The Bouncer has John Ozuna as a bouncer and martial arts expert whose mother is dying of cancer, and needs money for her operation, and was being accused of killing a patron at the club he was a bouncer for. This means he needs to leave town and head to Bucharest, where he's squatting at someone's apartment and making a living as a bouncer at a fancy club. This seems like it'll work, until he sees crime boss Kane (Costas Manylor), hit his girlfriend Sylvia (Rosemary Yaneva), and decides to step in. It doesn't end well, so he and Sylvia hit the road, and now they're on the run while Mandylor, all his cronies, and all the baddies in the city are after him. Will he and Sylvia make it out alive?
This is pretty paint-by-numbers. Damsel in distress, being held by an evil "king," down on his luck vagrant hero steps in, saves the day, and gets the girl. What works about that for me is it's a quick watch, and simple plot, so it gets you to the church on time. I also liked Ozuna as the hero, but this was his first lead role as far as I could tell, so he's still getting the hang of it. What doesn't work is the extra stuff. The mom kind of disappears, especially at the end. It felt like she was a plot device that felt necessary at the beginning of the script-writing process, that wasn't so much by the end. I think the wrongly accused and being on the run would've been enough, but even that isn't exactly a plot point either. Like what if the police were helping Mandylor find Ozuna? Or instead of the wrongly accused element, what if you went with the mom dying and needing an operation, and that's his dilemma: do I keep this bouncer job that pays really well when I need the money, or do I risk it all to do the right thing? But again, with its flaws, at its heart it's a low-budget actioner that isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, and sometimes that's all you need.
The first name that came to mind when I saw Ozuna was Jalal Mehri, and we know he had a pretty solid career in the 90s, so if that's where Ozuna ends up, that's not too bad. On his IMDb trivia, it says he holds two Guinness World Records in martial arts: most punches in one minute (713); and the fastest martial arts punch (43.3 mph). And the talent is definitely there, but as we know with other great martial artists, the practitioner element is only part of it. The "It" factor is also important, and that's the area where Ozuna will grow as he does more pictures. Going back to the Mehri comp, one thing he did was surround himself with other talent. He worked with Cynthia Rothrock, Bolo Yeung, Billy Blanks, David Bradley, Loren Avedon, Olivier Gruner, etc. While this had some names too, getting some established martial arts talent to work with him, and maybe even someone like an Art Camacho to direct and help out on fight choreography, could be that next step to get him into that next level of stardom. I think Camacho does stuff with R. Ellis Frazier, who makes a lot of films in Mexico with names like Gary Daniels, I'd love to see Ozuna in a project like that. Either way, it'll be fun to see what we get next from him.
Out of everyone in the film, the name with the most tags on our site was Gerald Okamura. He has a very small role as Ozuna's master in a flashback sequence, but any time we get to see him is a great time. Joe mentioned that this was his first film in nine years, that one being Samurai Cop 2, but he liked the script and decided to go for it. I feel bad as well, because his 84th birthday was on November 23rd, and I missed it. I also realized I was missing five films he was in that we'd reviewed but hadn't tagged him for yet, so he's now at 19 films on the site, and when I look at his bio, I see a bunch of films he did that we could do on here, which means the 30 Club is a possibility, and due to the Asylum rule, 30 Club is automatic entry into the Hall of Fame. Gerald Okamura, DTVC Hall of Famer, has a nice ring to it. Here's to you Mr. Okamura, you're one of the greats.
While the plot point about the mother needing money for an operation didn't play a huge part in the rest of the film, it is very relevant considering current events in America, with the killing of the United Healthcare CEO, and the social media jokes that followed, like "Sorry, the bullet was out of network, so the extraction isn't covered." It's a reality that that CEO, and many other health insurance CEOs, are responsible for many more deaths than the guy who will probably get life in prison for killing him, but in America some murders are okay, and some are punished--and some are punished by punishing the wrong person. All that said, it's a great plot device for an action movie, right? And we've seen it for years. Guy's daughter's in the hospital, we need hundreds of thousands of dollars for an operation? Time for that one last heist--which goes horribly wrong. This one mixed it up a bit because it was the mom, but the plot device is the same. What if someone made an action film where the hero went on a revenge spree to take down a health insurance CEO? We need to get to that level where health insurance executives in America are seen on the same level as human traffickers and animal poachers, what I call "baddie in a can." Maybe current events will get us closer to that. The other thing the current events bring up that this film ignored, is the idea of needing money, but is how you make it worth compromising your principles? Because Ozuna needed the money, I wish we had more of that dilemma, where he likes the job, but he risks it to do the right thing. As a health insurance CEO, can you sleep at night if you're making millions of dollars off people's suffering? Or as Ozuna the bouncer, can you sleep at night saving money for your mother's operation knowing you're looking the other way at Mandylor's evil doings? It's a question this movie didn't address enough, but I wish it would have.
Finally, the character of Sylvia was played by Rosemary Yaneva, who looks a lot like Lisa Marie Presley. In the Pulp Fiction binary of "Beatles" or "Elvis," I am an Elvis Man, but I also like a lot of Beatles songs too. I think my favorite from Elvis is "One Night" from The '68 Comeback Special, but with Christmas around the corner, you also have to love "Blue Christmas." He would've been 90 in January, but even crazier for me, as someone who's now 45, Elvis was only 42 when he passed. I was debating on whether or not to bring back the DTVC Extra in 2025, but maybe a look at some Elvis films could be a fun project, especially in honor of what would've been his 90th birthday.
But that's for another time, so let's wrap this one up. Currently you can rent this on Amazon here in the States for $3.99. If you want to support indie creatives near the holiday, that's a great way to do it, but if money's tight and you want to wait for it to come out on a free streamer, I understand. This is a fun low-budget actioner, especially for when you're in the mood for a fun, low-budget actioner.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16758460
And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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