Wanted Man (2024)

This is one we did on a podcast with Mitch from the Video Vacuum--who has also since reviewed it on his site--so it was only a matter of time before it made its way here for a review. In addition to us and Mitch, Chris from Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Wanted Man has Dolph--who also co-wrote, directed, and produced--as a cop in Southern California who beat up a Latin American man during a routine traffic stop and said some racist things about him not being in the US legally. Naturally he's been put on suspension--and naturally he hasn't lost his job either, because that takes a lot to have happen if you're a cop--but his boss gets the crazy Grinchy idea to have Dolph go south of the border to bring back two ladies of the night who also happen to be witnesses to a botched drug deal that led to two DEA agents being murdered. Naturally again he goes down and things aren't what they seem, so he find himself shot and being nursed back to help by one of the ladies. Once he's feeling better, the two of them try to make their way back to the US so she can stand trial. But just who was behind those DEA agent killings? And what will they do to not be found out?

For a new Dolph flick, this isn't horrible. It does suffer a bit from the current ceiling for DTV films that affects so many productions, but working within those constraints I think Dolph and company do a pretty good job here. We also have the supporting cast of Kelsey Grammer and Michael Pare, which helps get us to the church on time. The message regarding hatred toward immigrant populations, that if people just got to know people outside their bubble, they might be more sympathetic once they realized we're all human, is nice enough, but also kind of lets Dolph's character off the hook for being a racist shithead earlier in the film. It's like the idea of a guy saying "I have daughters myself" when someone is accused of violence against women, as if you can't understand why violence against women is bad if you don't have a daughter? It's the same here, Dolph's character shouldn't need to get to know people from Central American countries that are moving to the US to not be a racist shithead toward them. But hey, the trope is the trope, and at least Dolph's character learns the error of his racist shithead ways, and becomes the hero of the film.

This is now 73 films for Dolph on the site. Not only that, but 8th as a director, meaning he's closing in on joining Fred Williamson in the 20-10 Club--20+ tags as an actor, and 10+ as a director. Unlike the acting piece, where he has some other things in development, it looks like this might be it for him as a director for now, with the one we were expecting, Malevolence, seemingly off the table, since it's no longer listed on IMDb. That would be too bad if he doesn't direct anything else, because the DTV actioners he directs tend to be better quality. Even if this one is treading well-worn territory, his performance, and the action sequences, are still better quality than a lot of stuff that's out there now. He has a film coming with Isaac Florentine that looks pretty good, so I can't wait for that to be released. Even as he's closing in on his 67th birthday, he's still getting after it with no signs of slowing down.

We've also got some Frasier Crane here, that's right, Kelsey "Country" Grammer--I added the "country" myself. Just seeing him in anything immediately gets the Frasier theme song stuck in my head. For over 200 episodes on Cheers and then another 260+ on Frasier, he was Dr. Frasier Crane, sophisticated-yet-goofy psychiatrist, first Diane's love interest, then sticking around the bar after she left to be with Lilith, who then leaves him, but we stay with him, all the way across the country to Seattle for another TV series. It was fascinating--if not out of place--to see him in Expendables 3, and perhaps even more so in a Dolph Lundgren actioner. His character here is definitely not Frasier, which is fine, though I kind of wish he had been--or even Frasier-like. This character was racist, sexist, embodying everything we think of in a crooked cop, but the problem for me is we've seen that character played by myriad actors in myriad DTV actioners before. "Frasier" as a retired detective in Southern California we haven't, and as much as I'm sure he doesn't want to be typecast, it was something this movie could've used to make it less typical and trope-filled.

Maybe the biggest trope in movie blogging is movie bloggers using the term "trope," but it is apt here. That trope of "a character is a racist until he meets people from the group he's racist against and now he's not" is a common one, and as I said above, lets the hero off the hook for being a racist shithead earlier in the film. I grew up in Maine, one of the whitest states in the US, and now live in a very diverse city in Philadelphia. Does that mean it would've been okay for me to be a racist in Maine because I didn't encounter as much diversity? Of course not, and it was even worse in this film considering Dolph's character was a police officer, sworn to protect everyone, not just people who share his ethnicity, and through that bias physically attacked someone. It doesn't mean someone like Dolph's character in this can't redeem themselves from being a racist shithead, but what if he just wasn't a racist shithead to begin with? Or what if he didn't have to meet someone he's racist against to gain a sense of empathy and not be a shithead anymore? Maybe the better route is, it's a partner who's beating up the Latin American guy, and Dolph intervenes, and because he intervenes against a fellow officer, the department wants him out of the way and they give him the shitty assignment?

Finally, as we've been doing since Dolph entered the 50 Club, we're giving him a second paragraph. On our side, it looks like we have one more DTV to do, Showdown at the Grand, and then there's others we could add in, like Small Apartments, Sharnado 5, and Fat Slags--if I can ever find it--plus Expendables 3 and Expend4bles, which weren't DTV, but since I did the first two, they're on the table. All that said, while we could push toward 80 films for him, I think once we do Showdown at the Grand in November, that might be it for him for a bit, as I try to give other names a chance to have more posts on the site. For myself, according to Letterboxd I've seen 83 of his films, which I believe is more than any other actor. To some extent my need to continue to watch his stuff is perpetuated by the sheer inertia of the goal started almost two decades ago to watch everything he's ever done, but also a performance in a film like this reminds me of why I enjoyed watching his stuff to begin with. He gives a fun performance, even as a racist shithead who's redeeming himself; and he's still larger-than-life, even now as he approaches his 67th birthday. So even if we may be taking a break from his stuff after we review Showdown at the Grand, my hunch is it won't be for that long.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this for free on Hulu here in the States. We've seen this kind of movie before, but Dolph brings something a bit different, and Grammer is a fascinating addition. For the podcast with Mitch, you can find that in the archives, episode number 168.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15791574

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Shotgun (1989)

In our continuing mission to try to get all of PM's flicks on the site, we have this gem, which according to IMDb is the third PM flick ever. I love the idea of having a PM Collection like the Criterion Collection, and this is number 3 on the spine. In addition to us, Chris at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Simon at Explosive Action, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have all covered this, so I'm definitely late to the party.

Shotgun follows Ian (Stuart Chapin), a detective who, with his partner Max (Rif Hutton), work the vice beat in LA. After reports come in of a "basher" working over ladies of the night, Ian discovers his sister, who happens to also be a lady of the night, falls in with this guy, and meets an untimely end. If Ian was on the edge before, now he's over the edge, which leads to him losing his badge and gun, forcing him to work as a bounty hunter. He's so good at his job, he earns the nickname "Shotgun," but he hasn't given up on the case, and in true PM style, this is building to a huge blowout. 

This is some really fun early PM, but it's also really early PM. I mean look at that font above telling us it's a Pepin and Merhi production? Even AIP could afford better looking credits than that. We also don't have any names in this, beyond Paulo Tocha as a hotel desk clerk, and then Rif Hutton, who you may remember from his KFC commercials where he was the manager of the Lake Edna restaurant (more on that later). Just the same, we get glimpses of the action that will end up being PM's hallmark, and the hero, played by Stuart Chapin, is hilarious, both when he means to be and when he doesn't. In one fantastic scene, he fills a guy's buttocks with buckshot, then tells the guy "if I wanted conversation, I would've shot Dick Cavett!" Indeed, though I doubt Dick Cavett would've taken that shit lying down. We also get a fantastic theme song for Shotgun, that's more beautiful than words can say. Because this is very low-budget and doesn't have as many names, it's probably a movie night choice for your more discerning bad action movie friends--connoisseurs, if you will.

And if you won't, I understand--whatever that means. This is the second-earliest PM flick we've looked at here, after LA Heat, which means this is so early that a few City Lights movies still came out after. This one was written and directed by Addison Randall, who, with Charles T. Kanganis, made up the core of the early PM creative team in addition to Pepin and Merhi, and as such this really feels like a Randall or Kanganis film. The things that would become hallmarks of PM, cops on the edge, topical stories, and shootouts and explosions, are here, they're just waiting for the magic of names like Spiro Razatos or Don "The Dragon" Wilson to show up and take them over the top (Stallone style), or a name like Wings Hauser to drag them under the top(?) in a way only he can. They were just starting out here, and it shows, but knowing what they're going to become, it's fun to go back to the past like this and join them on that ride.

I wanted to talk about the film's lead, Stuart Chapin, who unfortunately left us in 2016. Also unfortunately he didn't get much more work than this film. On the one hand, I can understand why as far as PM were concerned, when soon after they were getting names like Wings Hauser and Don "The Dragon" Wilson for their films, a relative unknown like Chapin would've been left out in the cold; but on the other, why not make a name out of Chapin? Yes, he looked more like a guy who'd sell grilled cheese out of the back of his Jeep Comanche while touring with the Dead, but don't let that "who wants to play some hacky sack?" exterior fool you, Chapin is plenty willing to deck a smug asshole IA guy or fill a bail jumper's buttocks full of buckshot before he brings him in. He should've at least gotten one more film, maybe a sequel to this, Revenge of Shotgun?--complete with a new "Shotgun" theme song, right?

Before the final showdown, this film takes a page from The A-Team by having our hero and his old Army buddy do some welding to turn a large Jeep into a death machine of sorts so they can confront the baddies down in Mexico. What makes this better than your average A-Team welding montage though, is it's set to the "Shotgun" theme song, which is a fantastic song; and we see our hero and his buddy, as they work harder, need to shed layers and get sweaty. The friend even has a Freddie Mercury look to him, very "extra in a gay leather bar scene in an 80s comedy," the kind of thing that was funnier back then than it is now, like "oh look at buttoned-down Eugene Levy getting hit on by that guy with a mustache, sunglasses, and a leather baseball cap. Levy's uncomfortable around gay people, hilarious!" I don't know what they were going for with that montage, but whatever it was, I loved it. We just needed that Shotgun's Revenge sequel with more sweaty montages of men welding set to the hero's theme song. Such a missed opportunity for PM. "Shotgun... sweaty sweaty welding..."

Finally, who remembers the Lake Edna KFC ad campaign? Rif Hutton from this movie, wearing a dress T-shirt and tie, with his kooky family watching football and eating buckets of the Original Recipe, or his kooky customers chowing down on honey BBQ wings, served by his kooky staff. He was only a couple years removed from this film when he did that, but unfortunately it was maybe ten years too early, because back then ad campaigns were more disposable. How many years have insurance companies kept the same people? Or you have situations where companies bring back someone from a previous campaign, like the "can you hear me now?" guy, as if he's some kind of fixture in the zeitgeist--and maybe he is. Had Hutton done these Lake Edna commercials in 2002 instead of 1992, sometime in 2010 KFC would've done a big Super Bowl ad to bring him back, and no one would've really given a shit outside of hacky morning talk shows the next day doing segments on the Super Bowl ads--and confusing Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishburne in the process. (As an aside, is it only Americans who celebrate ads like that? We're essentially celebrating people lying to us and tricking us into buying a lot of shit we don't need. Why do we do that?) The world of fried chicken has come a long way in the last 30 years, and I don't remember the last time I had KFC. It has this combination nostalgia feeling and feeling of pain in my stomach, like I want to eat some and I don't. (As a second aside, in college, I remember a chubby white kid with dreads told my buddy and me that KFC changed their name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because they stopped using real chicken. He was undeterred when I told him it was because they thought the word "fried" sounded unhealthy, or that factory farming chickens is much cheaper than growing fake chicken meat in a lab. My friend and I ended up tracing the origins of his urban legend to a Time article about a research lab generating cell tissue. It felt like a great own at the time, but really, the own was the guy being a chubby white kid with dreads.)

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is free to stream on Plex and the Roku Channel. I prefer the latter because their commercials aren't as intrusive. This is classic early PM for the bad action movie connoisseur, you can't go wrong with it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145464

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Cinderella's Revenge (2024)

This is a film we covered on the pod back on episode 157, when the film's screenwriter and friend of the site Tom Jolliffe was on to discuss it with us. At that time, the film had a limited theatrical release that included a theater in the Philly suburbs, so I was able to get out there and see it then on the big screen. Now it's finally on Tubi here in the States, so I figured it was time to review it here too.

Cinderella's Revenge has Lauren Staerck as our eponymous hero. After her father is framed by her stepmother and executed by a couple of bounty hunters, she's forced to live a life of toil and abuse at the hands of the stepmother and her stepsisters. When a ball is announced for the prince to find a mate, initially Cinderella is stuck at home, but a visit from her Fairy Godmother (Natasha Henstridge) changes all that, allowing Cinderella to go and be the belle of the ball. This only enrages her stepmother and stepsiblings even more, but instead of taking it lying down, Cinderella asks her Fairy Godmother for help again, and she gives Cinderella the strength to exact bloody revenge on all who have wronged her.

 

This was a lot of fun, a great mix of comedic, lighthearted moments, and gory, horror ones. When one of the stepsisters saws off her two smallest toes to try to fit into Cinderella's shoes, it was definitely a cringe-worthy moment for me, which is what a movie like this wants, but Tom reminded me on the podcast that that was taken from the original version of the story--not something we'll see in the Disney adaptations. Adding to the levity, Natasha Henstridge was great as the Fairy Godmother, off-beat, caring, and perhaps a bit sinister. This is juxtaposed with Stephanie Lodge's villainous stepmother, who is never not menacing and vile; and the two stepsisters, played by Beatrice Fletcher and Megan Purvis, who were more silly in their performances--Purvis in particular reminded me of Tracy Ullman. Then all of this is tied together by Lauren Staerck, who we really have to become invested in early on so we can be there to root for her when she starts the killing spree. It all works in a fun, 85-minute package, and while you can't see it in the theater anymore, Tubi is as great a place as any to check it out.

 

The big name in this is Natasha Henstridge, who we've seen here two other times, first in '07 with the Pyun/Lambert flick Adrenaline: Fear the Rush, and then in '08 with Riders aka Steal, with Stephen Dorff and Bruce Payne. 16 years feels like a long time between posts for her, but in looking over her IMDb bio, the only thing I see that we probably should've reviewed is 2016's Home Invasion with Scott Adkins and Jason Patric, but it was dumped from Tubi before I had a chance to catch it, and it's been lost to me ever since. I was surprised to find out that she's not that old, as she was only 21 when she did Species, and 22 when she did Adrenaline: Fear the Rush and Maximum Risk. So how do we get here, from Species to low-budget films like this--even if this one was produced by Mark L. Lester? In her IMDb trivia, she said she wasn't good at choosing movies, and turned down Independence Day and Men in Black for those two movies I just mentioned. That's the start, right? Then two underperforming films, Species II and Ghosts of Mars, a success in a supporting role in The Whole Nine Yards, only to see that sequel not do as well, and now we're doing She Spies. (Which I have to admit I was a fan of.) Seeing her here, where she's bringing a lot of great stuff to the table, we can see where she could've shined in bigger films. Maybe if Elektra didn't do so poorly, Marvel wouldn't have waited until Captain Marvel to make another female-led adaptation. And maybe we could still see her in something like that, but in the meantime, we can enjoy her work here.

 

That's right, Mark L. Lester produced this, he of Commando, Showdown in Little Tokyo, The Base films, and many others. Somehow I missed that he also produced The Gardener, the Gary Daniels film I reviewed recently. Over the last ten years or so, he's stopped directing and turned his attention to producing low-budget films like this--the one he did before this was Ouija Witch, which is also on all the free streamers here in the States. This kind of stuff is fun for sure, but what the world needs is another balls-to-the-wall actioner! Call up Dolph, call up Dacascos--hell if Arnold won't answer your calls, at least call Vernon Wells--and let's blow some shit up! And you've got the screenwriter you need, Tom can give you 90 pages. At the very least, just consider it, and if not for us, please, do it for the kids.

Obviously as the DTV Connoisseur, I don't see movies in the theater that often, let alone review ones I've seen at the theater on my site, so this was a unique experience, but one I hope to have more often. Yes, with me not having a car it's a bit of a hike up to Warrington where this was showing, but it was a fun adventure and worth the trip to support an indie low-budget release like this, and I would happily do it more often if more films like this were showing in the area. For low-budget distributors considering limited releases of their films, one benefit I hadn't considered was the exposure you get from people coming to see other things. At the time this was playing, the new Ghostbusters movie and The Fall Guy were also playing, so anyone coming to see those would see the poster for this and, even if they didn't come back and see it, would have been exposed to it, so when they saw it months later as they're paging through Tubi, it might be enough to have them give it a try among all the other options on there.

 

Finally, we live in a world of expansive movie universes. The MCU is perhaps the most well known, or DC, but Star Trek and Star Wars also come to mind, or even the Fast and Furious. What about fairy tale characters though? They're all public domain, so anyone can use them. Maybe you make a sequel to this, introduce Hansel and Gretel in it, give them their own movie, then go from there, building to a major film with all the characters from the previous films fighting two or three big baddies. And because these stories have been changed and fudged and passed around for centuries, like this one here, you can do whatever you want with it. I think we might have something with this...

But for now, it's just Cinderella's Revenge, and you can get it on Tubi here in the States. I had a really fun time with it, and I think it's worth checking out, especially if you're looking for some off-beat horror to pass the time. Kudos to everyone involved, including Tom, who wrote a great screenplay here. Again, you can check out my conversation with him on this on episode 157 in the archives.

 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28087226

 

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

 

Raw Justice aka Good Cop, Bad Cop (1994)

Wasn't there a Klingon proverb that said "justice is a dish best served raw"? Either way, this had been on my radar for a long time, and when Tubi finally picked it up, I didn't have anymore excuses, so we're making it happen now. In addition to us, the guys at Bulletproof and the guys at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

Raw Justice has David Keith (not to be confused with Keith David) as a former cop who's now a bounty hunter. When he's not wearing the clothes of a lady of the night--and magically making said clothes fit him--in order to fool a mark, he's drinking and ruing his lost love. When said lost love is murdered, Airplane's Robert Hays is implicated, so lost love's father, mayor Charles Napier, calls in Keith to keep an eye on Hays, because Keith can work outside the law. At the same time, he's being harassed by former fellow cop Leo Rossi, who's working for lieutenant mayor Stacy Keach to cover up the murder; and then lady of the night Pamela Anderson comes calling for her clothes Keith took, and gets wrapped up in Keith and Hays's troubles. Just put your goggles on for the last 15 minutes, because you'll need some eye protection when all these loose ends start flying together.

What do we make of a movie like this? It's pretty paint-by-numbers, except it isn't. First off there's the music, which is a cross between the start of the Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" song and what you'd hear in a Roseanne episode supporting a scene change establishing shot. Oh, they're at the Lobo Bar? Now they're back at the Connor's house? Maybe Darlene's apartment in Chicago? Ooh, is David hiding in the bathroom? On the other hand, this had some nice action sequences in it, not PM, but nice enough; and the names are prodigious, with Keith as the disgraced cop on the edge, Robert Hays in a Guttenbergian turn as the awe-shucks guy--yet he also knows kung fu?--, Pamela Anderson pre-Barb Wire but mid-Baywatch slumming it in a David Prior-directed flick, and then Napes, Keach, and Rossi being as Napes, Keach, and Rossi as you want. And before I forget, the great Ted Prior in a small role as another cop helping Rossi, sans mullet but fully-shirted, almost like a Bizzaro Danton. And maybe, for all the things that worked and all the things that didn't, that's what we ultimately needed to get us over the goal line: more New York Seltzer-sponsored AIP action. Where's William Zipp when you need him?

This is our first Pamela Anderson film on the site, just shy of 1300 posts in. I'm not sure why I didn't do Barb Wire back when I was doing Wild Card posts on comic book films, but I must've missed it. With all of the talent in this, it was apparent that she was the one with the real it factor, that it was only a matter of time before she became a big star, though it was more star in the celebrity sense, because she never really had that one breakout acting role. This was maybe 5 years before one could be famous just for being famous, like Paris Hilton, or later Kim Kardashian, so Anderson at least had to try acting, but I think she was one of the first stars to create that famous just for being famous ecosystem, so without her we wouldn't have Kim Kardashian. According to the trivia, she said the love scenes in this were horrible for her, which I definitely saw in the David Keith love scene, where he's really rough with her; but the one with Hays seemed very tame. From a character standpoint, I get why Keith would've gone that route, but he also could've acted it out more than actually going for it. It felt very Jeff Conaway in a Traci Lords PM flick, and you could even see in the shots they used in the film how uncomfortable Anderson was with it, but how she tried to go with it--which again, fit their characters better in the movie, but that doesn't help Anderson out with what she went through at all.

Out of all the names, Napes is the one with the most tags on the site, this being his 13th. After that, David Winters has his 8th (he's a producer), Keach, Rossi, and both Priors have 6, and David Keith has 3. In the scene I took the screen of above, he's in Keith's apartment asking for his help to keep an eye on Hays while Hays is out on bail. From a story standpoint, it's a ludicrous construct, why would Napes do this, especially when we find out he doesn't suspect anyone else, he really thinks Hays did it, why bother getting Keith involved at all? But Napes sells it as only Napes can. "What is my motivation here? Why would I do this if I was this guy?" The paycheck is why, and Napes knows that, and he delivers. The Keach kind of makes no sense, it took a second to even realize it was him. I guess he had to play it this way for us to believe he was the lieutenant mayor to Napes, but I like a good mustachioed no-nonsense Keach if I'm getting Keach in my film. And then there's Rossi. He has this combination Cajun and an impression of the late Leslie Jordan accent that was equal parts hilarious and fascinating. Like I think if I could have one wish, it might be to eat at a Waffle House with Rossi while he's doing that voice the whole time. "You 'bout done with that Heinz 57 sauce? My potatoes are cryin' out for a lil' dab uh two." Who am I kidding, it'd be an honor to have a meal at a Waffle House with Leo Rossi, even if he wasn't doing his Cajun crossed with Leslie Jordan voice. A guy can dream, right?

As I said above, this is now six films for David Prior, but only 5 for directing, which puts him way down the directors tags list--he got a tag for his writer's credit on Dancin' It's On, that's why he has six. That's definitely on me, because I'm behind on my AIP flicks overall--of which this isn't one--but also Prior is one of the DTV greats, and deserves to have more films on here. For all the paint-by-numbers-ness of this, Prior does inject some nice action sequences, from a mall dirt bike chase, to some nice flying cars, to an exploding helicopter. I'm not going to say this is as good as Shakedown, but Prior does his best to get us closer to that. Looking at his IMDb bio, he has another 25 or so films that we could cover here on the site, so I just need to get after it. I'll do my darndest. Here's to you Mr. Prior, you were one of the greats.

Finally, who remembers Montgomery Ward? When our heroes are chasing each other on dirt bikes through the mall, we get a good shot of one here. Growing up, Wards was the anchor at the Newington Mall, which was run out of business by the bigger Fox Run Mall that was opened near it in the late 80s--and the Montgomery Ward along with it--only for the Newington Mall to be torn down and replaced by a massive strip mall with a Barnes and Noble, Kohl's, and Best Buy, which has since almost killed the Fox Run Mall. Anyway, back to Wards, did you know they still exist online? And you can go to the site and request a physical catalog be sent to you? Now I don't know if that catalog has He-Man figures for sale in it, and my parents live over 350 miles away, so I can't just circle the guys I want and dogear the pages so they can find them, but just the idea of a Monkey Wards catalog is fantastic! As an aside, did anyone else call it Monkey Wards? Was that a thing everywhere, or just my neighborhood in my small town in Maine? If you're wondering, I ordered the physical catalog. I had to. Maybe the next Prior film I review will have a chase in front of a Service Merchandise.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this as Good Cop, Bad Cop on Tubi--despite that fact that neither character is a cop--which is as good a way to get it as any. With the names and the good bits of action here and there, it's a nice weekend morning time killer--if you find you have time to kill some weekend morning.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110948

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/