Guardian has Van Peebles as a Marine in Iraq in 1991 who, on a mission, stumbles upon an archaeologist who releases an evil demon from 3000 years of imprisonment. The mission goes fubar, the demon inhabits his fellow soldier, who shoots him, and when Van Peebles wakes up, he finds himself in the hospital with a bunch of scars on him. 13 years later we find out why: this demon is coming to kill the archaeologist's son, David, who was born during a lunar eclipse that happened when the demon was released. How Van Peebles fits in all this, he's not sure, but he better figure it out soon, otherwise that demon''s going to kill him.
This had a very stylish feel to it, between Van Peebles in his sunglasses and turtlenecks and leather coats, to the sets and locations, to the way it was shot--it looked cool. The problem was, for the well-worn territory that this was, it wasn't cool enough. At least The Minion had Dolph and his spiked glove as a KGB-trained Knight's Templar working for it. There was no combination of Van Peebles being cool but the film being goofy to get us over, so in that sense it's almost like, "what is he doing here?" And then same with James Remar as his partner. The two of them as detectives really worked, but they were detectives in a demonic possession movie that we've seen myriad times before. How do you square that? Maybe with Ice-T, right? But he only has small part in the middle of the film, and while that part is as cool and stylish as the rest of the film, it's too scant. We needed them all in a hard-hitting crime drama, where the stylishness here would've worked with the story. Finally, this movie also some Matrix stuff that was popular at that time, giving us more well-worn territory. Just the same, this was nice to look at, and I think that's more than a lot of films that follow this story paradigm have going for them.
Normally we start with the film's Hall of Famer, but because Mario Van Peebles had the leading role and Ice-T's part was so scant, I figured we'd start with Van Peebles. We haven''t seen him since his turn as a baddie in Exterminator 2 back in January of 2022, so over a year. It seems like he does do more direct to video stuff, but this is only his 6th film on the site. What I like about him here, he's the coolest, baddest person in every scene he's in. It almost felt like this performance was wasted in this movie, because had it been the hard-hitting crime drama I mentioned, it might have been iconic in the DTV world. One area I wanted to get into more was his directorial work, and I was surprised to find out I hadn't covered one of his directorial efforts yet. Hard Luck with Wesley Snipes has been one on my radar for a long time, and it's also on Tubi, so I'll make sure to make that happen soon; and another is the Nicolas Cage WWII Naval film USS Indianapolis, which did gross $2 million in the box office, but was essentially DTV. Either way, this film was a reminder that we need more of his stuff on here.
Now for Mr. Ice-T. As the guy from Soulsonic Force said in the Car Shield commercial, he's always been official, and that's true here even in this small role. He plays a great gangster, and plays it better than most out there. He would've been the perfect baddie in the Van Peebles-Remar hard-hitting crime drama I described, but here he's in and out so quickly we barely get to enjoy him. This is now 17 films on the site for him, which isn't horrible, but it's our first film of his since his Hall of Fame induction post in October of 2021, so that is horrible. This era, late 90s to early 2000s, was peak Ice-T DTV where he was doing a few films a year, and with the small role he had here, you can see how he did it. Around this same time he's getting his role on Law and Order: SVU, which was smaller to start, but grew over time, and I think we can see how as that role grew, the volume of DTV work he needed to do diminished. But here we were in that peak DTV window for him, and he reminded us with this scant role of how great he could be in that period.
I had no idea that John Terlesky, Mike from Chopping Mall, was also a director. Like Van Peebles, a lot of his modern credits are TV series episodes, but he does have another 11 movies he's directed too, and some of them belong on the site for sure. As a director here, I think he and his DP, Maximo Munzi, do a lot to make this look as nice as possible. The framing of the stars like Van Peebles and Remar both elevates this to something more, but also makes me want something more. It would've been interesting to see what Terlesky could have done with the hard-hitting crime drama I described. The thing is, I'm talking about it like it's the past, but they all could come together and still make this. Guys, if you're listening, make this happen!
Finally, I want to go a bit Grammar Hammer on you, but not in the way you'd expect. There's a scene where Van Peebles's character is being interrogated by the FBI, and his interrogator says "by who," and Van Peebles corrects him and say "by whom." While the latter is technically correct, "whom" has been relegated to really only being used in the construction "to whom it may concern." It's now outdated as opposed to being correct. That in mind, I still enjoy using "whom" myself from time to time, but its not something anyone can correct someone on anymore, so from a writing standpoint, if you want to make your character a Grammar Hammer, you'll have to choose something else to correct people on. Maybe if someone uses the wrong verb tense? People use the Present Perfect when they want the Simple Past a lot. Van Peeble's character could've given a quick lesson on verb tenses in response. "Could've" is even a good one, because people write "could of" a lot, the problem is, the character would have to have seen it written to correct it.
If I'm going Grammar Hammer for a paragraph, it's time to wrap this up. This is currently available on Tubi here in the States. Yes, it is stylish, and I liked the stars, but this is well-worn territory with some Matrix stuff thrown in that probably won't do it for you.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289213
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
No comments:
Post a Comment