanted Man has Dolph--who also co-wrote, directed, and produced--as a cop in Southern California who beat up a Latin American man during a routine traffic stop and said some racist things about him not being in the US legally. Naturally he's been put on suspension--and naturally he hasn't lost his job either, because that takes a lot to have happen if you're a cop--but his boss gets the crazy Grinchy idea to have Dolph go south of the border to bring back two ladies of the night who also happen to be witnesses to a botched drug deal that led to two DEA agents being murdered. Naturally again he goes down and things aren't what they seem, so he find himself shot and being nursed back to help by one of the ladies. Once he's feeling better, the two of them try to make their way back to the US so she can stand trial. But just who was behind those DEA agent killings? And what will they do to not be found out?

For a new Dolph flick, this isn't horrible. It does suffer a bit from the current ceiling for DTV films that affects so many productions, but working within those constraints I think Dolph and company do a pretty good job here. We also have the supporting cast of Kelsey Grammer and Michael Pare, which helps get us to the church on time. The message regarding hatred toward immigrant populations, that if people just got to know people outside their bubble, they might be more sympathetic once they realized we're all human, is nice enough, but also kind of lets Dolph's character off the hook for being a racist shithead earlier in the film. It's like the idea of a guy saying "I have daughters myself" when someone is accused of violence against women, as if you can't understand why violence against women is bad if you don't have a daughter? It's the same here, Dolph's character shouldn't need to get to know people from Central American countries that are moving to the US to not be a racist shithead toward them. But hey, the trope is the trope, and at least Dolph's character learns the error of his racist shithead ways, and becomes the hero of the film.

This is now 73 films for Dolph on the site. Not only that, but 8th as a director, meaning he's closing in on joining Fred Williamson in the 20-10 Club--20+ tags as an actor, and 10+ as a director. Unlike the acting piece, where he has some other things in development, it looks like this might be it for him as a director for now, with the one we were expecting, Malevolence, seemingly off the table, since it's no longer listed on IMDb. That would be too bad if he doesn't direct anything else, because the DTV actioners he directs tend to be better quality. Even if this one is treading well-worn territory, his performance, and the action sequences, are still better quality than a lot of stuff that's out there now. He has a film coming with Isaac Florentine that looks pretty good, so I can't wait for that to be released. Even as he's closing in on his 67th birthday, he's still getting after it with no signs of slowing down.

We've also got some Frasier Crane here, that's right, Kelsey "Country" Grammer--I added the "country" myself. Just seeing him in anything immediately gets the Frasier theme song stuck in my head. For over 200 episodes on Cheers and then another 260+ on Frasier, he was Dr. Frasier Crane, sophisticated-yet-goofy psychiatrist, first Diane's love interest, then sticking around the bar after she left to be with Lilith, who then leaves him, but we stay with him, all the way across the country to Seattle for another TV series. It was fascinating--if not out of place--to see him in Expendables 3, and perhaps even more so in a Dolph Lundgren actioner. His character here is definitely not Frasier, which is fine, though I kind of wish he had been--or even Frasier-like. This character was racist, sexist, embodying everything we think of in a crooked cop, but the problem for me is we've seen that character played by myriad actors in myriad DTV actioners before. "Frasier" as a retired detective in Southern California we haven't, and as much as I'm sure he doesn't want to be typecast, it was something this movie could've used to make it less typical and trope-filled.

Maybe the biggest trope in movie blogging is movie bloggers using the term "trope," but it is apt here. That trope of "a character is a racist until he meets people from the group he's racist against and now he's not" is a common one, and as I said above, lets the hero off the hook for being a racist shithead earlier in the film. I grew up in Maine, one of the whitest states in the US, and now live in a very diverse city in Philadelphia. Does that mean it would've been okay for me to be a racist in Maine because I didn't encounter as much diversity? Of course not, and it was even worse in this film considering Dolph's character was a police officer, sworn to protect everyone, not just people who share his ethnicity, and through that bias physically attacked someone. It doesn't mean someone like Dolph's character in this can't redeem themselves from being a racist shithead, but what if he just wasn't a racist shithead to begin with? Or what if he didn't have to meet someone he's racist against to gain a sense of empathy and not be a shithead anymore? Maybe the better route is, it's a partner who's beating up the Latin American guy, and Dolph intervenes, and because he intervenes against a fellow officer, the department wants him out of the way and they give him the shitty assignment?

Finally, as we've been doing since Dolph entered the 50 Club, we're giving him a second paragraph. On our side, it looks like we have one more DTV to do, Showdown at the Grand, and then there's others we could add in, like Small Apartments, Sharnado 5, and Fat Slags--if I can ever find it--plus Expendables 3 and Expend4bles, which weren't DTV, but since I did the first two, they're on the table. All that said, while we could push toward 80 films for him, I think once we do Showdown at the Grand in November, that might be it for him for a bit, as I try to give other names a chance to have more posts on the site. For myself, according to Letterboxd I've seen 83 of his films, which I believe is more than any other actor. To some extent my need to continue to watch his stuff is perpetuated by the sheer inertia of the goal started almost two decades ago to watch everything he's ever done, but also a performance in a film like this reminds me of why I enjoyed watching his stuff to begin with. He gives a fun performance, even as a racist shithead who's redeeming himself; and he's still larger-than-life, even now as he approaches his 67th birthday. So even if we may be taking a break from his stuff after we review Showdown at the Grand, my hunch is it won't be for that long.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this for free on Hulu here in the States. We've seen this kind of movie before, but Dolph brings something a bit different, and Grammer is a fascinating addition. For the podcast with Mitch, you can find that in the archives, episode number 168.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15791574

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/

Shotgun (1989)

In our continuing mission to try to get all of PM's flicks on the site, we have this gem, which according to IMDb is the third PM flick ever. I love the idea of having a PM Collection like the Criterion Collection, and this is number 3 on the spine. In addition to us, Chris at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Simon at Explosive Action, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have all covered this, so I'm definitely late to the party.

Shotgun follows Ian (Stuart Chapin), a detective who, with his partner Max (Rif Hutton), work the vice beat in LA. After reports come in of a "basher" working over ladies of the night, Ian discovers his sister, who happens to also be a lady of the night, falls in with this guy, and meets an untimely end. If Ian was on the edge before, now he's over the edge, which leads to him losing his badge and gun, forcing him to work as a bounty hunter. He's so good at his job, he earns the nickname "Shotgun," but he hasn't given up on the case, and in true PM style, this is building to a huge blowout. 

This is some really fun early PM, but it's also really early PM. I mean look at that font above telling us it's a Pepin and Merhi production? Even AIP could afford better looking credits than that. We also don't have any names in this, beyond Paulo Tocha as a hotel desk clerk, and then Rif Hutton, who you may remember from his KFC commercials where he was the manager of the Lake Edna restaurant (more on that later). Just the same, we get glimpses of the action that will end up being PM's hallmark, and the hero, played by Stuart Chapin, is hilarious, both when he means to be and when he doesn't. In one fantastic scene, he fills a guy's buttocks with buckshot, then tells the guy "if I wanted conversation, I would've shot Dick Cavett!" Indeed, though I doubt Dick Cavett would've taken that shit lying down. We also get a fantastic theme song for Shotgun, that's more beautiful than words can say. Because this is very low-budget and doesn't have as many names, it's probably a movie night choice for your more discerning bad action movie friends--connoisseurs, if you will.

And if you won't, I understand--whatever that means. This is the second-earliest PM flick we've looked at here, after LA Heat, which means this is so early that a few City Lights movies still came out after. This one was written and directed by Addison Randall, who, with Charles T. Kanganis, made up the core of the early PM creative team in addition to Pepin and Merhi, and as such this really feels like a Randall or Kanganis film. The things that would become hallmarks of PM, cops on the edge, topical stories, and shootouts and explosions, are here, they're just waiting for the magic of names like Spiro Razatos or Don "The Dragon" Wilson to show up and take them over the top (Stallone style), or a name like Wings Hauser to drag them under the top(?) in a way only he can. They were just starting out here, and it shows, but knowing what they're going to become, it's fun to go back to the past like this and join them on that ride.

I wanted to talk about the film's lead, Stuart Chapin, who unfortunately left us in 2016. Also unfortunately he didn't get much more work than this film. On the one hand, I can understand why as far as PM were concerned, when soon after they were getting names like Wings Hauser and Don "The Dragon" Wilson for their films, a relative unknown like Chapin would've been left out in the cold; but on the other, why not make a name out of Chapin? Yes, he looked more like a guy who'd sell grilled cheese out of the back of his Jeep Comanche while touring with the Dead, but don't let that "who wants to play some hacky sack?" exterior fool you, Chapin is plenty willing to deck a smug asshole IA guy or fill a bail jumper's buttocks full of buckshot before he brings him in. He should've at least gotten one more film, maybe a sequel to this, Revenge of Shotgun?--complete with a new "Shotgun" theme song, right?

Before the final showdown, this film takes a page from The A-Team by having our hero and his old Army buddy do some welding to turn a large Jeep into a death machine of sorts so they can confront the baddies down in Mexico. What makes this better than your average A-Team welding montage though, is it's set to the "Shotgun" theme song, which is a fantastic song; and we see our hero and his buddy, as they work harder, need to shed layers and get sweaty. The friend even has a Freddie Mercury look to him, very "extra in a gay leather bar scene in an 80s comedy," the kind of thing that was funnier back then than it is now, like "oh look at buttoned-down Eugene Levy getting hit on by that guy with a mustache, sunglasses, and a leather baseball cap. Levy's uncomfortable around gay people, hilarious!" I don't know what they were going for with that montage, but whatever it was, I loved it. We just needed that Shotgun's Revenge sequel with more sweaty montages of men welding set to the hero's theme song. Such a missed opportunity for PM. "Shotgun... sweaty sweaty welding..."

Finally, who remembers the Lake Edna KFC ad campaign? Rif Hutton from this movie, wearing a dress T-shirt and tie, with his kooky family watching football and eating buckets of the Original Recipe, or his kooky customers chowing down on honey BBQ wings, served by his kooky staff. He was only a couple years removed from this film when he did that, but unfortunately it was maybe ten years too early, because back then ad campaigns were more disposable. How many years have insurance companies kept the same people? Or you have situations where companies bring back someone from a previous campaign, like the "can you hear me now?" guy, as if he's some kind of fixture in the zeitgeist--and maybe he is. Had Hutton done these Lake Edna commercials in 2002 instead of 1992, sometime in 2010 KFC would've done a big Super Bowl ad to bring him back, and no one would've really given a shit outside of hacky morning talk shows the next day doing segments on the Super Bowl ads--and confusing Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishburne in the process. (As an aside, is it only Americans who celebrate ads like that? We're essentially celebrating people lying to us and tricking us into buying a lot of shit we don't need. Why do we do that?) The world of fried chicken has come a long way in the last 30 years, and I don't remember the last time I had KFC. It has this combination nostalgia feeling and feeling of pain in my stomach, like I want to eat some and I don't. (As a second aside, in college, I remember a chubby white kid with dreads told my buddy and me that KFC changed their name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because they stopped using real chicken. He was undeterred when I told him it was because they thought the word "fried" sounded unhealthy, or that factory farming chickens is much cheaper than growing fake chicken meat in a lab. My friend and I ended up tracing the origins of his urban legend to a Time article about a research lab generating cell tissue. It felt like a great own at the time, but really, the own was the guy being a chubby white kid with dreads.)

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is free to stream on Plex and the Roku Channel. I prefer the latter because their commercials aren't as intrusive. This is classic early PM for the bad action movie connoisseur, you can't go wrong with it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145464

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/

Cinderella's Revenge (2024)

This is a film we covered on the pod back on episode 157, when the film's screenwriter and friend of the site Tom Jolliffe was on to discuss it with us. At that time, the film had a limited theatrical release that included a theater in the Philly suburbs, so I was able to get out there and see it then on the big screen. Now it's finally on Tubi here in the States, so I figured it was time to review it here too.

Cinderella's Revenge has Lauren Staerck as our eponymous hero. After her father is framed by her stepmother and executed by a couple of bounty hunters, she's forced to live a life of toil and abuse at the hands of the stepmother and her stepsisters. When a ball is announced for the prince to find a mate, initially Cinderella is stuck at home, but a visit from her Fairy Godmother (Natasha Henstridge) changes all that, allowing Cinderella to go and be the belle of the ball. This only enrages her stepmother and stepsiblings even more, but instead of taking it lying down, Cinderella asks her Fairy Godmother for help again, and she gives Cinderella the strength to exact bloody revenge on all who have wronged her.

 

This was a lot of fun, a great mix of comedic, lighthearted moments, and gory, horror ones. When one of the stepsisters saws off her two smallest toes to try to fit into Cinderella's shoes, it was definitely a cringe-worthy moment for me, which is what a movie like this wants, but Tom reminded me on the podcast that that was taken from the original version of the story--not something we'll see in the Disney adaptations. Adding to the levity, Natasha Henstridge was great as the Fairy Godmother, off-beat, caring, and perhaps a bit sinister. This is juxtaposed with Stephanie Lodge's villainous stepmother, who is never not menacing and vile; and the two stepsisters, played by Beatrice Fletcher and Megan Purvis, who were more silly in their performances--Purvis in particular reminded me of Tracy Ullman. Then all of this is tied together by Lauren Staerck, who we really have to become invested in early on so we can be there to root for her when she starts the killing spree. It all works in a fun, 85-minute package, and while you can't see it in the theater anymore, Tubi is as great a place as any to check it out.

 

The big name in this is Natasha Henstridge, who we've seen here two other times, first in '07 with the Pyun/Lambert flick Adrenaline: Fear the Rush, and then in '08 with Riders aka Steal, with Stephen Dorff and Bruce Payne. 16 years feels like a long time between posts for her, but in looking over her IMDb bio, the only thing I see that we probably should've reviewed is 2016's Home Invasion with Scott Adkins and Jason Patric, but it was dumped from Tubi before I had a chance to catch it, and it's been lost to me ever since. I was surprised to find out that she's not that old, as she was only 21 when she did Species, and 22 when she did Adrenaline: Fear the Rush and Maximum Risk. So how do we get here, from Species to low-budget films like this--even if this one was produced by Mark L. Lester? In her IMDb trivia, she said she wasn't good at choosing movies, and turned down Independence Day and Men in Black for those two movies I just mentioned. That's the start, right? Then two underperforming films, Species II and Ghosts of Mars, a success in a supporting role in The Whole Nine Yards, only to see that sequel not do as well, and now we're doing She Spies. (Which I have to admit I was a fan of.) Seeing her here, where she's bringing a lot of great stuff to the table, we can see where she could've shined in bigger films. Maybe if Elektra didn't do so poorly, Marvel wouldn't have waited until Captain Marvel to make another female-led adaptation. And maybe we could still see her in something like that, but in the meantime, we can enjoy her work here.

 

That's right, Mark L. Lester produced this, he of Commando, Showdown in Little Tokyo, The Base films, and many others. Somehow I missed that he also produced The Gardener, the Gary Daniels film I reviewed recently. Over the last ten years or so, he's stopped directing and turned his attention to producing low-budget films like this--the one he did before this was Ouija Witch, which is also on all the free streamers here in the States. This kind of stuff is fun for sure, but what the world needs is another balls-to-the-wall actioner! Call up Dolph, call up Dacascos--hell if Arnold won't answer your calls, at least call Vernon Wells--and let's blow some shit up! And you've got the screenwriter you need, Tom can give you 90 pages. At the very least, just consider it, and if not for us, please, do it for the kids.

Obviously as the DTV Connoisseur, I don't see movies in the theater that often, let alone review ones I've seen at the theater on my site, so this was a unique experience, but one I hope to have more often. Yes, with me not having a car it's a bit of a hike up to Warrington where this was showing, but it was a fun adventure and worth the trip to support an indie low-budget release like this, and I would happily do it more often if more films like this were showing in the area. For low-budget distributors considering limited releases of their films, one benefit I hadn't considered was the exposure you get from people coming to see other things. At the time this was playing, the new Ghostbusters movie and The Fall Guy were also playing, so anyone coming to see those would see the poster for this and, even if they didn't come back and see it, would have been exposed to it, so when they saw it months later as they're paging through Tubi, it might be enough to have them give it a try among all the other options on there.

 

Finally, we live in a world of expansive movie universes. The MCU is perhaps the most well known, or DC, but Star Trek and Star Wars also come to mind, or even the Fast and Furious. What about fairy tale characters though? They're all public domain, so anyone can use them. Maybe you make a sequel to this, introduce Hansel and Gretel in it, give them their own movie, then go from there, building to a major film with all the characters from the previous films fighting two or three big baddies. And because these stories have been changed and fudged and passed around for centuries, like this one here, you can do whatever you want with it. I think we might have something with this...

But for now, it's just Cinderella's Revenge, and you can get it on Tubi here in the States. I had a really fun time with it, and I think it's worth checking out, especially if you're looking for some off-beat horror to pass the time. Kudos to everyone involved, including Tom, who wrote a great screenplay here. Again, you can check out my conversation with him on this on episode 157 in the archives.

 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28087226

 

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/

 

Raw Justice aka Good Cop, Bad Cop (1994)

Wasn't there a Klingon proverb that said "justice is a dish best served raw"? Either way, this had been on my radar for a long time, and when Tubi finally picked it up, I didn't have anymore excuses, so we're making it happen now. In addition to us, the guys at Bulletproof and the guys at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

Raw Justice has David Keith (not to be confused with Keith David) as a former cop who's now a bounty hunter. When he's not wearing the clothes of a lady of the night--and magically making said clothes fit him--in order to fool a mark, he's drinking and ruing his lost love. When said lost love is murdered, Airplane's Robert Hays is implicated, so lost love's father, mayor Charles Napier, calls in Keith to keep an eye on Hays, because Keith can work outside the law. At the same time, he's being harassed by former fellow cop Leo Rossi, who's working for lieutenant mayor Stacy Keach to cover up the murder; and then lady of the night Pamela Anderson comes calling for her clothes Keith took, and gets wrapped up in Keith and Hays's troubles. Just put your goggles on for the last 15 minutes, because you'll need some eye protection when all these loose ends start flying together.

What do we make of a movie like this? It's pretty paint-by-numbers, except it isn't. First off there's the music, which is a cross between the start of the Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" song and what you'd hear in a Roseanne episode supporting a scene change establishing shot. Oh, they're at the Lobo Bar? Now they're back at the Connor's house? Maybe Darlene's apartment in Chicago? Ooh, is David hiding in the bathroom? On the other hand, this had some nice action sequences in it, not PM, but nice enough; and the names are prodigious, with Keith as the disgraced cop on the edge, Robert Hays in a Guttenbergian turn as the awe-shucks guy--yet he also knows kung fu?--, Pamela Anderson pre-Barb Wire but mid-Baywatch slumming it in a David Prior-directed flick, and then Napes, Keach, and Rossi being as Napes, Keach, and Rossi as you want. And before I forget, the great Ted Prior in a small role as another cop helping Rossi, sans mullet but fully-shirted, almost like a Bizzaro Danton. And maybe, for all the things that worked and all the things that didn't, that's what we ultimately needed to get us over the goal line: more New York Seltzer-sponsored AIP action. Where's William Zipp when you need him?

This is our first Pamela Anderson film on the site, just shy of 1300 posts in. I'm not sure why I didn't do Barb Wire back when I was doing Wild Card posts on comic book films, but I must've missed it. With all of the talent in this, it was apparent that she was the one with the real it factor, that it was only a matter of time before she became a big star, though it was more star in the celebrity sense, because she never really had that one breakout acting role. This was maybe 5 years before one could be famous just for being famous, like Paris Hilton, or later Kim Kardashian, so Anderson at least had to try acting, but I think she was one of the first stars to create that famous just for being famous ecosystem, so without her we wouldn't have Kim Kardashian. According to the trivia, she said the love scenes in this were horrible for her, which I definitely saw in the David Keith love scene, where he's really rough with her; but the one with Hays seemed very tame. From a character standpoint, I get why Keith would've gone that route, but he also could've acted it out more than actually going for it. It felt very Jeff Conaway in a Traci Lords PM flick, and you could even see in the shots they used in the film how uncomfortable Anderson was with it, but how she tried to go with it--which again, fit their characters better in the movie, but that doesn't help Anderson out with what she went through at all.

Out of all the names, Napes is the one with the most tags on the site, this being his 13th. After that, David Winters has his 8th (he's a producer), Keach, Rossi, and both Priors have 6, and David Keith has 3. In the scene I took the screen of above, he's in Keith's apartment asking for his help to keep an eye on Hays while Hays is out on bail. From a story standpoint, it's a ludicrous construct, why would Napes do this, especially when we find out he doesn't suspect anyone else, he really thinks Hays did it, why bother getting Keith involved at all? But Napes sells it as only Napes can. "What is my motivation here? Why would I do this if I was this guy?" The paycheck is why, and Napes knows that, and he delivers. The Keach kind of makes no sense, it took a second to even realize it was him. I guess he had to play it this way for us to believe he was the lieutenant mayor to Napes, but I like a good mustachioed no-nonsense Keach if I'm getting Keach in my film. And then there's Rossi. He has this combination Cajun and an impression of the late Leslie Jordan accent that was equal parts hilarious and fascinating. Like I think if I could have one wish, it might be to eat at a Waffle House with Rossi while he's doing that voice the whole time. "You 'bout done with that Heinz 57 sauce? My potatoes are cryin' out for a lil' dab uh two." Who am I kidding, it'd be an honor to have a meal at a Waffle House with Leo Rossi, even if he wasn't doing his Cajun crossed with Leslie Jordan voice. A guy can dream, right?

As I said above, this is now six films for David Prior, but only 5 for directing, which puts him way down the directors tags list--he got a tag for his writer's credit on Dancin' It's On, that's why he has six. That's definitely on me, because I'm behind on my AIP flicks overall--of which this isn't one--but also Prior is one of the DTV greats, and deserves to have more films on here. For all the paint-by-numbers-ness of this, Prior does inject some nice action sequences, from a mall dirt bike chase, to some nice flying cars, to an exploding helicopter. I'm not going to say this is as good as Shakedown, but Prior does his best to get us closer to that. Looking at his IMDb bio, he has another 25 or so films that we could cover here on the site, so I just need to get after it. I'll do my darndest. Here's to you Mr. Prior, you were one of the greats.

Finally, who remembers Montgomery Ward? When our heroes are chasing each other on dirt bikes through the mall, we get a good shot of one here. Growing up, Wards was the anchor at the Newington Mall, which was run out of business by the bigger Fox Run Mall that was opened near it in the late 80s--and the Montgomery Ward along with it--only for the Newington Mall to be torn down and replaced by a massive strip mall with a Barnes and Noble, Kohl's, and Best Buy, which has since almost killed the Fox Run Mall. Anyway, back to Wards, did you know they still exist online? And you can go to the site and request a physical catalog be sent to you? Now I don't know if that catalog has He-Man figures for sale in it, and my parents live over 350 miles away, so I can't just circle the guys I want and dogear the pages so they can find them, but just the idea of a Monkey Wards catalog is fantastic! As an aside, did anyone else call it Monkey Wards? Was that a thing everywhere, or just my neighborhood in my small town in Maine? If you're wondering, I ordered the physical catalog. I had to. Maybe the next Prior film I review will have a chase in front of a Service Merchandise.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this as Good Cop, Bad Cop on Tubi--despite that fact that neither character is a cop--which is as good a way to get it as any. With the names and the good bits of action here and there, it's a nice weekend morning time killer--if you find you have time to kill some weekend morning.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110948

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/