Mafia Wars (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered on episode 224 of the podcast, "Phillippe Phactory II: All Gigandet." As we were waiting for Desert Dawn to come out, which has both Phillippe Phactory-ers, Kellen Lutz and Cam Gigandet, we figured we'd do an episode spotlighting a couple of Gigandet's films in the meantime. In addition to us, out of the three critic reviews, one of them is our friend Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action.

Mafia Wars has Gigandet as Italian mafia enforcer Griff, who's known for being brutal, and also has designs on moving up. His brother's (Sterling Griffin) in prison, and his prison mate is Terry (Tom Welling), who just happens to save Griff's brother's life. Now with Welling out, the brother tells him to look Griff up if he wants a job. Not so fast cowboy, turns out Terry getting out of the clink was a plan by local detective Lombardi (Chris Mullinax), and he wants Terry to use his in with Griff to get close so they can get evidence against him and bring him down. Terry doesn't have much choice, so he does as he's told, and lucky enough a local sex worker (Cher Cosenza) happens to also be a CIA agent, so at least he has some help when things go sideways.

This wasn't half-bad. Welling was good in the lead, Gigandet was bad enough as the baddie, and Cosenza was good as a supporting character with a twist. I don't know where that gets you though. Do I have to know? I guess if I'm writing the review I do. In his review on Bulletproof, Chris mentioned how in the 90s PM would've made this, and I think that's a great jumping off point. Mid-90s, directed by Joseph Merhi, action-directed by Spiro Razatos or Cole S. McKay, starring Gary Daniels or Don "The Dragon" Wilson, with a baddie played by someone like Evan Lurie, it could've been an instant classic--or it could've been written and directed by Joey Travolta and starring John Aprea and Michael Nouri and ultimately been kind of a dud, but the point is, that high ceiling was there. Outside of a few big names in the DTV action world doing next-level stuff, this might be as good as it gets, so maybe we just need to take stuff like this that ain't half-bad and run when we do get it, because the DTV floor now is much lower too.

This is our first time seeing Cam Gigandet on the site, despite this being his third (and later this month fourth) film we've covered on the podcast, all of those being in the two-movie new DTV episodes we do each month with Ty. I don't know how the idea of the "Phillippe Phactory" came to be, I think Ty and I were talking about how Gigandet, Kellen Lutz, and maybe a Chad Michael Murray all filled niches usually filled by Ryan Phillippe. It's interesting though with this movie, because I don't know you could've just plugged Phillippe into Gigandet's part and have it work better, I think Gigandet is a fully flesh-out Gigandet here, doing the best he can to elevate this part. His IMDb bio has a bunch of stuff in various stages of development that could be interesting, so I imagine this won't be the last time we see him on the site, but at the very least, we'll see him more on the podcast.

This is also our first Tom Welling film, which I'm a little less surprised about, because he's only beginning his DTV journey, while Gigandet's been swimming in that pond for the last ten years or so. And with Dean Cain turning out to be a jerk off, I guess we needed a new former TV Superman to have a go in DTV films--the movie even leans into it a bit with a joke about the "fortress of solitude." The thing is, Tom Welling is no longer the Tom Welling we know from Smallville, he's become former NFL offensive lineman and current NFL TV analyst Mark Schlereth. I think that may suck more for Schlereth than it does for Welling, because Schlereth wanted to start an acting career, and now Welling will take any parts Schlereth could've gotten. The thing that hasn't changed for Welling though is he's still a likeable lead, which really helps in a movie like this that doesn't have a lot going for it, if you can at least root for the hero, that's half the battle. I don't know how many DTV duds we've gotten lately with bearded actors playing former special forces guys in flannel shirts and worn baseball caps that do nothing for us, to have Welling show up and not be that is a breath of fresh air--even if he's rocking an early-2000s goatee. 

The main impetus behind Welling's character getting arrested is he goes abroad to sell drugs to make money for his niece's operation back in the States. This device has been used in so many DTV movies, it makes me wonder if a bunch of DTV production companies and distributors have joined the private health insurance lobby to keep America from having single payer health care. For some reason as a society many Americans don't look at that and say "that's pretty shitty that a country this prosperous would rather health insurance execs and shareholders get money from people being sick or dying, instead of keeping its citizens well," or even dumber, "it's pretty stupid a lot of Americans would rather pay out the nose for health care than be called a communist." In my case I'm lucky enough to have health insurance from my job, but even then if, God forbid, I was diagnosed with something serious, or got hit by a car, the things that my private health insurance wouldn't cover would bankrupt me, and unfortunately I don't have a relative who can go abroad to sell drugs or maybe get involved in one last heist to pay off those medical debts. But hey, at least DTV movie screenwriters can use it as a plot device, so there's that.

Finally, speaking of Chris the Brain, I had him on the pod recently for an upcoming episode, and he mentioned the pronunciation of Cam Gigandet's last name. I thought Gigandet was more committed to the French pronunciation of his name than I was mine because his family had more recently come here from France than mine had from Quebec, but that doesn't appear to be the case. With that in mind, I don't know why my family decided to anglicize "Poirier" so it sounds like "poor-EE-er" instead of "poir-EE-ay"--and it may not have even been their decision, because another common pronunciation is "poor-EE-ay," splitting the difference between the French and the English. For example my UMaine Black Bears hockey team has a freshman scoring sensation named Justin Poirier, and announcer Jeff Mannix always pronounces it "poor-EE-ay." Maybe I'm just not as a big a stickler on it as Gigandet is his. "Poir-EE-ay," "poor-EE-er," or "poor-EE-ay" is all fine for me, hell if you just get close I'm happy enough, but if someone ever asks me, I always default to "poor-EE-er."

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi. It's not a horrible deal, and if you're a big Welling fan from Smallville, or a Gigandet fan from Twilight, it's worth giving it a shot. And if you haven't yet, you can also check out the podcast episode where Ty and I discussed it, number 224 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10450852

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/

Small Apartments (2012)

As we close in on Dolph's birthday again, we're running out of movies to review for this occasion. This one is one I'd seen on Tubi for years, and knew I'd have to do it at some point, and with his new one, Exit Protocol, not out for another week, I figured now was as good a time as any. At the very least, it has a pretty prodigious cast, that has to count for something, right?

Small Apartments has Matt Lucas (from Blur's "Country House" video) as Franklin Franklin, a guy whose brother (James Marsden) has been committed, so he lives in a small apartment and wears only his tighty-whities and socks, except when he needs to leave his apartment, when he also dons a coat and a wig. The other thing is he drinks my favorite soda, Moxie, even though I don't know if it was sold in LA. Anyway, his landlord (Peter Stormare) died in his place under mysterious circumstances, and Frank needs to sort this out because the body's starting to smell. As he's doing that, other people who live in his apartment building, like James Caan, Johnny Knoxville, and Juno Temple, have things going on, but they're only so fleshed out; then Frank runs into the kinds of issues people disposing of bodies in indie movies inevitably run into. Will he manage to get out of this situation?

The best way I can describe this is the people involved, like director Jonas Åkerlund and writer Chris Millis (whose novella of the same name this was based off of) had seen a lot of quirky 90s indie flicks, and they understood that those movies had certain elements, like buildings and cars and clothing that were seemingly from another time; or characters with quirky, off-beat traits, like the main character blowing a big Alphorn and only wearing underwear; but they couldn't replicate the actual DNA that made those movies work. There's a connective tissue that this was missing, pieces of characters and storylines that were left unfinished, never fully realized, so when they came to some kind of conclusion I didn't know them well enough to feel anything. In a way it's kind of fascinating to see what other people took from those movies, I wanted to connect with the characters, while the people who made this were focused on their surface quirkiness and things like off-beat settings and shot composition. Those things can be fun too, they just aren't what I look for in a film. If you do, or if you're a completist of one of the many names in this, you may want to give it a look, especially since it's on Tubi. One other thing, the music was done by Per Gessle from Roxette, so it's a bit better than what you'd expect from a movie like this.

It's time for the man of the hour though, Mr. Dolph Lundgren. This is his 75th film on the site as he celebrates his 68th birthday. And this probably is a good 75th movie, not in that it's a really big role or anything, but because he's not in it much, so it's more one you get to after you've done most of the bigger roles first. That's not to say it isn't a great part, Dolph plays a self-help guru type with his own self-help book and everything, and Dolph plays him as well as you'd want him to, with his dark hair, joining the Mile High Club with flight attendant, etc. The whole thing was a lot of fun, and just adds to this journey we've taken with Dolph over the past 18 years or so, where we've seen him play all manner of characters--or rather, mostly kick-ass action dudes, so to see him not play one here, and do a great job with it, was worth it, even if I could've taken or left the rest of the movie. Here's to you Mr. Lundgren, you're the greatest, and Happy Birthday!

There are a lot of names in this, but one I thought I'd never see on the site is Billy Crystal. Growing up in the 80s he was one of the biggest stars, especially with things like When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers. My personal favorite was Running Scared, with Gregory Hines they were two off-beat cops on the edge, I remember first seeing that on The Movie Loft on WSBK TV38 and loving it. You'd think this would be our first time for James Caan too, but he was in Santa's Slay, so we've seen him one other time before. The other one I thought we'd seen on here before was Johnny Knoxville, but this is his first appearance on the site too. Throw in Juno Temple, who we haven't reviewed on the site, but I covered Venom: The Last Dance on a DTVC Extra podcast where we looked at the Sony Spider-Verse Without Spider-Man, so she's been associated with the site in some way before. Anyway, all four of them played characters that could've been compelling, but were never properly developed, so we just get strands of them throughout the film, and then we're supposed to pretend these strands have magically formed into a sweater, but it's hard to make the mental leap to sweater when we've only had strands, so when we get to some sort of end to their strands of storyline, we can see that the sweater would've looked nice, had it actually been finished. Anyway, it's fun to see names we don't usually see, so reviewing something like this that we don't usually do gives us that opportunity.

One of the film's bright spots is it features my favorite soda, the official soda of Maine, Moxie! The movie took place in LA, and my understanding was you couldn't get Moxie outside of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and maybe parts of the other three New England states (and according to Wikipedia, Pennsylvania?), but it looks like maybe in the early 2010s there was a push to sell it in more places, which might have meant it was sold for a short period in LA? Or was it just the quirkiest of quirky sodas that Matt Lucas's character could drink? I've always liked it, but since I moved to Philly--where it's not sold--it's something I have to have now when I visit my family in Maine. You also may have noticed that on my video appearances on Jon Cross's podcasts, or on some of the original YouTube videos I've been making, I wear my Moxie hat, so I'm always excited to represent it. If you ever get a chance to try it, you may not be a fan, because it's an acquired taste, but once you've acquired it, I think you'll like it. Also note: they no longer use that logo, they're back to something more like the original. That one in the image I think was only around for a short period of time.

Finally, I don't want to give away too much, but one of the characters tells Matt Lucas's character that you need to live life to the fullest, and that time wasted is time lost. It sounds profound in theory, but in reality, humans can't live like that, they need some level of routine and mundaneness. The problem is, in a capitalist society, routine and mundaneness doesn't compel people to spend above their means. If I just need a car to get to and from work, I'll get a cheap sedan; but if I think I'm going to spend every weekend white water rafting and rockclimbing, I need a more expensive, gas-guzzling SUV! And then I can feel like a schlub when it sits in the yard while my rockclimbing gears collects dust because I just want to relax at home and eat Doritos. Social media is even better for this kind of thing, because you have your friends and family showing you how they're going on vacation to exciting places to make you feel like you have to be out there doing stuff too, they're like free advertising the moment you see that SUV commercial or travel credit card commercial again. Now, this isn't to say you shouldn't take advantages of the moments you have to experience new things, that's important too, but what we need to do is re-normalize the normal, or celebrate the smaller new experiences, like watching a new movie, or visiting a new coffee shop. Forget "wasted time is time lost," let's stop worrying about making the most of every minute, and just live. At least that's what I'm doing.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi here in the States, and I think that's been the case for roughly as long as Tubi's existed. If you're a completist of any of the actors in this, then check it out while you can for no cost other than sitting through some mobile casino ads.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1272886/

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/

Corporate Ladder (1997)

We're ending our Hall of Fame inductions month with the great Kathleen Kinmont, someone who probably should've been in a while ago when I started getting names like Shannon Tweed and Julie Strain in. She's got some great PM flicks to her name, plus other classics like Phoenix the Warrior, but as I was looking for the right post for her induction, I saw this was on DailyMotion and figured it would be worth a go. Turned out, it was one of those reversed image versions, but I would not be denied, and I was able to finally track it down.

The Corporate Ladder (or Eine tödliche Blondine in Germany, which if my 20-year-old rusty German is correct, translates to "the Deadly Blonde") has Kinmont as an ad assistant who may or may not have tossed her sexually harassing boss our of his office window to his death. Anyway, she shows up in LA to work with ad exec Matt Taylor (Tony Denison), who's good, but not that good, and is dealing with guff from co-worker Ben Cross. Anyway, when he has a shot at the originally-named denim brand Indigo Jeans, he's not doing great, but when he leaves the room Kinmont takes over and makes it all great. He wins the account, splits the $20,000 bonus with her, and then they go back to his office and have sex. I forgot to mention, he's married to Talisa Soto, who was between Mortal Kombat movies and looking for something to do. Anyway, you know the rest of how this Fatal Attraction thing goes.

This is one of those ones that takes a while to get where it's going, and I don't even know if it even gets there, but along the way you get some genre-specific moments that make it a fun time. The runtime hurts it the most, as we're clocking in at a buck-52, and these complicated stories have all kinds of threads that need weaving. It was directed and co-written by eventual Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga--who also has a great one-scene role--but with his name third on the list of writers, I wonder if Playboy, who was one of the production companies, got the script and had him turn it into a softcore erotic thriller version of Fatal Attraction. And to that point, this didn't have a lot of softcore stuff going on with it. For a movie closing in on two hours, if people should be getting after it every 10-15 minutes, we should've had like 8-12 scenes, and I think we maybe had 4. One bright spot was Kinmont, who really went for it. Some of the dialog where she was supposed to just be sinister didn't work, but when her character was losing it, she went all in, as did she with her two love scenes with Denison. The other interesting element of this was the Jan Hammer score. That's right, the Miami Vice guy, and it was every bit that, which was an odd juxtaposition with the 1997 setting. Again though, there were plenty of fun moments, I think if it clocked in at a 90 or even 100-minute runtime, I'd feel better about recommending it.

Kinmont gets into the Hall of Fame on her 10th movie, which puts her in a tie with Julie Strain for second-most by a woman on the DTVC, behind Cynthia Rothrock's 47. I don't know if it's correct to say she's come a long way on this site, or more that I have, because when I first started back in 2007, I referred to her as "the chick from Renegade," thinking I was edgy and funny, and while I don't know that I'll go back and Lucas those old reviews, I know now that she and any other actor deserved more respect than that. (Okay, maybe not the 300-pound Pork Roast, but everyone else then!) If you look at her bio, this was right after Renegade, and I wonder if there was a part of her that wanted to get outside of that and the other action movies she'd been doing. If that's the case, she definitely did that here, even if I prefer the action movies from her. She still has some stuff we can review, so while I think Rothrock's 47 movies isn't in jeopardy, we'll definitely see her again on the site. Here's to you Ms. Kinmont, you're one of the greats.

Among the other names in this, I think Ben Cross might be the biggest. This is now his sixth film on the site, so I figured it was time to finally tag him. He played as smarmy a heel as you'd want. I wonder if the Star Trek reboot saw him in this, and that's why they cast him as Sarek. We mentioned Nick Vallelonga before, our film's one Oscar winner. We've seen him before too, most notably in Paydirt, which we also covered on the pod with Francis Rizzo III from the KilmerCast pod, back on episode 93. From a directing standpoint, it looked like he was trying for a Hitchcockian feel, or like a classic Noir, which I can appreciate, and then probably leaned on his DP for the sex scenes. Again, his one scene in the film, where he's an old friend that talks to Denison, is fantastic. A couple other notable names, Talisa Soto, our first time seeing her on the site, but 1997 was between her two stints as Kitana in the Mortal Kombat movies. She didn't have a lot to do in this as Denison's stay-at-home wife, I would've loved to have seen her throw a bladed fan at Kinmont; and then Meilani Paul, who played the model of the jeans campaign, she was in the Dolph classic Agent Red. Rounding out the cast, we had a few familiar mainstays, Tony Denison as the lead, he does what you want; Jennifer O'Neill as her and Cross's boss, same, she's exactly what you want in that role; and finally, the late Jon Polito as the head of the company, you gotta love seeing him whenever you can.

One cinematic device the film uses well is the multiple mirrors to duplicate the character onscreen, while giving us this sense that the character's not recognizing themselves as they're about to do something untoward, or if they have a self-loathing that causes them act out like Kinmont's character in this scene. The device first struck me as a literary device in Anna Karenina, where Tolstoy has that moment where Anna is with her daughter, who shares her name, and then is surrounded by portraits of herself. I think in that case similar to the shot from this film the reflections of the character are judging their behavior, and we find out later that Kinmont's character has issues with how she feels she looks, which may be part of what's driving this. It was great stuff, and worked really well.

Finally, there's a moment in the film where Kinmont shows Denison that she had business cards made up for him saying he's the president of the company. The idea she said is for him to visualize that success. While it's the only actual mention of moving up the corporate ladder this has despite its name (Eine tödliche Blondine makes more sense actually based on how the movie played out), it does bring up this concept of visualization, and whether or not it works. Like you'll often hear how an athlete like Aaron Rodgers visualizes success on the field, but is that visualization or preparation? And how well does it work if he's only won one championship and usually flames out in the playoffs? In some cases "visualization" comes up against Mike Tyson's adage "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." Also, remember the old bumper sticker that said "visualize world peace," which led someone to create a counter that said "visualize whirled peas." When I think of 90s bumper stickers, the worst was "unless you're a hemorrhoid, get off my ass," which didn't make any sense, because who would want a hemorrhoid to stay on their ass? Anyway, I'm getting off track, here the film uses the concept of trite visualization as plot device, as the business card becomes an issue for Denison later in the story. Chekhov's trite visualization? 

And with that, let's wrap this up. I'm not sure where you can get this, unless you have a plug-in on your browser that reverses back a reversed video, then you can catch it on DailyMotion. It's long, and is more talk than action, but it has its fun moments. And here's to you again Kathleen Kinmont. You're one of the greats, and this induction is truly deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115946

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/

Ironheart (1992)

For our third DTVC Hall of Fame inductee, we have Imperial Entertainment. Another iconic opening logo that feels like comfort food when we see it now, and I picked this movie because it had said logo. It also had DTVC Hall of Famers Richard Norton and Bolo Yeung, so you gotta love that too. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, and Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

Ironheart isn't about a young college student who creates an Iron Man suit--though I would love if Disney+ made a series about this! It's about a highly decorated LAPD detective (Britton Lee) whose old partner takes a new gig in Portland, OR, and quickly finds himself dead after he tries to take down a criminal ring led by Milverstead (Norton) and his top henchman Ice (Bolo Yeung). Among the many criminal enterprises they're involved in, they kidnap young girls from a local nightclub, and it was while tracking one such kidnapping that Lee's partner was killed. So Lee hops in his Porsche and heads up to Portland to investigate. Will he be able to take them all down? And will he find love in the process?

I don't know if a movie has ever started with so much promise that it ultimately doesn't deliver on. The opening scene is at said club. We get this beautiful New Jack Swing song playing, performed by The U-Krew, complete with club goers doing all kinds of fantastic late 80s/early 90s dance moves in their late 80s/early 90s outfits. They follow that up with Bolo Yeung killing the cop while at the docks, but not before he takes off his coat to reveal his ripped tank top, showing off his too-sweet pecs, and not before affixing a bandana to his forehead. But then the thing grinds down. We get a training montage of Britton Lee showing his fellow officers how to throw people around and knee them in the back of the head. And then for whatever reason this LAPD detective is driving a Porsche around. Lee is a great martial artist, but his character isn't all that likeable, and when you compare that to Norton and Yeung chewing all kinds of scenery, we have ourselves a Destro Effect, and even if they were trafficking young women, I wanted to see both of them take Lee down. On the other hand, this has plenty of great moments that make it a fun time. Like when Lee's love interest (Karman Kruschke) shows up to help him, her car gets shot and stops running. Lee's like "you can't just leave it here," so he shoots it until it blows up. Later, a character named "Stevo" works as a pizza delivery driver for a company called "Hot Flash Pizza." Do they cater to menopausal women? So while it doesn't live up to the potential all-time promise of the opening scenes, it still does enough to be a fun, low-budget actioner from the early 90s.

Imperial gets into the Hall of Fame on their 34th film, so a bit of an Asylum Rule for them, but as I said in the first paragraph, that opening logo makes you feel like you're in for a fun time, which I think combined with that opening scene gave us a level of promise that maybe wasn't fair to the film overall. It should also be noted that that logo is one of many that was used for Imperial Entertainment, but it's the one that resonates most with me. As a distribution house, they were responsible for giving us a ton of classics, like Action USA and the China O'Brien films, among many others. This one doesn't reach those heights, but in 1992 it probably did sell well to video stores. Slap Bolo Yeung on the cover and any kids like me who loved him in Bloodsport and Double Impact would've been sold if we saw it on the shelves. Imperial was a big part of what made the Golden Age of DTV so great, and for that alone, they deserve entry into our Hall of Fame. We still have a lot of titles in their catalog to cover, so we'll be seeing them again soon!

Richard Norton is now on 29 movies, one away from the 30 Club, so that's something we'll try to make happen soon. His character doesn't do any martial arts, instead running in fear from our hero, which is too bad, because even if he ultimately was supposed to lose, I would've loved one good fight scene between the two. Like he always does, he gives the movie exactly what it needs, the only thing was Britton Lee isn't Cynthia Rothrock--or even Leo Fong--so while Norton is killing it as the baddie, he's going beyond propping up the film and moving into Destro Effect territory. Tack on the film's other Hall of Famer, Bolo Yeung, who is all pecs and tank tops, and Lee didn't stand a chance. But then that leaves us in a conundrum, because we want more Norton and Yeung, and instead we have Britton Lee driving around in his Porsche tracking down leads and finding love. (As an aside, I've realized that my concept of the Destro Effect isn't perfect, because Destro wasn't a full-on baddie on GI Joe. Many times though he was an antagonist to our heroes, and in that way he was so awesome that I always wanted him to beat them.)

I want to touch on the trafficking element in this. The victim is a young blond lady, played by Meagan Hughes (in her only role according to IMDb), and while I guess she wasn't held long enough for it to be a big story in the news, if there's one thing America is obsessed with, it's young, middle class white girls going missing or getting killed, especially blond ones. Any legitimate criminal enterprise, especially one as extensive as Milverstead's, would've known that and wouldn't have wanted that kind of heat. Within the first couple days it would've been a leading story on local Portland news, and by the end of the week it would've been picked up nationally. Forget Britton Lee driving around in his Porsche doing dogged detective work and finding love, the FBI would've been called in because the publicity would've been so huge. CNN probably would've been doing 24-hour news coverage too. Her boyfriend, poor Stevo (Rob Buckmaster), might have even been a suspect, until people started looking for the mysterious young man who took Cindy away from the club. You don't get to be where Milverstead is by attracting that kind of heat. I will say though that I liked the idea of the trafficking being a kind of nod to the practice of Shanghaiing that was huge in Portland in the 19th century; what I didn't like though was this idea that Cindy was partly to blame because she got into a car with someone she didn't know. Yes, we shouldn't be getting into cars with people we don't know, but that doesn't mean someone has the right to kidnap you and sell you into slavery. It's like the idea of someone leaving something in their car and it getting broken into. Yes, you maybe you shouldn't leave anything of value in your car, but that doesn't give people the right to break in and steal it.

Finally, look at that picture above. On his way to Portland Lee stopped at a bar, which also rented movies? Can you imagine? I've been to Portland one time, when I visited my sister in Seattle in 2009, we did a day trip down there. It was every bit the Portlandia depiction of it, which does make me wonder how MAGAs have been able to perpetuate this idea that it's this lawless wasteland that requires National Guard troops to bring it under control. Maybe Powell's Books is dangerous because it sells too many books at good prices, and Republicans don't like people to be learned? There's also the Eastern Oregon MAGA faction that wishes they could join Idaho, until they realize all the privilege's they get from Oregon's progressive government don't exist in Idaho's MAGA "utopia." Or maybe it's exactly as Fred Armisen said, "the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland," and for MAGA types the 90s was the worst time, because in their mind it was all playing the sax and dancing to Fleetwood Mac and hot chicks going to Lilith Fair that wouldn't give them the time of day--which is kind of crazy when you consider Clinton was just Reagan with a D after his name, he's the reason music sucks now, the reason why the Kimmel thing was able to happen, the reason the late 2000s economic crisis happened, the reason people in America who are struggling have a harder time getting assistance, and the reason marriage equality didn't happen sooner--plus he cheated on his wife with a much younger woman, and those MAGA-types love that kind of thing. But as much as Portland needs our support now, they're also attacking this situation as only they can, by protesting in inflatable animal suits, while "heroic" police officers spray mace into the ventilation holes--they don't give us that kind of Copaganda on Law and Order, do they? These are rough times here in America, but Portland staying Portland is just the kind of thing we need to maintain the fight. Here's to you Portland, keep being you!

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this free on Fawesome here in the States, plus MVD has a Blu-ray, if you can believe that. I don't know that you need to buy the Blu-ray, but it might be a fun addition to your physical media collection. And congratulations to Imperial Entertainment on their induction into the Hall of Fame! It is much deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104530

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/

Timebomb (1991)

Our second 2025 Hall of Fame inductee is the great Billy Blanks. The problem is, we've already reviewed all of his great starring films, so we had to settle for one where he had a supporting role, and it looked like this one had as much of him in it as any of them. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this as well, so we're completing the triangle.

Timebomb has Michael Biehn as an unassuming watch repairman, who one day meets psychiatrist Patsy Kensit. They fall in love, have children, and live happily ever after. Or Biehn is a former special forces guy with no memory of it who rescues a woman and her baby from a burning building, which lands him on TV, where he's spotted by his former colonel, Richard Jordan. Jordan and his crew, which includes Billy Blanks and Tracy Scoggins, were planning to assassinate a guy who's tapped to be the next AG, but their bosses think a detour is necessary to take Biehn out. Will it end up being a mistake?

This ain't half bad. It drags at points, but the cast is great, and I think it helps those draggy moments. Early on we get a scene where Blanks's characters tries to kill Biehn while Biehn is sleeping, and the battle that ensues is pretty brutal. And while nothing after that is quite that brutal, the action does tend to lean toward brutality versus over-the-top (Stallone style). One scene that had a lot of promise was a porn theater shootout, but it never quite gets there. The problem with a story like this is we know who Biehn is before Biehn does, and so delaying the process of him finding out feels like they're delaying for the sake of delaying in order to stretch the runtime, and that trick never works. The moment Biehn starts speaking Hungarian should've been in the first fifteen minutes, and then we just let it rip from there. The other interesting element is how the baddies, had they just left Biehn alone, would've kept being baddies and could've carried out their baddie schemes in perpetuity. It's a fascinating concept, usually baddies stick to the plan and the hero is the one who mucks it up, but they did their own mucking themselves. For an early 90s actioner with a lot of names, this does what you need, and I think that's enough if you're looking for something on Tubi to watch.

We'll start with the man of the hour, the great Billy Blanks. As one of the gang he isn't in this as much as you'd like, but he's pretty great in the moments we see him, especially in that scene I mentioned above. And he took that ability to his starring roles and made those fantastic as well, whether he was teaming up with Roddy Piper or Bolo Yeung, or he was a baddie trying to kill Loren Avedon, Blanks brought it every time we saw him. It goes without saying that we wish we had more stuff from him, especially in the 90s when he was really cooking, and we can speculate on why he decided to transition from DTV action to creating Tae-Bo, but at least we got the gems we did. He was a big part of why the late 80s/early 90s were the Golden Age of DTV action, and is long overdue for his spot in the Hall of Fame, so we're finally making it happen.

Michael Biehn is an interesting one on the DTVC. This is only his third film, which, considering his name and the volume of DTV flicks he'd one--not to mention classics that may have ended up as a Wild Card post when I used to do those--seems small, but when I looked at his IMDb bio, he doesn't have a lot of DTV action to his credit, and for better or worse, that's the lane this site ended up moving into. The other thing I think is the emergence of Casper Van Dien took some of his potential DTV roles, as Van Dien is younger and better looking. Like if I'm making Shark Attack, in 1990 I'd probably be trying to get Biehn, but by 2000 I'm contacting Van Dien's agent first. This movie was a reminder though of how much fun he is, and I don't know that this works as well as it did if they'd cast Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris--the two names the IMDb trivia said the studio wanted director Avi Nesher to cast. That means the movie wasn't as successful financially as it would've been--especially with Van Damme--but was more successful as an actual film, which I think still counts for something.

We'll zip through all the other names in this. Biehn's costar was Patsy Kensit, who we've seen here before in Renegades. She was like in her early 20s in this, but playing a psychologist, meaning she somehow earned her PhD in the time it takes most people to only finish their undergrad. Then we had Tracy Scoggins, who's been on the site four other times, the most recent being Alien Intruder. With her character, the movie wasn't sure if it wanted to take advantage of her looks and have her in short skirts and heels, or have her be one of the cold-blooded killers in the gang, so we were left with some tough scenes for her and the stunt crew where she had to fight Biehn in said short skirt and heels, which made the whole thing look awkward. Modern DTV has faux leather leggings that they can use to split that difference, but I think even back then they had things they could've done to mitigate that situation so we didn't get the awkwardness we did. The main baddie was played by Richard Jordan, someone we've never seen here before, and probably never will again, so it was great this one time to be able to do it. He was exactly the kind of smarmy higher-up military guy a movie like this needed. Finally, Robert Culp makes his third appearance on the site. He was every bit the fantastic Culp you'd want, the only problem was, he had such a small role, it was kind of a waste. I guess we should be happy for any Culp we get.

Finally, we have another Presidential Portrait! It's another Bush 41, which we've seen plenty on here, but it's great to see just the same. I was hoping, with the Vietnam War flashbacks, that we might get our first Nixon, but no dice. So if you're counting, we have all the presidents from Reagan through Obama, and because this is a relatively new thing I've been doing, we've been finding some in movies I've already reviewed too. I'm beginning to see too how it's kind of like what Will at Exploding Helicopter goes through, where a scene has all the makings of an exploding helicopter, but then it doesn't happen. Anytime I see a governmental office of some sort, I have my eyes peeled for the possible portrait--and this movie had a lot of fake outs where I thought for sure I'd see one but I didn't. It was almost out of nowhere when we did get it, above some desk by the wall that we see as Blanks enters the secret planning room Culp and Jordan were in. But it was good that we got it, and gave us a second Blanks screen on his Hall of Fame post. Makes me wonder though if I've missed any while looking up IMDb on my phone during the lulls in a film I'm watching...

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi here in the States. It's fun watch, but also a bit brutal, so make sure the people you're watching it with are okay with that. And congratulations to Billy Blanks on his Hall of Fame induction. Here's to you Mr. Blanks, you're truly one of the greats, and this is well deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105597

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

Brute 1976 (2025)

This was a screener submission I got from the film's publicist, Scott Motisko, and I was supposed to review it back in August when the film was released. I guess reviewing it now for Spooky Season is okay, right? And to be fair, the movie paid me back for my delay. Oh did it pay me back! Two words: "penis drill." 

Brute 1976 isn't to be confused with Brut 1976, the documentary that was never made about the famous aftershave's impact on men in the 70s. No, this film involves a group of Millennials who have been whisked back to 1976 in a VW bus, and before you can say "vocal fry," a family of crazed killers starts hacking them up. Will any of them survive? And if they do, will they make it back to 2025 in one piece? Maybe they'll show the baddies how to make some sourdough bread. The reality is, none of it really matters, it's all about the penis drill.

That's right, the penis drill. It happens at about the 50-minute mark on a 105-minute movie, and that was it for me after that. Stuff was happening, people were getting killed, there was plot exposition going on with twists and whatnot, but my brain couldn't focus on any of that after the penis drill. All that said, there was a lot to like in this movie. It looked beautiful, and some of the shot composition was next level. I also liked the performances by Adriane McLean and Gigi Gustin, the only thing there is with all the other characters we lose them for periods. I did have trouble with a few elements though. No, the story doesn't involve Millennials sent back in time to 1976, but it might as well have. And on some levels, it felt like the only reason why this was set in 1976 was so Gustin's character could have a platform shoe-related ankle break. I can still have an homage to 70s slasher films set in the 2020s and still have it look the way this did, and it would've made more sense to me. The other issue I had is one I'm sure you guessed by my mention of the 105-minute runtime earlier in this paragraph. It took us over ten minutes for the first kill, even though we know that's where we're going; and then throughout we had these moments where people were talking about whatever, and I think you gotta break that up with kills. I mean, how much am I watching a Gene Kelly movie to see him talk? I need my dance numbers, just like in a horror movie I need my kills. And I think that's where I come down on this movie, at 80 minutes, even with fewer kills, with how great it looked and some of the performances, it would've been a favorite for me, but at 105 it's a harder sell.

That previous paragraph might sound like I'm joining the parade of people dumping on Millennials, and that's not really my intention, it's more like people of a certain age--and I think I can even include myself among them to some extent--sound a certain way and carry themselves a certain way, and it stood out to me from the opening scenes when two characters who were supposed to be in 1976 were speaking in vocal fry. Also, since no one puts their ages on their IMDb bios anymore, some of them could've been Gen Z, but the point remains that no one really felt like they were from 1976. And I don't know how you fix that either. The most glaring one for me was the Ray character. He was supposed to be this mustache-wearing 70s dude, but it was more the Portlandia "the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland" kind of thing, as he reminded me of a guy who sold me pizza slices when I was there in the late 2000s visiting my sister. He looked like something out of the 90s 70s revival more than the actual 70s, only he would've been too young for it in the 90s when it was actually a thing. And again, I don't have a ready answer for this issue, I mean, did people born in the 30s think the same thing when they saw Nicolas Cage in Peggy Sue Got Married? I think Dazed and Confused was more made for people my age than people born in the 50s, so maybe this was meant more for people ten years younger than me, which I can appreciate.

Usually when I do a screener, I only use the stills provided, in part because the screener often has a watermark; but also because they provided them for a reason, these are the images they want me to pick from. I went off-script here though because there was no watermark, and I wanted to spotlight the beautiful shot composition. There was a hyped-up remake of a horror classic that came out around Christmas that was all about the shot composition, and I think I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with this movie over that--plus this movie didn't have any DTV Exorcist sequel-level possession scenes. Had the movie been 80 minutes, with a bunch of shots like this and some deaths sprinkled in, it would've been a five-star movie for me. The other thing is there was nothing necessarily 70s about any of this, it just kind of is its own thing, and had they leaned into that more, the Millennials in the cast wouldn't have stood out at all in trying to pass them off as people from the 70s, they actually would've fit that overall vibe--and that overall vibe still could've been an homage to 70s slasher films. 

I mentioned Gigi Gustin in the second paragraph, and fun fact about her on the DTVC, she was in Fast and Fierce: Death Race, an Asylum film with DMX that happens to be our second-most viewed post of all time. The film leans much more heavily on her in the beginning, and she was up to the task, so when the story went away from her, it felt like we were missing something. From there we had Adriane McLean anchoring the proceedings more, and she was good too, but it was like "what happened to Gigi Gustin's character?" And then the way everything was resolved, I would've liked better for both of their characters. This also isn't McLean's first time on the site, she was in the Art Camacho-directed Dermot Mulroney flick Ruthless (which, if you recall, could've lacked a little more ruth). I guess what I would say is, if you create strong characters in your movie, book, what have you, they need a proper end befitting that strength, otherwise it's a letdown, and the way this ended for them was a letdown for me.

Okay, it's time. Usually I save the seventh paragraph for something personal about me--and I had that paragraph locked n' loaded as I was going to talk about the 90s 70s resurgence, and how I watched Sponge's "Molly (Sixteen Candles)" video to bring back a better sense of that vibe. But then, we got the penis drill, and all bets were off. We've had the 300-pound Pork Roast. We've had John Barrowman's famous line in Shark Attack 3. And now we have the penis drill. The thing is, said penis is definitely a prosthetic, but even so, seeing a drill get shoved into it and turned on is tough to watch. And that was it for me mentally at that point. All dialog was replaced with "penis drill." Whenever there was dramatic music as someone was about to be killed, I was singing "penis drill" to it. Hell, I had "Sussudio" in my head for some reason, and I found myself replacing the lyrics with "penis drill." "Pee-pee-penis driiiiillll." Going back to what I said earlier, an 80-minute gore fest and I'd say a penis drill is right at home with that; but when you still have 55 minutes of movie left, and a lot of that is talking, there's no way you can hit me with a penis drill and expect me to manage through that. I clocked in the denouement at over ten minutes before anything happens, and they still tacked an additional ending onto that. When you come with the penis drill, you need to be wrapping things up with a flurry of kills, and then a bloodied McClean and Gustin need to be hitchhiking on a desert highway as the credits roll, that's about all I can be expected to give you after that. As an aside, I played "Sussudio" on YouTube, and the algorithm played "One More Night" after. "Pe-nis drill... ooh just pe-nis drill..."

And with that, we better wrap this up. Currently you can get this on Amazon Prime for $1.99, though word on the street is that version puts a censor bar over the penis drill. Normally I'd say that's like ED-209 in RoboCop, where the edited version is scarier than the real over-the-top (Stallone style) gore of the original, but with a penis drill, you may need it. I will say though, penis drill or no, if you're looking to support indie horror this Spooky Season, this is a great choice. (The algorithm just went to "Do You Remember," "we never talked about it, but I hear the penis drill was miiiinnne.)

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30561103

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

3 Musketeers (2011)

It's that time again, DTVC Hall of Fame inductions! And our first one is one we knew was going to be in as far back as March when we first decided to tag him, and discovered he had over 50 movies on the site! That's right, the one and only Cole S. McKay. This film is one of two he directed for The Asylum, the other being 200 M.P.H., and after hearing Will from Exploding Helicopter say good things about it, I figured it's be a great one for McKay's induction post.

3 Musketeers is about an elite US military special ops team of the same name (Xin Sarith Wuku, Keith Allen, and Michele Boyd) who get framed for blowing up a South Korean airliner while doing some special ops stuff in North Korea. Meanwhile back at the Pentagon, agent D'Artagnan (Heather Hemmens) is sent to talk to a crackpot named Planchet (the great Steven Williams), but when he's assassinated, she knows this goes way deeper, so she tracks down the Musketeers for help. Turns out their former boss, Treville the Cardinal (Alan Rachins) is planning to assassinate the President of the United States! Will our heroes be able to stop him?

This was a pretty fun time. It does have some lulls in it, and it has the cheap CGI we've come to expect from The Asylum, but beyond that this does what you need it to do. I think the best part is Heather Hemmens as the lead. She underpins the whole approach The Asylum is going for here where they're doing something different with the Three Musketeers story, and that's furthered with the Musketeers themselves, Xin Sarith Wuku, Keith Allen, and Michele Boyd. This is a fun team that I want to see succeed, which is the key to making something like this work. On the opposite end, Alan Rachins is a great baddie, with David Chokachi working well as his second-in-command. Unlike a lot of the PM films McKay worked on though, CGI replaces a lot of the stunts, shootouts, and explosions, and that keeps this from being an all-time classic that some of those are; but I think the fun cast and the work McKay and the stunt team does in the moments that aren't CGI elevates this beyond the usual Asylum fair, making it worth a watch.

63 tags before a Hall of Fame induction may be a record, unless we decide to put Millennium Films in, but at least it'll be a record for a person. As I've mentioned before, Cole S. McKay was first put on my radar when I had Chris the Brain Kacvinsky from Bulletproof Action on the pod to talk The Sweeper (episode 165 in the archives). We were talking about Spiro Razatos, and he mentioned McKay then as another great stunt guy. From there, doing the PM Entertainment Podcast with Jon Cross, McKay kept coming up, so after reviewing Victim of Desire back in March I decided to tag him, and he had over fifty movies that we'd reviewed on the site! Since then, we've now done an additional 7 movies (this one included), meaning at that rate he could pass Dolph to be the most tagged all time! What's interesting with this movie, is you see the moments where The Asylum skimps with CGI that PM allowed their stunt teams, led by talents like McKay, to get after it. For example, we get a moment where Hemmens's character swings on a large advertising banner to escape some baddies, and it's just bad-looking CGI. You know had this been PM fifteen years before, a stunt person would've been rigged-up and been swinging through that scene for real. As I mentioned above though, what McKay and his team can do is elevate the moments of practical stunts we do get, so we get something closer to that golden age from fifteen years before, even if it's not quite that. He has a ton of stuff left to cover, especially from that golden age of DTV action, so it'll be exciting to see what comes next, but for right now, it's about finally getting him into the Hall of Fame, which we're doing in this post.

Our other Hall of Famer here is The Asylum, they of the Asylum Rule which states that anyone with over 30 tags is an automatic Hall of Famer. In that sense The Asylum made us induct them into the Hall of Fame by the sheer volume of movies they've made like this who have other people in them. The other thing is, when I first started the site in the late 2000s, these Mockbusters they were doing were ubiquitous, and a fun inclusion to get people interested in what we were doing. We did our share of Transmorphers and Snakes on a Train, and one thing I've found with those films, or the myriad disaster movies and big monster movies, is they often used those films to give people opportunities they wouldn't ordinarily have had. In that sense I think they're working in the same tradition as PM Entertainment, and when it works, like it does here, it's a lot of fun. So, maybe they forced us to induct them into the Hall of Fame, but watching a movie like this one is a reminder that they were also deserving of the honor.

We're going to try to stuff everyone else into this sixth paragraph, so buckle up, because there are a lot of names to get to. We'll start with Heather Hemmens, who I discovered from her IMDb bio is a fellow Mainer! She was great here, but it looks like the only other thing she's done like this was another Asylum joint, Rise of the Zombies, so maybe we'll have to give that a try. Among the Musketeers, I didn't recognize any of them either, but Keith Allen I thought looked like a combination of Todd Newton and Ryan Seacrest, which was perfect for the role he played as the computer whiz in the group. Then we had Xin Sarith Wuku and Michele Boyd as more of the action Musketeers, and like Hemmens were great as action leads. It's unfortunate the The Three Musketeers that this was mockbustering was kind of a bust, because it would've been fun to see this crew come back for sequels--and really, is it a rule that The Asylum can't make their own sequels, even if the blockbuster they're mockbustering doesn't get a sequel? With our baddies we had the late Alan Rachins, who brings this West Wing guest story-arc element to the proceedings, which would've been enough, but we also get Rachins Fu, when he fights Xin Sarith Wuku, which was beyond what I could've asked for. And then with Chokachi as his second-in-command, what I liked there was he brought a poor man's Casper Van Dien vibe, but the real Casper Van Dien would've been too much for Rachins's second-in-command, so it's almost like Casper Van Dien light, or like a side-helping of Van Dien. I never considered it before, but Chokachi works great in that lane where you want Casper Van Dien energy, but the real Van Dien is too big for the role. The Steven Williams one-scene was great. We haven't had him too much on the site before, that's why he wasn't tagged, but always great to see him when we can. Finally, the person in this film with the third-most tags was the one and only James Lew, who has one scene in the beginning, but does most of his damage on the stunt team. That's 20 movies for him now. Could he be our next candidate for an Asylum Rule induction?

Finally, in high school we watched the 1993 version of the film, and my friends I loved the opening sword fight between Chris O'Donnell's D'Artagnan and Paul McGann's Girard, mostly for McGann, like when he screams "liar!" and then the faces he makes while he's dueling with O'Donnell. I remember our friend's mom got mad at us for rewinding it and replaying it over and over, telling us we were going to break the VCR. To this day, 30 years later, when I hear the name "D'Artagnan" I hear McGann yelling "will get you D'Artagnan" in his screechy McGann voice. I hadn't seen that scene in 30 years though, so I thought for this review I'd cue it up and watch it on Disney+, which fortunately they hadn't vaulted like they tend to do with their movies, and it still made me laugh all these years later. While that scene is the lasting legacy of the film for me, I think for most people it's the theme song, "All for Love," by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting. I don't know if that one was intended to be a franchise like the 2011 one, but had it made more at the box office, you have to imagine there would've at least been a sequel. It does make you wonder, why hasn't this concept not worked better? I think the period piece thing is always going to be an issue, but when I looked up adaptations, I didn't see any modern versions other than the one we're reviewing here. Could that be the key to the successful franchise? Maybe The Asylum was onto something.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States, which I think is a great deal. This is one of those Asylum movies where the formula works, so it's worth a watch if you're looking for a fun time. Also, here's to you Cole S. McKay, and your induction into the DTVC Hall of Fame. You're truly one of the greats, this is well-deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1977681

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