Shepherd Code: Lapierre (2026)

This is one Ty and I covered on the podcast, episode 269 in the archives, and with the names involved, and because we'd covered the other two films on here as well, I knew it needed a written review too. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has also covered this.

Shepherd Code: Lapierre is a prequel to the previous two films, where we learn how our eponymous hero (Alan Delabie) came to be the guy we saw in those other two entries. After his wife divorces him (and he tells her "I'm disappointed in you" and "look at all I've done for you," because I guess he'd rather his wife be unhappy and stay married to him than file for divorce?) he gets a job from his boss, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, to keep a target safe, one Tania Edwards (Theresa Kassa from the first film), because Lapierre "knows how to handle women." Beyond the chauvinism in that, or that his wife just dumped him and his response was "look at all I've done for you," so maybe he can't "handle women," Lapierre takes the job, and proceeds to fall in love with Tania. Will the dancing and romantic dinners go to his head and prevent him from carrying out his mission?

This is a different movie from the first two, with less action and more drama. What does that mean for you the viewer? Exactly that. It's the opposite of the Elvis song that Dolph performed on a Swedish awards show, so if you're looking for a little less conversation and a little more action, this isn't the movie for you. There is an independent spirit aspect of this though that is worth supporting, an earnestness in what Delabie wanted to do here that I appreciated. To have a vision for a film, and despite limited resources have it completed it and available on places like Tubi where the whole world can see it is something to be applauded. And it isn't all conversation, we do get some fight scenes that look nice and have some inspired moments. On the other hand, the chauvinism should've been left on the cutting room floor. "You know how to handle women" is something out of 1966, not 2026, and something like that can make it harder to champion an indie effort. Overall though I think with this on Tubi and other free streamers here in the US, if you're looking to support independent filmmaking, this is worth a watch.

With an indie film like this, I think there needs to be a different calculus when evaluating it. For example, recently we looked at Kill 'Em All 2, and the question came up, "who was asking for this film?" Right? Did we need a sequel to Kill 'Em All? And the reason we ask that, is that movie is being distributed by Sony, which means they're expecting an audience to be there that will turn them a profit--and they were probably right, because Netflix picked it up. For this film, the "who was asking for this?" question is easier to answer, Alan Delabie asked for this. It was his vision, and he successfully got his vision on the screen and available for us to consume, which I think is fantastic. From there it's a matter of who the audience is, but I don't think we should create art with an audience in mind, we should let the audience find it. And to that end, the podcast episode on our YouTube channel had a comment from someone who really enjoyed this, even saying it was their favorite of the three. For me, I would've liked more action, but that's not the movie he made, and I think that's okay too, there's an audience out there for the vision he wanted to make, even if it didn't work for me, but I wouldn't want him to change his movie for me or anyone else.

We're on our fifth paragraph and only now getting to our film's Hall of Famer and 40 Club member, which gives you a sense of how much he's in the movie, but this is still Don "The Dragon" Wilson's 44th tag nonetheless. Six more movies to 50 could be tough based on how many we have left to do and ones currently in production, but maybe Delabie will make a few more Shepherd Code movies, and Cynthia Rothrock and Alexander Nevsky will make a few more Westerns, and he'll get there. Even if he doesn't get there, he's still one of the greatest to ever do it, and it's great to see him in anything, even it's a small part. Speaking of small parts, Eric Roberts and Patrick Kilpatrick each have one-scene cameos. One idea that Ty and I had to break up some of the monotony that we saw in the long stretches without action, was to have Lapierre call either Roberts or Kilpatrick from time to time, that way they don't need to shoot in additional locations, and can do their scenes at the same time they're doing their one scene with Delabie, but those calls can be spread organically throughout the movie for the audience to enjoy. Just a thought, but I think how a film uses its names when they can only afford them for a limited amount of shooting can really impact how the film comes across overall.

As many films nowadays are wont to do, we have our share of overhead drone establishing shots here, but one shot caught my attention. Before we see our hero in a workout montage showing off his skills, we get an overhead establishing shot of the MMA gym he's going to be working out in, and the roof is covered in solar panels. The gym is Shocx MMA training center, I believe in Brussels, so if you're in the Brussels area and need to practice your grappling or boxing, you can go there and know that they're using sustainable energy to keep the lights on. It's probably no surprise to you that I'm not much of a gym guy, but I do walk a lot, which also helps the environment, so I'm trying to do my part too. We all do what we can, but here's to you Shocx MMA for going the extra mile.

Finally, look at that gem. I think it's a Birmingham Barons hat, which is the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. They're most famous for being the team Michael Jordan played for during his retirement from basketball in the mid-90s, which, when the Major League Baseball players lockout happened in 1994, their games were aired on ESPN to make up for the lack of Major League games. As you know from any amount of time reading this site, I'm a huge baseball fan, and among my baseball bucket lists, one is seeing a game in every US state that has a professional team. Right now I have 12 plus DC, so I have a long way to go, and Alabama is a state I've never even been to before, let alone see a baseball game, so it's a trip I have to make at some point. Who knows, Major League Baseball is facing another potential lockout for the 2027 season, and if that happens, Minor League Baseball like the Barons will be my only option, so next year might be the perfect time to make it happen, and if I do, I have this movie to thank for reminding me to go.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on a whole host of screeners here in the States, including Tubi, which has the other two as well. The lack of action may turn action fans off, but if you're looking for something a bit different and you want to support indie film, this is a great way to go. Also, be sure to check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this one, 269 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36415829/

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

Private Wars (1993)

For our PM flick this month, we're looking at Steve Railsback's one film for them, because who doesn't want to see what Railsback's up to in a PM actioner? And to prove that point further, this has also been covered by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Matt Spector at Bulletproof, Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List, plus Jon Cross reviewed it on Letterboxd, so I'm a little late to the party.

Private Wars has Railsback as a cop who's sufficiently on the edge, which leads to corrupt chief Michael Champion getting him booted off the force, which leads him to get a job as a PI and crawl into a bottle of liquor. But he's called back into action when an old friend's neighborhood is being terrorized by a gang of toughs. Something about this seems off though, why are these toughs so well organized? Enter The Ben Gazzara in Road House-ish Stuart Whitman, a land developer who wants to scare everyone out and develop the neighborhood on his own. Not only does he have Champion in his pocket, but his hatchet man is none other than James Lew. Is Railsback going to dry up enough to take all these baddies down?

This was a lot of fun. It was like PM's take on the off-beat action comedy, which ended up being perfect for Railsback, but also perfect for the too sweet van flip in the opening chase scene. I mean, that thing jumped higher than Lorenzo Lamas in Viper aka Bad Blood jumping over a car. I don't know what I'd expect a PM version of the off-beat action comedy to be, but this felt like it, and while we didn't get anything as fantastic as "Sweet Freedom," this also had a pretty nice soundtrack too. It did have some jokes that fell flat a bit though, like when Railsback initially turns down the request to help, the community auditions people to help, and the bit that follows is cringe-y at best, and doesn't age well at worst. Still, the action is exactly what we want from PM, especially the three-headed end fight scene, and with Railsback's fun lead, this has a lot to hang its hat on. That begs the question though, what do we do with the PM version of the off-beat action comedy? In terms of ranking, maybe top 30? Which, when you're talking about a studio with the output of PM, top 30 means you're going to enjoy your 90 minutes, you just may not have a classic on your hands. I think that's okay, not everything needs to be a classic, sometimes a fun 90 minutes does the trick. (Oh, and speaking of Lamas, scenes of him from CIA: Code Name Alexa appear on a TV, so he gets another tag, putting him three away from the coveted 40 Club!)

We're now at six Steve Railsback movies, but this is the first one where he was the lead, and I think a lot of it worked. I don't know if I see Railsback in a Recoil or Art of Dying, but for this role he nailed it--and nailed it better than some of the bits we get. I mean I guess who else plays a good drunk, but somehow can also beat up a bunch of bikers, then take on Vince Murdocco and John Salvitti in a fight in a holding cell? When his character's making love to Holly Floria, who is 20 years his junior, while his best friend is getting beaten to death, the demerits that we would give another hero don't stick to Railsback, it's like he can't help himself, but when the chips are down, he's ready with a pump action shotgun. In PM world, that's often all you need, and all the James Lews and Stuart Whitmans need to watch out when he does. He's got a decent amount of stuff out there that we still need to do, and some of it looks pretty good, so hopefully we'll see more Railsback on here soon, because he was a lot of fun in this one.

The late Michael Champion feels like he was created in a lab in Canada to be the perfect baddie in a syndicated TV show or Canadian city passing for an American city movie production, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that he was a Yank from Indiana, and had a long history before the 90s in American TV shows. I mean you look at him here, and it feels like he was plucked right off a Da Vinci Inquest set, even though he never did that show, or any show like it! Wonders never cease, huh? I mean, yes, his pre-90s stuff like Beverly Hills Cop he makes more sense as an American, and in Total Recall he was the recipient of the infamous "look who's talkin' " line, so I'd be forgiven for not recognizing him there, but I think post-The Swordsman he pivots into a full-on syndicated TV/DTV actioner look that feels like it was created in a lab in Alberta or Saskatchewan. We unfortunately lost him in 2021, but in the 90s he was a force that made movies like this just a bit better. Here's to you Michael Champion, you were one of the great ones.

As you can see, there are a lot of other names in this. First off, Art Camacho is now at 59 movies, as he plays the guy in the holding cell that Vince Murdocco beats up. Maybe for next month's PM flick we can do one he directed to celebrate him entering the 60 Club. And then we had stunt team Red Horton and "Broadway" Joe Murphy, with Horton listed as stunt coordinator and action director, but Murphy listed as a second unit director as well. They had some fantastic stuff in this, so kudos to them. Then we had James Lew and his too sweet mullet coming in with his 21st film on the site, which means he could be getting some Hall of Fame consideration; and Vince Murdocco with his 12th movie on the site, which I think when you're talking Vince Murdocco, that's not bad at all. Murdocco and John Salvitti team up with Railsback at the end to create the three-headed end fight scene I mentioned above. What happens is, Whitman calls in two out of town specialists who do a great job showing off how well they can use martial arts weapons, and each of them fight Murdocco and Salvitti, while Railsback fights Lew. What a beautiful way to make the most of the martial artists you have at your disposal, another win in the PM column.

Finally, is that a McDonald's in the background there? It looks like the Golden Arches, doesn't it? This is in the opening chase, and it's looped multiple times, so I got a lot of looks at it, but couldn't tell for sure. If it's not a McDonald's, it looks so similar that a McDonald's representative may have contacted them about it. Could it be a McDowell's kind of thing, but maybe like a gentleman's club? I love the idea of that, opening up a gentleman's club called McDowell's or whatever, using a sign that looks Golden Arches-esque, but people thinking they're getting fast food are getting exotic dancers and two drink minimums instead. "God, I don't want a private dance, I just wanted a couple double cheeseburgers!" Anyway, until we know for sure, I'm erring on the side of yes, which means this is the 22nd time McDonald's has appeared on the site. Are we going to have to induct McDonald's into the DTVC Hall of Fame? I don't even know how we do that, but I guess we'll see when we get there. (And yes, that is a man hanging off the front of that van. And I know, that means I've seen so many of these PM films that a man hanging off the front of a van is so commonplace that I'm more concerned about whether or not that's a McDonald's in the background.)

All right, with that, let's wrap this up. As far as I know, YouTube is the best way to watch this, and the version on there isn't bad. You can find it on my PM Entertainment YouTube playlist, and while you're there, why not subscribe to our channel? It's been a while since I've posted a new original video, but every podcast episode is on there.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107879/

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

Illicit Behavior (1992)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Champagne and Bullets aka "Geteven" aka Road to Revenge (1993)

This is one that's been a long time coming on the site, a glaring omission that's needed to be rectified for a long time, and we're finally doing that now. This was also covered on podcast episode 264 with Mitch from the Video Vacuum, so you can check that out as well. In addition to us, Mitch as also covered this, along with Chris the Brain at Bulletproof and Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, so this is a Superfecta Film--and brings home the point that this review is long overdue.

Champagne and Bullets stars John De Hart (who also wrote, co-directed, and recorded original music for) as Bode, an LAPD police officer who, along with his partner Huck Finney (DTVC Hall of Famer Wings Hauser), are framed by their superior Normad (William Smith) and taken off the force. At the same time, Normad is up to some nefarious stuff, not the least of which is sacrificing babies in satanic rituals. Not content to leave Bode and Finney to live their lives in peace post LAPD, he sends his goons to the finished basement bar they like to hang out in, and then Normad dates Finney's ex-wife. Eventually Normad takes it too far, and it's up to Bode to take him down. Will he succeed?

Where do you start with this? Probably the "Shimmy Slide," De Hart's song that he performs in the finished basement bar he and Hauser hang out in. It's an absolute thing of beauty, and alone would be worth the price of admission (which I guess is Fawesome commercials in this case?), but then it's all kinds of bonkers from there. We have William Smith as a corrupt cop who becomes a corrupt judge, while moonlighting as a satanic cult leader and dealing drugs. How fantastic is that? Then we have Wings Hauser drinking bleach after he's been arrested, talking to a papier-mâché Native American head, and hanging out in a pool fully clothed. They weren't just a couple known actors De Hart got for a couple scenes so he could splash their names on the tin, they turn in memorable performances that were a ton of fun. And then we have De Hart himself. He cast former Playboy Playmate Pamela Jean Bryant as his love interest, and proceeded to have as many love scenes with her as possible, set to his music that he recorded. One of the scenes is in a bathtub in this nautical themed-bathroom, completed with a big net on the wall with plastic ocean life attached to it. I don't know what we're doing with any of it, but it all works in that way that something where nothing should work does, if you know what I mean. And considering you can do it free on streaming, it's worth checking out if you haven't already.

We're now at 26 movies for Wings Hauser, but it's been almost a year since his last film, Bedroom Eyes II, which was another film that was featured on a podcast episode (207 in the archives). The thing that was surprising about this one, was how much he was in it, and how much bonkersness he brought to the proceedings. This is the Wings you come for when you see his name on the tin, which makes the whole thing that much better, and maybe even puts it a notch above other That Movies like Samurai Cop or Miami Connection that don't have any memorable Wings to hang their hat on. 26 means we're close to the 30 Club for Hauser, the problem is, a lot of the remaining movies we need to do aren't on any streamers, so it won't be easy, but maybe we can scrounge four of them up and get him over the threshold. 

The guys at Comeuppance have talked about movies like these before, calling them a "That Movie," and the part they stress the most about them is how they're all happy accidents. If a filmmaker goes in ahead of time and tries to manufacture something like this, it doesn't work the way one where the filmmaker is thinking they're putting out a classic does. A great example of this concept is in Samurai Cop and the sequel Samurai Cop 2. The sequel was an attempt to recreate the magic of the original, and in the end it didn't work. The earnestness of the process adds to the charm and makes these classics in ways the filmmaker didn't anticipate. For the most part the Comeuppance rule that you can't purposefully create one of these has stayed true, but I have found one exception: Nathan Hill's films do a great job of keeping the humor subtle enough that they feel like one of these, and in the process that humor insulates his films from some of the limitations that come with making movies on a low budget. If you're curious about his films, we've reviewed seven of them, which you can find by clicking on his tag on the left-hand side of the site.

In addition to the "That Movie" category, we also have the Vanity Project, which this falls into as well. They can be insufferable, like when Alexander Nevsky makes one and has all the other characters talk about how great his character is, but when they turn out like this movie does, the insufferability (for lack of a better term) ends up adding to the charm I discussed above. You can see De Hart hearing from his friends "hey, you're a pretty good singer, and you're a pretty affable guy, you should be in movies!" And so he does it, giving us all of that singing talent and affability, only it doesn't translate onscreen, and now we have a deer-in-headlights performance of a song that becomes known for all the wrong reasons, all of which now makes it such a thing of beauty. The thing is though, in these vanity projects we get a sense of the real person behind them, and I think that happens here as well. De Hart's character is staying with Hauser's character after they get bounced from the force, but when he reconnects with Pamela Jean Bryant, he moves out without notice, leaving Hauser stuck paying a mortgage he can't afford. What kind of friend does that? Also, when Smith's goons invade the finished basement bar De Hart's performing in, Hauser jumps in to help De Hart, and when the cops come, he ends up arrested and spending five hours in jail for his trouble. Maybe it's bad writing, but De Hart wrote it, and didn't see anything wrong with his character leaving his friend holding the bag on multiple occasions like that.

Finally, going back to the finished basement bar where the "Shimmy Slide" happens, De Hart also has a slew of arcade games and pinball machines in there. I don't know if he owned them or rented them for the film, but it got me thinking, if I ever had the money and the space, what arcade games would I get? In my novel Don's House in the Mountains I tease this a bit, where Don's theater room has Galaga and Mortal Kombat, and while Galaga would be a given, I think for Mortal Kombat I'd personally do Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 instead. From there, I'd need a Street Fighter game, and I think either Marvel v Capcom or X-Men: Children of the Atom would work for that, though maybe the original Street Fighter 2 might work too. Finally, I'd need the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. I remember having one of my birthdays at our local arcade, The Dream Machine, and one of the perks of having your birthday there was you and your friends had unlimited tokens to play, so we pumped a bunch of them in and won it, which was a beautiful thing. I think that's a pretty good foursome, but then the question would be, how much would I play them? Probably a lot to start with, but knowing me, there'd be too many out of market baseball games I'd need to watch, and next thing I know it's been two years, I haven't touched any of them, and they're all covered in dust, along with the rest of my finished basement bar. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. This actually has a Vinegar Syndrome release, but what's great is you can try it on Fawesome of Flex before you buy it. One word of caution: there's a graphic rape scene where the bartender at the finished basement bar is assaulted by Smith's goons. That means this probably isn't a fun bad movie night movie depending on who's watching it with you. Otherwise though it is a fun time, and worth seeing. Also, you can check out the podcast episode Mitch and I did, number 264 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169183

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

Trouble Man (2025)

Even though Exit Protocol was Michael Jai White's 30th film on the site, because he's not in it much I wanted to do something more fitting for his 30 Club celebration, and I figured I'd take advantage of my current Starz subscription by reviewing this film, which he also directed. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Trouble Man is not based on the Blaxploitation film of the same name, but rather has White as Jaxon, a former cop who runs security at Mike Epps's nightclub in Atlanta, while also doing jobs on the side, like beating up doctors who beat their wives. When singer La La Anthony goes missing, record mogul Orlando Jones enlists White's help, but there's stuff going on here that Jones isn't telling him. He gets a better sense of this when he goes to Anthony's boyfriend, Method Man, and the two of them start following up on leads. Levy Tran, a mysterious woman working with Jones, seems to be the key to all this, but when White and Method Man find where Anthony is being held, they discover how outgunned they are. It's going to take all their wits in addition to their brawn if they're going to prevail.

Overall I enjoyed this one. It took about 30 minutes or so to fully get what I think White was going for, which for me was a modern version of Fred Williamson's Dakota Smith films, but once we got there, especially when Method Man's character first appeared, it hits its stride. The question is, what do you do with that first 30 minutes? We get a lot of plot exposition and backstory dialog, a couple of comedic moments that could've been tighter, and a couple scenes of White beating the crap out of people, and that might be enough to get you to the last hour. The other thing is, when we finally get the big finale fight between White and Tran's two body guards (Noah Felder and Theodore Park), it's done with this janky-looking greenscreen in the background that detracts from it. I wonder if there was a way they could've mitigated that some, perhaps by shooting it in a different location if that was the issue. On that note though, I could feel more of the independent spirit in this production, as opposed to the assembly line feel we get with a lot of modern DTV, and to me that also has to count for something, especially when they're trying to overcome budgetary issues. If you have Starz and you're looking for some new DTV action to watch, this isn't a bad option.

Michael Jai White becomes the 12th actor in the 30 Club, which is a big deal and something that should've come sooner, considering how many DTV films has out there--by my count there are another 15 or 16 of his we could do, including MR 9: Do or Die, which Ty and I covered on the podcast. On the Vlad TV interview he did, talked about all of the challenges he's faced in the industry, which is something Fred Williamson has talked about as well, and I think you can see the parallels here with what Williamson did in the 80s and 90s, and with White producing and directing his own movies instead of waiting for the industry to give him the roles he should have. On that score, that's where that independent spirit really comes through in this film. Compared to Black Dynamite and Outlaw Johnny Black, this doesn't reach that level, but it does the trick for a solid direct to video action effort done on a budget, and I'd like to see more of these, especially with his character Jaxon.

Surprisingly this is our first Method Man film on the site, which, when I looked at his IMDb bio, isn't as surprising as I thought. Back in 2010 he did Sinners and Saints, and the trailer to that was on every third DTV film I got from Netflix to review for the site. In my head I assumed that was one of many, or would be one of many DTV films Method Man did, but not so it turned out. Either way, the moment he enters this movie, he breathes a life into it that it needed, and not the way I was expecting. I thought he'd be a run of the mill gangster character, but it was a well-rounded three-dimensional role that was a ton of fun, and he and White worked well off each other. It felt like White was trying to inject some humor into the film to cut a bit of the seriousness and mitigate some of the clichés this movie was working in, and Method Man fit perfectly with that, taking that edge off and allowing us to have fun with it all. I'm not sure how many more times we'll see him here, but based on this performance, hopefully this won't be the last.

Going back to that use of humor to cut some of the seriousness, it's easy with a detective film like this to make it all about how great the hero is, and if you make your baddies bad enough, it'll work, but I wonder too if White noticed it was becoming too much about his character being the man, which can make the whole thing seem like a silly vanity project if you're producing and directing too. To that end, the movie started off in that vein, when White beat up the abusive doctor. He makes this big show of "oh man, Ree Ree (Mike Epps), you didn't tell me how big this guy was!", only to have him take the guy down without the guy even landing a punch. Had that been Scott Adkins, the guy wouldn've been throwing him through plaster walls and Adkins would've barely prevailed by smashing a vase over his head or something, but that's not how White gets down, so the whole thing starts the movie on a bad foot, and I think had it continued that way, this might not have worked. I don't know if maybe he saw that happening too, and by injecting the humor in, we could laugh with the movie at both the jokes, and the clichés, as opposed to at them. I think that also allows us to take the effort of making the film itself more seriously, which I think is important when you're making movies on the margins like this.

Finally, look at that, it's Keith Sweat! He played himself producing La La Anthony's album, and he has songs in the movie! He's only in the one scene, which is too bad, it would've been nice if he helped raid the baddies' lair while toting a machine gun, or even just singing a few bars for us, but we'll take what we can get when it's Keith Sweat. I was trying to think what my favorite song of his is, and it probably has to be "Twisted," just because I remember that one on MTV a lot in the late 90s, but you look at "I Want Her," which is considered to be the first big New Jack Swing hit, and from there it's a string of hits and platinum records, so there are a lot of possible favorites. I watched the "Twisted" video as I was writing this review, and I'd forgotten about this trend from the late 90s to early 2000s where videos stopped the song at some point near the end, and either did a choreographed dance move, or in this case I'm not sure what it was. When I watch 80s and early 90s videos, we almost always just get the song, and when we don't, like in 'Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry," it's only a quick break that enhances the experience. Even the music itself, while "Twisted" is a favorite, it's more of that "heavy R&B" sound that had replaced New Jack Swing at that time, which guys as talented as Sweat could pull off, but there's something about it that wasn't as much fun as that New Jack Swing sound. Anyway, this was supposed to be a Keith Sweat appreciation paragraph, and it turned into a "get off my lawn" rant about music, so getting back to appreciating Mr. Sweat, here's to you, sir, you're one of the greatest.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Unfortunately this has been relegated to Starz purgatory, but if you have Starz it's worth checking out. The independent spirit of the film comes through, and the supporting performances of Method Man and others made this a fun time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30459064/

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

Deadly Breed (1989)

As we in the States celebrate 250 years of not wanting to be the middlemen when it came to colonial oppression and keeping all the profits to ourselves, I figured I'd celebrate in true DTVC style with PM Entertainment's 60th film on the site! And what a doozey, right? In addition to us, out of the five critic reviews on IMDb, three of them are Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett and Comeuppance, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum, so this is a Superfecta film.

Deadly Breed has William Smith as a police chief in full sit-down mode giving detective Kilpatrick (Addison Randall) the job of creating a neo-Nazi murder squad to kill black, Latino, and Asian parolees after they get out of prison, but making it look like the murders happened due to criminal activities so no one will be suspicious. After about 23 of his parolees have been killed though, PO Jake (Blake Bahner) does in fact get suspicious, so he starts digging--and digging, nights spent caressing his braided rat tail over Miller Genuine Drafts while his wife Lana (Michelle Berger) has to pleasure herself alone. Anyway, it's PM, somehow this resolves itself with a lot of explosions and death.

And as a PM movie, this is a rougher sit than we're used to. It would be number 4 on the spine if all the PM films were released as a collection, and while they were still getting a sense of what worked--like shootouts and explosions--they were also getting a sense of what didn't work--like the main character's significant other needing to die in some violent fashion. It also drags in parts, there isn't the PM 15-minute rule yet, the action is almost confined entirely to the end, with smatterings here and there before that. On the other hand, the PM over-the-top-ness (Stallone style) is pretty prevalent, with our neo-Nazi LAPD-led death squad not just harassing or beating people up, but straight-up massacring them. In a way that over-the-top-ness takes some of the sting out of it and makes it less sinister, as opposed to a bunch of masked Proud Boys on a DC subway surrounding a black woman, because there's a sense that the massacre couldn't really happen--but then we live in a 2026 where hate like this is so normalized that it's hard to know what could or couldn't happen. The other thing of course was the rampant racism in the LAPD, and while maybe a Mark Fuhrman wasn't massacring innocent victims, he did have Nazi paraphernalia at his police desk, and did a great job through his racism in creating reasonable doubt in the biggest trial in the last 50 years or so. I can imagine when PM made this in 1989, they couldn't have imagined a significant enough portion of the population today would see Kilpatrick as the hero, not the baddie. And for that, maybe this is the best PM film for the 4th of July in the US in 2026, it was over-the-top then, but notsomuch now. The fact that it's on Fawesome and loaded with commercials is probably fitting as well.

This is the big 6-0 for PM, and while we have better movies still to review that might have worked for a 60 Club celebration, for the 4th of July on America's 250th, I don't think anything was better than this, and in that sense perhaps this is the most fitting 60th post, because one thing PM was good at was reflecting America back at us with this distorted, over-the-top PM lens filled with cartoonish violence, but also baddies getting their comeuppance at the end of the 90 minutes. When a Trump-like figure played by William Shatner tried to gain office in Land of the Free, he didn't succeed and turn America into a White Christian Nationalist haven, he was vanquished by Jeff Speakman after the two duked it out. And here, despite Kilpatrick killing dozens of people, he does shimmy to death from Jake's assault rifle hose job instead of escaping and spreading his murderous hate further. In the real world, baddies not only don't get their comeuppance, they usually make a lot of money off of other people's suffering in the process. PM provided us with an escape that, in the 90s we needed, but in the 2020s, we need even more, so it's great that so many of their films are available in so many places for us to get that 90-minute reprieve. Here's to you Pepin, Merhi, and everyone else at PM who made these films happen, you were truly one of the greatest to ever do it.

Speaking of the people who made PM films happen, we have a lot of them here. Cole S. McKay is now at 68 films on the site, as he does stunts here, with Michael J. Sarna as stunt coordinator, who is now in the 30 Club himself! We also had Paul Volk doing the editing, who just celebrated a birthday, so happy birthday to him! Interestingly Rick Lamb does the cinematography, and while this is his only PM film as cinematographer, he did camera work on several others, plus some Albert Pyun and AIP films, so he's been on the DTVC numerous times. You could see his stamp in the early foot chase scene with the POV shots. This was directed by Charles T. Kanganis, one of six he did for PM, plus he wrote multiple other films for them, so someone we probably should tag at some point, but he was a real PM mainstay, especially in these earlier films of theirs. The same can be said about the film's baddie, Kilpatrick, played by Addison Randall. He's acted in, written, and directed multiple other PM flicks as well, plus City Lights movies. Finally, William Smith is back for his 12th film on the site, a true sit-down role  where he couldn't be bothered to tie his tie tightly or fix his hair. I think he stands maybe one time in the whole film, after police detective Alex (Rhonda Gray) comes in to ask if she can be part of the investigation into her brother's murder, and decorum insists that he has to at least stand to recognize her presence and what she's been through. It's a true thing of beauty.

The other PM mainstays, especially in early PM films like this, are McDonald's and Chinatown sightings. If only Smith had had a Bush 41 portrait in his office, we'd have hit the trifecta, which I don't think has ever happened in any movie on the DTVC before. The McDonald's is a shot of the Golden Arches while a guy is being followed, so we get it both through the windshield (or "windscreen" for my UK readers) and the rear-view mirror as he's looking behind him (sorry, not sure how to say "rear-view mirror" in UK English, "backward-facing looking glass"?). The Chinatown is the LA one we've seen in multiple PM films, and it's one I've never been to before, so maybe I need to make a pilgrimage. I saw that you could even walk to Dodger Stadium from there, and while I'm not sure what kind of walk that would be, I could check two items off of two lists with that, something I've actually done a few other times before, between the White Sox and Chicago's Chinatown, a Yankees game and Manhattan's Chinatown, and a Mets game and Queen's Chinatown. Too bad Pittsburgh doesn't have a Chinatown for when I go to that game later this summer.

Finally--I know that last paragraph felt like the finally--our hero in this movie had a tiny braided rat tail. When I first saw it, he was confronting his wife for using her vibrator because he was ignoring her with all his PO investigations, but I thought maybe it was a wire to an earpiece or a thread coming off his shirt. I should know better when I'm watching a movie from 1989, rat tails can appear out of anywhere, but my brain had moved so far beyond the concept of the rat tail over the last near-40 years that the idea of it is foreign again. After a few other shots of him though I was able to confirm that he did in fact have a small braided rat tail. If you're wondering, I did have a bit of one. I remember going to the Sears or JC Penny hair salon where my mom took me to get my hair done, and them showing me with a mirror in the back how it was coming along. The thing was, I got maybe 2-3 haircuts a year, most of the time I let my hair grow out, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity to make the contrast between the rat tail length and the actual length, and soon enough the rat tail was out and it didn't matter anyway. Normally I would do a "here's to you" thing about something like this, but there's no "here's to you" to the rat tail, just a good riddance.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this free on Fawesome, and on YouTube, which I've added to my PM Playlist on our YouTube channel. For a 4th of July 2026 PM film, it might not be the most fun, but it's the most apt. Also, warning if you're watching this in a group, there is a scene where Kilpatrick rapes and kills Lana, and while it's not entirely graphic, it is plenty disturbing. You could even click the 30 seconds ahead button a couple times and skip it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167873

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

Exit Protocol (2025)

This is one that came out last year, I think, and there was a time in the early days of the site that a new Dolph would be big news, and I'd put everything aside to watch and review it once I got it from Netflix. We aren't in those times anymore, but when I saw we had a $1 rental deal with Xfinity, and my wife didn't use it for anything, I figured we'd take advantage and get this one in the can. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this--and gave a shoutout to our review of The Best Man in the process, so thanks for that!

Exit Protocol has Scott Martin (featured prominently on the tin) as an assassin who's all about two things: voiceovers and killing assassins who try to retire. I guess you can't have assassins retiring because they could tell on themselves and bring down the operation? But couldn't they do that when they're not retired? Anyway, Martin goes to kill Dolph, who has a pregnant girlfriend 35 years his junior, and after they each let each other live, they decide to team up against the guy who hired them (JB Yowell), but in the meantime, they have another great assassin, Michael Jai White, who needs to take them down too. Will our heroes make it out alive?

What do we do with this one? I think it has two major things working against it. One, the lead character isn't all that likeable. It's mostly the voiceovers, where he's giving these pithy monologues that either get us up to speed on various backstory elements, or gives us his opinion on the industry he decided to work in, but all just end up being indulgent jackassery--and to be fair, I don't know how you make those voiceovers come off in any way other than indulgent jackassery. So now I don't like the hero, but at least if there's some action that would be good, and while we do get some, there's also a lot of padding. We have opening credits padding, with this long, overdrawn out sequence of a bullet coming from far away to kill a mark, and on it's journey it travels through big block letters telling us everyone involved in the film. We have religious talk padding. We have twist ending padding. And perhaps worst of all, we have assassins making cute conversation padding, something that brings us back to the late 90s/early 2000s when everyone was trying to mimic Tarentino with their quirky loquacious hitmen. We do get more Dolph here, especially compared to his 2010s bait-and-switch jobs, and the addition of Michael Jai White is nice, and maybe all in all this isn't horrible for 2020s DTV Dolph, so maybe we should take what we can get and run; but on the other hand, so many of his better ones are on free streamers, so this is maybe more for completists like me, and only if you can get a deal, otherwise wait for it to be on a free streamer or part of a streamer you already subscribe to.

This is number 76 for Dolph at the DTVC. That's right, we're almost at 80 for him, and we should be able to get there, as we have three DTV films left to review, Fat Slags (which I've been warned against repeatedly), Sharknado V (which he's barely in, but it still counts), and Hellfire, the new one directed by Isaac Florentine (which was Michael Jai White's character name in this) that I may watch with the next $1 coupon I get; and then he has a David AR White movie and the third One Shot movie in the can, both of which should be out this year. When we started the site in 2007, he wasn't even 50 yet, and now he'll be 69 (hey-oh!) this fall. (That also means when we turn 20 next year, he'll turn 70, so if we starred in one of his movies he'd date us! (Hey-oh! again)) As I said above though, for a late era Dolph bait-and-switch, we've seen a lot worse in terms of his screen time. Yes, Scott Martin has the most screen time, so it's not like this is a Dolph lead role--and we may never see that again, these take what you can get kinds of deals may be all we get at this stage in his career, and I guess for a take what you can get, we've done a lot worse.

Back when Dolph was only in his early 50s, I created what I called the Bronson Death Wish V standard for an action lead's shelf live. Bronson was 73 when that came out (71 when it filmed in 1993), and the idea was, unless you're Bronson, you probably should consider donning that sombrero, hopping on that mule, and riding off into the sunset before that--at least when it comes to doing action films. And the thing is, it wasn't only Dolph in his early 50s then, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, Michael Dudikoff, Christopher Lambert, and Lorenzo Lamas were all in that age group, plus Seagal was a little older, and Van Damme and Gary Daniels were a little younger--what I'm trying to say is, in the late 2000s there was a sense that we were a long ways from the Bronson Death Wish V standard for all of these names, but now we're here. Hell, even this film's other Hall of Famer, Michael Jai White, will be 60 next year himself, and we thought of him as one of the young guys! The question then is, do we need a new standard? If anyone could create one, it's Dolph. We had the Death Wish remake in 2018, could we skip ahead to a Death Wish V remake in 2030 with Dolph at the helm? He already has his Lesley-Anne Down in Charlotte Kirk, they're roughly the same age gap. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Fred Williamson before I wrapped this paragraph, who is still kind of pumping things out in his 80s, but doesn't really have his Death Wish V I don't think.

Scott Martin joins a list of actors who starred in movies where Dolph was featured prominently on the tin, but not in the film. The best comp here might be Riot, where Dolph and Chuck Liddell are on the cover, but Matthew Reese was the star. At least here though, Scott Martin's name is on the cover too. The most notorious is Ambushed with Daniel Bonjour (hello!), and I think you can also draw a comp to that and this with Martin's voiceover jackassery making him an unlikeable character, even if Bonjour's character was even worse--Martin's character has a bit of a redemption arc in the last 30 minutes that Bonjour's never approached. Looking at Dolph's IMDb bio, I'd say he's had maybe 15 or 16 of these kinds of movies since 2010, and the two movies that buck the trend the most are Castle Falls and Wanted Man, two films he directed. We also had Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning and One in the Chamber in 2012 that I enjoyed, but they're at the early end of this trend. There are factors that contributed to this, like his age, which we talked about earlier; or his personal life, he got divorced in 2011, and movies like this mean quick cash. I don't know if we count Altitude among these, because unlike these others, it made pretty clear from the cover that Denise Richards was the lead, but that seems to be the key, get another name lead we recognize to do most of the work--and cut out the voiceovers!--and you may have something that works well enough.

Finally, technically we hit a milestone here for our film's other Hall of Famer, Michael Jai White, but because he's in this even less than Dolph, I figured I'd do a better film for him for his official 30 Club entry. I did consider holding off on reviewing this until we got that better White film reviewed first, but I think that might be overdoing it with these tags and clubs, if his milestone post is movie 31 or 32, we're still celebrating him. By my count he's the 12th actor to make 30 films on the site, which makes it pretty exclusive and worth celebrating when the time comes--which will be soon, there are a couple on Starz that I need to do, so we can grab one of those. In the meantime, before we do the full celebration, here's to you Mr. White, you're truly one of the greats.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing this, rent VOD is the only way to go. If you're a Dolph completist like me, I'd still only do it if you get a coupon for a free rental somewhere, otherwise wait until it's on a free streamer or one you subscribe to. If you're not a Dolph completist, tread at your own risk--again, he has a ton of stuff on Tubi and other free streamers that are more fun.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32421438/

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