Crackerjack has Thomas Ian Griffith as Jack Wild, a Chicago cop who's constantly on the edge, especially after his family is murdered in a car bombing, leading his fellow officers to dub him "Crackerjack." When his brother and sister in-law convince him to join them at a resort in the Rocky Mountains, things are looking up, as he meets beautiful activities director Nastassja Kinski, and she's into him. Unfortunately he suffers the ultimate cramp in his style when Christopher Plummer and his terrorist gang take over the resort and hold everyone hostage. Now to get that second date with Kinski, Griffith needs to take out all these baddies and save the day. Will he make it happen?
15-year-old me likes calling this "ass-Crackerjack," but it's not that bad, and I think beyond that, it's maybe gotten better in the past 27 years; by the same token, it is still a Die Hard rip-off, right down to the Classically-trained English actor playing a German terrorist leader. I really liked Plummer's baddie though, he brought the same higher quality Rickman did in Die Hard, which enhanced the film. I also liked Griffith's fly in the ointment character--a Crackerjack prize, so to speak, but one you don't want to find--he's a solid action lead and shows it here. Those elements, combined with Kinski as a great female lead, elevate this beyond the standard Die Hard rip-off, and then when you factor in the 90s nostalgia and practical effects, this holds up much better and is a more fun time killer than the DTV actioners we've seen released 20-25 years later.
I discovered as I was writing this that Thomas Ian Griffith didn't have a tag yet, and the only other film of his we've reviewed here was Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision, back on May 21st, 2007. I don't know why that is, because I like Thomas Ian Griffith, and I imagine when I did Timecop 2 I expected Griffith to be a mainstay. In looking at that review, I saw in the comments in 2011 Ty from Comeuppance said they were going to do a Griffith week, and I said then that I had some films myself in the queue to watch, and must not have gotten around to them. In looking at his career, he was tapped with Excessive Force to be the next Seagal, and I think this film was supposed to be a continuation of that, but when Excessive Force didn't have the success expected, Crackerjack may have suffered as a result and ended up here with us. I was looking up his IMDb bio, and it seems like a lot of his 90s stuff isn't available on streaming, so I'll have to track it down on YouTube or other places first. Hopefully it won't be another 15 years before we see him again on here--he at least has the tag now.
When this came out in 1994, if I'm remembering right, there was no "Die Hard in a [blank]" category of movies, we just called this a Die Hard ripoff. It's fascinating that there have been so many Die Hard ripoffs since then that it almost has its own action sub-genre, and this now holds up as one of the better ones in that sub-genre. Is that a good or a bad thing though? The Die Hard ripoff seems to be an easy go to for low-budget actioners, because it takes place in one location, making production cheaper; and from a writing standpoint the paradigm is already in place, you just need to fill in the template. It's a cynical approach to filmmaking that feels like it has no respect for its audience, and I do feel like we get some of that here. They pull so much from Die Hard that it feels more like a remake, the way The Fast and the Furious was a remake of Point Break without saying it. Again, I think where this is better than the myriad other Die Hard ripoffs is it has a better cast and better performances, and I did like the action we got; but it is still a ripoff.
And as I mentioned above, Christopher Plummer was one of those great performances. I think there's a sense that an actor of his caliber in a movie like this is slumming it, but Plummer came from that real professional acting tradition, where actors worked, and if you look at his IMDb bio, he was working right up until the end. Around this time, he was in Wolf and Delores Claiborne, a narrator for the TV cartoon Madeline, and was in the TV movie Harrison Burgeron. That makes this seem like another job in that mix, but he delivers the kind of professional performance you expect when you see his name on the tin. This isn't the way we see volume acting anymore, it's more "how many one-location parts can Eric Roberts fit in this year?" or "how many films will Bruce Willis be Fake Shemped through?" I think this is another way this film excels past its modern counterparts, because it isn't as common for the Christopher Plummers of later generations to give these kinds of performances in these films.
Like the candy, Thomas Ian Griffith was the hidden prize for the baddies, and in that sense he really lived up to his name. I realized in watching this that I hadn't had Cracker Jacks in years, but I still like the idea of getting a small toy prize along with my snack. It would be great if my bag of Doritos had a small plastic animal buried somewhere inside, so when the MSG and sodium make me light-headed and the calories harden my arteries, and I can enjoy how cute this small plastic animal is and feel better about my life, despite having just crushed a whole bag of Doritos at 42 years old. Or maybe at the bottom of a beef jerky bag, there could be a small plastic bull, so I could understand that there was a real being who gave his life so I could enjoy this sweet jerky-chew. Why did this not catch on beyond the Cracker Jack model?
And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the US this is available for free on Tubi, also IMDb TV, Plex, and Crackle. Since it's free then, this is a fun nostalgic romp that's worth the 90 minutes of your time. Hopefully more of Griffith's 90s DTV output will appear on these streaming services soon too.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109494
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