Recently I had Mitch from the Video Vacuum on the podcast to discuss this film, and all the films of Andy Sidaris; also to discuss the career of Julie Strain, who unfortunately left us recently. I ended up watching not only this one, but all of the LETHAL Ladies films Sidaris did, because they're all on Tubi. I'll be covering them in subsequent reviews, but I figured I'd start with this one since we did the pod on it. Also, you can see what Mitch thought of this in his Sirens of Skinamax post on Julie Strain over on his site.
Dallas Connection has Julie Strain as the head of an assassination ring that's been assassinating scientists in an attempt to get a hold of the sophisticated state-of-the-art military satellite they're in charge of. To handle a gang this bad, the big guns need to be called in, and that's I/WAR, the best of the best, who include Bruce Penhall, Mark Barriere, and Samantha Phillips. Their task is to protect the final scientist in the group, Sidaris mainstay Rodrigo Obregon. Can this team get to the bottom of things, take out Strain's evil team, and save the world? Fortunately you'll find out the answer in only 90 minutes.
This was a really fun time. It's low-budget 90s DTV action the way it's meant to be. I think the level of nudity might make it bad for a group bad movie night depending on who joins you; but if you're someone looking for a 90-minute time killer on Tubi, you can do a lot worse than this. There's a great cast that completely buys in on what's happening, which I think always helps. Also, while this was directed by Andy's son Christian, his son maintains the feel of an Andy Sidaris film so much so that you wouldn't know Andy didn't direct it if you didn't look. I can't believe we're almost 1100 movies into our journey here at the DTVC and this is the first Sidaris film I've done, but better late than never, and now we have some catching up to do.
Right now Cynthia Rothrock is the only woman in the DTVC Hall of Fame, and I was trying to think of who else might belong, but no one was really coming to mind. Pam Grier sounded good, but she hasn't really done any DTV work; Mimi Lessos was another name that came to mind, and she's already in Comeuppance Reviews' Hall of Heroes (the only other woman in their Hall after Rothrock), but I wasn't sure if she had a CV big enough; the same might be said of Karen Shepherd, again, really great, but is the CV there? The whole time, the answer was staring me in the face: Julie Strain. I don't know if another star embodies the DTV ethos as much as she does, and the fact that I've barely touched her filmography on here is more a reflection on me than it is on her. I think for people getting into her work, this is a good place to start, as she plays the femme fatale role here in a way that only she can: equal parts sinister and sexy, but with both equal parts turned up to 11. Here's to you Julie Strain, you were one of the all-time greats, and we'll really miss you.
Anyone who's been rockin' with the DTVC for a long time may remember me using the term "Bruce Penhall Julie Strain level" to describe how low-budget a movie is. I think I got that idea from the fact that these films were often on at 3am on TBS, and there was something about them in comparison to the slightly higher-budget films that were on before them that made these feel much lower in quality. Since that time in the early-to-mid-2000s, something major has changed for me: I created the DTVC and I've seen many films since that many levels below this. The same way I wish I could go back and change the review of a Frank Zagarino film where I called him "a lesbian fitness instructor," or my initial Mean Guns review where I said a "person who does car commercials could have done a better job than this," using "Bruce Penhall Julie Strain level" to describe how low-budget a movie is showing how little I knew at the time about what I was doing. These movies really aren't any more low-budget than the PM stuff we love, or the Philippine 'Namsploitation we cover a lot of. We learn and we grow I guess.
The thing about Bruce Penhall that's most interesting as I look back on these movies, is his was often the name on the tin that got me to watch. I remembered him on the later seasons of CHiPs, so if I saw him listed on the cast or in the description, I'd give it a look out of curiousity. If a name like Bruce Penhall's, just because he worked on CHiPs, is enough to get me to watch something, imagine what having Bruce Willis on the cover of a Fake Shemp-fest does to get people to stream or rent it? The thing is though, this is no Penhall bait-and-switch, he's in it a lot, and he's going for it as an actor. One scene in particular, where he's hooking up with Julie K. Smith, he may have gone for it too much, because word on the street is his wife wasn't too fond of it.
Finally, I don't know why it took so long, but we're finally tagging Gerald Okamura. He's in this one as a member of Julie Strain's gang of baddies, and he does exactly what we expect Gerald Okamura to do: just be Gerald Okamura. He's like the reliever on a baseball team who comes into the game and throws fastballs and gets outs. I think we sometimes forget, or take it for granted, that low-budget DTV films have guys like him in them who can come in with little fanfare and do their part, but they're often part of the difference between whether a film works, like this one, or it doesn't. If you're curious, Okamura clocks in with 9 tags to start with. Somehow I thought he'd have more, but 9 is still a good number.
And with that, let's wrap things up. This, like all the rest of Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies movies are available on Tubi. You can do like I did, and just watch them all, but it's not necessary to have seen the ones before this one to get what's happening here. This is a just fun, 90s, low-budget DTV movie, and sometimes that's all you need. Also, the podcast I did with Mitch is still up in our archives, and is worth checking out.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112782/
And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!
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