Lights Out (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered back on episode 162 of the podcast, our "Dermot Mulroney Double Feature" episode, almost a year ago now, and I've been meaning to get it on the site as well. Beyond the Adkins factor, we've been meaning to get more Grillo on the site too--or fire up the Grillo, as we like to say here. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Lights Out has Grillo as a former soldier who has just left the service, and is looking for work. After beating up Kevin Gage and some other ne'er-do-wells at a bar, he catches the attention of Mekhi Phifer, who gets him involved in the underground fight game. But it turns out Phifer's sister is into mob guy Sage (Dermot Mulroney) and the cop who's working with him, Glenn Close (Jaime King), because her abusive ex-boyfriend hid a duffle bag full of money at her house, and they want it back. Now Grillo doesn't just need to win some fights, but he needs to bring these baddies down, and to help him do it is old Army buddy Scott Adkins. Will he prevail?

This isn't horrible. It's directed by Christian Sesma, and his films have a higher floor, which helps in this sea of options we have on places like Tubi and Hulu. I think from a story standpoint, there's a lot going on, which hampers it a bit. The concept itself is one of those I'd say has enough material for an episode of a syndicated action show, and there are two ways to get something with that much material from 42 minutes to 90s minutes: you pad the hell out of it, or you add a bunch of stuff, and this one went for the latter. Still, the fights were good, Grillo gives us another solid lead, Phifer, JuJu Chen, and Mulroney were fun, we had the novelty of an Adkins appearance, plus Jaime King was playing Glenn Close! (More on that later.) Overall, this is a fun 90-minute time killer.

We're now at five Grillo films on the site, which isn't a lot when you consider how much DTV stuff he's done, but when you look at it all, he doesn't co-star with a lot of names like Adkins or Dolph, he tends to be the star power himself, which means we need to carve out specific reviews for him, something that I think will come more often as we start to finish off some of the old guard--though if they keep making movies at the rates they've been, it may not be as easy. We do have two others of his in the can right now, Black Lotus and A Day to Die, plus I'm looking forward to Hounds of War finally being available on streaming. What we get here is more confirmation that Grillo is a great lead in these movies, and with the baddies we've seen him play, he's someone who can slot into a lot of different roles and elevate a DTV film beyond its budget. The other interesting thing is it looks like James Gunn's DC reboot is utilizing him more than the MCU did, which is DC's gain and Marvel's loss, but also means it could be our loss as well if his profile starts to extend further beyond the DTV realm. We'll see, but in the meantime he has a lot of DTV back catalog for us to get to.

Mr. Adkins is at 29 now, so he's on the cusp of the 30 Club. I wanted to try and get him and Michael Jai White, who's at 28, in around the same time, but with three more Adkins films I have in the can to review, he might not only get in ahead of White, but end up a few films ahead of him in the process. This is a very small role, so had he already been at 29 I would've tabled this for a bit, because it wouldn't have been worthy of his 30th film. This is the second time we've seen him in a Sesma film, the other being a small, yet larger than this, role in Section 8, which also had Dolph. He's still pumping out a few movies a year, and even though some are like John Wick 4, which we probably won't review, most of them are DTV, so once he passes the 30 Club threshold, it won't be long before he's in the 40 Club too. Even with a small role, they all count the same, so the next time we see him here he'll officially be in the 30 Club.

Christian Sesma is a director who's been on my radar for a bit, especially for films like this that have a lot of names, and a look and feel that gives them a higher floor than most modern DTV. He's far down the list of directors whose movies we've done, as this is only his third, but I see a bunch that could be reviewed which could get him closer to some of the other names sooner. He has a couple with Michael Jai White, for instance, that are definite reviews just because they have White in them. The other thing is almost all of his stuff is on either free streamers or ones I'm subscribed to, so I can move through his filmography a little quicker. Compare that to Jesse V. Johnson, who I have 8 films left to cover, but I think only three of those 8 are on streamers; or Isaac Florentine, whose most recent is still rent only, while Sesma's most recent is already on Hulu.

Finally, the kids always talk about something not being on their "bingo card," and I'd say for Ty and me when we were discussing this, Jaime King playing Glenn Close was not something we had on our bingo cards. What was the mindset there? Was it "we can't afford Glenn Close, but this should really be her part"? Or did King say "I'm only playing this part if I can play her as Glenn Close." And she's a corrupt cop, so it's an Evil Glenn Close. It just added this bonkers element to the proceedings. When she was in Out of Death or Code Name Banshee she wasn't playing Glenn Close, so it's not like this is a thing she does all the time now. I guess as a one-off I'll go with it, and maybe it makes sense, because Close is such a great actor, who wouldn't want to emulate her--even if this is a bit All About Eve if she is.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu, which I think is a good deal. It has its flaws, but overall it's solid enough to get you to the church on time if you have 90 minutes to kill and you're looking for something to watch. And also remember to check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this, number 162 in the archives, "Dermot Mulroney Double Feature."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16368898

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Section 8 (2022)

In December Xfinity was offering a deal where you could rent one movie per weekend for $1, so I figured that was a great chance to grab this one. On top of that, Ty from Comeuppance had seen it at a friend's who has AMC+, so we were also able to discuss it on a recent Willis pod episode we did. In addition to us, Chris at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Section 8 is about a former special forces guy (Ryan Kwanten) who is trying to make good in civilian life with his wife and young son while working for his uncle, Mickey Rourke. After some Mexican gangsters try to shake Rourke down for protection money, said gangsters kill Kwanten's wife and son, so he kills them for revenge, and ends up in prison. Enter Dermot Mulroney, who runs a secret wet works op called Section 8, and he offers to recruit Kwanten to get him out of jail. Things seem fishy though, as they often are, so Kwanten turns to his former commanding officer, Dolph, for advice. Too late, Mulroney was already suspicious of Kwanten, so he sent Scott Adkins in to take Kwanten down. Will Kwanten be able to make it out alive?

Despite not being an Emmett-Furla Willis film, this felt like that, which was weird considering this was directed by Christian Sesma, and the previous film of his I'd seen, Paydirt, wasn't like that at all. Grimacing, bearded, former special forces white guy? Check. Played by someone who isn't one of our big names? Check. Wife and young child either threatened or killed? Check. Convoluted plot complete with ample padding? Check. Characters like Dolph's and Adkins's that seem to disappear for chunks of the film? Check. This had one element though that those didn't: Dermot Mulroney. He was great with his Grecian Formula dyed mustache over his gray beard, wearing a tux and saying vile, villainous things. And from there, we did get some Dolph and Adkins that was good, which is more than can be said for some other films of theirs. For a $1 rental as a Dolph completist it wasn't bad, but I think as a free streamer--or if you're already subscribed to AMC+--this is more likely to do the trick for you.

Normally I don't do so many films by a star like Dolph in quick succession, having done Pups Alone less than a month ago, but I also don't normally get a chance to do his new releases as soon either, as $5.99 is usually too rich for my blood when I have so many free streamers out there, and I know his movies end up on Tubi, Netflix, or Hulu eventually. That meant I couldn't stall too long on this and let it sit when I had this opportunity. He's good enough in this, despite not being the main star. I couldn't help thinking back to the 90s where he would've played Kwanten's part--or even in the late 2000s when we started this site and he was still playing that role. It was often the kind of movie we could put in a Dolph Fest, watching him go around and kick ass and take names. Even something like the ludicrous idea that Kwanten's character would get life in prison for killing his wife and son's murderer only hours after it happened would've been ludicrous in a fun way with Dolph in the lead in the 90s/2000s, but now feels like a contrived plot device with someone like Kwanten in the lead. And maybe that's part of Dolph's legacy as we move into the 2020s, he's no longer the lead in something like this, but we watch it and remember when he was, and how his presence at that time elevated those movies in a way that few can now. Still, it was fun to see him here, and he made the movie better by being in it.

On the other hand, it's been a bit longer since we've last seen Mr. Adkins, back in October when we did Close Range for Isaac Florentine's Hall of Fame induction post. Here he had an afterthought feel, like they got him attached to the movie, so they attached him onto the script. We lose him for huge chunks, and then at the end he confronts Kwanten and it's like Chekhov's Adkins: if you introduce him in the middle, you need to use him at the end. The Adkins we did get was solid though, he has one of the best Vegas shootouts this side of Robert Patrick planting one between the eyes of Mick Fleetwood then proceeding to blow up half of the Vegas Strip; though on the other hand, we have a massive leap of faith at the end when his assassin character has Kwanten at gun point and could just kill him, but then makes mistakes uncharacteristic of a master assassin like him, just so Kwanten can defeat him--more of those plot holes. I still have three more from the Adkins mini film fest I did for a solo podcast episode back in June, plus one or two others in the can, so we'll be seeing more of him soon, which is good, because we didn't see a lot of him here; but with this being his 24th film on the site, we'll be closing on 30 Club territory for him, which would also mean automatic Hall of Fame induction. Maybe he'll go in anyway next fall, whether we get him to 30 films or not, since The Asylum is the only one we've had to invoke that rule with, and do we want Adkins to share that dubious distinction with them?

The best part of the movie for both Ty and me was the Mulroney as a baddie. There was a sense of, "why haven't we seen this guy in more of these movies? He's great!" It was just this scenery chewing villain, sometimes in a tux, always with a gray beard that's been Grecian Formulaed around the mustache area. He's got your My Best Friend's Wedding right here! Of course, this leads us to a Destro Effect, because Kwanten's hero was your standard Emmett-Furla'esque one-note bearded grimacing guy, which gives us nothing to sink our teeth into, so we're forced to turn to Mulroney. Yes, Dolph mitigates it some, but he's not in the film enough to properly mitigate the Destro Effect heat Mulroney was giving off. According to IMDb he had 7 films come out in 2022, which is the kind of quantity over quality approach that signals a full on move to DTV, and could mean this won't be the last time we see him here. Let's hope not.

Finally, as we've been doing, we'll give Dolph a second paragraph as we discuss his legacy more. As I said above, I don't know that this had a passing the torch feel, but rather a reminder that Dolph used to play the Kwanten part, and he played it in a next level way that only he could. In terms of films, he's not really slowing down, as he has 7 projects in post-production right now, but it feels like the days of Dolph on the tin equals Dolph as the lead are over. And maybe that's okay, because of how many films he's given us where he was the lead. He's the Babe Ruth of DTV for a reason, and has the most films on our site because he's so fantastic, and was so fantastic in so many of those earlier DTV flicks that that momentum is what makes us come back to these newer ones where he doesn't have as much of a role, and will keep me coming back. What's great though is a lot of those earlier DTV classics he did are free to stream on places like Tubi, so anyone can go back and see them, or like in my case, revisit them.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available on AMC+, which you might have, but if you don't, I think this is better to wait for when it goes to another streamer you might be subscribed to, or a free one like Tubi. It's not horrible, but not worth a $5.99 rental.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14950412

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Paydirt (2020)

Back in February I had Francis Rizzo III from KilmerKast on to discuss this film, as it was the place where our two podcast worlds intersect: Val Kilmer and DTV movies. Also it was free on Tubi, so easy for both of us to get at. In addition to us, our friend Todd Gaines at Bulletproof action has covered this.

Paydirt has DTV mainstay Luke Goss as the head of a gang of people who stole a bunch of money from a Mexican cartel and hid it away from them. To throw them off the scent, Goss goes down for a petty drug trafficking charge and gets 5 years in the can--put there by Val Kilmer, who ends up leaving his job on the force in disgrace when the bust only turns up the small amount of weed and Goss's arrest. Now Goss is out and the cartel wants their money, Kilmer wants his revenge, and Goss wants to get the gang back together to get the money too. As all these moving parts come together, will Goss and his crew prevail, or will the cartel take them down, or will Kilmer get his revenge? With all of these movies there's a twist, and this one may involve... an Oscar winner?

If you want to watch this without spoilers, don't read any further, because I can't discuss this without giving away what happens. Essentially, the movie tells us that the idea of the MacGuffin--in this case the bag of money Goss buried--is a fun plot device, but not realistic, so instead they never hid the money, they laundered it in a casino run by a character named Leo Cap, played by Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga. What that means is, all the trouble they went through to break into places to get information on the whereabouts of the money, and drawing out the cartels, and stringing Val Kilmer along, was all useless. What that means is, the movie should have ended in the first five minutes when Luke Goss got out of jail, because he had no reason to not just get on a plane with his gang and flee the country. What that means is the jokes on you movie makers, because you think you're so smart pooh poohing the MacGuffin, when in fact you have no movie without it. I feel like this has to be a first at the DTVC: a movie that obviates itself at the end; the only problem is, though it obviates itself, the 90 minutes I lost in watching it can't be brought back. I guess I got a podcast episode and a blog post out of it, so that's something.

Val Kilmer isn't in this much, and there's a sense that the cancer he was dealing with was preventing him from fully being there in the scenes he was in; but we also had a couple scenes with him and his daughter, which were really nice. If anything, the film giving us those nice moments, and allowing Kilmer to have those moments with his daughter, might make the plot twist that obviates the need to have the movie in the first place worth it. Right now Kilmer is kind of blowing up as part of the new Top Gun movie--which as of this writing I haven't seen--and I think seeing him in something like Paydirt makes me want a win like that for him more. I don't want to say he's been largely forgotten, but he's one of the greatest actors of his generation, and while it's fun to see him in DTV stuff--and cool to see him have an opportunity to act opposite his daughter--big screen success is what he's due for his level of talent.

Luke Goss on the other hand exists more in the DTV realm, but here with his native English accent, he's much better. The character he's playing has the potential to go full bro-y, but the English accent pulls us back from the brink and makes him endearing, which we desperately needed. This is his 11th film on the DTVC, but I think other than Tekken this is the only one where he speaks with his English accent. In a way it's a funny coincidence that I say his American accent makes him sound "bro-y," because he was in a band with his brother called Bros. Anyway, the question is, how high can his tag count get here at the DTVC, considering how many films he's done? The problem is, I generally don't do a Goss film unless someone else who's bigger is in it too. Kilmer, Michael Jai White, Gary Daniels have all featured in Goss films. One I may check out is Hollow Point, which was directed by Daniel Zirilli, who's someone whose work I like to support.

The heist movie has become easy money in the DTV world of the last 20 years or so. Get a group together, throw in a baddie to manage and a police officer to evade, give us quirky characters, and let them have at it. In a way, this film demonstrates the desperation in the attempts by people making these to try something, anything, to make them less run of the mill. I mean, they did have an interracial lesbian couple, so that's not so run of the mill; but the story is something we've seen so many times, guy who knows where the money is finally gets out of jail and all the players start scrambling to get their hands on it. In that sense, the plot twist that obviates the whole thing, shows us how mundane the whole thing has become, the problem is, this was no meta criticism on the genre, it was almost one that wrote itself into a corner and got stuck with the plot twist it went with. The question is, is this any worse than how one-note Hollywood has gotten? If they're not making reboots or sequels, they're making origin stories with one-name titles. Film in America has gotten safer everywhere, and this is the result. 

Finally, we had another Oscar winner in a DTVC film, and I had no idea until Francis let me know when we were doing the podcast. Nick Vallelonga won two Oscars for Green Book, and yet had this small part as a casino owner in this DTV film. I was trying to think how many Oscar winners we've had on here now. De Niro, Stallone, and Cage first come to mind. We also had Jack Palance and Angelina Jolie in Cyborg III. Ernest Borgnine's been on a couple times as well; plus we did an old Humphrey Bogart film--that wasn't exactly DTV. And then with The Irishman, in addition to De Niro we had Scorsese, Pacino, and Pesce. Out of all the Oscar winners we've had on the site though, the most tagged is Cuba Gooding Jr. with 11.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi. I think it's only for Kilmer completists, because it has that added element of him acting with his daughter. Beyond that, the movie is telling you not to bother--movies about MacGuffins are childish fantasy, right? One you should bother with though is KilmerKast, which is a really fun podcast Francis does that covers the career of Val Kilmer.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11176322

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!