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!
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