The Weapon (2023)

This is one I've had in my "to-review" box for a while--if that box even exists. I'm not sure what it would even be, like an old Amazon box? "Why do we have this Amazon box sitting around?" "It's my 'to-review' box." "But it's empty." "Of course, this is all done virtually. Duh." This was also featured in episode 135 of the pod, which I did with Ty from Comeuppance back in October of 2023.

The Weapon is something of a Tony Schiena vanity project starring him, directed by him, and co-written by him. He plays Dallas Ultio, some enforcer for a secret organization, but he also has a beef with bikers because they beat his dad to death when he was a kid. As he's taking down bikers, the woman in his life, AnnaLynne McCord, is kidnapped by Richard Grieco, and he's holding her in some bunker he has. This will be Dallas's biggest challenge yet, but he has a bunch of names here to help him in one- or two-scene cameos so their names can be added to the tin.

And it's those names that manage to keep this thing afloat, but ultimately can't fully save it--though that may actually play in its favor as well. This had potential, but it had too many moving parts, and was tonally off in spots. The scene from Schiena's past where as a kid he watches his dad get beaten to death by a biker was funny, and I know it wasn't meant to be. There's another scene where Schiena burns crooked cop Randall Batinkoff alive that didn't do anything to help Schiena's character. This wasn't like they were fighting and in the course of battle set him ablaze, he had Batinkoff tied to some scaffolding or something. Always love heroes setting helpless baddies on fire. Then we have AnnaLyne McCord screaming about something out of nowhere near the end. It was like, are you in the right movie? While we did have some good fights, even that seemed off, like sometimes Schiena was an unstoppable force, others--for the convenience of the plot I guess--he could be taken out rather easily. On the other hand, as a vanity project, there's an earnestness to this that makes it work in spite of itself in a so-bad-it's-good vein. Schiena wants this to work, he isn't just pulling in a bunch of names to put on the tin so he can sell it, and that earnestness does make it endearing despite all the shortcomings. Also, those names I mentioned helped, especially at the very end when we had Jeff Fahey and Bruce Dern seemingly riffing off each other. We've seen a lot worse here, and we've also seen better, but overall I think this works in a low-budget schlock way, like a Samurai Cop kind of thing, which at 85 minutes for free on Tubi may get you to the church on time.

I didn't realize this, but this is actually the fourth time we've seen Tony Schiena on the site, the last two times being Circle of Pain and Locked Down in late 2010, both films directed by the late Daniel Zirilli. (If you're wondering, the other time was the Van Damme flick Wake of Death, which we did in 2007.) As an action lead he's solid enough, but this is where we get the ol' vanity project catch-22: he's not a high-enough tier of star to get the lead roles in bigger DTV action flicks, so he's forced into making his own vanity projects if he wants the better roles, but those vanity projects are going to end up like this. I was looking at his filmography on IMDb, and he doesn't have much since 2010's Locked Down, so it sounds about right that something like this that he directs and co-writes is the only way he's going to get the work he wants, and somehow he's able to lump a bunch of names in and that gets the thing funded, and having those names gets me and Ty to cover it on the pod and me to review it here.

And boy did we have names. I mentioned Richard Grieco, who looks like a cross between someone cosplaying John Wick and Alice Cooper in the "Poison" video--more on that below. How fantastic is that? This is now 7 films for him on the DTVC. We also have Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. in a one-scene cameo as some kind of mysterious blind man. Your guess is as good as mine, but that one scene now makes 13 films for him on the site, which might be the most by an Oscar winner. While he hasn't won an Oscar, Bruce Dern has been nominated twice, and has become something of a darling on the DTVC podcast episodes I do with Ty. His scene at the end of this with Jeff Fahey is fantastic, the best moment of the movie, which left us with a feeling of "where have you been all our lives? We needed you earlier!" This makes 11 for Fahey, which seems low for him, but it makes sense when you consider we don't really seek out more Fahey, he just happens when we're watching a movie with someone else that also has him in it.

Back when I reviewed Lady Terror for director/writer/star Nathan Hill, I talked about how I didn't get the joke right away, because we see so many vanity project movies that look like that one but are completely serious and being played completely straight, and while I think this isn't the worst of those, it does have those moments that would have me thinking I missed the joke in Hill's film. There were also moments though where I liked Schiena and was rooting for him, so it wasn't all bad. But therein lies the rub, I guess: it's hard to root for a guy when you know he's making a movie to make himself the hero. It almost would be better, if a vanity project is going to play it straight, to have the writer/director person be the baddie, and bring on someone else to be the hero. There isn't as much side eye there, or "oh aren't you so great" cynicism on the part of the watcher. Making a movie, no matter how good or bad, is an accomplishment in itself, and I think from a vanity project standpoint, taking as much of the "vanity" out of it can really help and get us to appreciate more the mere accomplishment of it. By the same token, Ty and I discussed on the podcast how sometimes the vanity project is what gives us that earnestness that makes it work in spite of itself, because Schiena wants this to be good, so maybe vanity projects aren't all bad if they're giving us the so-bad-it's-good element.

Finally, I recently put our podcast on the DTV Connoisseur YouTube page. In the process, YouTube was going through the episodes to see if any had potential copyrighted material. There were some from the early iteration with Jamie that were flagged because I had included Wham's "Last Christmas" in the intros when we were recording them around Christmastime. That made sense, but when I saw that this episode was flagged for Alice Cooper's "Poison," it didn't make any sense. I mentioned it to Ty, and he reminded me that he played the opening to it when we were talking about how much Grieco looked like him in this film. He even asked "is it okay to play this on here?"--which for a Spotify podcast it was, but YouTube caught it right away. What that means is, if you do check the podcast out on YouTube, this episode won't be on there.

But that's okay, you can still find it on Spotify, iTunes, and other major podcatchers, episode 135 in the archives. As far as the movie goes, Tubi is the way to go. This is a schlock bad actioner that kind of works in a Samurai Cop so-bad-it's-good kind of way, which might be enough for you.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18228142

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Three Kinds of Heat (1987)

This was one I watched way back when I did the "Ginty Moore Beef Stew" episode with the guys from Comeuppance, where we listed our top five Ginty films. That's number 85 in the archives, back on May 17 of 2021. I went to review it for the site soon after, but it disappeared from free streamers. So I had to wait, almost three years, until Prime got it, so I could do it now.

Three Kinds of Heat is a Cannon film starring Robert Ginty as a State Department agent on the trail of an evil criminal organization known as the Black Lion. In a shootout in the JFK airport customs area, he meets Hong Kong detective Shakti Chen, and NYPD cop Victoria Barrett. To help in his investigation, INTERPOL allows him to recruit the two women, and now it's an international hunt, as they travel to London, then back to NYC, finding danger and intrigue all along the way. Will they finally take down the Black Lion and save the day?

This is from 1987, but it feels like it might have been '84, and that difference actually plays better for me. For Cannon and Ginty fans, this is probably one of the more lesser-known ones, but it's a lot of fun. The Ginty you get is the Ginty you want, a little sleazy, a little mumbly, but ultimately someone you want to root for and enjoy seeing when he's onscreen. And then Shakti Chen and Victoria Barrett are great as his part of his team. You know Ginty asked to have them help because he thought they were hot, but he also knew they could more than hold their own, which they do. Finally, the action was solid too--perhaps there could've been more of it, but the combination of how great the action we get is, and the fun interplay between Ginty, Barrett, and Chen, it all works. This is a fun Saturday night throwback that will get you to the church on time.

We're only at 8 films for Ginty, which feels low, but when I looked, I did Code Name Vengeance back in February, but hadn't done one before that since December of 2022. Out of the ones I watched for the podcast episode, I think I have a few more of those to cover, as long as they're available on streaming. He doesn't have as much that we can review on the site--I think I count 12 more of his that we could do post, so that would barely get him to 20 tags--but he's so iconic, especially in the early DTV space, that the volume of tags doesn't begin to underscore his overall influence, and a movie like this really drives that home. This is worth watching primarily for Ginty, and he doesn't disappoint.

Cannon Films on the other hand is now at 44 films on the site--you'll see 45 tags, but remember we did American Ninja 2 twice. I think this is probably more substantial as a Ginty film, but it still feels authentic as a Cannon flick, especially from the 80s like this. When that logo appears at the beginning, you get that comfort food feeling telling you you're probably going to have a fun movie night, and the film delivers that quality comfort food you anticipate from seeing the logo. It's another area where the modern DTV flick can't compare. The average DTV movie today has 5-7 production company logos before the film starts, and none of them evoke the kind of feeling you get from one Cannon, PM Entertainment, AIP, Vestron, etc. Because the modern DTV flick can't compete with that, the movies are already working uphill with us as fans, while the Cannon film can use the cache of its logo to put us in a happier mood before the film even starts, forcing us to at least go easier on it, if not like it better as a result. By the same token, it's not just the logo, Cannon films may have been on a budget too, but not to the level modern DTV productions are. Between the fact that this was shot in NYC and London, and the level of special effects employed, you'd never see anything like this today. Imagine a director saying to their line producer they want to shoot in NYC and London today. The producer would laugh and say "just make it work in Georgia."

Our other two stars were Victoria Barrett and Shakti Chen. Barrett we haven't seen on the site before, and she hadn't done much before this, nor much since, but she was really good here, and I thought she and Ginty had great chemistry. Chen also hasn't been in much before or since, but she has been on the site before, in the Gary Daniels film Deadly Target. She's also been in a couple 80s classics, Volunteers and The Golden Child. The other thing is she was married to the film's director, Leslie Stevens, and was with him until his death in 1998. Another fun, solid performance from her, and often while Barrett and Ginty were doing their thing, she'd sneak off on her own, which led to some great interactions, like one where she interrupts a craps game.

Finally, early in the film Victoria Barrett tells Ginty and Chen "this is the Lower East Side, this is no-man's land." For anyone younger, that probably wouldn't make any sense, as the Lower East Side hasn't just been gentrified, it's in like a post-gentrification state. When I had Freddie Young from Full Moon Reviews on the pod to discuss Frankenhooker (episode 156), he talked about all the changes New York City has gone through since that film or this film was made. It's fascinating, because we think of New York as a character on its own, and in this movie it was co-starring alongside another world city in London, and we get that juxtaposition with London as the ritzy city with the fashion show, while NYC is the gritty one with the seedy warehouses and ladies of the night patrolling the streets. I don't know that anyone wants New York to fully go back to what it was--even Anthony Bourdain when he complained about what it became on episodes of No Reservations and Parts Unknown couldn't have fully wanted that--but there's a happy medium between that and the thing it's become. The Lower East Side may not be the no-man's land it was in the 80s, but it's a different kind of no-man's land now.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this free on Prime. That's your best bet, and well worth it. Maybe not the top tier of Cannon and Ginty, but it'll get you to the church on time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094135

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Invincible (2020)

This past week we lost one of the best and most prolific DTV directors and producers, Daniel Zirilli. As such, I wanted to do a post in remembrance of him. This is one Ty and I covered on the podcast back on episode 138, so you can go there to see what we thought as well; also, Todd Gaines at Bulletproof Action has covered this too.

Invincible is about a corporation that may or may not have developed a process to create super soldiers. Johnny Strong is a former soldier and security specialist who's called in by said corporation after their prized experiment, Marko Zaror, goes AWOL and starts terrorizing Bangkok. As expert as Strong is--and with "Strong" in his name--he's no match for Zaror, and gets beaten nearly to death and has his spine broken. All hope is not lost though, as we have this super soldier stuff, and once Strong has a dose, he's ready to take out Zaror. Also, the stuff doesn't work if you don't take boosters, and Zaror wants more boosters, so he kidnaps Strong's girlfriend hoping to exchange her for some. Will Strong prevail?

Compared to the last Zirilli film we did, Phoenix, this was much better-made. As Ty and I said though, that doesn't mean it was more fun. Strong is a more steady and accomplished lead, and Zaror a more imposing baddie, but it's almost like the flaws Phoenix had made it more endearing. Another fascinating element is Wych Kaosayananda as cinematographer--yes, that Wych Kaosayananda. It adds a level of quality that may have betrayed the rest of the story and budget. It's such a weird thing to be reading off pluses for a movie yet putting them in the minus category. I think maybe this is the case because ultimately our hero doesn't have to figure anything out, he just gets his back broken and then he's given the super soldier serum to make him an equal to Zaror, which then becomes an advantage when Zaror needs the boosters. I guess the challenge for Strong's character was overcoming the loss of his humanity, which is a great concept, but in an action movie there was no space to explore that enough. All that said, this has a pretty solid action quotient, and sometimes that's all you need.

This is Zirilli's 17th tag on the site, but only his seventh director's tag, as more of his tags have come from his work as a producer. Unlike Phoenix, which felt rushed, this felt like it had more time available to it, plus it had more names to anchor the proceedings. We can't compare Natalie Eva Marie to Johnny Strong, he's been doing this longer and is more comfortable in dramatic scenes; and we can't compare Marko Zaror to a Russian guy smoking cigars that we've never heard of. I think what this movie does then is remind us that Phoenix is the anomaly in Zirilli's CV, and I think Invincible is closer to what we usually get from him. The most important thing that comes through in any Zirilli project is his love of film, and even if he's pumping movies out quickly and on the cheap, there isn't the cynicism we see in some of the more assembly line approaches to DTV action that we've seen in the last 15 years or so. In the age of streaming, as studios continue to cut budgets and expect DTV action to be done on the cheap, Zirilli's absence will be felt that much more, but hopefully the great influence he's had on others in the industry will continue to be felt, and they'll carry on his legacy. Here's to you Mr. Zirilli, you were truly one of the greats, and you will be missed.

"Road's closed, Pizza Boy." Before this film, that's what I knew Johnny Strong for, his classic line in The Fast and the Furious. Obviously, 20 years later, this is a more mature performance by him, and while I'm not sure I'd have pegged him as an action lead, he works well cinematically as a kind of muse for Zirilli and Kaos's eye. The way they framed scenes around him gave the film an overall sense of stylishness that you don't usually see with movies at this level. Strong also co-wrote the screenplay, so that may have had a hand in the tone we got. It was an interesting change of pace, and something I'd like to see more of potentially. It looks like he's working on his own Warhorse One series, but seeing the stuff Kaos has done with Mark Dacascos and Kane Kosugi, he and Strong could probably have some nice collaborations.

One thing Zirilli does is brings names to his films, and Invincible was no different. The name people of the site would be most familiar with is Michael Pare, who now has 18 films here. With the volume of stuff he's been doing, there is a question of whether or not the Hall of Fame is in his future. I feel like he needs some DTV standout roles to go with his big screen ones, but we'll see. We also had Sally Kirkland, who we've seen before in another Zirilli film, Acceleration. Another lesser-known one she did that we've covered is Guns and Lipstick, one I tracked down for the Wings Hauser and Evan Lurie factor--and was saddened to see our guy Lurie rocking a fanny pack... the less said about that the better. Then there was Vladimir Kulich, who we've seen here in three Jesse V. Johnson films, the two Debt Collector movies and Savage Dog, plus, he was in Crackerjack. At some point her and Kirkland probably should be tagged, maybe the next time either of them shows up. Finally, our baddie was played by Marko Zaror, who we've also seen a few times on here before, including Savage Dog with Kulich. He has a bunch of stuff in various stages of development on IMDb, so I'll be excited to see what we get next from him--and at that point I'll probably tag him too.

Finally, speaking of Zaror, look at that scene there with him and a cat, eating some fish he stole from a streetside vendor. I think the scene was used to show both how the serum turned Zaror into something of an animal, but also the humanity he had in not attacking the cat and letting them eat with him. This was as tight as the shot got unfortunately, but it keeps to my rule that any scene that includes a cat is better for it. I was trying to think of the best cats we've seen on the site. There was Williamson's in Black Cobra, who was a fantastic companion to him. We also had Ginty's in Cop Target, with which he used a machine that fed them while he was away doing his international mission. We also had Trigger in Do or Die, who gave their life so the rest of the Sidaris gang could live, after eating some poisonous food that assassins had cooked for them. I understand cats are harder to use in a film, because they don't obey commands as well as dogs do, but maybe that's what makes them all the better, because they're just kind of there doing their cat thing, like eating fish on the street while Marko Zaror is chowing down.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I think if you wanted to watch a film in honor of Zirilli, Renegades is probably a better bet, but this isn't horrible if you've already seen that. Yes, it's low-budget, and yes, the story has some holes, but the fact that Zirilli along with Kaos and Strong are trying to make something they care about does come through, and sometimes that's all you need. Before we end, one final toast to Daniel Zirilli. The spirit with which you made these movies was truly special, and I hope that legacy you leave behind lives on in new filmmakers.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9134678

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.