Villain (2020)

Back in July I had Will from Exploding Helicopter on the podcast to discuss Craig Fairbrass, and this was one of the films we looked at. I have to confess that before the episode, I hadn't seen a lot of Fairbrass's films, so this was a great opportunity for me, and Will was great in providing the context for Fairbrass's career and the characters he was playing.

Villain has Fairbrass as Eddie Franks, a criminal who's released from prison after ten years, and is looking to get his life on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, if it were that simple, we wouldn't have a movie. To start, his brother Sean, who was supposed to be running their pub when he was away, has a coke habit and is now into some mobsters for a huge debt. At the same time, his estranged daughter wants nothing to do with him, and while he's repairing that relationship so he could be a part of her and his grandson's life, he finds out she's in an abusive relationship. Now to fix both situations, it looks like Franks will have to turn to crime one last time before he can finally put it all behind him and move forward. This shouldn't be a problem for someone as experienced as Eddie, right?

This was really good. I was hesitant to give it the "action" tag, because it doesn't have a lot of action; as was I hesitant to give it the "suspense" tag, because, while it has some suspense, it's not really a suspense move per se. Drama might be the best genre, but we don't have a drama tag, so I had to make the best that I could with it. And as you can tell from the cover, this was hard to market as well, because it's not really anything like you're seeing there. What we get is a solid story about a tragic figure surrounded by other tragic figures. It's more a character study than a classic English hardman flick, but what makes it so great is how much Fairbrass is up to the task. The supporting cast all turn in great performances as well, working well as satellites around Fairbrass's central figure, yet making their characters compelling in the process. It's more Indie art house flick than DTV actioner, and while it's packaged like the latter, don't let the fact that it's the former scare you away from it.

Before I move forward, just a word of warning that in the later paragraphs I will need to give away the ending, so if you want to watch this first, by all means do, then come back and see what I thought about the rest. You can find this on Prime and Pluto here in the States.

The fact that Fairbrass was able to pivot this character away from the standard British hardman role is ultimately what makes it work so well. I think that's because he's a true actor that just happens to also be very imposing in stature, not a former athlete or something like that turned actor due to his imposing stature. The other thing he does here is he leans into his age, almost playing someone even older. When he holds his grandson, he makes himself appear very grandfatherly. Look at the image of him below. That's not Pat Tate Hoovering up lines of coke and beating up stuntmen with a baseball bat, that's a man in his late 50s looking at his infant grandson and trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see him playing Pat Tate or another standard hardman, but to see him pull this off as well as he does was fantastic, and really entertaining.

Spoiler alert, a final warning that I'm going to have to give away the ending here, so if you don't want to know what happens, don't read further and go watch the film.

This movie ends with Eddie Franks dying, but in way that you wouldn't expect. As things are unraveling around him, it's actually his daughter's abusive boyfriend who shows up on a motorbike and hoses him down with Uzi fire. For some in the IMDb comments, this was a letdown, which I get. But there was also the sense of the European tragic tradition that this is playing on, something that's more common in the UK than here in the States. Will and I discussed it a bit, and I mentioned how Mark Twain flips that tradition in Tom Sawyer, where Tom gets to attend his own funeral, instead of the hero being destroyed by his own hubris, he gets to see himself celebrated as the center of attention. Will had a good counter to that though, when he mentioned the gangster films of the 30s with stars like Cagney and Robinson, where those characters always died tragically at the end--and that tradition continues with a film like Scarface, or even Goodfellas where Henry Hill symbolically dies when he's forced to live a mundane life in witness protection. Why then is an ending like this so anathema to us Americans, where it fits better for Brits or Europeans? We want to see an Eddie Franks vanquish his enemies and avoid capture from the police, right? But maybe that's a more recent thing, the idea of the "anti-hero," Fast and Furious or Marvel movies where baddies come back to join the heroes, there is no dying by the sword that the main character lives by, only living. So to see an anti-hero like Eddie Franks not only die, but die the way he does, works so counter to that new tradition that it ruins the film for a lot of people. For me though, I appreciated it here.

The other piece I really liked was how we get the sense that Franks has it all figured out, only to find out he was wrong, and that mistake was what becomes his undoing. It's another piece that we often don't see in newer films, especially ones made here in the US. The hero almost always has it all figured out, even when it seems like he doesn't, we find out after the fact that he knew all along. Not only does this not go in that direction, but it warns us that that might be the case earlier on. Essentially, what happens is, Eddie's brother Sean isn't into the baddies for a large sum of money because, as Eddie initially thought, the baddies stole their own goods that he was supposed to transport, a classic scam baddies use to extort their couriers; but rather because the police confiscated it. The baddies warn Eddie that his brother is a "grasser," UK-speak for the US "rat," but he refuses to believe it. It's part of the hubris that leads to our hero's tragic end, but it's the kind of move many modern US films won't go for, which is too bad.

Finally, during the episode, I asked Will if anyone ever played baseball in the UK, or if baseball bats were just used in bar fights and gang fights like we see in these UK crime films, and he confirmed that it's the second thing. Here I believe Fairbrass uses a hammer to attack some guys giving him a hard time in his pub, which makes more sense, because hammers still have utilitarian uses outside of attacking people with them; but the baseball bat, if no one is playing baseball, has only one other purpose. And to be fair, it serves that purpose really well. The baseball bat has been engineered for more than a century to be able to do something as good as possible that the best players only do about 30% of the time, and that's hit a baseball being thrown at 90+ MPH, that's curving and moving around as it approaches the batter. That makes a stationary human head an easy target for that uniquely designed baseball bat, and while the UK doesn't have a great need for a bat to hit a moving fastball, there are plenty of human heads, especially in London. The question then is, where does one get a baseball bat in the UK? At a sporting goods store? Or a bar supply store? And while we also use a baseball bat as a weapon here in the US, when an assault rifle is so easy to come by, why not spend the extra money? If we did things like they do in the UK, the man rampaging through a school with just a baseball bat may hurt some kids, but someone might be able to disarm him, and you also assume the local police wouldn't be afraid to engage him either like they are when he's stalking the school halls with an assault rifle. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can get this on Prime and Pluto here in the States. I think it's well worth it. This may not fit the usual genres we cover here, and the ending may not be what you're looking for, but something that's well-shot and well-acted is all you need to get you to the church on time. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode I did with Will on Craig Fairbrass. It's episode 130, from July 25th in the archives--and warning, in that episode I go off on a long tangent comparing North Jersey in the US, to Essex in England.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9820352

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

 

Avengement (2019)

This was actually my nominee for the 1000th post, but when I put it out there for suggestions and saw some other great candidates--and also decided based on one that I would be going in another direction--I chose to spotlight the movies people nominated, and left this one out to do on my own. In addition to my review, you can see what our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum thought; and we featured this on a podcast episode some months back with our friend Simon from Explosive Action.

Avengement has DTVC favorite Scott Adkins as a guy who escapes from prison after he's let out to see his dead mother before she passes. His plan is to get revenge on the people he puts there, so he holds a pub hostage and waits for the guy he wants to show. While he's waiting, we learn his story through a series of action-packed flashbacks, featuring some intense fight scenes by Adkins. All this leads to one big fight at the end. Has his time in prison prepared him to take on this many crazy English gangsters at once?

I have this as one of the best DTV flicks in recent memory. I can't remember something that's generated this much buzz and delivered in such a strong way--Black Dynamite is the only one that comes to mind, and that was almost ten years ago. First and foremost, they take the fight scene to this level of extreme, brutal art, that is fantastic to witness. Adkins underpins all of it with his combination of skills and extreme get-after-it-ness (I couldn't think of another word to describe it) that he throws into the role. Decisions on things like telling the movie in flashbacks, which usually feel gimmicky and contrived, worked here for me to keep it from feeling like every other prison flick. This is the Adkins you came for, and hopefully it'll only get better from here.

I recently gave my list of top DTV stars when I was on Cam Sully's Jacked Up Reviews podcast, and I put Adkins at 9. One could make the case that that's too soon for him to be in the top ten; others may say why only 9? I think he still has some work to do--and you wonder how much of it will continue to be in DTV with flicks like this, though I would put something like Recoil ahead of it, and unfortunately Daniels never made the jump to the big screen, so we'll see. Either way, Adkins is generating a lot of heat, and I feel like this is that movie where you say "this guy gets it," and as a fan of the genre, that's really all we can ask for.

This is another collaboration Adkins did with Jesse V. Johnson--and the third we've covered here, along with Triple Threat and The Debt Collector. As someone who started out in the stunt world, he's come over to directing with varying degrees of success, but I think this film allowed him to showcase exactly what he can do with the DTV action film, especially when paired with a talent like Adkins. Another former member of the stunt world who directs is Art Camacho, and all of his aren't perfect either, but if Johnson can approach Camacho's career, I think for us as fans, we couldn't ask for anything more.

In addition to Adkins, we had Craig Fairbrass as his brother. I think he's always great as the English heavy who adds a little bit more to the role. Whereas like a Vinnie Jones character might slam a guy's head in a car door, and you're waiting for that payoff of him doing it; with Fairbrass, you know his character would do it too, but we're satisfied with just the fact that we know he'd do it, if that makes sense--we don't need him to actually do it for that same Vinnie Jones payoff. I also liked Nick Moran for the same reason, and the two together form a combination that really works in offsetting Adkins's brutality without us feeling like they're any less sinister. Finally, we had Louis Mandylor again, who has become something of a Jesse V. Johnson mainstay. What I like about that is when a director can pull someone in they've worked with for a small role, they tend to nail it better. Ask Albert Pyun about all his mainstays. It's little things like that that can make or break a DTV film, especially when the margin for error is smaller.

Finally, because Adkins is all scarred up in this, I wanted to post a picture of him not scarred and with his hair intact for my former pod co-host Jamie, and everyone else out there that finds Adkins the dreamiest. It would be interesting to know which is worse for people when it comes to Adkins: making him affect an American accent for a role, or scarring his face. For me, it's just slightly the former, so scars over American accent.

Right now this is on Netflix, along with a lot of the Adkins/Johnson catalog. Get after it and make it happen. As Simon said when he was on the podcast, this is one of those that you show your friends who aren't into DTV, and they're like "I had no idea a DTV flick could be this good." I don't know where I'd put it on my best ever list, but it's definitely my favorite DTV flick since Black Dynamite. For the podcast episode, you can follow the link on the left-hand side to choose which platform you want to get it from, then look for episode 64, Avengement.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8836988

House of the Rising Sun (2011)

I guess I was a sucker for the cast in this one, seeing names like DTVC fave Danny Trejo, Amy Smart, and Dominic Purcell. Also, David Bautista looks pretty bad ass on the cover, and I'd love to see him get after it. Of course, we've seen with some recent WWE stars in DTV flicks that this isn't always a good sign. Let's see what happened.

House of the Rising Sun does not take place in New Orleans, but rather Grand Rapids, Michigan, where disgraced former cop Bautista, after doing a nickel in the clink for corruption, is working for a gambling house/brothel. As luck would have it, it's hit for $300,000 on his watch, and his mob boss bosses want him to find it. Now he has to go back to his cop roots and clear his name.



Whoa, what the hell was that? You're telling me you cast David Bautista as a glorified wannabe bad Noir cop? The David Bautista? And not just a Noir, but a bad, boring one, with a predictable plot and absolutely no action or anything else happening. Really? Whose idea was that? You can tell it wasn't the distributors, because they have the bad ass sleeve of tats Bautista looking to tear some shit up on the cover. That's what they're trying to sell us on, but that's nowhere near what we got. But why? Why wouldn't you make the bad ass sleeve of tats version? I'm shocked. When you try to go deep an emotional and plot driven with David Bautista, you know what you end up with? A guy who looks like a juicehead from the Jersey Shore as our lead. All we needed was the busy T and Bautista knocking a guy out with "one punch kid, one punch!" Sautéed in wrong sauce barely scratches the surface of how bad this was. I'm blaming you David DeFalco, because your name was the only one I recognized in the production credits.

I just don't get it. If you come to me and say "write me a movie for David Bautista", I'm thinking former special forces bad ass, owns a biker bar, buddy he used to work with is a senator, and the senator's daughter is kidnapped by bikers. Now they have to call Bautista in out of retirement, and he's kicking ass and taking names. Imagine it: one action scene bigger and better than the next. Explosions, flipping bikes, big brawls, Bautista throwing guys through walls and bar room tables. And if I had a script that looked something like this predictable Noir that I just had to sit through, and someone comes to me and says "hey, guess who we got for the lead? Bautista!", I'd be rewriting with the quickness it so it would look like the pile of awesome I described above.



And that goes for Amy Smart too. Totally wasted here as the one-note window-dressing lead female. Come on now, you could get any producer's mid-life crisis twenty-something girlfriend to play that role. This is Amy Smart, she of the great sense of humor and comedic timing. Imagine her in the movie I described above as a tough biker chick. Maybe throw in an eye patch, lots of leather, and just play it to the hilt. Didn't these people see Crank? Amy Smart has tons of range. I get that you like the name recognition of her over the producer's or financier's mid-life crisis broad, but once you cast Amy Smart, add to the part, give it the depth an actress with her range deserves.

We had a two-part baddie, with Trejo and Purcell, though Purcell was the real bad guy. Again, these two would've been awesome in the Bautista film I proposed. Keep Purcell as the main baddie, maybe work his accent and make him seem dirtier; then take Trejo and make him a respected rival biker gang elder who goes way back with Bautista. How awesome would all of that had been? Instead you get Purcell as a one-note mafioso baddie looking to weasel his way up the ladder, and Trejo looks all out of place as the head mafioso not knowing that Purcell is scamming him. Like Smart, these guys have more range too, let them show it.



I have never been to Michigan before, but it looks like a pretty nice place. We've seen a couple on here that were shot in Detroit-- Game of Death immediately comes to mind--, but this is the first in Grand Rapids. I know the state has been through some tough times, so it's cool that DTV film makers are going to these places to shoot their movies, instead of places like Bulgaria or Romania. Again, I'm putting it out there, I think DTVC Hall of Famer and Michigan native Steven Seagal needs to shoot some movies up there. Dump that faux Louisiana accent for one movie, get into Detroit, or Lansing, or Grand Rapids, or hell, Kalamazoo, Flint, or Sault St. Marie, and make it happen. Maybe you can get Detroit native Iggy Pop to join you.

Okay, you know the drill, total snoozefest, entire cast wasted, not worth your time. If you see this in your local Red Box or Netflix suggests it, run in the other direction. That is, unless you're suffering from insomnia, then it might be a cheaper alternative to sleeping pills.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1788383/

Far Cry (2008)

Just released on DVD here in the States last week, I had to wait until this week to review Far Cry due to our Golan-Globus celebration. Uwe Boll's newest movie, it was ins Kino over in Germany, but never made it to theaters over here. Probably something to do with that lack of German tax relief giving him less money to throw at Hollywood celebrities.

Far Cry stars German actor Til Schweiger as a former German special forces dude working a charter boat off the coast of Washington for whale watchers. Then an amazingly hot reporter hires him to take her to an island where her uncle, Rolf Moeller, has reported an evil scientist, Udo Kier, has been conducting experiments on soldiers to make the perfect killing machine. Til isn't so hot about this idea, and he drops her off, planning to just wait at the boat until she's done. Unfortunately, guys with special forces training don't just get to wash their hands of the action, especially when they're top billed in an action film, and Til's boat is hit by a rocket and he narrowly escapes death. The rest of the film is him trying to get off the island, but the reporter being so hot that he can't convince her to leave well enough alone, so because of her, he has to take down Kier.



This isn't bad. Okay, it was, but in a very fun way. Rolf Moeller was great, almost as good as he was in Best of the Best 2. Til Schweiger was a cool good guy, and the reporter, played by Emmanuelle Vaugier, was plenty hot enough as the female lead. The action was nice and steady, though at times went on a little too long and was repetitive. It had plenty of the silliness we've grown to expect from Boll, including the engineered soldiers having bulletproof skin that could only be killed by a shot to the eye, but administering them injections through that same skin was no problem.

There were some pretty annoying things, though. Not only was the action at times long winded and repetitive, but the fights had that Bourne Identity element of too much jumpiness, which is hard to watch. Then there were scenes with bit actors where these jokes would go on way past their usefulness. Even worse, the annoying fat guy from BloodRayne II was in this, only he was even more fat annoying that he was before. I've never understood why director's like fat annoying guys. I've never been a fan of them. Also, Michael Paré is in it for five minutes as Vaugier's boss. Come on, less annoying fat guy, more, Paré.



I was under the impression that Til Schweiger was a legitimate action star in Germany, but now I'm not so sure. Based on his imdb bio, he's done some other action films, but he's also done romantic comedies and dramas too. Also, according to that bio, he turned down the role in Saving Private Ryan as the soldier that kills Tom Hanks, because he didn't know how American audiences would react to that. Well, they reacted to him not being in it by not knowing who the hell he is. It's better to be known as the Nazi who killed Tom Hanks, than to not be known at all, that's what I always say.

Another complaint was the lack of German spoken in this movie. Between Rolf Moeller, Udo Kier, and Til Schweiger, these guys should've been carrying on segments of dialog ins Deutsch. The only thing we got was Tischtennis. Are you kidding me. Hat man wohl ins gehirn geschissen und vergessen umzuruhren? (Did someone shit in your head and forget to stir?)



Not German but just as hot was Emannuelle Vaugier. If they needed a German they could've settled on Eva Habermann, but I'm glad went with who they did. According to imdb she's had reoccurring roles on Two and a Half Men and CSI: NY. She also played Painkiller Jane in the original TV movie, which is interesting, because the chick who we tag as Painkiller Jane at the DTVC is a Uwe Boll mainstay.

Before I go, I must confess that though Anthony Bourdain is listed in the credits, I couldn't remember seeing him in the movie. That might be as good a reason as any to check this out: to see where the eff Bourdain is. It's currently on Netflix's Watch Instantly, so if you have that, it'll only be an investment in your time, which isn't bad. Probably a better film to watch in a group than by yourself, in order to have people to laugh about it with.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400426/