The Last Mercenary aka Le dernier mercenaire (2021)

When I saw this was on Netflix, I really wanted to check it out... and then I saw the almost two-hour runtime. Ouch! But it's Van Damme, and unlike his fellow action stars, he doesn't put out as much anymore, so if he has a movie out and it's direct to Netflix, I should give it a look, despite a possible tough sit. In addition to us, Chris at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

The Last Mercenary has Van Damme as a former agent for the French government who, on his last mission, requests that his son get immunity from any crimes and money from the government as payment for Van Damme's service to his country. Unfortunately, many years later, a drug kingpin who likens himself to Tony Montana in Scarface has gained access to Van Damme's son's immunity, and has been using it to commit crimes. Even that wouldn't have been an issue, until a government worker decides to revoke the immunity and the son is falsely accused of the kingpin's crimes. This means our man, Mr. Van Damme, needs to come out of retirement to clear his son's name. But will that estranged son who's never met his father welcome said father's help?

This was fun for me. It felt like a 90s Van Damme blockbuster in the tone and action. It is a French film, and while we have a dubbed option on Netflix, I opted for the French with English subtitles. The fact that you can go either way is nice, as you don't always have that option with streamers. The Van Damme we get is invested and having fun, and the characters around him were great too. There were moments where the humor was a bit much, like when the goofy government worker who initially revoked Van Damme's son's immunity needs to go back to his job, but can't tell anyone he's been working with Van Damme, so Van Damme punches him in the neck, which causes his face to swell up so he can't talk. I think for my sensibilities, I could've done with about 50% of those jokes, but the nostalgia factor of seeing Van Damme in something like this again mitigated that a lot for me, and I was able to overlook it. Rounding out the cast, I was a big fan of Assa Sylla as Dalila, Van Damme's son's friend. I also liked, among the many great performances, Samir Decazza as his son, Alban Ivanov as the worker who revokes the immunity, Eric Judor as the government worker helping the kingpin, and Miou-Miou as Marguerite, Van Damme's old friend. I think if the runtime, the French language, and the French humor are okay with you, you'll have fun seeing Van Damme in something reminiscent of his 90s heyday. 

Van Damme is a big reason why this works, and I think to see someone at this stage in his career looking for projects he can sink his teeth into as opposed to cashing in on as many short roles as he can, is refreshing. He's also playing older characters, especially in this film and The Bouncer--which was also another film where he spoke in his native French. The fact that he's more selective means he probably won't get the tags to make the 40 Club or higher, but I think this might be a case where quality trumps quantity. This is movie number 33 for him, and we have, by my count, 4 more that we could review here, but we could potentially tack on a couple of his big screen roles like we did with The Expendables to get him over the finish line. In a way, we're already doing that by covering this film, because it's only technically DTV because it was released on Netflix here in the States. Plus, with all the different disguises he had in this, I couldn't not review this and miss the chance to post some of these screens!

Speaking of which, Netflix, and with it Hulu, Prime, and other streamers, have started releasing content that pushes the idea of what's DTV. Big names, big budgets, sometimes limited theatrical releases so they qualify for award season, this isn't the Italian shot in the Philippines exploding hut flick or PM vehicle flip every 10 minutes actioner DTV of the 80s and 90s. In a case like this, where we have a DTVC Hall of Famer like Van Damme, it's an obvious choice, but looking at movies like Prey or Pig, I want to cover them--and in the case of Pig, I've dedicated a podcast episode with Mitch from The Video Vacuum to it--but do they get away from the essence of what this site is all about? One idea I had was to fit those films in on some of my Tuesday off-podcast posts. In the past I did Friday Wild Card posts where I covered all kinds of films like Showgirls and Batman and Robin, so there has been some precedent for that. It is an amazing thing to see how DTV and streaming has grown since the site started 15 years ago. In 2007, Netflix was just barely rolling out their instant service, and I got a Roku, only to see the app freeze constantly. They upgraded it soon after, but the content was mostly DTV stuff and old TV shows, making it great for me and the site; but sometime after that, they released Arrested Development, and their original programming was born, which has totally changed everything. Now it's up to us to see how we're going to move with that change.

And to see how Van Damme has moved through that period as well has been interesting. In the late 2000s he was doing a lot of standard DTV clunkers with the occasional bright spot, then he does JCVD, and follows it up with his film-stealing performance as the baddie in Expendables 2. In the 2010s he went back to the DTV well, but it wasn't like those 2000s films, and now he's here in this Netflix original, recreating that 90s big budget glory in a French production. Maybe a good comp is Dolph, but Dolph never quite had the highs Van Damme did, and his come back in the late 2010s with films like Aquaman and Creed has a different feel--a "Dolph-aissance" as Mitch from the Video Vacuum termed it, a rebirth that has him getting big screen roles again. Van Damme on the other hand hasn't had a rebirth, so much as he's taking this later stage of his career on his terms. Whether it's big or not, they're the movies he wants to make. It's a shame that Black Water didn't turn out well with the two of them, but maybe it couldn't turn out well, because they're going on divergent paths that didn't need to cross--or rather the better crossing was Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning--but seeing them individually have these great performances in the late 2010s/early 2020s has been fun to see.

Finally, as you know if you've been following the site, I'm a huge baseball fan, and while I'm a Red Sox fan, meaning I'm contractually obligated to hate the Yankees, I loved seeing this '47 Brand Yankees cap on Van Damme in this scene. I can't tell for sure, but that looks like my favorite '47 style, the Clean Up. At one time I had an idea that I'd get one for every team whose ballpark I saw a game at (which sits at 10 as of this writing), but I realized it was kind of a waste of money, because the only hat I ever wear around here is my Phillies one, and then when I go back to New England, I wear a Portland Sea Dogs one. T-shirts are probably better, but even then, how many do I need to have from different teams? And some of those shirts are over $30, that's the price of ticket to another game! I'm also realizing that I'm such a baseball geek that I spent the better part of this paragraph talking about Van Damme's Yankees cap, when he's also sporting that too sweet mustache. Add in the shirt and glasses, and he'd be fantastic as a cameo in a Coen Brothers film playing a driving instructor, which is what he's doing in this scene. But I also still love the hat...

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Netflix. At an hour and 50 minutes, either in French or dubbed in English, it might feel like a bit much, and I get that, especially when you factor in the French style of humor; but the feel of this, bringing me back to the 90s Van Damme blockbuster, made it worth it for me.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12808182

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Renegades (2022)

I'd been waiting on this one since I reviewed Nemesis (2021), but unfortunately ended up waiting a bit too long, as the screener screenwriter Tom Jolliffe had Shogun Films send me unfortunately ended up in my spam folder. Luckily I decided to check there two weeks later, found it, and am now able to make this review happen. 

Renegades has the great Lee Majors as a former Green Beret who's murdered by a gang run by Louis Mandylor, after Majors tries to get them to leave his daughter, Patsy Kensit, alone. This is right after he helps Nick Moran, a down on his luck former special forces soldier whose father served with Majors, and when Moran hears of the murder, he goes to Majors's former fellow soldiers, Billy Murray, Ian Ogilvy, and Paul Barber, so they can exact their revenge on Mandylor. At the same time, Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott is a police detective who's been trying to take Mandylor down, and when she discovers that Moran and crew are going after Mandylor, she has a decision to make: stop them so she can do her job and let the law handle it, or stand back and see if these older former soldiers can do what the law can't. Will they prevail?

This was fantastic. When I reviewed Nemesis earlier this year, both Jonathan Sothcott and Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott told me if I enjoyed that, I'd love this, and they were right. Simple concept: evil, ruthless baddie, against a fun, ragtag group of underdog heroes that you can't help rooting for, and I think this would've been great on its own if that's all this was; but from there, the performances were great, even from the cameos like Danny Trejo and Michael Pare; plus the way the story grew organically, allowing for the nuance to develop in certain aspects, like what Nick Moran's character was going through as a former soldier trying to make it in civilian life. It's the kind of thing a churn-and-burn DTV actioner wouldn't have the bandwidth to pull off, but here it's handled with a level of depth and allowed to flourish in a way I didn't come in expecting. There were other aspects I appreciated as well, like how we get the scene of Mandylor beating up a rival gang member he captured cut with and juxtaposed with the scene of Moran's character talking to the other guys about what he's been going through, trying to move onto civilian life after the war. It was like we had two distinct forms of intensity, one that's more common in an action film, and one that we might see more in an indie drama, and we're shuttling back and forth between both. As a device I liked it, because it allowed those more dramatic elements to flourish without weighing the film down in what is ultimately an action film. This might not be the best film for Christmas, but considering we all get the 26th off this year, I can't think of a better way for us Yanks to celebrate Boxing Day than to fire this one up.

When I reviewed Nemesis I was really big on Nick Moran's performance, and he came back in this and was even better. The opening of the film is anchored by him, and he really leans into who that character is, so it was great to see him hit that out of the park. As I mentioned above, I also liked the way the story moved organically, it allowed Moran's character's past to take on a depth that we wouldn't see in most DTV flicks, and I think that's important. My wife and I were watching an old episode of Emergency! recently, and it had the trope of the crazed Vietnam vet who's violent and seeing ghosts, and while we've come a long way in our depiction of veterans in popular media, the idea of the combat vet suffering from PTSD is one that's often handled in films in a way that's too reductive, which then often leads it to being exploitative. The fact that this film didn't do that with Moran's character was refreshing, but I also think a sign of how the people working at Shogun Films not taking the churn-and-burn approach to film making can give us something like this more nuanced, three-dimensional hero, so I'm looking at it and saying "this isn't the usual bearded, grimacing, white guy former special forces dude I'm used to seeing, this guy has me pulled in and invested, and I'm ready to see him and everyone else through the rest of this film." When I talked with screenwriter Tom Jolliffe about his previous film When Darkness Falls, and the previous Shogun film Nemesis, he mentioned the slow burn aspect both of those films had. I think Tom's screenplay here does a great job of drawing on that slow burn aspect enough to let things grow organically, even if the action kicks in sooner than it does in those others; but for the slow burn to work, even in the more limited capacity in which it's used here, it needs a performance like Moran's, plus the directing and editing that trusts it'll all work, and we definitely get all of it.

Speaking of the directing, Daniel Zirilli is a name that's popped up on our site quite a bit, so when I found out he was working with Shogun Films and Jonathan Sothcott on this, I was excited to see what would come of that collaboration. The last Zirilli-directed film we looked at on the site was the Dolph flick Acceleration, and while I enjoyed that, I didn't enjoy it as much as this because it had too many other elements that weighed the film down when it didn't need to, while this had a simple premise that I think they were able to add elements to--like Moran's character's development--in ways that didn't impede the fun and the action, which ended up enhancing the film overall. Like I've been doing with Shogun Films, I've also been following Zirilli on Instgram, and it's fun to see what projects he's working on and who he's working on them with. In that sense, like Sothcott, Jolliffe, and the rest of Shogun, Zirilli's a fellow fan who's making these movies for fans like us, and it's great to see it all come together like it did here.

Also from Nemesis we have Billy Murray and Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, with Murray as a part of the crew of retired soldiers, and Nerissa Sothcott as the Scotland Yard Detective trying to take Mandylor's crime syndicate down. Having Murray with Paul Barber and Ian Ogilvy really made that gang extra fun, which not only made it easy for us to root for them and be invested in their success, but also worked as a good juxtaposition from Moran's more serious character. I could see Murray in anything really, so to see him turning in such a fun performance is even better. With Nerissa Sothcott's character, I think because the only other main female character was Patsy Kensit's, and she was more set up as the damsel in distress at the end, we needed Sothcott's to make the film less boys club-ish. I also really liked how they used her character as the bridge to get Michael Pare's cameo in the film, because it both got us Pare in a way that worked, but also set up her character less as someone passively letting Moran and company take care of her Mandylor problem for her, but rather strategically weighing her options on whether or not this is a good play. Finally, with the human trafficking element to Mandylor's crime syndicate, Nerissa Sothcott's character also prevents the film from being too "women are helpless and need their White Knight male heroes to come and save them," and we especially get this kind of mitigation when Mandlyor's character makes a crack about Sothcott potentially dancing for him at his club, and she shuts him down. This is another area where Shogun gets it right. Most DTV flicks would take her role, whittle it down to a day's worth of shooting, and get a big name like Pare to play it so they can stick him on the tin. Instead, Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott takes the part and invests more in it, and the result is something we didn't know we needed, but helps to give the film more depth and make it more enjoyable--plus we still get our fun Pare cameo too.

Finally, two last points. First, I liked the way the film used London as a character by giving us these beautiful establishing shots of the city, the images we in the rest of the world think of when we hear "London;" and then jumping down into the grittier underbelly of gangs and organized crime that me on my 1997 class trip there was oblivious to--though I did see a man speeding the wrong way up a street in a stolen car, so there was that. The other piece was the use of Mandylor's character as an outsider by being an Aussie. Too often in the States films use African American or Latin American gangs as a way to depict this concept of the outsider "invading" a neighborhood, from which the overtones and dog whistles are obvious. Having the character be from a Commonwealth country though, we could have the outsider "invading" London aspect without the racism that usually comes with that approach. To further divorce it, we have Danny Trejo's character playing someone who's an adopted Londoner further depicting Mandylor and his gang as the outsiders. I don't know that this was a conscious decision, or more like "we have Louis Mandylor as the baddie, what can we do with that?" but I appreciated the way it worked out.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can get this through VOD in the States, and I think it's also available on Blu-ray in Germany. For the UK, January 30th it'll be available as well. This is well worth checking out. You can support indie filmmakers and enjoy a fun actioner while you do it. What's better than that?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11696276

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Pups Alone (2021)

I watched this recently for a podcast episode that I did with Mitch Lovell from the Video Vacuum, and figured I'd break from my documentary review on Christmas tradition to get this posted, because I couldn't think of a better time to do it later. In addition to Mitch on his site, our friend Sean Malloy at I Must Break This Podcast did an episode on this too, plus last year he interviewed director Alex Merkin, which is also worth checking out.

Pups Alone is about a widower inventor and his daughter and dog who gets a new job with a pet tech company, which moves him out to a gated community. When they get there, one of their neighbors, Dolph, discovers that the widower has an invention that translates a dog's thoughts into words, so he hatches a plan: while everyone who works for the company is at the Christmas retreat in Big Bear, he'll hire two bumbling crooks, one of whom is Nicholas Turturro, to steal the invention. At the same time, the widower's dog is staying behind, and when he gets wise to the bumbling thieves' intentions, he gathers up the rest of the neighborhood dogs to use the widower's Rube Goldberg contraptions to stop them.

And that's it... or is it? No that's like a fraction of it, there are also endless minutes of padding, endless scenes where the dialog goes on too long, and endless bad jokes like dogs farting in people's faces and blind elderly women getting robbed. They even used this cartoon story board device to advance the plot, and it was still too weighed down. "But Matt," you say, "this is a kids movie, of course you're going to be bored!" I hear you, so I went to a site called Parent Movie Review, which was listed on the critic reviews for this, to get a different perspective. Here is what the reviewer, Savannah Lee, had to say about her 5-year-old son's reaction to this: "my 5-year-old spent the whole run time jumping on the couch, leaving the room to find toys to play with, and just generally being uninterested. For a film to not even be able to hold his attention is a feat unto itself." And there you have it. I think even as a Dolph completists, the novelty of seeing him in Christmas sweaters or dressed like Santa--or playing, as Mitch put it, the Richard Kind scheming character--is tough for the kind of slog this movie is, and maybe that sums it up best.

Dolph Lundgren is 65 years old, and now has 65 films reviewed on this site. No one else has their age number of films reviewed, Gary Daniels is closest with 56 films at 59 years old. Since I started the site, we've called Dolph the Babe Ruth of DTV action, but with the numbers he's amassed, maybe the Wayne Gretzky of DTV is more apt. Either way, with the volume of Dolph we already have here, there was no way I couldn't do this film, so whether it was good or bad I was stuck with it. That being said, Dolph playing against type was on its own a fun thing to see. Mitch's Richard Kind comparison was the most apt, only he played him as a kind of hyped-up jock type, slapping the widower on the back and generally being rough with him like William Zabka in an 80s teen movie. During this DTVC journey we've seen Dolph fighting with foam sharks, wearing a toga in a Christian movie, playing the drums in a rock band, and even acting opposite TV talk show hosts Montel Williams and Jerry Springer in separate non-related films. Christmas movie was one of the few feathers he didn't have in his cap yet, so now he has it. I guess "you're welcome"?

The thing about the modern Christmas movie, is most are made assembly-line style for companies like Hallmark that need to pump out a bunch. We'll grab some former stars from the Island of Misfit Actors, find a nice, quaint, Canadian town to pass as an American one, then use any of three or four paradigms to create a nice 80-minute story that fits the beats of the constant commercial breaks modern TV has here in the States. While it sounds crass, one side benefit is no matter how rough the movie is, it'll always get us out on time. I think that's why my wife and I enjoy them. Here's Brandon Routh, former Superman, playing a kind, cooky fireman who needs to find homes for 9 kittens that were abandoned at the fire station. Oh wait, his former love interest is a vet who just happens to be home for the holidays? Sure, it's contrived, but Brandon Routh is fun, and again, the film gets us in and out on time. Because this move was DTV instead of made-for-TV, it had no such constraints; but couldn't there have been someone saying "this is too much?" One thing I know I get from the Hallmark Christmas movie is a modicum of restraint. Usually I'd like to see Nicholas Turturro mentally calling his agent while doing a scene where he has to pretend to react to having a dog farting in his face, but when the scene goes on forever, it becomes too much. 

The other piece of this is the talking dog aspect, which is usually an easy element to make work and anchor a movie like this around. The problem is, it too was kind of all over the place. First off, as Mitch pointed out, the dogs were kind of nondescript. I mean, I really liked Charlie, the star dog, but even he had a pulled-off-the-street quality to him. Pulled-off-the-street is good if I'm out and see someone walking their dog, at that point any dog who's jaunting around and sniffing things is great. But in a movie it takes on an early 90s shot on video with the director's friends kind of movie quality. Beyond that, the actual dog action was weird. There was this construct where Danny Trejo's bulldog character was the leader, or "Dogfather," and he had the other dogs harassing Charlie. It was an odd construct that weighed the film down in ways it didn't need. Then they tried to do the "dog hates the mailman" thing, but it was Charlie attacking the mailman, which I wasn't sure if in that case it was supposed to be an applause scene? Who likes to see mail workers attacked by dogs? And how does that endear me to our star dog any more? Animals should be an easy win for a movie, but here they ended up being another misstep.

Finally, as we've been doing lately, I want to get back to Dolph for a second paragraph to look at where we stand with his career. At 65, the next stop on the Dolph Train is the 70 Club. With that in mind, I have Section 8, Operation Seawolf, and 4Got10 all watched and ready to review. We also have Expendables 3 which I still have only done on a podcast episode, and then Sharknado 5, which only has him in a cameo, but he's in it. But would we want to review that for his 70th film? I checked, and for his 60th we did Female Fight Club, and that was a milestone as well because it was the last Dolph DTV flick I needed to watch--and depending on how you count Seal Team, I'm still caught up ahead of his 2023 releases. Looking at our past with him, we've also done some of his big screen releases, like The Expendables and Rocky IV, so Expendables 4 is probably in play as well. As I said above, it's been a great journey, and based on his upcoming projects, not one that's going to end anytime soon on his side, so it feels like it's on us to keep the site going so we can continue to catalog them.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This will unfortunately go down as one of the more difficult entries in our need to catalog all of Dolph's films here on the site. As of this writing, you can get this free on the Roku Channel here in the States. If you feel the need to dive in, I suggest planning multiple sits, maybe three or four. And to hear us discuss the film in more detail, you can check out our episode in the podcast archives. It was another fun episode, and great to have Mitch on as always!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6344584

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Vendetta (2022)

Back in October I had failed to secure a guest for an upcoming podcast, so I decided to fire up a few Bruce Willis DTV flicks on streaming sites and discuss them on a solo episode. Of the myriad options available to me, this one piqued my interest because it has one of my favorite actors, Theo Rossi, plus the idea of Thomas Jane and Mike Tyson in addition to Rossi and Willis had to be good too. But then there was that grimacing bearded white guy on the cover. That couldn't mean anything bad, could it?

Vendetta is about said bearded, grimacing white guy (Clive Standen), former special forces (aren't they always) with a beautiful wife and daughter (aren't they always) whose world comes crashing down when a gang member kills said daughter. Standen gets revenge on him in classic grimacing bearded white guy style, which draws the ire of the gang member's brother, Theo Rossi, and dad, Bruce Willis. So then they kill the wife, but don't bother finishing off Standen, who then recovers, and seeks revenge, with help from a pipe-smoking Thomas Jane. Will his revenge be worth it? And how much of a role will Mike Tyson have?

 
This thing was just a mess from the word go, which means I don't know where to start. The story was long for 96 minutes, which is saying a lot, because 96 minutes usually feels compact. Theo Rossi was great, which introduced a heavy Destro Effect, because Standen's hero was so one-note and uncompelling we just had to gravitate toward Rossi. Even in Rossi's death at the end, he's almost laughing at the movie, like "my death serves to show how pedestrian and one-note this film is." There's this part at the end where Rossi and his gang are chasing Standen and Jane, and Jane calls Mike Tyson, who runs a chop shop. Tyson's like "yeah, lure them here, we'll take them down," and he gets his gang together to confront Rossi's gang. I thought "okay, it's on then!" But it wasn't, Rossi just went in and shot them all. The Willis of course is scant, but he and Rossi are great as father and son, so much so that I wasn't upset that we only got so much Willis. I think with the cast, if it hadn't been so relentlessly paint-by-numbers, and had a hero who was more fun and engaging, it might have worked; but unfortunately it had none of that.

We last did a Willis film back in January, so almost a year ago, and that one was Precious Cargo, which was also following up a podcast episode. At that time, we didn't know he was squeezing as many of these movies as possible in because he would have to retire due to his aphasia. At that time too I'd decided to take a moratorium on reviewing them, because they were taking on this cynical, assembly line quality, especially the Emmett-Furla-Oasis ones. I think there still is that cynicism in how this one was made, but seeing Willis as a gangster again was fun--more fun than the crime boss he was in Precious Cargo I think. This is now 11 Willis films on the site, but with the podcast episode this was on, plus one I released with Ty from Comeuppance a month later, and one we have coming next month, I now have a lot of Willis in the can. I don't know if I'll get to it all over the next year, or if it's even worth giving all six of those other films reviews. I feel like there are guys out there like Fred Williamson, Cirio H. Santiago, or Robert Ginty who need more love than that, so I guess we'll see--I guess we'll always have them in the can in case I come across a week where I didn't get anything watched.

As I mentioned above, I'm a big fan of Theo Rossi. In particular, I loved him as Hernan "Shades" Alvarez in the Netflix Luke Cage series. He brings an indie actor sensibility to something like this, a feeling of like "what is he doing here?" but I think the opportunity to act opposite Bruce Willis had to be big--plus whatever paycheck for a short shooting schedule--and he really makes the most out of these scenes they had together. The problem is, when you have a baddie of the quality of Rossi, and you pair him with Willis, you need a hero that matches that, and they didn't do that here with the standard one-note grimacing bearded white guy. It felt like someone bought a great tequila, and wasted it in a margarita. The good tequila is for sipping straight, and the good baddies are for the exciting, compelling heroes, like a Dolph or a Scott Adkins.

The bearded, grimacing white guy is pretty standard--or "Standen?"--for these Willis films. If it's not a Clive Standen, then it's Jessie Metcalf, Patrick Muldoon, Chad Michael Murray--or in Fortress: Sniper's Eye, it's Metcalf and Murray. Hell, even Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who started off as an off-beat bearded white guy, couldn't escape the grimacing, brooding aspect all these guys end up being. The question is, who asked for this? Is this what people consider an "Alpha Male," like maybe the Emmett-Furla folks just gathered up a bunch of silly tweets about "Alpha Males" and Frankensteined this thing: white, bearded, trucker hat, flannel shirt, former special forces, drinks beer, has a beautiful wife and maybe a kid and a nice granite kitchen island in a McMansion, and then some Theo Rossi/Bruce Willis baddie comes along and threatens it, so they need to get extra grimace-y and defend their turf. It's so much a parody of itself that it's clownish, especially the preponderance of them in these assembly line Willis films, but here it took the silliness to another level with how one-note and uninspired Standen's character was, which made the Destro Effect with Rossi and Willis that much worse. The thing is, this movie's story sans the grimacing bearded white guy was done perfectly in Recoil with Gary Daniels, so they had the blueprint, and just didn't follow it.

Finally, to end on a good note, Thomas Jane was really good in this, and we're seeing him amass something of his own solid DTV career. This is only his fourth film on the site though, one of which was another Willis flick, Vice. One thing that would be interesting, especially now that Disney+ has been losing money with the original content TV shows, is if their studios came up with a DTV wing for all of their Marvel properties, and maybe these DTV flicks could be like the old one-shot comic books, like a one-off story where maybe a different artist and writer takes an established property on a different adventure. So maybe we get one more look at Thomas Jane as the Punisher, but he has nothing to do with the Jon Bernthal version and his place in the MCU, and maybe they give an Isaac Florentine or a Jesse V. Johnson the chance to direct it. With the work Jane's been doing in these DTV flicks, it would be great to see, and I think it would be a nice antidote to the fatigue people have been experiencing with the expansive interconnectedness of the MCU.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Unlike my inspired idea for a Thomas Jane Punisher DTV flick, this wasn't so much. Cool to see Willis and Rossi act opposite each other, but the story was too all over the place and the hero was too one-note. If you want to check it out though, it's still on Hulu.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14849038

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Bring Him Back Dead (2022)

I popped open Tubi last weekend to watch a couple movies for upcoming podcast appearances, and what do you know, this bad boy was there! I figured it would be VOD for a period before a free streamer like Tubi got it, but here we are, so I bumped my other planned posts down the list to make this one happen. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Bring Him Back Dead is about a jewelry heist gone wrong after a member of the gang who looks like a cross between Carrot Top and Jesse Eisenberg (Ryan M. Shaw) kills a guard. Driver Gary Daniels is none too pleased, as is the guy who organized everything, Louis Mandylor. Things get crazier when Daniels drugs everyone except for Mandylor's daughter (Katie Keene), and the two take off with the satchel of diamonds from the heist. When the rest of the gang wakes up, they're understandably upset, and Mandylor sends them out to get the diamonds, his daughter, and Daniels--about whom Mandylor says "bring him back dead!" Now it's a forest slog aka game of cat and mouse, as Daniels and Keene need to fend off the rest of his gang and make it out alive so he can bring the diamonds to his new fence, Daniel Baldwin. 

This isn't horrible, especially at 89 minutes long, but I don't know that it's worth a watch beyond being a Gary Daniels completist. We've seen the heist gone wrong film before, and we've seen it done better. We've seen the forest cat-and-mouse game done before, and we've seen it done better. Director Mark Savage does a great job of shooting the dramatic scenes, but the fights didn't look as great, especially Daniels as the one key experienced fighter. Even some of characters' motivations, like Daniels needing money for his son's kidney transplant, we've seen before, and seen done better--think Dolph in Castle Falls for example--I mean, the sheer volume of diamonds they stole would've meant Daniels's cut if they'd just cut out Mandylor would've covered what he needed, he didn't need to screw over his whole crew I don't think. All that said, again, at 89 minutes on a free streamer like Tubi, especially for a Daniels completist like me, you could do a lot worse.

We last saw Daniels back in July, and this is only his fourth film review for 2022. I was trying to figure out why that happened, and I think a big part of it is I only have two other films of his left to review, Astro and City Hunter, and Astro was scheduled to be this post until I saw this was available. Beyond those other two, there's The Gardener, which after a year out still isn't on a free streamer yet, then he has three Christian films, and a movie I have yet to be able to track down, A Stranger in Paradise. If you add those numbers up, he's at 56 films now, so that means he could pass the 60 Club mark with Dolph next year. There was a time, when his output was higher, and Dolph wasn't doing as much, that we thought Daniels could actually pass Dolph for the all-time top number, but that's flipped now, with Dolph doing, if not more DTV films per year, at least as many as Daniels. On the other hand, Daniels is pretty secure in his second spot, as the next closest to him is Art Camacho, who will probably join Daniels and Dolph in the 50 Club next year, but is still far enough away.

Getting back to this movie and how he did, I think this is his first starring role since 2018's Astro, and only the fourth total since 2015, the other two being Rumble and Skin Traffik. To see him back as the star of a picture, with a lot of screentime, was refreshing, and good to see a film feature him that way. Also good to see him up to the task, which he was here. I think for us who have been fans of his for a long time, it's a no-brainer that he'd be leading DTV pictures like this, but I think for the rest of the film industry, he's still being forced to prove himself worthy of roles like this--at least that's how it feels--and he keeps proving why they should have faith in him. I don't know too if from a name standpoint he's not considered big enough be cast as the lead as often. Maybe that's the case, but one hope I have is, with the trend of more DTV action coming out of England, he'll be a natural choice to get cast in some of them, and his profile will grow with it.

Starring with Daniels are two actors who are no strangers to DTV supporting roles, Daniel Baldwin and Louis Mandylor. Baldwin looks like he's slowed down a bit, but in the 2010s he was on a shortlist of actors looking to become the next Eric Roberts; and Mandylor hasn't slowed down and looks like he's still looking to gain that title. The thing about Mandylor though is, despite being in so much, most of his parts aren't the one-scene appearances Roberts does--or Baldwin does here. At the very least, what Mandylor is doing is setting himself up to be a 21st Century Charles Napier, which I think would be fantastic, and I hope he continues on that track--he's at 9 films now on the site, which puts him near Napes's 11. Between the two here though, I preferred Baldwin's one-off character, and it would've been nice if he'd had a bigger part--though not enough to warrant a longer runtime. According to the tags, this was only Baldwin's second film, the other being Crossbreed, which I thought sounded low, but after I went through his bio, I only found one other, Knight Moves. It looks like Baldwin has a lot of DTV films I've been meaning to watch, but haven't yet, so we may see more of him soon.

Finally, according to IMDb this was released on DVD here in the States on August 2nd of this year, meaning within four months we had it available streaming free on Tubi. On the other hand, you have The Gardiner, which has been out for almost a year now, and still is only available to pay to rent on demand for $5.99. I get that there's a large, complicated calculus that goes into whether or not a film should be on something like Tubi, or if it makes more money with $3.99 or even $5.99 rentals, but in terms of generating buzz, it feels like including it on some streamer, whether that's Tubi like this film, or one people pay for like Hulu, would do a better job of that. Would I have bumped this up in my review queue if it was still a rental? Of course not, I have too many other films to cover--including two other Daniels films that are on Tubi. I'm not saying we should never pay, or there isn't a case for initially having a pay-to-stream period when the film first comes out, but it also feels like putting it on something like Tubi sometime after can maybe generate more interest than keeping it at rent only--and for a higher number like $5.99.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi. I think that's your best bet, especially if you're looking for more Daniels. He's good in this, and it's good to see him as the lead in something. If you're not a big Daniels fan (and why wouldn't you be?), I don't know if this has enough for you, but as a 90-minute free-streamer, you could do a lot worse.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14385300

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Cop Target (1990)

Back in May of 2021 I had the guys from Comeuppance Reviews on to discuss our top 5 Ginty films, and this was one I watched for it. It was on YouTube at that time, and now it looks like even that's not a possibility. In terms of other reviews, none of our friends of the site have covered this, but it is on Will from Exploding Helicopter's Films with Exploding Helicopters list on Letterboxd--which if you haven't checked out, you should!

Cop Target features our man Ginty as a maverick Miami cop on the edge, maybe Crockett style, though instead of having an alligator for a pet, he has a cat which is fed through a robotic feeder while he's away on cop business. And he's away on business now, to the fictitious island of San Cristobal, where he's escorting the widow (Barbara Bingham) and daughter of a DEA agent so they can accept an award on his behalf. As always, things aren't what they seem, and the daughter's kidnapped and held for ransom, and as always, Ginty's not supposed to continue on the case, but as always, a maverick cop on the edge doesn't follow the rules. He's going to get to the bottom of this no matter what it takes.

This is the fun 80s/90s Italian-directed actioner you came for. It has its moments, like that cat feeder, or Ginty ordering olive oil from room service so he can clean his gun with it; and beyond the Ginty fun, we also have Charles "Napes" Napier as his boss, which is always great to see. By the same token, it's not overly remarkable, it's more like one of those for completists, whether you're a self-styled "DTV connoisseur" like myself, or on a quest to watch every film with an exploding helicopter like Will, or like our friends at Comeuppance or Explosive Action who just want all of these kinds of movies, it's kind of more for someone of that ilk than a casual "I'm looking for a Saturday night time killer." If it were suddenly more available on sites like Tubi or Amazon Prime, I think I'd change that stance, because it is a fun low-budget gem, and maybe this gets to a bigger point about how we need more Ginty available to us overall, but as it stands, I don't know if this is worth the trouble it'll take to track it down if you're not an extreme completist.

We're now at six Ginty flicks on the site, which is still way off the pace of what we'd want, and considering I still have some that I watched for that pod episode in May of 2021, I have a lot of catching up to do--and honestly, I don't know how good I've been at doing it, because this is only the third Ginty film I've reviewed this year, and I think I have at least 4 left of the ones I watched back in May of 2021 for that podcast that I haven't reviewed yet! The thing is, this is everything you want in a low-budget Italian Ginty flick: he's equal parts charming and gruff, does a great job playing the Crockett like character director Umberto Lenzi wanted but giving it his own spin, and is just an all-around fun lead. It's a shame this isn't more readily available, because I think if someone were getting into Ginty, this would be a good one after the first two Exterminators and White Fire for someone's next film of his.

We last saw Napes earlier this year in Frogtown II, which was fun to see him in, but this was definitely more the Napes we look for: angry, behind a desk, telling Ginty he needs to cool it; then wearing tuxes to balls, eating at fancy restaurants, and putting his sport coat and a satchel of drug money in the trunk of his car. Look at that screen we got of him, complete with the Bush 41 picture on the wall, letting us know he's a government worker. It's pure Napes, he came to this movie to get shit done, and that's why we love him in stuff like this. He's one that I feel like should've been on the site more than the now 11 times he has, but when I look at his bio, he isn't in as many movies with the big names that we often spotlight on here as you'd think. For actors, our top five are Dolph, Daniels, Rothrock, Wilson, and Seagal, and he hasn't done a lot with any of them. I think as we start filling out some other filmographies though, like Ginty's, Williamson's, and even say a Z'Dar's, we'll probably start seeing more Napes as well. And who doesn't love seeing more Napes?

I thought maybe we'd done some other Umberto Lenzi films here on the site (or Humphrey Humbert as he's credited as here in the States), but this is the first, and when I looked at his filmography, I realized that he hasn't done much in the video age--and what he has done is mostly horror, which we don't do as much of here at the DTVC, so that probably explains why this is only his first. It's kind of too bad, because he goes into his giallo roots for a lot of the action and mystery here to give us something more fun than simply a Miami Vice Narco-thriller rip-off. That's something I've talked about on previous posts about films directed by Italian auteurs, they bring a unique element to the proceedings that we often don't get in modern DTV with the way line producers and distributors have so much say in how the film is made in order to get the most bang for the buck; but also, these Italian directors come from a school of filmmaking that means even if we gave modern DTV directors the same leeway we probably wouldn't get results like this. It's a piece of the late 80s/early 90s DTV puzzle that will always keep that era at the top for me, and hopefully more movies like this will be available to us more easily, so more people can enjoy something like this. Severin Films has been releasing DVDs of giallo directors like Lenzi, so maybe it's just a matter of time before they release Cop Target too.

Finally, I want to go back to the Miami Vice influence on this film. While the show would've been done for a year or two before this was made, so much of what people think of the 80s came from the colors, styles, and mood of that show. I had Jon Cross from the After Movie Diner and Miscellaneous Plumbing Fixtures on a recent podcast episode (Rage and Honor 1 and 2 in the archives), and we talked about that, how the 80s were actually drab, with a lot of browns, and not all those showy neon and pastel colors. What I think Lenzi does here is splits the difference, giving us some of the Miami Vice esthetic, but also working in the darker giallo tones that he was more comfortable in, which gives this movie an interesting feel. It's like what I was saying above about the Italian directors overall, they almost do "covers" of movies as opposed to rip-offs, whether it's this, Stelvio Massi with Black Cobra, or Bruno Mattei with Cruel Jaws or Robowar. This is a tradition that goes back further than that though, like with all the Star Wars rip-offs--or "covers"--from the 70s that we see on Tubi now. What also made the "cover" work so well here in Cop Target though was Ginty, because he's no Don Johnson or Crockett, he's 100% Pure Ginty, the same way that Williamson was 100% Pure Williamson in Black Cobra.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As far as I can see, at least in the US, this isn't available right now, but maybe a brave soul will re-upload it on YouTube. I would say this isn't worth going too far out of your way for, but if you stumble upon it, it's a lot of fun.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099302

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Black Friday (2021)

This is one I've had on my radar for some time, especially to get more Michael Jai White up, but it was never available on a streaming service I was subscribed to, so I had to wait. Then Xfinity gave us a free week of Starz, and sure enough, this bad boy was on there. In addition to us, there are 69 critic reviews, none of which are any we're friends with.

Black Friday is about a toy store in Massachusetts that's gearing up for a big Black Friday sale. We have Devon Sawa, the single dad who needs to leave his kids for Thanksgiving, Michael Jai White as the maintenance guy, Bruce Campbell as the store manager, Stephen Peck as his second in command, Ivana Banquero as the young worker with a good head on her shoulders, and Ryan Lee as the poor schlub everyone craps on. Then, as if Black Friday couldn't get any worse, the customers become violent and attack the staff. Turns out they're infected with something, and they're infecting more people and gathering to some kind of big event. It'll take everything our staff has to get out of this alive and make it home to their families for Thanksgiving.

This is a fun time, especially at a good runtime, but it also felt a bit dated. Black Friday here in America was a lot crazier five to ten years ago, but in the 2020s when this was made, we'd already moved on from that craziness. Maybe we can't blame the film on that, because it looks like it was shot pre-pandemic, and the pandemic really crushed the remaining elements of crazed in-store shopping that lingered as the concept of Black Friday as we knew it was dying out, but I don't know if any of the jokes about crazy shoppers on Black Friday were new at all either. On the other hand, as a horror comedy, I had fun with it. The characters were fun, the gore was fun, and the aliens were well-crafted, plus I think the commentary on corporate America was as relevant now as it ever was, even if the idea of Black Friday that the film was espousing wasn't so much. I also liked the fact that they delved into a bit on how poorly retail staff are treated, both by the customers, and by their management. The idea was that 100 years ago when retail as we knew it was forming, stores gave the burgeoning middle class, who couldn't afford servants, the feeling of what it was like to have their own servant--the retail worker--for the couple hours they were shopping. There's a sense that these aliens are that concept run amok 100 years later, but we only get a sense, and I feel like that could've been explored more. The same thing with the idea of the store manager. Campbell gives us a taste of how he feels, but we only get the taste--like when he says "I get to order everyone around, from the coolest guy to the geekiest"--but I think like the other aspect we could've used more than a taste. Overall though, for people who enjoy a good horror comedy, I think this will work for you.

We'll start with our DTVC Hall of Famer, Mr. Michael Jai White. I had planned on doing a birthday post for him a couple weeks ago, but work was crazy, so I'm making up for it now. Spoiler alert, he gets killed off midway through, which was too bad, because I think after Ivana Baquero, he was the best performer here, as he brings a unique blend of action ability and comedic sensibility. The problem I think is that they wanted Sawa's character to be part alpha male part guy who's cool but not that cool, and having White there diminishes him on both accounts. That hurt the movie for me though, because White's mix of action and comedic ability made him one of the best characters and most fun to watch. This is a bit of a theme I found in this film, characters were often sprouted, but seldom fully formed, and while I appreciate that when the movie has a tight runtime, I think White was one whose character suffered as a result. This is now 21 films for White on the DTVC, and every time I think we're going to get more reviews for him, I don't make it happen--his last one was February, and his last one before that was June of 2021. For someone with the work he has out there, I should be doing at least 4 films a year like I do for other big names. 30 Club for 2023 I think is too bold, because we'd be talking about almost one review a month for him, but maybe we can do it. And a belated happy birthday! You're truly one of the greats.

This is our first Devon Sawa film at the DTVC, which I think will change because he's doing more DTV stuff now. In this film, he's essentially inhabiting a Poor Man's Jeremy Renner space, and you get the sense that if this had been a big screen theatrical release, Renner would've played this part. But then the film leans into the Poor Man's aspect of it by having him be cool, but not that cool. For example, he has a "thing" with Ivana Baquero's character, who's 16 years his junior, and the film lets us know that she's only fooling around with him to pass the time, but she doesn't take him seriously. You almost never see that in a character of Sawa's type in a film like this getting treated that way, and I don't know that Renner in a big screen production would get done like that. To his credit, Sawa seems to embrace that, but the film almost can't fully, as there's a sense at the end that he does ultimately "get the girl," though they never explicitly say that. Because of the current DTV work he's doing, it's inevitable that we'll see him on here more, and I think this is a good start for him with us.

While this is our first Sawa film, it's our second Ivana Baquero film, the other being the Kevin Costner flick The New Daughter. For me she was the best character in the film, but going back to that concern about characters not being fully fleshed out, hers might have been the worst, even worse than Michael Jai White being killed off early. We get this sense that she's the only one with a firm head on her shoulders, yet she seldom gets the chance to be the leader of the group. Again, it was an idea that wasn't fully fleshed out, like she could've been the Penny to the rest of the characters' Inspector Gadget, especially if we're going to kill White off, but it just never got there and instead we have Ryan Lee and Devon Sawa taking the lead in more instances. The fact that she proved how capable she was though should be a sign that she should get more leading roles in films, and I think with the horror genre, her standout performance in Pan's Labyrinth should always be a selling point on the tin to horror fans.

Finally, for people living outside the US, Black Friday is a holiday you may not be familiar with. It's not an official holiday, but because it's the day after Thanksgiving, which is an official holiday that always falls on a Thursday, many companies give people that Friday off too. Combine that with Christmas only being a month away, the major commerce holiday in a country where commerce is its one raison d'etre, and over time it evolved into the major shopping day of the year. The film gives some history behind the name, that police officers in Philadelphia used the term to describe the traffic congestion due to all the shoppers driving on that day--and Philadelphia has one of the great shopping meccas, King of Prussia Mall, which I have yet to visit. As the day evolved over the years, retailers tried to find ways to exploit it as much as possible to maximize profits, and that's when stores started opening earlier, to the point that they were opening during the evening on Thanksgiving day, which is the backdrop to this story. An interesting note about that though is in Massachusetts, the state that the holiday of Thanksgiving was started in, it's illegal for non-essential retail establishments, like the toy store in this film, to open at all during Thanksgiving, meaning this film as it was created couldn't have existed in Massachusetts, even though it takes place there. The other thing is, over time, people tired of the crush of Black Friday, and with the advent of online shopping--which has its day the Monday after, "Cyber Monday"--or the push to patronize small businesses instead of the large chains--which also have their day, the Saturday after, "Small Business Saturday"--Black Friday isn't the crazy ritualized homage to commerce it once was or the way it's depicted in this film. That being said, I still do my best to stay away from any retail businesses on Black Friday.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I think if you can stream this for free, it's worth checking out. I don't know for a rental it's quite worth it, but if you're a big horror comedy fan it might be. It's a fun watch either way, especially this time of year on a Saturday night.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11649338

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Shadow Fury (2001)

Back in June I had Rich Hawes from DTV Digest on the pod to discuss this film. It's one's he's been a fan of for some time, and even asked me and Ty from Comeuppace if we'd ever consider doing it for our sites--which was a big reason why I suggested it to him as a topic for an episode he was guesting on. In addition to us, he's covered it on his old site, Have a Go Heroes, and Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has done this as well.

Shadow Fury has a group of scientists in the near future who have figured out how to clone a super soldier. One of them, Pat Morita, goes rogue, and creates a super samurai, Masakatsu Funaki. The others call in mercenary Sam Bottoms, an alcoholic in serious need of a new liver, which, it just so happens, Funaki is a perfect match, so if Bottoms takes him down his payment is Funaki's liver. As always though, things aren't as they seem, and when Bottoms discovers one of the other scientists, Allan Kolman, has created his own super soldier--first a young Taylor Lautner, later an adult Bas Rutten--he teams up with the last remaining other one, Alexandra Kamp, and Funaki, to take him down.

This movie was a lot of fun. It borrows from a lot of traditions, the two biggest being the lone gunman in the Western with Bottoms, and the ronin, or masterless samurai with Funaki. The director is Makoto Yokoyama, who was part of the Alpha Stunt team responsible for the Power Rangers movies that Isaac Florentine was also a part of, and more notably, the late 90s Mark Dacascos classic Drive. While this isn't quite at the Drive or Florentine actioner level, it still delivers enough in its fight scenes to elevate it beyond the limitations of its budget. Beyond that, we have really fun performances from Bottoms, Funaki, Fred Williamson, Morita, and Kamp. Also, as Chris the Brain at Bulletproof said, how many movies can you see where Taylor Lautner grows up to be Bas Rutten?

Usually we start with the film's one Hall of Famer, but because Williamson's part was smaller, I figured I'd go with Sam Bottoms first. What's interesting about him in this is when we last had Rich on the podcast, we discussed Total Force and Absolute Force, which starred his brother and Bush 43 lookalike Timothy. What Sam does here with this part is he plays up the lone gun for hire part really well, making him both dark and brooding, and a hero with a sense of humor at the same time. You can see your classic Clint Eastwood hero in him, but also someone like a Richard Boone in Have Gun Will Travel. You wouldn't expect Sam Bottoms in the lead to work in an action film, but because he got what Yokoyama was going for with the character, he was able to draw on that tradition in a way that made this work even better than I think Yokoyama was hoping for. When we're watching low budget movies like this, often it's that kind of thing that's needed to elevate the material beyond its limitations, and Bottoms does that for us with his performance.

From there we have Masakatsu Funaki as the ronin figure, who loses his master, Pat Morita, early on, and from there is on his journey to find his purpose. He gets that in a lady of the night that he saves from her pimp, Cassandra Grae--who didn't do much beyond this film. Usually that construct of the hero saving the lady of the night is a worn trope--especially in those Seagal-type films where it's saving a pretty Eastern European lady from human trafficking and she falls in love with the hero--but here it works to not only underscore this drive for purpose Funaki's character has, but also the drive to discover his humanity. He's part masterless ronin and part Frankenstein, and with Grae's character, we as the audience can join Funaki as he leans into both aspects of himself. On top of that, as an MMA fighter, he does great in the action sequences, but I don't know how well it would've worked if he hadn't leaned into those other aspects of the character the way he did. Like Bottoms, his approach added elements to the film that further elevated it beyond its budgetary constraints.

Because his part was so limited, we're waiting for this moment to finally discuss our film's one Hall of Famer, the great Fred Williamson. He plays the Machine Gun Joe type who provides Bottoms with the weapons he needs in a back room of the bar he runs--which works out for the alcoholic Bottoms, he can get his drinks and his tools of the trade. This is now 26 for Williamson, which puts us that much closer to the 30 Club for him, probably something we'll hit next year. While I prefer him as a lead, seeing him in a small part like this is also fun too, and for a lot of the names that have the bigger numbers here, parts like this help get that tag number up to get him into those more exclusive clubs--though when you look at Dolph and Daniels, our two with the most tags, they don't have many supporting role films. The other thing I've noticed is, when I look at his IMDb bio, there aren't a lot of films from this period of his that I'm missing, it's a lot more of the hit or miss variety in the 2010s, or his 80s stuff that I can't always find. That's one difference between him and Dolph or Daniels, is there is a lot of Williamson stuff out there that's either hard to get, or maybe even impossible to get. I think that's another reason why he's fallen behind some of the other bigger names, but hopefully we'll rectify that over the next year and get that tag count up higher.

Finally, in trying to think of what the last paragraph should be here, one thing that stood out was how much Bottoms was drinking, despite being on the liver transplant list. In real life, there's a zero tolerance policy when it comes to that. It might not be common knowledge--I only found out when a close family friend was in that situation in the late 90s, and then it came up again recently when I was watching Scrubs with my wife. It makes sense, right? There are only so many livers to go around, why give it to someone who may just destroy that one through drinking too. Just the same, it would've made for a better plot device here, the idea that Bottoms's character can't get a transplant because he won't stop drinking, but these scientists offer to do it for him anyway with Funaki's. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As you can see from the quality of my screens, this is only available on YouTube, and it's not the best transfer--even if it does say it's high-def. I think a movie like this could use a nice Blu-ray, so hopefully that'll happen soon, or at the very least a better quality version on a major streaming site. Until then, YouTube is your best bet, and I think this is a fun enough actioner from the early 2000s, which overall wasn't as great a time for this kind of thing. And if you want to hear more about Shadow Fury, check out the DTVC Podcast, episode 102 from back in June that I did with Rich from DTV Digest.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0288215

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!