Night of the Wilding (1990)

We finish up our DTVC Hall of Fame inductions with, you guessed it, Spiro Razatos! Wait, you thought it was Erik Estrada? I guess I can see where you might have thought that. Anyhow, in addition to us, our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this one as well.

Night of the Wilding is an early PM flick starring Erik Estrada as a defense attorney, the best in the business who never loses and sometimes wears crop-tops in his off hours. After a group of teenagers out on a night of "wilding" crash a party a clerk at a grocery store is having and beat and rape her and her friend, the rich parents hire Estrada to defend them. This presents a problem, because the prosecutor is his ex-wife. He pulls all the bad tricks you'd expect a sleazy defense attorney to do, from victim blaming and shaming to acting like the "wilding" kids were lured into a den of iniquity by a couple of "loose" women, making them the victims. Just when we think it can't get any worse, the prosecutor uses herself as bait to draw the boys out, and now Estrada has to help her, even if it means losing his clients. 

This is a fun one. It is early PM, so the action isn't exactly what you want--more on that in a second when we get to Spiro Razatos--but it does deliver in the great early 90s nostalgia ways you'd want, from the fashions to the dialog, and for me that does the trick. Estrada is great as well, plus we have a small role by Joey Travolta, meaning he did both this and the AIP "wilding" movie. Similar to Bad Ass, this is also ripped from the headlines, drawing from the Central Park Five case at that time, this one follows the same playbook of removing the racial element by having the attackers be three rich white kids. As we know now, the Central Park Five were all exonerated after it was discovered they were falsely accused, but the furor that was stoked at the time surrounding themes like violence by teens, violence by young blacks, violence in New York, and violence against women, led to not only movies like this one, but also the Central Park Five being falsely convicted and losing 13 years of their lives. What we get here, in true PM style, is part ripped from the headlines, but also part plot that veers off course into a series of other killings, leading to a great foot chase, and then a sudden car flip. That's one thing that is great about PM, something that in 1990 that was supposed to be playing on exaggerated fears the public had based on narratives around stories ripped from the headlines, can now be enjoyed for the schlock early 90s movie it's become over the past 30 years.

You might be wondering, why this the film for Spiro Razatos's induction? And you'd be right in wondering that, as he really only does some stunt work here. The thing is, among his PM work, we've done all his greats except for Pure Danger, which I wasn't able to find. There were some others, like Extreme Justice and Maniac Cop 2, that he was action director on that I could've done instead, but I've also really wanted to do this film for some time too, so I figured it was good enough since he did do stunt work on it. I first got wind of who he was when I read an interview Gary Daniels did where mentioned him when they did Recoil together. As I dug deeper I discovered how big of a deal he is, especially now where he's action director on huge blockbusters like the Fast and Furious series; but not only that, he's responsible for a lot of the films that made PM as great as they are. The Sweeper, Recoil, Riot, Rage, and Last Man Standing, plus non-PM classics like One Man Force. With the vital role he played in making 80s and 90s action what we know it as, it was really more that I should've gotten him in sooner, and the only reason I didn't was due to my own ignorance. As we induct him here, this will be his 26th tag, so not quite 30 Club, but I imagine it'll be soon for him. Truly one of the all-time greats.

What is Erik Estrada wearing here? That crop top is fantastic. What you can't tell from the screen is he also has his reading glasses on. Rich attorneys with mansions in Bel Air always wear crop tops and reading glasses, don't they? At least they did in the early 90s, when it was a simpler, nicer time. Here in Philly, there's a movement to get a subway extension along the Roosevelt Boulevard corridor, and the person leading the movement is selling shirts for it, including a crop top version. In one of the pictures, a guy was wearing it, which I guess is more evidence that if you live long enough you'll see fashions come back that you never thought would--like today when I passed a kid wearing a Von Dutch trucker hat. We've seen a little bit more Estrada than we usually do on here lately, with us covering the two Andy Sidaris films he did as well. I think when I started the site I expected him to be a bigger part of it, but it didn't happen unfortunately, and I don't know when we'll see him again on here. Hopefully soon, but if not, we love you Mr. Estrada, crop tops and reading glasses and all.

PM is now at 42 films on the site, and according to IMDb, I think this is their 11th film, so it really is an early one. There are still elements of action there, especially at the end when we get a car flip seemingly out of nowhere, but it has more of the suspenseful storytelling around it that was a hallmark of some of those early ones, like the ones Wings Hauser did. This one also had the classic pairing of Joseph Merhi as director and Richard Pepin as DP. Of all the great director/DP pairings ever, for DTV action fans this might be the most iconic. While I say this is early PM, it's only a year later that we get to Ring of Fire, the PM take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and something that we think of as a classic PM flick, so that "early period" really only lasted a couple years before they were "PM Fuckin' Entertainment," and then I think they start their peak in '94 with Zero Tolerance, and that wave builds through T-Force, Hologram Man, Last Man Standing, into the Gary Daniels "three Rs," The Sweeper, and Skyscraper, giving us some of the greatest DTV actioners ever. You can also see the wave cresting at the same time as they started the LA Heat TV show in '97. We still get some greats after that, like the last of the Daniels three Rs, Recoil, and The Underground with Jeff Fahey, but nothing like the volume of that peak period. And that's what makes that peak period so astounding, the volume of great films they put out in such a short time, and when I think of a movie like this one as part of their "early period," it really drives home how short that peak period was.

Finally, it's been a while (cue the Staind lyrics) since we've had a McDonald's sighting at the DTVC. I used to make a point of showing them all the time, and have finally decided to tag them. I tried a search of my site, and if it's accurate, the last time we posted was in May of 2011, with Mutant Zombie Vampires from the Hood, which also featured a McDonald's from LA. Sorting out the films where I just mentioned McDonald's, I think this is the 11th film with a McDonald's sighting in it--I didn't count Toxic Avenger, which features a classic McDonald's Styrofoam container, but doesn't show an actual McDonald's as far as I know. 11 tags, does that mean sometime down the road McDonald's could be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Honestly, I don't eat there as much anymore, not because I'm above it or anything, but because all the Center City locations here in Philly have closed, as have the South Philly ones along Broad Street. I'd have to walk ten blocks to the nearest one, which isn't horrible, but why do that? One funny thing is there used to be one on Walnut Street, and Google Maps still shows it as open, despite the fact that the building has been completely torn down, so I guess people order from there still and it causes a mess for delivery drivers.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now you can get this on YouTube, and the version isn't horrible. Hopefully someday a company like Vinegar Syndrome, or maybe even Mill Creek, will put all of PM's flicks on Blu-ray, or maybe Tubi will get more of them so we can at least stream a decent copy, but until then, this YouTube version will work. And again, here's to you Spiro Razatos, one of the best to do it, we action fans are forever in your debt.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100259

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

Rowdy Girls (2000)

We continue our 2023 Hall of Fame inductions with one of the all-time greats, and someone who played a big part in my love of DTV films, Shannon Tweed. Now you'd think an erotic thriller would probably be a better bet for her induction post, but I saw this was finally on Tubi, and I thought I'd seen it before and remembered liking Tweed in it, plus it was a Troma flick with another Hall of Famer, Julie Strain, so I figured it would be a good one.

Rowdy Girls has Tweed as a woman in the Wild West who is on the run with some money she stole from someone who'd stolen it from a bank. Disguised as a nun, she's hoping no one will bother her or her money, but she's wrong. First, a young lady on the stage coach with her, (Deanna Brooks), tries to steal it, and then later her coach is waylaid by a gang, including Strain. Eventually she and her money are parted, so she teams up with a local deputy whose brother was killed by Strain, and they try to track it down and help him get his revenge. Will they be able to take out these baddies and live happily ever after?

Again, I couldn't remember if I'd seen this before or not, but it was as good as I thought I'd remembered it at least. It felt like a Wynorski film, with all the boobs and buttocks--in fact we also had a stunt buttocks with Strain's then husband, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman, having his cheeks pinch hit when the guy playing opposite Strain in a love scene didn't want his buttocks shown on camera--but also felt like the way you'd want Troma to do a Western, so it makes sense that they'd have distributed this. Beyond the T-n'-A, it had a lot of Troma comedy, but also hit all the beats we expect in a Western. The cast also did well matching the tone this was going for, led by Tweed and Strain, who both do equally well baring all in one scene and delivering tongue-in-cheek dialog in another. This is just a fun flick from 2000.

Unlike Danny Trejo who entered the Hall of Fame and the 30 Club at the same time, this is only Tweed's 7th, which I believe puts her with Lisa London and Tina Cote as joint third for most tags as a woman on the DTVC, behind Kathleen Kinmont with 8 and Cynthia Rothrock with 42. This is also her first post since we did Hard Vice in November of 2021. That may make you wonder why she's getting this Hall of Fame nod now, which I get. The main thing is in looking over my own experience with DTV films, erotic thrillers were a big part of that, and I'm planning to do more of them in the future on the site, which is part of the reason why I wanted to do this now; but also in looking over her CV, she has a lot of action roles as well, many of which we haven't covered yet, plus she was in one of my favorite comedies ever, Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. 80s and 90s DTV wouldn't be what they are without her, and I think for that reason alone, this was overdue.

For our film's other Hall of Famer, we have the great Julie Strain. I checked, and this is only her second film on the site since her induction two years ago, which isn't good that we haven't been doing more of her films. She's fantastic here as the baddie, which was cool, but the better movie for me would've been if she and Tweed were teaming up as bounty hunters taking out a bunch of outlaws, so I wouldn't have had to root for one over the other. As far as getting more Strain up, in our quest to get all of Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies films on the site, we still have three more of those that she's done. From there it'll be a matter of finding films of hers on places like Tubi, but making sure they aren't the edited version. One example is Battle Queen 2020, which is on Tubi, and also has Jeff Wincott in it. The Tubi version cuts 16 minutes off the original. I guess I could review it based off of that one, but I'd rather see a clean, uncut version. That's one thing that's good about Rowdy Girls, as far as I can tell, it's totally unedited. 

While Troma isn't in the Hall of Fame, it's definitely a potential future Hall of Famer. I think the case can be made if The Asylum is in, Troma definitely should be in, which I agree with, the only thing is The Asylum made it in automatically by getting into the 30 Club, and in the process creating the rule for which it's named that Danny Trejo and Scott Adkins also almost got into the Hall of Fame on. The other thing is Troma has more horror, and we don't do as much horror, and they often don't have the names in them that Asylum films do, so we're more likely to cover an Asylum film, which isn't necessarily a good thing, it's more like it's something that's happened without me realizing it, and now we have 34 Asylum films on the site and this is only our 11th Troma flick. If Tubi is going to have more Troma like this though, I have no excuse to do more--plus I could just fork over the $5 a month to get Troma Now and get all the films if they have them on there. One thing I also noticed when I went on their site: it looks like they've moved away from the Hell's Kitchen location, which is sad. If you look at Hell's Kitchen on Google Maps, you'll see how expensive it would be to stay there, so that makes sense. They're currently located in Long Island City in Queens, which is still possible for me to get to from here in Philly, so maybe I'll make the trip up sometime.

Finally, I want to go back to the fact that Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, did stunt buttcheek work in this. By 2000 I was not only long done playing with Ninja Turtles, but my dad had thrown all my old figures out--along with my He-Man figures, Star Wars figures, GI Joe figures, etc.--but what I discovered in looking it up on Wikipedia, is Eastman was also done with Ninja Turtles at this time, having sold his share of the franchise to co-creator Peter Laird--who then sold it to Viacom nine years later. For me as a kid in the late 80s, the Ninja Turtles came along at a perfect time, because He-Man had run itself down, and I needed something new to collect. What I didn't realize until I thought about it now for this paragraph, was how this also got me into comic books, because I got the Ninja Turtle comics as well, and saw all the cool Marvel and DC comics next to them on the shelves, which then led to comic books being the next thing I got into collecting when I aged out of the Ninja Turtles; also, I think seeing Elias Coteas in the first Ninja Turtle movie made me a fan of him, which I still am--his part in the Sopranos intervention episode was fantastic, and that's one of my all-time favorite television moments. It's cool how watching some of these movies can bring back nostalgia like that, even if it's in the form of a major media franchise's co-creator acting as a stunt buttocks in a Troma Western starring Shannon Tweed and Julie Strain.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing, you can get this in the States on Tubi and Plex, plus it might also be on Troma Now if you're subscribed. I had a lot of fun with this, it's exactly what you want from a Troma Western with Shannon Tweed and Julie Strain in it. And here's to Shannon Tweed, of the greats, it's good to finally get her in the Hall of Fame as well.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177185

Looking for more action? Check out my new novella, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

Revenge of the Gweilo (2020)

Even though we're currently in Hall of Fame month, I figured we'd take a short break from it so I could get this one reviewed. After watching Lady Terror for director/writer/actor/producer Nathan Hill, I wanted to have a better context of him as a filmmaker, so I saw this was on Tubi around the same time and figured I'd give it a look. Unfortunately though I got backed up with work and other things, and fell behind on getting it reviewed, so we're finally making it happen now.

Revenge of the Gweilo has Hill as Joseph Lucky, an ex-cop whose fiancee is murdered by some Asian organized crime assassins. Instead of letting the law take care of it, he takes the law into his own hands, and goes on a rampage full of martial arts and explosions, on the warpath for revenge. The baddies, led by the villainous Ishtar (Tritia DeViSha) will not go down that easily though. It'll take everything Lucky's got if he's going to take them all down and get the revenge he so desperately seeks.

This one was a lot of fun, and provided that context I needed to get more of the humor in Lady Terror. The humor in this one was a little more obvious, but also with more of an action background myself, I got more of what he was going for, especially with all the nods to Drive, one of my favorite films. To me, this is what Samurai Cop 2 should've been, and if they ever decide to make a Samurai Cop 3, Hill should be the one tapped to direct it. While this is a send-up of action movies, it doesn't hit you over the head with it, which is refreshing to me. It's like he's cleverly crafting a film in the mold of a Samurai Cop or Miami Connection, which is something I didn't think was possible, and I know Brett and Ty at Comeuppance have said you can't manufacture a cult classic. I think Nathan's pulled it off though, and for a free streamer here in the States on Tubi, it's definitely worth checking out.

A big part of why this works so well is, as funny or as silly as it might be in parts, Nathan Hill comes into this film with a cohesive vision of what he wants this movie to be. That doesn't mean things don't change in the process, or that elements he wanted to look a certain way he needed to compromise on due to various limitations that come with making films independently, but the film has a tone and a feel that's consistent throughout. Without that baseline, I don't know that any of this works as well as it does. Even if he did add things in later in the process, nothing feels like it was just dumped in. I think compared to Lady Terror, where he also had that consistency, but there were elements he was going for in that like the repetition of getting in and out of a car that didn't land as well for me, this one as a whole resonated better with me, perhaps because as an action fan I saw more of what he was going for. In either case, that clear and consistent tone is so important, and the fact that Nathan doesn't compromise on that means that whatever other elements he has to compromise on due to the limitations of working on a small budget don't hurt the overall enjoyment of the film.

As much as you need a great hero in an action film, you also need a great baddie, and that's where Tritia DeViSha comes in. Like everything in this movie, she needs to be funny, but not over-the-top or too in your face about it, and she does that here--again, keeping to the tone the film was going for. Going back to that comparison to Samurai Cop 2, where we had Bai Ling as the baddie, in that film she was expected to turn the dial up to 15 and just go, which was too much. Had that film gone with this approach to the baddie for her, I think it would've worked better. Samurai Cop 2 felt like a bunch of stuff was tossed into a blender, while here everything felt much more intentional, including Tritia's performance. We still got that a lot of what she was doing was being played for laughs, but she was also still very much the baddie, and really gave Nathan's hero stakes to overcome--which again, while it's all meant to be funny, we need things like stakes to hold it all together.

With an action film, it's always going to be judged by the action in it, and while this was played for laughs, it was fun to see the way the fight scenes were carried off. Nathan Hill is an accomplished martial artist, and unlike the mugger in Lady Terror, it looked like the baddies he fought in this were trained as well. Probably the most fun fight scene was the one he had with a sumo wrestler, which again married humor with actual stakes to make it really entertaining. According to the IMDb trivia, he almost broke his back filming those scenes, and I feel like you can see when that moment is when you watch it. I can imagine choreographing a fight between a sumo wrestler and a non-sumo wrestler probably presents all kinds of challenges, and there was a sense of danger in watching this, like at any moment Hill could be seriously injured, so I wasn't surprised to hear that he actually almost was.

Finally, the film starts with the Chinese New Year Festival in Melbourne, Australia's Chinatown. I'm always a fan of Chinatowns, and love going to the Chinatown here in Philly, or visiting ones when I travel. One thing that was cool about this shot here, is there's a 7-11, and the Chinatown in Philly has one near it as well. Growing up in Maine, the Chinatown we had closest to us was in Boston--though according to Wikipedia Portland used to have one too--but I never really went until I was older, so it's possible the first Chinatown I ever went to was in London. Anyway, the one in Melbourne looks really nice, and I'd like to visit sometime--though I feel like I should at least finally get to the one in New York before I fly half-way across the world to visit one.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can find Revenge of the Gweilo on Tubi here in the States, and I think it's on Prime in the UK. Definitely one to check out, a great merging of comedy and action, it was a lot of fun.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4110978

Looking for more action? Check out my new novella, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

Bad Ass (2012)

As we continue our October Hall of Fame inductions, and knowing that Danny Trejo was on 29 movies, I wanted his HOF induction and entry into the 30 Club to be a film that really represented him, and this was one that's been kicking around for a while, waiting for me to cover it, so it seemed too perfect not to do it. In addition to us, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema have looked at this as well.

Bad Ass (or "Bad Buttocks" if you want to work less blue) has Trejo as Vega, an aging Vietnam Vet who encounters a couple skinheads bothering an old man on the bus. He stands up for the old man, the skinheads attack him, and he takes them down. The whole thing was captured on video, so he becomes a viral sensation. Later, his best friend is murdered, and the police seem not to care, so he takes the law into his own hands. As he digs deeper, looking for his friend's killers, he starts to uncover a plot that goes all the way to the top, which includes local crime boss Charles S. Dutton and mayor Ron Perlman. Can our hero Bad Ass take all of these people down and get justice for his friend?

Overall I really enjoyed this one. Trejo is great, it's a role that you feel like only he can play, and he delivers exactly what you'd want from that. The interesting thing is this is inspired by a real life incident--which I'd seen before and thought might have had some similarities to this, but I wasn't sure--but in that original incident, you had an old white man who beats up a younger black man who's giving him a hard time. I think the decision to make it a man of Mexican descent who beats up two skinheads harassing an old black man instead of an older white man beating up a younger black man was a great one, as it gets us out of that stereotype of black and brown young men being the scourge of the community, and what it then does is allows the film to use whoever they want for baddies without treading on those tropes. There were some moments that didn't work for me, like when Trejo wants information out of one of the guys who killed his friend, so he shoves his hand in a garbage disposal and runs--it something I think we could've done without--but that was a minor issue, and as I said above, I think this was great overall.

30 films and a Hall of Fame induction for Mr. Trejo. Not bad at all, and while the volume of his films has jumped up quite a bit, we don't often get to see him in the lead like this, which was why I wanted to cover it for this post. He gives you everything you want in a role of this caliber, there's the endearing quality of his age, his outfits, his fanny pack--more on that in a bit--while at the same time, there's the authentic Trejo bad ass-ery that we look for and love to see. With the number of films he's done now, and how many of those overlap with other big names on the site, his tag count will only go up from here, but I think with him officially being a Hall of Famer now, we can go to more of the smaller number of movies like these where he's the lead. Truly one of the all-time greats, this probably should've happened before, but we're making it happen now, and giving him his due on our site.

How bad ass is Trejo's character? He reads a map while on the bus. This is known as one of the biggest no-nos when visiting a city, police and other travel advisors will tell you over and over, don't read a map out in public. It shows you don't know where you are, that you're not from the area, and probably naive and too trusting, which makes you easy pickens for any baddies out there looking to do you harm. I think the idea wasn't to show how bad ass he was by looking at the transit map though, it was more to show how most younger people would look these things up on their phone, but for me it reinforced his bad ass-ery, because he's flaunting his lack of concern that anyone would do him harm by seeing him look at the map on the bus like this. "Yeah, I don't know where I'm going, but if you think you're going to victimize me, go ahead." My advice if you're coming here to Philly is don't do what Trejo's doing, but rather buy a busted up Phillies cap to make yourself look more local. Also, later in the film, they use the bus chase from Red Heat with Charles S. Dutton stealing a bus bound for Las Vegas, and Trejo giving chase in one bound for San Diego. As someone who uses buses and trains for inter-city travel, the idea of having to wait out that delay while they find another bus sounds dreadful, and I feel for all those poor passengers stuck at the bus station while these two characters smash their way around LA in the buses they were supposed to be taking.

In our Cyborg Cop and Cyborg Cop 2 posts, we discussed David Bradley's fanny pack. In the first film it totally betrayed how cool his hero was supposed to be; and then in the second film, they were just making fun of the fanny pack from the first film the whole time. This movie reinforces why the fanny pack idea was so bad in Cyborg Cop. It's being used here to make Trejo's character more endearing and unassuming, but it's also ironic that an older fella who keeps his stuff in a fanny pack could kick people's asses so much. As Kathy Griffin said in the late 90s when she was a judge for the MTV lip sync show during Spring Break, "fanny packs aren't outdated, they were never in," and then she proceeded to give the wearer of said fanny pack, a bushy, be-goateed contestant, a zero for his performance. But if anyone could make a fanny pack work, it's Trejo under the right scenario, and he pulls it off.

Finally, I've only been to LA a couple times, so I haven't seen a lot of it, including the shot above from the opening credits with all the establishing shots of LA accompanying it. It's a Felix the Cat car dealership, something I hadn't seen in anything about LA before and didn't know existed. What you may not know about me is I don't drive, so I have no need to buy a car, but if I did, and I lived out in LA, I'd definitely buy from a Felix the Cat car dealership. The IMDb trivia had more info on it, saying that when the dealership opened in the early 20s, the owner, also named Felix, was friends with Felix the Cat creator Pat Sullivan, and they decided to promote each other's brands. Now the dealership is the longest running in LA, and both it and Felix the Cat over 100 years old. I mean, how do you not love Felix the Cat? One of the best cartoon characters ever. I need to go back to LA to catch a Dodgers game at some point anyway, but now I feel like I'll have to find my way over to check this out as well.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can get this on most free streamers, including Tubi. With the tight, 90-minute runtime, fun story and fun Trejo performance, streaming it free is a great deal, and worth checking out. And here's to Danny Trejo, one of the all time greats, finally joining two exclusive DTVC clubs, the Hall of Fame and the 30 Club.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1928330

Looking for more action? Check out my new novella, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

Hard Target 2 (2016)

It's October, which means it's time for Hall of Fame inductions again! We start with one who we'd kind of put off for a bit because he's younger, but as he's been creeping into the 30 Club, I didn't want him to get in on The Asylum Rule, so I figured we'd get him in now. This film is the last of the "Adkins Fest" podcast episode films to be reviewed, so good to finally close the door on that too. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance and Bulletproof have covered this as well.

Hard Target 2 has Adkins as an American (why always Americans with him?) MMA fighter named "Wes" who kills his best bud in the ring, and in his despair after runs off to Thailand to hide away in the underground fight world. That's when baddie millionaire Robert Knepper shows up and offers him money for a big fight. What he doesn't know is there is no fight, Adkins has been tricked into being the prey in a hunting game Knepper and some other rich folk are playing in Myanmar. Luckily as he's running, Adkins happens along a beautiful local woman (is there any other kind) and together with his martial arts skills, they decide to fight back.

This is neither good or bad, it just is, and "just is" usually gets you to the church on time in a nice, tight, 90-minute package; but 104 minutes it's a tougher sit. We've seen all this before, and often that's the idea--turn our brain off and enjoy some action for a bit--but with this kind of Most Dangerous Game story, 104 minutes turns into Most Dangerous Spinning Your Wheels, and the person most in danger in that scenario is us the viewer. That said, Adkins is great in the lead, Knepper great as the baddie, and supporting cast members Rhona Mitra, Temuera Morrison, and Ann Truong (as the beautiful local woman) are all good as well. Give us 88 minutes of this, and I think it would've worked better for me. Out of the four I watched in the Adkins Fest--the others being Castle Falls, One Shot, and The Eliminators, this was the one I liked least.

Usually when we talk about adding someone to the DTVC Hall of Fame, we say "it's been a long time coming," but with Adkins I think it's about right, just before he hits the 30 Club, but not too far before that. There was a point when he was pumping out 5 DTV flicks a year that we thought he may challenge Dolph for the most on the site, but he's since slowed up and is also doing more big budget things--plus foreign films, like Egyptian and Chinese productions. We also used to talk about him as being the next wave of great action stars, but really, he's closing in on 50 himself now, and the reality is as much as he has carved out a great career for himself, the Boomer and Gen Jones stars of the 80s and 90s never really faded out enough to allow him to be that next wave like we all expected. I think that makes his success that much more remarkable though, just through sheer force of will and talent he was able to carve out this name for himself when distributors were still looking for names like Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme on the tin. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here as he becomes a bit choosier on what projects he wants, but we still have a good amount of his films to cover, and it'll be fun on our side to see what he has next.

The Robert Knepper baddie is always there to push a film like this over the goal line. Though he was born in Ohio, he has the Euro Trash baddie down, and the moment you see him onscreen you know he's going to be up to no good, but up to no good while drinking an expensive bottle of wine and letting you know that he knows it's expensive. I first remember him in a TV movie called Kidnapped in Paradise, where he played a Euro Trash baddie pirate who kidnaps Charlotte Ross, and her sister Joely Fisher needs to employ a down-on-his-luck sailor to help her track down Knepper and her sister. Finding out all these years later that he was from Ohio was a shock, and even seeing him in this, it's still a shock, but as we're seeing with the SAG strike, finding work in the acting business isn't always easy, so for a guy from Ohio to make himself into a go-to Euro Trash baddie in DTV and made-for-TV movies, I say good for you, and for us watching, good for us too, because he makes these movies that much more enjoyable.

The original Hard Target might be my favorite Van Damme flick, and in no way did I expect this to live up to that, but a movie with that name and Scott Adkins should have been better. I was trying to think where this ranks among Van Damme DTV sequels to his big screen movies that don't have him in them. Right away, it's not better than Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor, that may be the best of those. Also, you can't beat Bloodsport 4 with Ben Franklin running a Dark Kumite in a prison. I do have this as better than the Cyborg sequels and Universal Soldier made-for-TV films; I'd also put it above Bloodsport 2 and 3, and definitely above Kickboxer 3. On the other hand, I put it behind Kickboxer 2 for me, just because I think Pyun did a better job on that one. That leaves us with Kickboxer 5. I mean, for the pure zaniness of that one, could I put it above Hard Target 2? First off, we have Mark Dacascos vs. Scott Adkins. I think that's a push. Then we have James Ryan vs. Robert Knepper, and as much as I love Ryan, I think we need to give the edge to Knepper there. Runtime definitely gives the edge to Kickboxer 5, in and out in 87 minutes. From a location standpoint, I think this one looked better, so I'll give the edge there. So maybe that's it, Hard Target 2 barely edges out Kickboxer 5 for fourth-best on the Van Damme film DTV sequels that don't have Van Damme in them list.

Finally, I saw recently where Adkins posted a picture of himself and his family at Disney World, and I thought "how cool would it be to bump into him there?" Of course, when would I ever go to Disney World again myself? The only reason I've ever been was because my mom loved the idea of taking my younger siblings, and I was dragged along. I have seen a celebrity there though under similar circumstances. In the early 90s when I was there, while we were taking a break, I saw late comedian John Pinette. He was with his family, I think maybe he had a niece among them that he had lifted up and was swinging around. Early teens me was starstruck, because I'd never seen a celebrity out in the wild like that before. My mom was on me to get some pictures of my siblings with some of the Disney characters, but inside I was like "shouldn't I be getting a picture of John Pinette?" And looking back, even as an early teen, I didn't want to bother him, so I didn't introduce myself, but I think if I'd had, at my age, he probably would've been receptive--how many 13-year-olds did he get in his career coming up to him and saying "I love your Chinese buffet routine!" Unfortunately Pinette left us in 2014, one of my all-time favorite comedians, and one of the great underrated Boston comedians, and while I never got to see him perform live, Adkins's social media post reminded me of the time where I at least saw him standing two feet away from me.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This thing bounces in and out of streaming services, so if you haven't seen it yet, just be patient and you'll get your chance. Adkins and Knepper are great, but for me it's a bit too long to work as a rental. Also as we're inducting Adkins into the Hall of Fame, you can go back to episode 101 in the DTVC Podcast archives to check out the Adkins Fest. He's definitely deserving of his inclusion in the Hall of Fame, and I'm glad we could get him in this year.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5241578

Looking for more action? Check out my new novella, Bainbridge, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!