Invasion Force (1990)

This is one we covered on the podcast, back in December on episode 191, with Chris "The Brain" Kacvinski from Bulletproof Action, and it was time to cover it on the site as well, especially considering we hadn't done any AIP in a while. In addition to us, Chris has covered this on Bulletproof, as have the guys at Comeuppance.

Invasion Force looks like it's going to be about David "Shark" Fralick kicking ass and taking names. Not so fast, cowboy, turns out this is just a movie that's being made, none of this is happening for real. As luck would have it though, Richard Lynch is in the vicinity training mercenaries for a plan to take over the local town, which would then lead to them taking over the whole country. As luck would have it for them, they have no idea a movie is being shot on the other side of the mountain, and when they happen upon the film's leading lady, Renee Cline, arguing with her boyfriend, who just happens to also be the film's producer, David Marriott (the Basher from Shotgun), they kill him, but she survives and escapes back to the set, where she tells the director (Walter Cox) and some of the crew what happened, and they decide to load up on all the live ammo they have, and use all their special effects know-how to take these baddies on. Will they survive?

This is another fun time from AIP. Maybe not at the level of a Deadly Prey--though I think this shows they were more self-aware than we may have though with that movie--it's still pretty solid, and has a lot to like. Lynch is exactly the scene-chewing lead baddie you want, and the fact that he plays this whole thing straight adds to its charm. Cline and Cox were also fun as the leads--love that as the name of a legal comedy about two lawyers that were married but now divorced, and have to keep the practice alive--or I guess just the name of a personal injury firm that you see billboards of on the highway, "Cline and Cox will fight for you!" Then there's all the little extras that add to the enjoyment, like the product placement, this time Anheuser-Busch, especially at the cast party with the massive Busch beer can that looked like something from MTV Spring Break; or that the Basher from Shotgun is in this, and gets a great death scene. The fact that something like this is available on Tubi is a great thing.

This is our 11th AIP film on the site, which lags well behind other studios, like PM, Cannon, Imperial, and even The Asylum. A big part of that is how a lot of these films weren't as available when I started the site, but also they don't have the number of names those other studios have had. Essentially, we're reviewing AIP movies because they're AIP movies. Yes, you get names like Richard Lynch or DTVC Hall of Famer David Carradine from time to time, but compared to the names those other studios can give us, many of which are Hall of Famers, AIP sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. Even with Hall of Fame recognition, this October we have Imperial going in, because when we tagged them we discovered they had over 30 movies, so AIP will have to wait another year, but hopefully in that time I'll do a better job of getting more of their films up, because they have so much great stuff.

Speaking of finally getting a tag, David "Shark" Fralick somehow hadn't been tagged to this point, so we took care of that, which makes this his 15th film on the site. I haven't done a count of which first names are represented the most, but you'd be surprised how many Davids we have, it's right up there with Michael and William/Bill/Billy--I mean this film also has director David Prior and producer David Winters tagged. Anyway, Fralick is one of those guys that we see in a lot of these, and while he may not be the guy you seek out--even though he is on the cover of this one--he's one that when you see his name in the cast, you feel like it's got a bit more weight to it. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to tag him, but if any film would be worthy of him getting the tag, it's this--even though his cover is a bit of a red herring, and his part is more in line with the size of the parts he usually gets.

That 15 for Fralick is one more than the film's main baddie, Richard Lynch, a name that's been up for Hall of Fame consideration almost since we started the site, and it seems like every year he gets pushed back. I don't see that changing this year unfortunately, as we have slots already taken for Cole S. McKay, the aforementioned Imperial Films, and Kathleen Kinmont. He's such a fantastic baddie, and this film reaffirms that--as if you needed any reaffirmation, but it's nice to see it anyway. He's almost exactly playing the part he played in Invasion USA, except he wasn't Russian in this. That could've made it even more fun, but he was plenty fun enough. Exactly the baddie you want, every time, and here is no different.

The word "meta" gets thrown around a lot. I looked into it, and technically the term has been around since the late 80s, but it wasn't until later that it became a popular term. For kids reading this that are used to using the term, this movie is definitely "meta" before anyone would've really referred to a movie as "meta." Can you still call it "meta" when it was made before people called things "meta?" It's like "Yacht Rock," music that we called "Soft Rock" or maybe "AM Gold," was called "Yacht Rock" by some Gen Xers, and the term took off among a bunch of kids who like to call things "meta." The thing is, language is always changing, and this is just part of that. For example, I saw the word "nonplused" in Nabokov's Pnin the other day, which means "surprised" or "perplexed," but here in the US there's been a "nonplussed" definition shift to meaning "couldn't care less," probably because people initially confused the meaning, and enough people perpetuated the confused meaning that it's now become the meaning. It's how language evolves, except in my novel Chad in Accounting I used it with it's official, intended meaning, and now people who only understand its meaning as the new, US definition-shifted one, would be confused, as they would if they read Pnin. What I'm trying to say is, no, in 1990 this movie wasn't "meta," but due to changes in language, it's "meta" now, whether we like it or not, because that's "literally" how language evolves. (Like what I did there?)

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Tubi here in the States. I think that's a great way to go, though if you see this on VHS at a good price somewhere, it would be a fun addition to your collection. And if you haven't yet, you can check out the podcast episode I did with Chris from Bulletproof, episode 191 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238314

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

The Baby in the Basket (2025)

This is a film we covered on the podcast on two separate occasions, once before the film was made, in April of 2023 on episode 122, where we had Nate Shepka and Tom Jolliffe on to get the word out on the kickstarter; and then more recently back in February when the film was released, in episode 197, we talked with the guys again to go over highlights and some of the backstory behind the making of; and now we're finally here giving it a proper site review. In addition to us, The Guardian has covered this as well, so we're in great company!

The Baby in the Basket follows a nunnery located on an isolated island in Scotland during WWII. The nuns themselves all have various issues they're working through, which would be enough to make a great reality show, but not a movie. Enter an abandoned baby in a basket left on the nunnery's doorstep. One of the nuns, Agnes (Amber Doig-Thorne) thinks the devil is afoot, and she wants to kill the baby; while the Mother Superior (Maryam d'Abo) thinks this is her one chance to be a mother in the more literal sense. Who's right? And who will be left alive for it even to matter?

As I said on the pod episode, I really enjoyed this. It feels like old Hammer Horror, but where a Hammer film would've focused on Nathan Shepka's caretaker, as it would've probably been the Oliver Reed part, here he's more of a supporting character in favor of the nuns, which makes it a more modern take on Hammer Horror that I appreciated. Black Narcissus is another one that comes to mind, and even though it's not a direct sequel, Maryam d'Abo's Mother Superior is like what Sister Clodagh would've been doing years later after she left the Himalayas. I don't know that any of this works though without the great job from the cast. Beyond turning in professional performances, it felt like the actors were really enjoying the craft of acting, which for me as a viewer makes the experience more enjoyable too. That's what I want from a fun, Saturday night movie, and this delivers.

This is the second Shepka-Jolliffe collaboration we've covered here, after When Darkness Falls--which we've also covered on the pod, both on episode 122 when we talked about this, and 103. I don't know that I can say I like one better than the other, because they're both pretty different. This is more traditional horror, while When Darkness Falls is a slow-burn thriller. But they both worked for me, and if I extend that out to Renegades and Cinderella's Revenge, two others that Jolliffe has written that we've reviewed, and Lock and Load and Dead Before They Wake, two other films that Shepka has directed and produced (Dead Before They Wake he co-directed with Andy Crane, who co-directed this as well), that's six movies that run the gamut of styles and genres, but all movies I enjoyed. Their next one is in production now, Death Among the Pines, and I can't wait to check that one out too. If these other ones are any indication, it should be another fun time!

One of the standout performances for me was Michaela Longden, because of how her character's story arc went. She comes in and establishes herself as the nun who's troubled and questioning her faith, then she leaves the film to go back to the mainland, and comes back for the last 45 minutes or so while all hell is breaking loose. She really had to make a mark in those early scenes, because we then have all that time in between to get to know everyone else, and as I said above, everyone in the cast did a great job, so it would've been easy to lose her, but those opening scenes, especially opposite Maryam d'Abo, definitely left that impression. It was a different role from the one she had in When Darkness Falls, where she was the lead and the film centered around her struggle. I think her performance also matched the Hammer Horror energy that the film had overall, but, again, with Tom Jolliffe's writing taking it in a different direction, she could do more to affect the outcome than just be the dangerous wild card who's having a crisis of faith.

Among the other performances, I loved the juxtaposition between Amber Doig-Thorne's Agnes and her "fully believe in God and believe that God is talking to me" version of faith, versus Maryam d'Abo's Mother Superior and her "adherence to rules and discipline" version of faith, and how the two clash as the film goes on. There's also the humanity in d'Abo's Mother Superior wanting to be a mother after sacrificing that for her faith for so long, and it's that one time she's slipping in her discipline and adherence to the rules that proves her undoing. I think from there, I liked how Elle O'Hara's Valerie is caught between the two, she's used to the routine and structure of the nunnery, and when the baby comes and things start breaking down, her sense of self starts to go with it. That's a part most horror movies wouldn't bother fleshing out, she'd just be there to be killed off, so the fact that it was fleshed out, and she gave it life, was another touch that gave the film more depth. Finally, there was Lisa Riesner, who plays the young newcomer who doesn't speak, and dances nude in the courtyard in the middle of the night. To be fully game for a part like that takes courage--usually with the exploitation films we do here, when a producer says a nude scene was part of the "character development," it sounds dubious, but because she was game, and because of how the part was written, it actually did add to the film in a substantial and not gratuitous way.

Finally, I mentioned above that Shepka's young caretaker was inhabiting an Oliver Reed-type role. The way this would work in a Hammer film in the 60s, is the young hero ends up in the remote location, where evil is afoot, and he needs to find a way to escape. Maybe Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee is lurking in the background. I was trying to think how many Hammer films were woman-led like this one, and the best I could think of was Die! Die! My Darling!, where Stephanie Powers is that Oliver Reed character stuck in a dangerous, isolated situation, and Tallulah Bankhead plays the evil Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing type. Usually in a Hammer film a scenario with a group of women would go like this: Shepka's character shows up at the nunnery, and then learns the nuns are all evil, murdering temptresses, and the question is, can he escape before it's too late? And I think having Shepka's character feel like it would've been Oliver Reed's enhanced the Hammer vibe, while at the same time focusing on the nuns showed that this was also breaking from some Hammer traditions. It was bringing Hammer into the 21st century, and as the kids say, I'm here for it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can watch this on Tubi or rent it on Prime. When I think of a Hammer Horror on a Saturday night, like on Svengoolie, this is a modern movie that fits that bill; but it also gives you a bit more, which is a credit to the work of the cast and crew. Speaking of which, Svengoolie is a repeat this week, so why not load up on snacks give this a watch instead?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26594761

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

Darkness of Man (2024)

This is one we covered on the podcast, episode 194 in the archives, with Sean Malloy from "I Must Break This Podcast," and with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Cynthia Rothrock, we had to get it on the site eventually too, so we're making it happen now. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Darkness of Man has Van Damme as Russell Hatch, an Interpol agent who was supposed to be protecting a witness, but when she's killed, he agrees to protect her son. Years later, said son is now a teenager, and said son doesn't get along well with either the grandfather who's taking care of him, or Van Damme, who acts as the guy driving him to school while living in an extended stay hotel. At the same time, the kid's uncle runs an organized crime ring, which is going up against the Russians in an all-out turf war. Will the son get caught in the middle? And if so, will Van Damme be able to protect them? Is this his chance at redemption after failing to protect the mother all those years ago? Oh, and isn't Cynthia Rothrock in this film?

When Sean and I were looking at Van Damme movies to cover, it was between this one and the two Kill 'Em All films, and Sean said he needed to do this one first because he'd already seen it, and wanted to cover it while it was still fresh in his mind so he didn't have to watch it again. And that pretty much sums this one up, it's a rough sit, and you don't want to put yourself through it again. Why? First off, it's long, 107 minutes. Second, we have a lot of moving parts, and to try and sort them all out, we have Van Damme's voice-overs. Third, there are random things that feel like they were grafted into the movie, like the fact that Kristanna Loken's character is a veterinarian. Finally, we have a lot of moments where not a lot happens. It's a recipe for a tough sit. There are some bright spots though. We have some fun Van Damme fights, and director James Cullen Bressack went for some old Film Noir tones, that, when combined with the cinematography of Pascal Combes-Knoke led to some inspired shot composition; and I think something does need to be said for filmmakers and stars trying to do something outside the usual DTV fare, so I don't want to dump on this completely, it just missed for me overall.

We're now at 35 films for Van Damme, even though he has 36 tags, because our 400th post was a Van Damme film fest, so it doesn't count for inclusion in the 40 Club. At 35, could he get there? In the hopper we still have Kill 'Em All, and then for DTV stuff left to watch, there's Swelter, Welcome to the Jungle, and We Die Young. That's 39, and depending on how we feel about The Gardiner, he could get there. As much as this movie didn't work, the thing I appreciated was how present Van Damme was, and how much he was trying to stretch himself and try something different. The fact that he's still doing that at this stage in his career, when he really doesn't have to--he could just be in the movie and cash the check--is refreshing, and is the reason why I'm still going to keep watching his stuff. (Though to be fair, Seagal is the exact opposite of Van Damme, and I still watch all of his stuff too.)

Cynthia Rothrock has a one-scene cameo, but a one-scene cameo is enough to get another tag, which puts her at 44. I don't even really know what she's doing here, she's the nurse checking in on Van Damme after he survived a shooting, and that's it. She doesn't even share the screen with Van Damme, who knows who she's even speaking to when they shot her lines. I thought when this first came out that she was higher billed on IMDb, but now I don't see her on the first page, so either I was wrong, or something changed and they shuffled the cast names to make her less prominent. It brings up an interesting concept in the world of IMDb, using listings on an actor's bio to sell a movie. Even if she's not on the first page of the movie's listing, when you go to Rothrock's bio, this is the fourth film from the top, and the only one of those four that's not rent VOD. If you click on it, and see it also has Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it's on Hulu, why wouldn't you want to see what that's about? And then you get this tough sit of a movie that doesn't know exactly what it wants to be, and Rothrock only has this one scene where she doesn't even fight at all. By then it's too late, Hulu and the movie got their stream, and you've been had. Will IMDb bait-and-switches become more prominent as we go on? We do have a couple movies in the hopper where she had bigger roles than this, The Last Kumite and Taken from Rio Bravo, so we'll be seeing more of her soon. Unless you're a completist like me, this isn't worth it if you're a fan of hers.

There are a bunch of other names in this, all playing parts of varying degrees. We mentioned Kristanna Loken above. She's the only other one who's tagged--still as "Painkiller Jane," because I haven't had the energy to retag her, even though this is only her sixth film on the site, so it wouldn't take that much work. It's crazy to think Painkiller Jane was still airing when we started the DTVC, it's been that long. We also had a couple James Cullen Bressack mainstays in Zack Ward, Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story, and Kristos Andrews. They play Russian mobsters here, and small, supporting roles. Then there were some nepo babies, with Weston Cage, and Van Damme's two sons Kris and Nicolas. Then we had MMA star Nick Diaz, former child star Spencer Breslin, and hip hop star Sticky Fingaz. I thought that was everyone, but totally forgot that Eric Roberts is in one shot where he orders a taco from a food truck. Your guess is as good as mine, but he was there.

One name I didn't mention, because I'm saving it for this paragraph, was the late Shannen Doherty. A 90s icon who grew to prominence with Beverly Hills 90210, then received a bad--and probably undeserved--reputation as being difficult to work with when she left that show. Soon she had two movies that were going to be her Hollywood breakouts: Blindfold: Acts of Obsession, which ended up going directly to the USA Network here in the US instead of getting a theatrical release; and Mallrats, Kevin Smith's follow-up to Clerks that wasn't as well-received, though I think people my age really loved it. Eventually she got on another TV show, Charmed, but that ended in more on-set strife, and from there she bounced around from TV movie to TV movie, which is where she ended up in the orbit of James Cullen Bressack, who cast her in a bunch of his films, with this one unfortunately being her last. I think one of the most enduring parts of her legacy is that when we think of 90210, we think of her, even though she was only on 111 of the show's 292 episodes, because she played such a compelling character, and they never really replaced her. Here's to you Ms. Doherty, you were one of the greats, and you'll be missed.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu here in the States. As I said above, it's a bit of a tough sit, and with barely any Rothrock too. Proceed at your own peril. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode we did on this, number 194 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23173980

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

Acts of Vengeance (2017)

I say this a lot, but this is one I'd been meaning to do for some time now. It's directed by Isaac Florentine, and he's one I want to do all the films of. The problem was, it was on Netflix, then dropped; then it was on Prime, then dropped. Finally, it was on Tubi, but this time, when I saw the 5-day warning before it was removed, I made it happen. Out of the 40+ critic reviews, this has also been covered by Chad Cruise at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Tom Jolliffe at Flickering Myth, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum.

Acts of Vengeance has Antonio Banderas as a defense attorney whose wife and daughter are killed. In his misery, first he puts himself through getting his ass kicked in underground fights, and then actually learns to fight for real. He also takes a vow of silence and reads Marcus Aurelius's Meditation, and strikes out to find out who killed his family. Could it be the Russian mob? Maybe a case of wrong place at the wrong time? But would that make for a good movie? Well, at that point the only other two named actors we have are Paz Vega and Karl Urban, which one do you think did it?

Look at the font on that title screen! Is this a DTV actioner released on Netflix in 2017, or a 1992 TV movie of the week? "This week on the CBS Movie of the Week: Acts of Vengeance: A Perry Mason Mystery." Now granted, Isaac Florentine is bringing it from an action standpoint, especially when we have Tim Man as the fight choreographer--obviously you're not getting that in a 1992 Perry Mason TV movie, though William R. Moses could mix it up a bit if you need him. The other thing is we start out of the gate with a fight, but then we get the dreaded freeze frame with narration that tells us it's time for flashback mode. I don't need my Isaac Florentine actioner told in flashback mode. It's fascinating in something like Tough Guys Don't Dance, which is like this mess of a thing that all works in spite of itself, but an Isaac Florentine actioner starring Antonio Banderas doesn't want to work in that kind of energy, it's supposed to be a 90-minute action fest that I can relax and watch with a bag of Doritos and a Dr. Pepper on a Saturday night. And ultimately this has enough of those moments, especially with the Florentine-Man combination on the fight scenes, that it does what I need it to do, even if other aspects didn't work for me.

With his 13th directed film on the site, Florentine is in a five-way tie for third most all time for directors. Also, once I watch Hounds of War, his latest film, I'll have seen each of his last 10 directed movies (11 if you count Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon, which he had a part in directing with Albert Pyun), and I'll only have three more of his directed films to watch after that, at which point I'll have done them all. As a DTV action fan, he's the kind of director that you want to have seen everything by, and this movie, despite its flaws, is a great example of why. Yes, I could've done without the flashback-narration style of storytelling that this employs, as it does get in the way of the action; but the action is another level. I don't care that I'm on a Bulgarian back lot posing as Pittsburgh when the fights look nice. This might not be one of his best films, but Florentine's movies have a higher floor than most other filmmakers in the DTV world, which is what you want when you're watching a film from a director of his caliber--don't let that title screen fool you!

This is our third Antonio Banderas film here at the DTVC, the others being Machete Kills and The Big Bang, which, if you're wondering, is now joint-most on the site among Antonios with Antonio Fargas, and one ahead of Antonio Margheriti's two. Anyway, he does enough of what you want from a lead in a movie like this, he's sufficiently Antonio Banderas, so when you see him on the tin, you're not disappointed. It looks like he's been doing more DTV stuff recently, especially with a director I haven't explored yet, Jon Keeyes, but that means we can expected to see more of him on here, which I'll be excited for. My favorite stuff of his is his Almodovar, especially the films from the late 80s/early 90s. What a career arc for him, from Almodovar, to one of the biggest names in Hollywood, to DTV flicks with Isaac Florentine, imagine the film fests you could do with his work. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Desperado, and Acts of Vengeance would make for an interesting night one, right?

Among the other names in this, we have Karl Urban and Robert Forster who we've seen on the site before. Urban plays the cop who helps Banderas out when he's getting over his wife, and then we find out he also dabbles in underground fighting. Can't see him doing a heel turn, can you? Then Forster has one scene as Banderas's father in-law, and he gives him a hard time at the funeral. While it was fun to see Forster, if I were Banderas's character I wouldn't have taken any shit from him the way he did, but that's just me. Someone we haven't seen here yet--and another Almodovar alum--is Paz Vega, though we did cover Rambo: Last Blood for the DTVC Extra podcast, and she was in that. She's really good here, and with Banderas gave this an elevated feeling--which was betrayed by that opening title screen, but what can ya do?

Finally, you'd think with the song "All I Have to Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers featured that that would be the focus of this penultimate paragraph, as I'm a big fan--and who wouldn't be, they were the greatest rock duo ever, even Rolling Stone agreed (though that list is pretty dubious beyond them at the top. Like no Hall and Oates at all, the duo that broke all the records the Everly Brothers set, or Steely Dan all the way down at 15? Classic Rolling Stone, I guess we should just be happy they didn't put Outcast and the White Stripes above the Everly Brothers too!). At this stage you could say I've already done the paragraph on the Everlys, but I needed to also mention that Urban's character was named "Strode," which is similar to "Stroad," a term in Urbanist circles that refers to a thoroughfare that tries to be both a multi-access street and a limited-access high-speed road, and ultimately fails at both. America is teaming with them, and as someone who doesn't drive, they're a menace. Four, sometimes six lanes of traffic, flanked by massive strip malls, fast food drive-thrus, and big box stores, all with massive parking footprints, none of which is intended for someone like me on foot. The stroad is American car dependency at it's most bonkers, and while you'd think living in a city like Philadelphia I can avoid them, unfortunately not quite, as Roosevelt Boulevard is the most dangerous stroad in the country, and even Oregon Avenue here in South Philly turns into one on both it's east and west termini, and while it's not as bad as the stroad of the suburban sprawl, if we have a housing emergency after the local hardware stores have closed, I need to navigate that mess of cars and parking and dangerous intersections to get what we need at Home Depot, and then navigate it all home. Every time Banderas said Urban's character's name, "Strode," I just thought of massive intersections with short, or maybe busted walk signals, and cars coming in and out of entrances that I need to dodge. It made my pulse elevate.

And with that, we leave my treatise on the stroad and American car dependency, and I'll wrap this up. It looks like no sooner than this was dumped from Tubi that Prime, Plex, and the Roku Channel picked it up, so you can catch it there. It probably fits better in an Isaac Florentine movie night than an Antonio Banderas one, but who knows, maybe pair it with Matador or Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down and it may work.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6288694

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

The Island (2023)

This is one I'd been meaning to do since it came out in 2023, but it's spent its entire streaming life on STARZ, which I lovingly refer to as "STARZ Purgatory," because that's one of the streamers I don't subscribe to. As luck would have it though, my cable company gave us a free week of STARZ, and I was able to make it happen. None of the other names we follow have covered this yet, perhaps owing to its status in STARZ Purgatory.

The Island has nothing to do with the Aldous Huxley novel Island, or the Peter Benchley novel The Island, and instead follows LAPD detective Mark (Michael Jai White), whose brother is murdered by a cartel leader (Edoardo Costa) on the small Caribbean island Mark grew up on. He returns home to find out what happened, and discovers that the cartel leader rules the island with an iron fist, and the local police are afraid to challenge him. Enter Mark, who is a bad, bad man, and will stop at nothing to take this cartel down. Will he succeed? And if so, at what cost?

This isn't a bad deal. White is exactly what you need as the lead, and then supporting characters played by Jackson Rathbone and White's wife Gillian are solid too, as is our baddie played by Edoardo Costa. We also have some really nice action sequences, again anchored by White, but also Rathbone and Gillian White do a great job as well. I also liked the setting on the Caribbean island, and the story thread about White having left and now coming back, and the tension that was there between him and some of the people he left behind. Beyond the unique location and the cultural Caribbean themes, this doesn't do much to step outside of the usual action film paradigm, but when I'm looking to spend 90 minutes to watch Michael Jai White and company beat up a bunch of baddies, I just want it to deliver, and this definitely does that.

With 28 films on the site now, the 30 Club is in sight for Michael Jai White, and he has a bunch of stuff on free streamers that I can cover, so we should see him get there by the end of the year. He has another film in STARZ Purgatory, MR-9: Do or Die with Frank Grillo, which I wasn't able to get to during the STARZ free week we had, so maybe if we get another free week I'll be able to make it happen. Either way, White proves again why he's one of the best in the business with this movie. He's the star, he knows what we want when we see his name on the tin, and he delivers. In my DTV top ten stars, I have White at 10th, behind Van Damme at 9, Dudikoff at 8, Lamas at 7, and Seagal at 6. It could be a bit before he passes any of those, but I think he's also been doing enough lately to keep himself above my number 11 all-time, Scott Adkins. Another great performance by him to add to an already Hall of Fame resume.

 
I was thinking this was our first film with White's wife Gillian, but she was also in Welcome to Sudden Death, which we've also covered. First one where she has a bigger role let's say, and she's great here, perfectly at home in the action and martial arts world. Thinking about someone we lost recently, Richard Norton, and the iconic pairings he had with Cynthia Rothrock, I could see the Whites carving out something similar here in the modern DTV world, fighting the good fight to keep DTV action viable and entertaining in a world of shrinking budgets and shrinking screentime for stars. One that I definitely need to get to now is Take Back, because it looks like she has a bigger role in it--not that her role here is insignificant by any means. I'm excited to dive into more of her stuff after this, and see what she has in store for us in the future as well.

As I mentioned above, this also has Jackson Rathbone of Twilight fame. His character early on is kind of a cross between a young Eminem and maybe a Simon Sez Dane Cook, complete with the beating up the perp while reading him his rights--you know that routine, "You have the right to remain silent..." punch... "you have the right to an attorney..." kick to the ribs... and so on. He redeems himself later and is a bit more easy to manage, but it got me thinking, just what hath Twilight wrought on the DTV world? Beyond Rathbone, we also have Kellen Lutz and Ashley Greene doing a bunch of DTV flicks, and as far as I can tell for all three, the main selling point for them is the fact that they were in Twilight. You could also tack on Cam Gigandet, though I feel like that's more of a stretch because he was only in the first one. Some enterprising DTV director should make a movie with all three of them, maybe with Peter Facinelli as the head baddie. They could be like a crack team of spies who travel the world and do action stuff. Perfect for Millennium Films to produce in Bulgaria, right?

Finally, I want to get back to the STARZ Purgatory thing. If you look in our tags you'll see the "Starz Play 11" (which I'm discovering now I misspelled "STARZ," that it's supposed to be all caps--who knew?), which was when STARZ was pulling all of their movies off of what was then called Netflix Instant. Initially STARZ was using Netflix as their streaming outlet, and it worked well for both Netflix and their burgeoning streaming service, and us subscribers who were just getting used to the idea of a streaming service to have all that content, which complimented the DVDs we were already getting as part of our subscription. STARZ eventually went out on their own, and they're a bit of a lone wolf in the streaming world, below all of the big names, they don't have any major properties to tie themselves to, or even a major technology like Apple+, yet somehow they've managed to get themselves exclusive rights to some of these DTV actioners, plus, before Sony struck a deal with Netflix recently, they also were doing Sony's streaming for them--hence Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home also being stuck in STARZ Purgatory as opposed to joining other Sony Spider-Man/Spider-Verse without Spider-Man titles on Disney+ or Netflix. And this wouldn't be so bad 15 years ago, when I would've just added The Island to my Netflix DVD queue, and watched it for the site that way, but now that's no longer an option. First, Netflix no longer does DVDs; second, this movie wasn't released on DVD in the States, as far as I can tell; and third, computers no longer come with DVD players, so how would I get images for the site? So unless I want to shell out $3.99 to rent it on Prime, STARZ Purgatory it is, and every once in a while my cable provider gives us a free week of STARZ so I can venture into that liminal world, watch as many films as I can, and then return to tell everyone the tale.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As I said above, here in the States, this is in STARZ Purgatory until further notice, so if you don't have STARZ, you'll need to rent it on Amazon. While I think it's a good time, I don't know that it's worth a rental when there are so many things available on free streamers, or on streamers you're probably already subscribed to. That said, hopefully it'll make its way out of STARZ Purgatory soon, because it's a solid film, and worth everyone checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21853596

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

Not Another Mistake aka Cross Fire (1989)

With the sad news that another legend had left us, this time Richard Norton, it was necessary to do a post in his honor, and I thought this would be a good one. I found it on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subtitles, which is all the better. In addition to us, the guys at Comeuppance have covered this too.

Not Another Mistake is a 'Namsploitation flick (hence the first letter of each word in the title spelling "NAM") where Norton, a former POW who escaped his captors, only to have his wife and daughter killed years after the war in a home invasion, has been called back into action when some intel tells the US military that the unit he left behind in the POW camp might still be alive, and they want him to go in and get them out. It won't be easy though, as he only has a rag-tag group of young recruits to help him, and if he's caught, Uncle Sam will disavow any knowledge of him or his team. As they slog through the jungle, dodging traps and ambushes, they're captured by some baddies. Is this where his old unit is being held? And will he be able to escape and save them?

Maybe not the best film, as it's a bit sloggy in points and a bit all over the place, but it gets the 'Namsploitation job done. Norton is exactly what you want out of him for the lead, it's his film, and he carries it accordingly, like he's hoisted one of his fallen comrades on his back and is lugging them to safety in the jungle. We also get a random recognizable face, in this case Wren T. Brown, plus all the requisite hut explosions, jeep and other vehicle flips--which also explode--and bad guy soldier shimmies as they're mowed down with M-16 fire--the only thing we were missing was a helicopter explosion, but man do they tease us with that! The interesting thing is it's long, 99 minutes to be exact, only like 90 seconds of which was credits; but it's a weird, almost fascinating kind of long. Director/writer Anthony Maharaj makes some interesting decisions, the kinds of things that American screenwriting schools would say you shouldn't do, like randomly showing us cattle crossing a dirt road that has no impact on the story at all, or a real-time shot of Norton packing up and hiding his parachute. Even the ending was off, because we have this clear ending point at the 69-minute mark, where Norton vanquishes the baddie, but then there's this 30 minutes of escaping by train, then a shoot-out on a hill while trying to get onto the rescue helicopter. It made no sense that they did that, but in a way it made it more fun. And that's ultimately what this film is about for me, beyond the great Norton, even when it's making the wrong decision, somehow it works in spite of itself.

Richard Norton is one of the best to do it, and I think this film is a great example of what he brought to the table. It feels like he knew exactly what a movie needed from him, and he knew how to deliver it. It's not just being a professional actor, though that's part of it. It's like he knew what a low-budget 'Namsploitation film was, why he was there, and what he needed to do to make it as entertaining as possible, which turns something like this from unremarkable into a fun time. He could do that in a post-apocalyptic Cirio H. Santiago film, a modern team-up actioner with Cynthia Rothrock, or a Hong Kong flick too. I'd say they don't really make 'em like Norton anymore, but the truth is, they never made 'em like him back then either, he was a one-off, but we as low-budget action fans are lucky we had him, and have so many great films of his to enjoy, like this one. Here's to you Mr. Norton, you're one of the greatest to do it, and you will be missed.

The idea that there were POWs in Vietnam who were still being held long after the war was debunked long ago, but in the late 80s, after the First Blood: Part II and Missing in Action boom, low-budget filmmakers based in the Philippines could pump tons of these babies out based on this myth, and Anthony Maharaj was no different. Now the new debunked hoax that's all the rage for movies is middle class white women and/or their daughters getting kidnapped at Hobby Lobbies and trafficked into Mexico. Maybe I'm biased, but the POW-MIA 'Namsploitations seem more fun, but maybe in twenty years there will be a kid born in the 2000s who starts the Straight-to-Streaming Connoisseur, and they'll be all over the trafficking films from the 2010s to the 2020s the way we are these Vietnam films made in the Philippines from the 80s to the 90s. While a lot of these are available on free streamers, many more are from rare VHS rips, like this one on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subs, which just makes it all the more fun when someone says something and we see it in Dutch on the screen below it. "They got Pappas." "Pappas is getroffen." That's another area where these 'Namsplotations beat their modern trafficking counterparts, a serious collector can find them on rare, foreign VHS, while the trafficking films often don't even have a physical media release. It begs the question: would I like some of these tired trafficking movies more if instead of streaming on Tubi or Hulu, I was watching VHS rips of them on YouTube with hard-coded foreign language subs? At the very least, it wouldn't hurt to try.

As many tropes as this film had, it also had a lot of trope teases. We mentioned the helicopter explosion tease above. I don't know how many of those we had, whether it was just helicopters looming in the vicinity while our heroes had explosive firearms, or situations like the train chase that just lent themselves to a helicopter in pursuit that could meet an explosive end, but there were many moments that would've led to a helicopter explosion in a similar film, but didn't bear fruit here. Another is the Presidential Portrait, there were multiple foreign US offices that scenes took place in, complete with American flags standing near the actors and bare walls behind them, just screaming out for a Bush 41 portrait, or maybe a Reagan depending on when this was shot. When we watch movies like this, we have boxes we need to check off (or tick off if you speak the King's English), and to come so close on some, only to be left wanting, is frustrating. I'm not usually an advocate of Lucasing films, but if you're still with us, Mr. Maharaj, I feel like maybe you should right some of these wrongs with a new version of the film. Just a thought.

Finally, as this is an in memoriam post, we need to give Mr. Norton a second paragraph. We often talk about the period from the mid-80s to the mid-90s as the Golden Age of DTV action, and no one was more instrumental in making that so than Richard Norton. He was larger-than-life, but could use that presence as either the hero, like he was in this film, or the head baddie, like in Lady Dragon or City Hunter. For me, it didn't get any better than him in a Canadian tuxedo beating the crap out of baddies in Rage and Honor 2, culminating in him taking down Patrick Muldoon while taunting him, "come on Tommy!" And that was the thing, even with that larger-than-life presence, he also seemed very down-to-earth, like after he cleaned out a bar full of heavies, you could sit down and have a beer with him. While he will most certainly be missed, the contributions he made to the world of cinema we love so much can't be understated, and as I said above, we're so lucky to have them.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on VHS, or on YouTube with hard-coded Dutch subtitles. If you've seen all of Norton's other big ones, this is a fun one to watch in honor of him. We'll miss him, but definitely not forget him. Thank you Mr. Norton, you were one of the greatest.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094920

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

Pure Danger (1996)

This is one that I probably should've seen a long time ago, let alone covered by now, but I hadn't, until Jon from The After Movie Diner had me on his show to discuss it--which, as of my writing hasn't been released yet, but it was a fun conversation, so keep an eye on our socials for when it is live, possibly on his new PM Entertainment Podcast instead. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Pure Danger has Howell (who also directed) as Johnie Dean (yes the name on the cover--"Between the two stars' names there is THE MAIN CHARACTER'S NAME"), a short-order cook on parole, who, with Becky (Teri Ann Linn), the server at the diner he works at, come into possession of a sack of diamonds. They're on the run from competing gangs of criminals that want to get their hands on them, and when Howell goes to his old friend (Rick Shapiro) to try and fence the ice, they end up back in the orbit of the gangsters that want to kill them. It's a wild, Spiro Razatos-action-directed ride as Johnie and Becky try to survive and get a better life for themselves. Oh, and Carrot Top appears in the final chase.

This is the fun PM ride you came for, but also it has other elements that make it even better. The C. Thomas Howell direction is fascinating. It's not like the ones Wings Hauser did, this is like wacky Tarantino, with his main character Johnie yucking it up with his mustache. Then there's the Italian gangster stereotypes, which PM was always kind of fond of anyway, but Howell has them ramped up to eleven--and perhaps 9 or 10 would've been better, because part of that ramping up to 11 is them using the N word a lot, especially directed at Leon, who's the leader of the other gang. While it feels like it's biting on Tarantino's use of the word in Pulp Fiction, in a way it also reveals how bad that was too, if that makes sense. Speaking of "if that makes sense," Carrot Top is driving a delivery truck in the big finale chase sequence. Yes, you read that right, and it's not someone who looks like Carrot Top that I'm calling Carrot Top for laughs. And the thing is, this is Carrot Top in a Spiro Razatos-action-directed chase, so it's next-level on its own, but then you add in Carrot Top and you have the kind of bonkers beauty you only find in the world of DTV. I don't put it above The Sweeper, but once you've seen that, you have to see this.

We're now at 48 PM flicks on the site. That's right, the 50 Club is in sight, and I have Steel Frontier already in the can from my guest spot on Jon Cross's PM Entertainment Podcast (episode number 3 in his archives), so we already have 49 slotted in. I recently updated my PM Letterboxd list to go from 10 to 15 movies, and this one slots in at 14 all-time. In the post-Pulp Fiction era, where the world of DTV was under constant attack by indulgent filmmakers trying to make talky, ironic gangster flicks, PM told Howell he could make his own, as long as it fit PM's rule of having action sequences every 15 minutes or so. Then they gave the action sequences to Spiro Razatos to direct, so that alone meant this was going to be great. From there though, because Howell was given the freedom to do what he wanted outside of the action, he could really go for it, with these crazy caricatures that both mock and pay homage to the genre he's working in. I think if this were made today, they'd tone down the use of the N word by the Italian gangsters--and maybe make them less stereotypical too--but outside of that, I don't know that something this fantastic would be made in the modern DTV world, which is too bad, but at least PM made it in 1996.

Spiro Razatos is closing in on the 30 Club, now with 27 films on the site, and according to IMDb we still have a lot of stuff of his from the 90s to cover, so the 30 Club shouldn't be a problem, maybe even this year. He brings it again in this one, with action sequences that lead to action sequences, shootouts that turn into foot chases, then car chases, which culminate in massive explosions. One thing he did a lot of in the final car chase was have two cars come together to smash into a third car in between them. It looked a lot like what he did in the Venom car chase, where Venom used his tentacles to smash cars together. I think that's part of what's so fun about his PM work, beyond how bonkers and beautiful it was, is you can see how he took some of these things in 90s DTV flicks, and used them in major productions that were earning $750 million to $1 billion at the box office in the 2010s. As a fan of the action genre, Razatos is just at another level, it's the kind of stuff where I'm like hook me up to an IV and mainline it right into my veins, and that's the action he gives us here.

It is kind of crazy that we're not getting to Howell until the sixth paragraph, but it just kinda worked out that way with PM and Razatos as our two Hall of Famers. That begs the question: should Howell get in? And it's a fair question, because he has some classics, to which I think we can add this one. We've inducted people with fewer films than him, and he now has two signature films in this and The Sweeper, so it's worthy of consideration, but we also have a stacked line-up of inductees for 2025 already, like Cole S. McKay--who we discovered upon finally tagging him belongs in the 50 Club!--Imperial Films, Daniel Bernhardt, and Kathleen Kinmont. That kind of locks things up for 2025, but there's always 2026, right? And if you're looking for Hall of Fame caliber Howell, after The Sweeper this is it. He's yucking it up with his mustache, but at the same time he's giving us a unique perspective, taking full advantage of the leeway PM gave him. This is the fourth Howell-directed film we've seen on the site, after The Day the Earth Stopped, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, and The Land That Time Forgot, all of those being Asylum films, and so it's probably no surprise that the first of his two PM films he directed that we're covering here shoots to the top of the list.

Finally, when we see Donny "Don" Most as Howell's parole officer early in the film, I figured he'd have this seventh paragraph locked up, and I'd spend it talking about Happy Days, maybe getting into how the "Jump the Shark" episode didn't kill the show, that they actually went on for another 5 seasons, many of which as the top-rated comedy in America. I was mentally drafting the paragraph as the film went on, only to discover Carrot Top--yes, the Carrot Top, Scott "Carrot Top" Thompson--driving the delivery truck in the final chase scene. What do you do with that? You just sit back and love it, that's all you can do. Looking at his IMDb, he was also in the Howell-directed Hourglass, so they must have been, or maybe even still are, friends, which may explain something else. Courtney Thorne-Smith appeared with Howell in the volleyball classic Side Out (another plus for Howell's Hall of Fame case). When Carrot Top was making Chairman of the Board, did Howell suggest Thorne-Smith for his leading lady in that film? Which would mean Side Out set in motion a series of events that led us to Thorne-Smith going on Conan O'Brien to do publicity for the season finale of Melrose Place, where Chairman of the Board was mentioned, and Norm MacDonald famously took it down. Also mentioned in that appearance, Donny "Don" Most, so it all comes full circle.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is on YouTube, Fawesome, Plex, and the Roku Channel here in the States. I mention all of these, because some have edited-for-TV versions, so you want to be careful of that. The YouTube one is uncut, so that one's safe. This is another fun PM ride, well-worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117406

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