211 (2018)

This was originally covered on episode 192 of the podcast, "Nepo Babies," which we did with Will from Exploding Helicopter, and I figured it was time to get it up on the site, especially since we want to get more Cage on here. In addition to us, Mitch from the Video Vacuum has covered this as well.

211 is a collision course to wackiness type affair, where a gang of mercenaries who want money that's being held in a bank in a small Boston suburb--err Sophia backlot--happen to rob it at the same time that two local police officers, Nicolas Cage and his son-in-law Dwayne Cameron, are in the area with their teenage ride-along, Michael Rainey Jr., who is stuck doing this ride-along because he committed the offense of "going to a rich private school while black." All hell breaks loose, and it doesn't get any better when we have a secondary thread following an Interpol agent played by Adrian Mutu's ex-wife, Alexandra Dinu. Can Cage save the day, and the movie?

He was able to save the day at least, and as Meatloaf once said "one out of two ain't bad." This movie hits all the spots of bad 2010s DTV featuring a big, one-time Hollywood star. Convoluted plot? Check. Eastern European location doubling for a US town? Check. The one-time Hollywood star playing a grizzled something or other? Check. The daughter of said one-time Hollywood's star's character played by a thin young woman with long hair, who wears jeans and flannel shirts, and has a difficult relationship with said one-time Hollywood's star's character? Check. Younger son-like character along for the ride? Check. Baddies who look like they were pulled from a Vegas night club on the weekend of a UFC event? Check. After we tick off all of those boxes, what are we left with? One moment where Cage goes off, and one fun moment where his actual son, Weston Cage, who's one of the baddies, has his dad in his sniper scope, but unfortunately they don't do more with it. The only realistic element of the movie is the fact that a young black male would be caught up in the system in a predominantly white Massachusetts suburb because he was trying to defend himself from white bullies in his school, and that the police officers he's doing the ride-along with wouldn't bother to ask about it and just treat him like a felon--and to that point, the moment where Cage does ask Rainey Jr. what happened was probably less realistic, I can't see real police officers caring either way. The other thing is, there are a lot of threads that never go anywhere. We meet the bank manager (Millennium mainstay Velizar Binev), and find out it's his anniversary. Very touching, only he gets a bullet to the dome by one of the baddies, and that's it. Why are we meeting him then? And while it's fun to reminisce about early 2000s European football, why is Alexandra Dinu's character in this, except as an Adrian Mutu conversation starter--and I must confess, I didn't know she was his ex-wife, Will told us on the podcast, but it opens up all kinds of doors for conversation, all of them more interesting than this movie. So maybe that's the best bet here, watch this with some friends who like DTV movies and European football, and let the tangents fly once Dinu appears on-screen.

This is now seven Cage films on the site, which doesn't seem like a lot considering how much he has out there for DTV stuff. The reason for this is he doesn't really get into the DTV world in earnest until about 2014, and that was about when I started my unplanned hiatus. If you look in the archives, in 2013 I had 96 reviews, and then in 2014 it's all the way down to 9, and in 2015 7, and then nothing until I came back in 2019. In 2014 he starts pumping these things out, doing like 2 or 3 a year, and this film here is right in the middle of that. By my count, there are over 30 DTV movies of his we haven't done yet, which would make him an automatic Hall of Famer if we did them all. It's an intriguing thought, and had I not gone on that unplanned hiatus, he'd probably already be in, because I would've been reviewing films like this that whole time. The other interesting thing I noticed, when you look at review counts on IMDb, they've been going down over time for most DTV flicks. For example, Bruce Willis had Acts of Violence come out the same year, and it had 38 critic review, compared to this film's 46. Then fast forward to 2023, where Willis's last film, Assassin, only had 23 critic reviews, while two films for Cage that year, Butcher's Crossing and The Old Way, had 55 and 63 critic reviews respectively, and some of his newer ones have even more. The Cage appeal and fascination never quite dimmed like it did for Willis and others like him--take 2022's Savage Salvation, which only has 19 critic reviews, despite having Robert De Niro in it--and now that we're seeing a Cage resurgence, it'll be interesting to see how many more of these DTV flicks he does, or if this will be a career capsule of 10 years and 30+ films, of which we had some real stinkers like this one, and some real gems like Pig.

As I mentioned above, the theme of the podcast episode I did with Will was "Nepo Babies," and the one in question here was Weston Cage, though Nicolas Cage is a nepo baby himself, being Francis Ford Coppola's nephew. (The other film we did was Dangerous, with Clint Eastwood's son Scott, a film I'm not sure if we'll review on here.) I think part of the draw for Nicolas Cage with this movie was that he could work with his son, even if they don't have any scenes together, and I can't fault him with that. And to Weston's credit, he does well enough as one of the baddies--though I think the scene of him smoking should've been cut, he didn't look natural smoking at all. Why not have him eat a sandwich instead? It's interesting that I'm writing this as the world has chosen a new pope--and you may think that as an American I'm excited by the first American pope, but he was part of the priest abuse cover-up, and I feel like we all missed out on not having a pope named Pizzaballa, which is a sign to me that the Catholic church is still behind the times--but anyway, the term "nepotism" came from the practice of popes in medieval Italy promoting their nephews--and "nephews," aka kids they fathered when they were supposed to be celibate--to high positions, so they could then be popes themselves. We see it in a lot of society, but in the acting world it's more glaring I think. I mean, would Weston Cage be in this film if he wasn't his father's son? And while Nicolas Cage has proven to be one of his generation's best actors, even if he changed his name so it wouldn't look like he was riding his famous uncle's coattails, none of it hurt, and probably at least greased the skids a bit so he could meet and network with the right people. On top of that, Will brought up the fact that as a nepo baby, these young actors have a safety net other people breaking into the business don't have the luxury of. They're not waiting tables or taking parts in ads for IBS meds to get work. If you factor that element in with the unforgiving economy we have, we'll probably see more nepo babies as the years go on, and they may take over the industry, the way upper-middle class children have taken over journalism in the US, because they're the only ones whose parents could support them through the unpaid internships that are part of the early stages of a journalist's career.

We have a new tag, and a new almost 40 Club member! Dian Hristov is the stunt coordinator, and I recognized his name as a Seagal stunt double in Belly of the Beast, so I thought I'd dig into his IMDb bio. Turns out he's done stunt work on almost 40 films we've reviewed here on the site! This is in large part due to the fact that he works with Millennium Films, and we've reviewed tons of their movies. And it's not just Seagal films. A lot of Dolph and a lot of Van Damme too, plus Isaac Florentine--who also produced this film, which is why he's tagged here. When you look at our October line up, we have a packed Hall of Fame class already, and while with him almost in the 40 Club, we can't not include him, we're already inducting Cole S. McKay, so he may have to wait until 2026. This begs another question: why isn't Millennial Films in the Hall of Fame? They have over 60 tags, plus a bunch more that I haven't tagged because I stopped keeping track. The short answer is, I don't know, but at least we'll get Hristov in eventually. Unlike Camacho, McKay, and Razatos, who worked in the 80s and 90s, and made the 90s the greatest DTV decade ever, Hristov is part of the DTV world's shift in the 2000s, but he helped make that a fun decade, and seems to have done his darndest to make the 2010s a little better too, despite where the market was going at that time. Here's to you Mr. Hristov, you're one of the greats.

Finally, you know if I teased Adrian Mutu in the opening paragraph, I was going to dedicate our penultimate paragraph to him, so here we are. In the early 2000s when I first had my own apartment out of college, I added the Fox Soccer Channel to my cable package, which meant every weekend I could watch my Arsenal and however many other Premier League teams every weekend. That was when I was introduced to Mutu, who was playing with Chelsea in the early 2000s, though what I remember more wasn't him playing for Chelsea, but the Sky Sports simulcasts on Mondays on Fox Soccer, where they updated us on his various scandals. He then went to Juventus, was part of two scudetto winning clubs, and then had those titles subsequently revoked as part of the Calciopoli scandal. The thing was, Serie A wasn't broadcast on Fox Soccer until later in the 2000s, when he was with Fiorentina, which was when I remembered him more. It's a name I hadn't thought of in maybe 15 years, so to have a 2018 DTV movie I'm discussing on the podcast be the thing that brings him back up is fantastic--and the fact that it wasn't on an episode with Scott Murphy from All 90s Action, All the Time, where we're known for having tangents on European football--and in fact have discussed Mutu's countryman, Gheorghe Hagi on a couple of occasions--is even more astounding. And this wasn't a tangent Will and I were on either, he brought it up as a notable fact about the film, which is even crazier. You just never know where these DTV films will take you.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is on a variety of streamers here in the States, including Plex, Fawesome, and the Roku Channel, so if you're interested, you can check this out in one of those places. I don't know that it's worth it though. What is worth it is checking out the pod episode Will and I did on this, number 192 in the archives, titled "Nepo Babies."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4976192

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

Double Identity (2009)

A little while back I was a guest on KilmerKast with Francis Rizzo III to discuss this movie. If you're not familiar with it, KilmerKast is a podcast dedicated to looking at the films of the great Val Kilmer, but also has some other really fun segments, like looking back on the films, TV, and music that were popular when the film in question came out, and then games with the guest, like the one I did where Francis translated Kilmer titles into Swedish, and then had me guess if what he was saying was a Kilmer film title, or an IKEA item. It was a lot of fun, and a podcast everyone should check out if they haven't already.

Double Identity has Val Kilmer as a doctor in Bulgaria doing charity work who is mistaken for a British secret agent that's trying to keep an Eastern European crime boss from selling diamonds on the black market--or something like that. As most Hitchcockian thrillers are wont to do, we have a mysterious beautiful woman in Izabella Miko who is either there to help, or there to get poor Kilmer in deeper. Will our hapless hero be a little less hapless and extricate himself out of this dangerous circumstance?

 

This movie looks, feels, and smells like your standard 2000s era Eastern European shot DTV flick with a once big star in the lead. The reality is it could have been anyone playing this part, Kilmer, Christian Slater, Cuba Gooding Jr., etc., but the fact that it's Kilmer added a level of Kilmer-ness to it that makes it a bit more fun in my opinion. That being said, there isn't anything all that remarkable about this that makes it any more than just the standard 2000s era Eastern European shot DTV flick with a once big star in the lead. There were a few one-off scenes that felt really inspired, which is something you don't usually get from a film of this ilk, but there were just as many scenes where you're like "that felt a bit convenient/lazy/absurd." I'm not a fan of the expression "it is what it is," but this movie was what it was, either for good or for bad.

We're now at 10 Kilmer films on the site, which puts him one ahead of Christian Slater, and one behind Cuba Gooding Jr., two former big screen stars that I think are the best Kilmer comps. If you look at his IMDb bio, he did a bunch in this late 2000s/early 2010s period, and then moved on to more smaller parts in big screen films, TV roles, and indie projects. The thing is, most of them are like this one, with only a few things here or there to distinguish it from the others. I think that's why I've kind of left his stuff alone for so long--this is our first Kilmer film since we did 7 Below in October of 2013. That doesn't mean I'm not a huge fan of Kilmer's, I am, and I think seeing him here in the film was one of the bright spots; but with so many movies out there to review, "bright spots" aren't enough to push more of these above some of the newer stuff out there, or the tons of 80s and 90s stuff we still haven't reviewed yet.

 

When I was on KilmerKast, one of the things we talked about was how many of these DTV films were made at this time that had the same look and feel. Whether it was Sofia, Bulgaria, or Bucharest, Romania, whether it was a low-budget actioner film or a suspense yarn like this was, there was this mass-produced feel to it, kind of like the modern-day Brill Building approach to pop music where it all sounds the same. It had a cynicism to it that this film felt like it was dripping with, even when there were some truly inspired scenes or plot devices that I really liked. Shoot it in 10 days, slap a big name on the cover, add in a pretty Eastern European co-star, and get it on the video store shelves, which at that time were also mostly big chains that were looking for DVDs for people who missed out on renting one of the 30 copies of the new Transformers movie they had. That ecosystem also helped birth The Asylum, and now that all the video stores are shuttered and people are actually remembering Blockbuster with rose-tinted glasses, the Asylum is still marching on, but to some extent these Eastern European shot movies have been replaced, post-2008 financial crisis, by even quicker and cheaper shot films in places like Michigan or Louisiana. The thing has gone even more cynical in ten years, which makes me wonder what it'll look like in 2031.

Izabella Miko plays the pretty Eastern European co-star, which does sound a bit dismissive, since she's had a bigger career here in the States, but I think that gets back to the cynicism I talked about above. It's not that she's just any pretty Eastern European actress, but the film makes it feel that way. The same way that any number of stars could have played Kilmer's part, the fact that Miko brings a better acting pedigree to the proceedings isn't a value-add with the assembly-line vibe of the movie. I don't know if this were made on a bigger budget with a longer shooting schedule if the same pairing of Kilmer and Miko could have given us the kind of TNT New Classic suspense actioner that made a lot of money in the box office in the late 90s/early 2000s though either. Honestly I don't know how good any of those were, including something like The Saint that Kilmer was in, but they worked for a certain audience, and I guess that brings us back to the cynicism: make this on the cheap and hope to tap into that audience on a smaller scale.

 

Finally, this film is supposed to take place in 1992, which next year will be 30 years ago. I've noticed this trend online of people freaking out about how long ago the 90s are, and making comparisons with how long ago the 90s were from the 60s or 70s. Like "This year we'll be as far from when The Phantom Menace came out as The Phantom Menace was from when the original Star Wars came out." It's as if people our age were the first people to ever be old. Or is it a social media phenomenon. I mean, would someone born in the 1890s have posted in the 1940s "we're as far from 1900 as 1900 was from the start of the Civil War"? Or maybe someone my grandfather's age, being like "we're as far now from WWII as WWII was from the Civil War." And then all the comments, "Dude," "mind blown," "I'm going to go have a good cry"... okay, I made that last one up, but I like it better than "literally crying".

And with that, let's wrap this one up. You can stream this on Tubi as of this writing, and I think that's the best bet. For my money, it's really only for Kilmer completists, otherwise it's unfortunately too unremarkable. Speaking of Kilmer completists, remember to check out KilmerKast, it's a really fun time, and thank you again to Francis for having me on!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1290400

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

Skin Trade (2014)

It's been a while since I've made a new post, and this film was a reminder that I hadn't intended to take as long a hiatus as I ended up taking.  I think I saw this sometime in 2015 or 2016, with the idea of writing a review on it that never materialized.  It's funny, because when word first came about this film back in 2012/2013, I couldn't wait to make it happen; but life took over and suddenly it became 2019 and nothing had been done.  Well, we're making happen now.

Skin Trade stars DTVC Hall of Famer Dolph Lundgren as Nick, a cop in Newark, NJ, trying to take down a Serbian mob boss played by Ron Perlman--which means we're already knee-deep in the hoopla of what is a great cast.  Perlman blows up Dolph's house, kills his wife and daughter, and almost kills Dolph in the process--but doesn't, so Dolph heads over to Cambodia to get his revenge.  At the same time, Tony Jaa is trying to take down Perlman's white slavery ring in Cambodia.  Looks like Dolph and Jaa are on a collision course to whackiness!

This wasn't too bad.  Dolph and Jaa were both great, there were some solid fight scenes; plus DTVC favorite Michael Jai White was in this in a supporting role, and his one fight with Jaa didn't disappoint either.  In addition to Perlman, we had DTVC Hall of Famer Peter Weller, and Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa had a small part, making this the third film after Showdown in Little Tokyo and Bridge of Dragons he's done with Dolph.  I think you could do a lot worse than to stream Skin Trade for 90 minutes on Netflix if you're looking for a movie to watch.

We had had some misses with Dolph films lately, so to have something solid like this was a relief.  He co-wrote the script for this, and the movie had a strong anti-sex trafficking message he wanted to get across, but he made sure that in getting that message through to us that the plot didn't take away from the action.  While I have been on hiatus the past four years, Dolph has been busy, so we have a lot of catching up to do with him.  Hopefully we'll be able to take care of that.

I believe this film is Tony Jaa's America debut, and he was great as always.  The one thing I would say is, for the film that would be his US debut, I would want it to be more of a Jaa vehicle, not a Dolph-Jaa vehicle, if you know what I mean.  The fight scenes he had with Dolph were great, and then the one he did with Michael Jai White was fantastic.  There was a sense that White and Jaa were looking forward to shooting that scene, which is something I love in a DTV actioner, stars that enjoy putting out a high-quality product to such a degree that they look forward to what the end result could be on-screen for us.  In the current DTV age where stuff gets pumped out assembly-line style with a spate of big names flashed across the cover mailing in performances to pay off alimony and child support claims while scenes are cobbled together with split-second edits in post, it's refreshing to see some stars really get after it, especially the way Jaa and White did, and hopefully we'll see more of that in the future.

As I mentioned above, this film had a strong anti-sex trafficking message, which I think is great.  I don't know that you can make villains more despicable with less work than to have them selling young girls into slavery.  When Dolph and Jaa rampage through the warehouse that's holding the girls, the baddies can't die enough, or die painfully enough.  The film also tries to address two themes that adjoin the sex trafficking plague: one, that there's a market for it--Perlman's character tells Dolph that he's just giving his buyers what they want--; and then the idea that it's such a big problem, what is saving a few girls going to do when there are millions of others out there--White's character's rationale for why he sold out and took Perlman's money.  With the first one, it's a tepid message that the film tries a couple other times to drive home when we see Americans at the clubs in Cambodia where the trafficked girls are, but never really gets into enough.  Maybe we needed to see an America guy bring a girl out to a back room and then see Jaa kick his ass to fully flesh out that message more--what would it have taken, five more minutes of screentime?  The second one also isn't really addressed.  The fact that Dolph's family was killed gives him a motive beyond simple altruism to take these guys down.  To really rebut White's character's assertion that the struggle against sex trafficking is a futile endeavor, it would have been better if Dolph had no motives other than taking down a sex trafficker to make it stick.

Among the many DTV stars having a small part in this, one of my all time faves, Peter Weller, plays Dolph's boss.  I almost feel like they could have done more with the few scenes he was in.  I'm not saying give him a bigger part, but maybe give him better lines, really bring out the fast-talking, no-nonsense guy we've loved in his other films.  This is something I think could be done with a lot of DTV flicks that have big names in small parts.  We don't need everyone to be Brando in Apocalypse Now, but it would also be nice to say "only Weller could have done what we saw there," or "that's what we love about him, it's great to see him in this." 

Finally, before I wrap up, I wanted to mention one of the main baddies.  His character name was "Janko," which reminded me of JNCO jeans.  Did anyone have a pair of JNCOs back in the late 90s?  I did, a pair of wide-leg khaki ones that had back pockets so deep, I could literally fit a 40 in them.  I'm not kidding, I would walk across the UMaine campus on a Friday or Saturday night with a Bull Ice 40 in my back pocket.  God, those were the days...

Okay, if I'm digressing into JNCO jeans and Bull Ice 40s from twenty years ago, it's probably time to wrap this up.  My final verdict is that this is pretty good, certainly worth checking out through Netflix streaming.  Good cast, good fights, nice action overall.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1641841

6 Bullets (2012)

Obviously any Jean-Claude Van Damme DTV flick is something we'll want to get to here, whether it looks good or not, so this one was going to happen one way or another; on the other hand, many of his recent ones have involved him in small roles, leaving us frustrated with the lack of Van Damme, especially when he's been so good since JCVD.  Let's hope this one goes against the current trend.  Also, our friend at The Video Vacuum has reviewed this one too, so you can go there for a second opinion.

6 Bullets has Van Damme as a former mercenary who has etched out a career for himself in Moldova rescuing rich kids kidnapped by white slave traders.  This works out when an aging MMA fighter played by Joe Flanigan comes to Moldova to start a comeback, and his is daughter kidnapped.  But there's more going on here than meets the eye, and Van Damme's going to have to pull out all the stops if he hopes to bring this girl home alive.



I really liked this.  I had a few complaints, but overall I thought it was really good.  The story was nuanced and compelling, and Van Damme turned in another great performance.  The action was there, and when it isn't, we had Van Damme anchoring some great dramatic sequences, plus there was the tension of finding the girl underpinning the entire thing.  It had its poor moments too though, like how the girl's mother just happens to know how to use a gun, something that would be funny in a Sasquatch movie on SyFy, but here adds a level of fatuity that undermines everything else they were going for.  In fact, in terms of writing, the mother character was much more inconsistent than the father, which made the film uneven in spots.  Those are minor issues in an otherwise solid movie though.

This was some great Van Damme.  He had some great action scenes, especially at the very beginning, but also, as I mentioned above, his dramatic sequences worked well too.  This is the kind of thing that can easily look silly in an action film-- and we've seen it look pretty silly before-- and it's not like from a writing standpoint that this stuff is Oscar nominee caliber stuff, so Van Damme is pulling that kind of quality out of it. I also think there's something to be said for creating a character for Van Damme that allows him speak English as a second language, instead of trying to graft him into the role of a native English speaker.  It makes him sound less silly, and allows us to take him more seriously, which is necessary to make a movie like this work. In that sense, the writing was top notch and aided Van Damme in his performance.



One thing this movie brought up was the issue that some children are worth more than others, yet all of them are human.  All of this effort is taken to save this one American girl, while throughout, Eastern European girls are captured and forced into sex slavery.  At the end, the issue is even put to us directly, when the leader of the gang that has the daughter, offers an exchange for one of the sex slaves that Van Damme and the parents have saved.  The mom is down with the switch, even knowing it means this girl's death.  Fortunately Van Damme steps in with a solution to their problem, which leads to an end to the movie that worked much better than the classic Van Damme defeating the head baddie with his fists-- perhaps another example of how Van Damme has grown as an actor.

Van Damme's son, Kristopher Van Varenberg, plays his son in the movie, and it worked much better than it sounds like it would.  It sounds like it should've been really indulgent, which would've made it unbearable to watch, and fortunately it wasn't anything like that.  I don't know what their relationship is like in real life, but in the film they made work the fact that a father who's an ex-mercenary and a son who works at the embassy in Moldova would have a complicated relationship.  Actually, they had the best chemistry in the film, and I think their scenes together were the best.



I did have one major problem with the film, and if our buddy Kenner at Movies in the Attic is still reading this, he'd tell me it's because I'm too squeamish with these films, and it's nothing the film makers did wrong.  Regardless, I'll proceed, and you can be the judge.  At the end of the film, 6 Bullets goes classic faux-dark or faux-grit-and-edge, and cuts the daughter's finger off.  It's not shown on-screen, but it still happened.  I have always had a problem with this, because, especially in an action movie, it's the easiest way to graft a fake sense of darkness into an otherwise schlock DTV actioner.  This movie didn't need to go there, didn't need to spend that nickel, and it did it anyway.  Come on movie, you're better than that.

And I'm not kidding, it is better than that.  I rented this on Netflix on DVD.  I'm sure you can get it at RedBox too.  Wherever you get it, it's worth checking out.  This is some great Van Damme, perhaps his best since JCVD, and while it's a little longer than your average DTV action flick, it's worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1975249/

The Expendables 2 (2012)

When I saw The Expendables over two years ago, I loved it. I don't know exactly what I was expecting with this second installment, but considering how much I liked the first, and looking at the names they had for part 2, I knew I had to give it a look, so let's see how it went. Also, some of our friends have already hit this one: Ty at Comeuppance Reviews, Explosive Action, The Video Vacuum, and Freddie at Full Moon Reviews.

The Expendables 2 has Sly Stallone and his band of merry mercenary men, on a mission in Eastern Europe to get something out of a safe in a plane that went down over Albania. They have a woman with them working as their safe cracker, and while Stallone doesn't like this idea, it's really more baddie Jean-Claude Van Damme he should be worried about, because it's Van Damme who has stolen this merchandise from them after they got it out of the safe. The merchandise: the a location of some weapons grade Soviet plutonium, which Van Damme hopes to sell on the black market. Can Stallone and his crew stop him?

In the initial scene, as the marauding Expendables were blasting their way to the base of some Nepalese separatists who had some Chinese businessman hostage, I thought to myself "What am I doing here? Didn't I already do this two years ago?" The film does get better though; it has tons of inside jokes for us action fans, it has some nice big action scenes and solid pitched battles, and Van Damme was excellent as the head baddie. I also loved Nan Yu's Maggie character, and Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis all have fun small supporting roles. While not the novelty that the first one was, it was still a fun time, and I'm not sure you can ask for anything more than that from your action movie.

For me, Jean-Claude Van Damme won this movie. It probably hurt his soul to have to lose that last fight to Stallone, but let me tell you JCVD, you had me when you roundhouse kicked that knife into The Kid's heart. Was that not one of the best baddie kills ever? Scott Adkins holds it up so the point is facing The Kid's heart, and Van Damme roundhouse kicks the butt end. See, here's the thing Mr. Van Damme, while the fights in the movie are fake, the performances are real, so while you fake lost your fight with Stallone, you beat him by turning in the best performance. 

And then there's the film's other Hall of Famer, Dolph Lundgren. He seems to be more comic relief, right? I loved the inside joke about his history in getting into the film biz. On the other hand, he didn't have the big role he had in the first one. The story didn't revolve around him in any way, he didn't have any big fights, he just cracked some jokes and carried some big guns. It was almost like he was there to be the butt of the jokes too. I don't know how I feel about that. Yes, it's good that he can laugh at himself and not take himself so seriously, but damn it, I don't want him to be Stallone's Harpo Marx.

This gets me to a main problem The Expendables series has. Because we have so many stars, their overall star contributions are severely diluted. Even our baddie, Van Damme, wasn't in the film that much. But let's look at it by the numbers: Scott Adkins, 1 fight, and that was with Jason Statham; Statham only had 2, that one with Adkins and another, and though both were really sweet, it was still only two in a 110-minute film; Dolph had none; Van Damme just had his one with Stallone; and Jet Li was in and out so fast he also had none. It felt like this kind of thing was mitigated better in the first one, and who knows what will happen in the third--at the very least I'd like more Charisma Carpenter.

When I watched the first one with some friends a couple years ago, my buddy's wife commented: "Why does the girl always have to be kidnapped?" I don't know if Stallone's botox and HGH gave him supersonic hearing, but he answered her complaint just the same, because, not only do we not have the damsel in distress construct, but we have a woman in the crew who is equal parts feminine and powerful in Nan Yu. One could make the complaint though that there was still an element of chauvinism in the fact that all the other guys in the cast--other than Adkins, and Liam Hemsworth of course--were much older, while the one female was in her early thirties. But hey Stallone, you wanna go James Woods, it's whatever floats your boat.

And with that, let's wrap this up.  The Expendables 2 is a very fun movie. It doesn't do anything so horrible to turn me off, the action is there and big, and there were plenty of humorous moments. On the other hand, you've been on this road before, you know what you're going to see, no wheels being reinvented, which isn't exactly a bad thing, but for something that's supposed to be bigger and badder than the original, it's not a good thing either.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/

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/

One in the Chamber (2012)

 Like any huge Dolph Lundgren fan, when I first got word that this flick was on the horizon, I got stoked.  Dolph and Cuba Gooding Jr.?  It just sounds fantastic, right?  But how many times have we been burned before?  How many times have we thought we had a sure thing, something even the worst DTV film maker couldn't screw up, only to have said DTV film maker screw it up.  All we can do is cross our fingers, and hope this lived up to its billing. One in the Chamber stars Gooding as Ray Carver, one of the greatest short story writers-- oh wait, sorry, wrong Ray Carver, this one is a mob assassin working in Prague.  He tries to off Russian mobster Louis Mandylor, but the bastard uses a woman as a human shield and escapes.  Now it's on, there's an all-out mob war, and competing Russian assassin Dolph Lundgren is called in to clean up the job Gooding left unfinished, while Gooding is killing his old employers for Mandylor.  If it sounds like a collision course to wackiness, it is, plus there's a subplot about a cute cafe owner who inevitably finds herself a damsel in distress.



This is what I was looking for.  Gooding was solid, and Dolph was fantastic.  The plot was pretty run-of-the-mill Eastern European schlock-fest, but it never tried too hard to force its way out of that, which I appreciated.  We've seen too many try too hard for credibility, and go off the rails with a gross torture scene, or too much character exposition.  Beyond a few scenes with the mob bosses that didn't have either Gooding or Dolph that I could've done without, this kept a pretty decent pace and gave us DTV action fans what we wanted.  An all around great time. Like I said the Dolph in here is fantastic.  It's as if this guy knows what we like from him, and knows how to deliver, and he's only gotten better as he's gone along.  He plays this fantastic character called "The Wolf"-- a name which he of course doesn't like because he thinks it's cliche-- who wears bad Hawaiian shirts and listens to Frank Sinatra music.  His first scene is so amazing, and it just gets better as he goes along.  So many times when an actor gives us the wink-wink nudge-nudge, he ruins the part because he's too in on the joke.  Not true here.  Dolph tells us he's having as much fun playing this part as we are watching him, and it makes it all the more enjoyable.  A definite add to your next Dolph Fest.



I must confess I have fallen a bit behind on Mr. Gooding Jr.'s DTV oeuvre, so I can't say for sure if this is his best DTV effort, but it feels like it.  He fits in the role well, there's nothing about it that feels forced or fatuous, and while that gives me less here to make fun of, it's a lot of fun to watch.  And while he and Dolph don't have many scenes on-screen together, the ones they do have are great.  While in the past we joked about Cuba Gooding Jr.'s stay in the DTV Hotel, I'm beginning to think this might be the best place for him to be the actor he wants to be.  Hey, Daddy Day Camp and Snow Dogs were released in the theater, and I can't imagine he's prouder of those than he is this here, or some of his other recent DTV work. Rounding out the cast, we had the aforementioned Mandylor, affecting a funny Russian accent.  I think if we're talking Mandylor brothers, I'm more of a Costas guy, but really, who's counting?  Cuba's assassin handler was played by veteran Brit actor Billy Murray, and he's plenty sleazy with a nice ponytail to boot.  The female lead was played by Claudia Bassols, who has had the pleasure of playing Rob Schneider's wife in his short-lived eponymous sitcom.  I wonder why that one didn't work, wasn't there room for another bad comedy about a gross guy and his hot wife?  I didn't think we had enough of those.



I have recently entered into the world of the smartphone.  I know, welcome to the 21st century Matt.  This film takes great advantage of the smartphone, where our characters have apps on their phones that allow them to set off car bombs and look through surveillance cameras they set up in betting houses they planned to hit.  At the same time though, they went low-tech with Gooding's apartment, with some vintage accoutrements, like an old radio.  Being a set designer for a one of these Eastern European flicks must be a lot of fun, with the great combination of old and new around-- though I'm sure there's a lot of emphasis on getting things done quick and cheap, so maybe it sucks.

 What doesn't suck is One in the Chamber.  It's fantastic, and well worth your time.  As of this posting, it isn't available on Netflix Instant, but you can rent it, or, if you're a huge Dolph fan like me, I'd buy it.  This is definitely that one that lived up to its billing, and you'll want in your collection.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1881024/

City of Fear (2001)

I got this Gary Daniels flick with another of his recently, and I'm not sure why I went with this one over the other one, but I did. I'm a sucker for Canuxploitation flicks shot in Bulgaria I guess. Also, this is Daniels's 35th tag, putting him one behind Dolph for most all time by an actor. I do have four Dolph movies from the big screen I could go to if I needed to keep him ahead, but really, it's only a matter of time before Daniels catches him.

City of Fear is an action remake of The Third Man, an Orson Welles flick from the 40s. Daniels plays an American writer who is approached by some people from Bulgaria that inform him that his buddy is dead over there. So he goes, and finds out his buddy's death may not have been an accident. Now he's investigating, and every step brings him deeper into the web, and deeper into a series of fight scenes and chases. Not to mention, his buddy dated a hottie nightclub dancer, so that works.



We've seen an attempt previously to do the Third Man paradigm, Blood Warriors, and like that one, this one was okay, but nothing spectacular. The problem is, The Third Man sounds like a better idea for an action film than it is in practice. To build the suspense in between the action scenes, you need really good actors, which, action actors often aren't that. What that means is we're left with a lot of fluff, and with the paint-by-numbers/ticking-off-all-the-boxes tone of the action-- the only thing we were missing was the exploding helicopter--, we're left with nothing special that's pretty take-it-or-leave-it. Can I get more cliches in one paragraph? Well, at the end of the day, I need to stay within myself as I write this review, because I have to look myself in the mirror afterwards. Like they say, it's not about the size of the reviewer in the fight, it's about the size of the fight in the reviewer.

What do we do with Gary Daniels here? Decent martial arts, but nothing special. Also, for some reason, he's playing an American, which makes no sense. Is that really necessary when his character is spending his entire time in Sofia? I never really got that, do they think us Yanks won't identify with someone from across the pond? He still doesn't sound very American. The biggest issue this movie had was that it was hamstrung by its Third Man plot, so it played out like a Bloodfist sequel, only with less action and more story, which worked to Daniels's detriment.



City of Fear was a little ahead of the curve by shooting in Bulgaria, though only a few years later it would become a much more common B-movie destination. I wonder what it's like for the cast and crew of something like that. What kind of accommodations do they get? I follow Michael Jai White on Twitter, and he mentioned how hot the women were at the clubs while he was over there shooting recently. Was that a perk that got Daniels on board, or was he married by then? I wonder what things I'd want if I were over there... I'd probably stay out of the clubs though. I'm no Michael Jai White, I'd probably end up in a bathtub full of ice sans my kidneys.

As I said above, City of Fear did every bad action cliche in as much of a cover-all-the-bases manner as possible-- of course, except for the helicopter explosion, which was conspicuous in its absence. The worst of these is the at home surgery session. You know how it works, hero gets shot, or his woman gets shot, they go to some safe house, boil some water, heat some knives on the stove, and go to work. Here it felt so grafted on, when out of nowhere the woman gets stabbed in the leg, and Daniels takes her home and patches her up, then it goes into the next action mainstay, the love scene. After was even better, because she had her bandage wrapped around the outside of her jeans. I'm not kidding.



Finally, check out that massive boom mic up there. That's not your run-of-the-mill black stick mic, that's like the size of a grapefruit. What is that, a throwback from the Iron Curtain days? It looks like it wants to eat Daniels's head. I think that's the way to go though if you going the boom mic route, make it a huge bastard. Or go the No Retreat No Surrender 3 route and just have a shitload of them.

With so many great Gary Daniels flicks out there, this is too lackluster and paint-by-numbers to recommend. This is available used or new on DVD, so maybe if you're a Gary Daniels completist. Otherwise, I'd stay away.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0193065/

Born to Raise Hell (2010)

I've been waiting to sink my teeth into this dirty SOB for sometime now, and like the dude at the table whose order was screwed up, I waited impatiently as our buddies over at Explosive Action and Straight to DVD Heaven--taking advantage of the fact that this was released in the UK well before we got it over here--enjoyed their meal, paid their bill, tipped their waitresses, and were already out the door before the cook even fired mine off. Those Brits and Aussies with their Region 2 DVDs have all the fun.

Born to Raise Hell has DTVC Hall of Famer Steven Seagal as an international DEA agent working in Bucharest named Samuel Axel (Foley?). Somehow he's put in the path of evil drug dealing and lady raping and killing baddie Darren Shahlavi. Having trouble getting Shahlavi, he twists the arm of a local Russian mobster, and despite the fact that this guy deals enough coke to make Scarface jealous, and has one of his lady's cut off Shahlavi's girl's ears with a pair of garden shears, somehow this guy is all right in Seagal's book because both he and Seagal want to take down Shahlavi. Add bad MTV video effects and edits, then end scene.

You know what? This one was close--rather, it should've been there, and other than the silly effects, getting onto the hour mark, I thought it was going to get there. But with those silly effects, I knew they were trying to cover up some major short comings, so I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and boy did it ever. In a sad and muddled attempt to take what was otherwise silly and try to make it dark, we have the ear cutting off scene. Really? And then, to have a guy do this, only for him to team up with Seagal and get away with everything else he's done, wow. This had so much potential too. It had some of the better Seagal fight scenes I've seen in his newer stuff, and for the first 60 minutes, the story was pretty sweet too--if Seagal as an international DEA agent named Sam Axel is your idea of sweet, and it's definitely mine. It just feels like these modern DTV flicks don't know when enough is enough. It's like they go to the butcher shop, buy a $30 steak, then throw it in the deep fryer. Dude, just poor a little salt on it, and toss it on the grill. If it worked in the 80s and 90s, it works now.

I mean it when I say this was some of Seagal's better recent stuff. He did some great ass kicking, and they actually didn't over edit it, which was refreshing. (No idea why they over edited so many other scenes--steak in the deep fryer again.) The guy just turned 60 a few weeks ago, which is insane, but for him to be nearing that age and do a film with some of his better fight scenes, shows that he could be doing this for a little while longer, which is fine with us. Here's to hoping he's solid in his next flick too.

The one big role Darren Shahlavi has had was in a DTVC favorite, Bloodmoon, also starring Gary Daniels. He plays a baddie here, and he was pretty sweet as well. The problem was, they made him into a Russian with a bad accent. Why? The guy is of Persian ancestry, why not let him use his natural English accent, and have his character be called "The Persian"? That's the problem with these movies, they think they're so cool, but they aren't, not even close. Instead of worrying about how you can graft in a scene of a chick getting her ears cut off with gardening sheers in order to make it fake dark, why not try going back to the traditions these films came from and making something we can enjoy. Also, Shahlavi is a great martial artist, and he barely gets any scenes to showcase that. Huh? I can understand if Seagal is getting up there in age and you don't want the one with him at the end to be too knock-down-drag-'em-out, but there are plenty of Romanians out there you could throw in his path for a few scenes, I don't know, maybe have some dudes start trouble at his club. Please, help me out, throw me a bone for Christ's sake.

Is it just me, or is there an abundance of hot women in Romania in short skirts and big black boots. This movie has all kinds too, hot women as drug mules, hot women serving drinks, hot women assassins, hot women drinking beer naked while watching guys play video games. Probably the prettiest one is the one who meets a bad end at the hands of Darren Shahlavi early in the film. Her rape and murder was one of the few scenes where the MTV edits actually made sense. That's a spot where you want to distort the image and take some of the edge off, while at the same time show us how evil Shahlavi is. When you have a good scene, where your cinematographer actually got you a good shot, is where you want to put a lid on that shit. Seriously, we all have these nice TVs and Blu-Ray players so we can actually see the movie. Again, steak in the deep fryer.

Silly bands at the stash pad? They look like it, don't they? "Seriously Sal, you brought Silly Bands to wrap the cash with? You moron!" "Hey, Vic, whatcha problem, huh? My kids love them shits. It was dark this mornin' when you came and got me. I musta grabbed the wrong thing. It was an honest mistake..." An honest mistake, which is more than I can say for this movie.

For the first hour, other than that bad MTV edit crap, which does die down some as the film goes on, this wasn't a bad flick. But it threw the steak in the deep fryer, and the whole thing turned into a muddled mess from there. Is a 90 minute solid DTV actioner without silly bad music video edits and without a chick getting her ears cut off too much to ask for? Apparently it is in 2011.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528718/

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/

Hero Wanted (2008)

It's been a while since we've done a Cuba Gooding Jr. film here at the DTVC, and Hero Wanted, because it also stars Ray Liotta, has been on my radar for some time. When it made it to Watch Instantly, I figured I had no more excuses. Besides, Cuba's DTV output is picking up, I need to stay caught up with him!

Hero Wanted is a convoluted tale about a man, CBJ, who is a shell of himself after his wife dies. Then he saves a girl's life from a burning car, and things change. After seeing an innocent woman shot in a bank robbery gone bad, he decides to avenge her shooting by taking out the robbers, one by one. The thing is, how does he know who they are? How is he connected with them?



This is one of those that got too cute for its own good. It had a semi-decent story, but they decided to go the Lawrence Durrell wannabe route, and give it to us in a series of sections, taken from the beginning, middle, and end, mixed together, until it builds to the resolution. As I'm watching it, I'm thinking, this would've been a lot better without that storytelling gimmick, i.e., had they just started at the beginning and moved in a linear fashion to the denouement. Also, the mystery, the why Cuba Gooding Jr. knew the robbers, was clunky and contrived anyway; and the ending was really weird and drawn out, as if they just didn't know when to stop writing-- it felt like someone who has just put his foot in his mouth, but only makes it worse by not shutting up and instead trying to explain himself. There's nothing wrong with a film being more straightforward. I know with these DTV Film Noir pieces, it's tempting to get all cute with the order in which you deliver us the plot, but sometimes you hurt the final product that way. Beyond that, this was a pretty paint-by-numbers low-budget Noir, with some great actors who give some great performances, but in the end too dependent on a gimmick as opposed to a solid story for its foundation.

Look at Kim Coates trying to shove your head into the world of DTV Mr. Gooding Jr. That's not very nice, is it? At least here you had some great actors to share your space with, enough to make you think you were doing an actual Hollywood movie again, huh? Then we saw the credits, and all the last names in the crew that ended in the letter "V", and realized that there aren't that many Bulgarians in Los Angeles, are there? Kim Coates, you big meanie, leave our Cuba Gooding Jr. alone, and let him have his Oscar winning Hollywood career back!



Ray Liotta was in this as a cop, not a gangster. I know, crazy, right? He's not in this much, which is kind of too bad. Jean Smart, of Designing Women fame, also starred in this, and it's too bad the two of them didn't have a love scene. I have to think Liotta and Gooding were reassuring each other that things weren't as bad as they seemed career wise, though if you look at their imdb bios, after this came out in 2008, Liotta's had a better go of it, especially with feature films like Date Night and Charlie St. Cloud. Cuba Gooding Jr., on the other hand, moved on from DTV films co-starring with Ray Liotta, to DTV films co-starring with Christian Slater.

The supporting cast after these two is pretty solid. I already mentioned Coates and Smart, plus you had Ben Cross, Tommy Flannigan, Norman Reedus, Christa Campbell, and Paul Sampson, who starred in a film with Carmen Electra, Whacked!, which I reviewed a long time ago. I don't know if the director or screenwriters or producers or whoever didn't trust these actors and actresses to do their jobs adequately, and that's why they chose to go at telling the story in that gimmicky way; but that was a mistake, because they should've trusted these people, and their performances were diminished by that gimmickry.



One guy I didn't mention in that cast I decided to save for here, is Mr. Todd Jensen. Unlike these other actors-- other than maybe Paul Sampson-- who have made it happen on the big screen, Todd Jensen earned his chops in the DTV ranks, in gems like Cyborg Cop. To see him act opposite Ray Liotta as his police detective partner was great. Sure, Ray Liotta is no David Bradley wearing a fanny pack, but he's close, right?

This is available on Watch Instantly, but I don't know if it's entirely worth it. That's too bad, because a more straightforward telling of the story, plus a less weird and drawn-out ending, and we might have had a real Cuba Gooding Jr. home run here. It's okay, though, we have quite a few more of his DTV oeuvre to get through. I hope your stay at the Hotel DTV has been a good one, Mr. Gooding Jr. I'm afraid you'll be staying with us a little longer though...

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0977214/

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

When last we left the Undisputed gang, they were in a Russian prison, and Michael Jai White had just busted Scott Adkins' knee to shit and won a big prison tournament. Now they're back, with Adkins reprising his role, and DTVC favorite Isaac Florentine (Ike-Flo to those in The Biz) taking the helm again as director. This could be good.

Undisputed III picks up where part 2 left off. Adkins is recovering from his bum knee, and trying to be the fighter he once was. He defeats his current prison's champ, and is entered into an international prison fighting tournament in Georgia-- not the Peach State, but the country. Anyway, when he gets there, he finds out things aren't kosher, as he and the other fighters are sent to do hard labor and other crap so they'll be less able to win and beat that prison's champ, some Colombian dude. Can Adkins overcome all this and win his freedom?



This would've been so hot if they had focused more on the great Florentine fight scenes and less on the whole set-up of the prison and the plans to rig the tournament. Sweaty buff guys hitting rocks is great for a Pride Film, and I'm not knocking that as a genre at all, I'm just saying, we signed on for an action flick, and based on some of Florentine's other work, and what we got here when it happened, we know he can deliver. I mean, every fight scene was great-- the problem was, between the first round and second round in the tournament, there was this huge gap of blah. Fuck plot and character development-- or at the every least, mix it in with the action so there isn't a huge block of blah in the middle. Contrary to what the script writers may think, all that shit doesn't matter, it's the action that counts. If I want character development, I'll check out an Ozu film on Watch Instantly.

That being said, Scott Adkins is great again, and I liked his character here better than in Ninja, just because he wasn't running away from anyone. In fact, a huge improvement over Undisputed II was how little we had to endure Adkins's character being beaten up by guards and what not. I also understand that, he being the best fighter and star of the film, we don't want them to overdo it and have too much of him fighting. Fair enough, what we got was plenty and spectacular. I just wanted less boring plot and sweaty buff guys breaking rocks. Another great Isaac Florentine and Adkins pairing nonetheless.



We have another Baller Blockin' alum, this time in Mykel Shannon Jenkins, the guy who played Garr in the Hip Hop classic. Here he was great, but didn't have anywhere near the material he had in his few short scenes in Baller Blockin'-- but who does. I think this is a good place to demonstrate why I might be hard on a film like Undisputed III. There's Baller Blockin', without a wasted minute of film (mostly because they probably decided making a movie was harder than they thought, so they gave up and slapped a "To be continued..." on the last scene), then I got this where I'm like "I thought this was an action flick". I watch DTV because I don't want character development, too much plot, etc. There are too many places I can go to if I want that sort of thing where they'll do it well. If you need character development, give it to me in an action filled flashback. If you need plot, give it to me in between explosions as the characters are escaping a shootout at an abandoned warehouse. Otherwise, don't waste my time. There's plenty of Godard on Watch Instantly.

An as far as being a DTV director goes, Florentine is really starting to make a name for himself and put together that résumé that earns one a spot in the DTVC Hall of Fame. Currently there's only one there right now for his directorial work, Albert Pyun, though Cirio H. Santiago will be in the 2010 class. Could Florentine be there in 2011? It's too soon to tell, but he's well on his way.



I just saw a great film recently called North Face (Nordwand), which was about rock climbers in 1936 trying to conquer the infamous Eiger North Wall. In the review I gave on my Tumblr blog, I discussed how it was extremely scary, yet no one was tortured to death or had their eyeballs gouged out. Anyway, the other great element the film used was the juxtaposition between the climbers bivouacking in the freezing cold on the side of a mountain, while the onlookers partied away in the luxury hotel at the base. This film employed the same contrast, showing the crime bosses betting on the fights in this luxurious hotel in Tbilisi, while the fighters languished in the horrible prison. I don't know if Florentine or the script writers got the idea from Nordwand, but I couldn't help notice the similarities.

This is definitely a better film watched in a group so you and your friends can talk about other things during the blah parts, and then dig the too sweet fight scenes that really make the movie. Really, it's a four-star film that's twenty minutes too long, making it a solid three-star film, which in the end isn't that bad, is it?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156466/

Unstoppable (2004)

Wesley Snipes had fallen off a bit as far as DTVC reviews goes, mostly because I thought I was stuck with only Hard Luck left. Then, last week, I was going through my Netflix queue (which is pretty large), and I found Unstoppable. This had to be a mistake, right? Why would I leave this one out and do all the others? Well, it wasn't a mistake, somehow I'd neglected it.

Unstoppable has Snipes as a former special forces guy that is mistaken for a CIA agent posing as an FBI agent tracking former CIA agents trying to sell a government drug they stole that causes massive hallucinations and makes the person under its effects very subject to suggestion. The ex-CIA agents inject him with the drug and take him back to a mental hospital to interrogate him to see what he knows, thinking he's an FBI agent that's onto them. Snipes escapes, and all hell breaks loose, and the only one looking out for his best interests is his police detective girlfriend, played by Jacqueline Obradors.



Man, this is a tough one to call. It has some great action, and Snipes really brings it; but it was just weird with the whole Snipes under a hallucinogen, and also there were some serious lulls as the plot was trying to work itself out. I think where this film hurt itself, is Snipes is one of the coolest action leads out there, and a lot of that is taken away by having him under the influence of this drug. We see it in flashes, but when I'm signing on for a Wesley Snipes film, I want it for more than just flashes.

I never got around to seeing Brooklyn's Finest, and it looks like his next potential release, Gallowwalker, was filmed back in 2006, so I'm not sure what any of that means for his once burgeoning DTV career. Oh wait, then there's the yet to be released Game of Death, which has Gary Daniels and Robert Davi. That's what I'm talking about. What I'd like to see from Snipes, that I haven't seen out of any of his DTV fare, is a good old fashioned straight ahead actioner. Too often these films get too caught up in their bad plots, techno music, and Bourne Identity rip-off cinematography and editing. It's okay to be Blade II, especially when the alternative is being dumb and dull.



I wanted to set this review up so it would come after Tough and Deadly for a reason. It's not just the fact that the plots are similar: CIA/special forces guy drugged and let loose on society; it's really what Wesley Snipes has meant to the action genre in general. Just look at what Billy Blanks had to go through in the 80s and 90s to get good starring roles. Wesley Snipes was really the first mainstream African American action hero to have the level of success that he's had, and it's because of him that you have people like Will Smith making the cash he has in stinkers like Bad Boys II.

Jacqueline Obradors is very pretty in this film, even if she's playing a tough police detective. I like that, because often in films like this, the feeling is the female has to be one or the other: hot and tough, or pretty and weak. Recently I had a chance to catch another Obradors film, Soldier Boyz, when it aired on EncoreAction. I must say, I had even less patience for it now than I did when I first saw it. Seriously, let's train some teen killers in ten minutes and send them into a remote area of "Vietnam Today"? What a stinker! though very hilarious. If I can say anything about Unstoppable, even if it didn't work in parts, it was not as bad as that.



Do you recognize Kim Coates? You should, because the guy has been in almost everything. Major That Guy. Another connection to this film and Tough and Deadly, Coates is from the same city as Roddy Piper: Saskatoon. I hear Glass Tiger is from there too. I'd love to see them in concert. ...someday, you'll be shedding your tears...

I could recommend this if you're a big Snipes fan. It's not his best stuff, but he does his best with the material he's given. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, Snipes could've been rescuing a rich girl being held by Cary Tagawa, using a bunch of teen murderers he'd trained five minutes ago, and with one of the kids being named Brophey. Now that would've been rough, eh Mr. Dudikoff?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349889/

Ninja (2009)

This film came out the same day as Bitch Slap, so naturally, it was somewhat lost in the shuffle. Only somewhat, mind you, because I would've hit it sooner had it been available to me, but I didn't get on it quick enough and other people had it out at Netfix. Anyway, the combination of Scott Adkins and director Isaac Florentine, reunited after a great run in Undisputed II, just seemed very promising.

Ninja is about a ninja dojo in Japan that has two outstanding students: Casey (Scott Adkins), an orphan of a dead drunk American serviceman, and Masazuka, a guy who thinks Casey is unworthy of their sensei's praise. Anyway, Masazuka is kicked out of the dojo for attacking Casey, and he wants his revenge in the form of taking back the dojo's prized possession: a big fancy looking trunk filled with ninja weaponry. Casey, the sensei's daughter, and a couple other dudes travel to the States to hide it, and Masazuka follows them, employing a secret organization of angry Slavic white guys that he did a hit for to try and obtain the trunk. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how this wraps up, with a showdown between Adkins and Masazuka.



I don't know where to go with this one. I want to be harsh and scold it for not having anywhere near enough action, or for giving us a hero in Adkins who's awesome, and then tarnishing his awesomeness by having him run from the baddies until like the hour mark, when he finally kicks ass. If-- and this could be a big if, because I didn't see any indication of this on imdb-- if they are using Ninja as the first in a series of Scott Adkins ninja movies, and this one was just him coming into his own as a warrior, I'm good with the running away. If not, then that was a waste of Scott Adkins.

Even if his character was just coming into his own, there were still plenty of missteps. In one scene Adkins is handcuffed to a table at a police station. Instead of just picking the lock like all the other ninjas do, he has to break the desk he's chained to. Come on people, no matter how green a ninja he is, he should be able to get out of handcuffs better than that. The bad ninja, Masazuka's, outfit was ridiculous. He looked like the Guyver, which would be great if he was supposed to be the Guyver, but he was supposed to be a ninja! And he was using night vision goggles. Ninja's don't use night vision goggles! From the way they laid out the opening, I was expecting something in the vein of the Golan-Globus style 80s ninja flick, and this wasn't even close.



Don't take this as an indictment of Scott Adkins as a potential DTV action star, because nothing could be further from the truth. This guy was great, and had the film focused on his great fighting, instead of having him run away so much, it would've made for a much better film. I hope this is only the start for Adkins, and he does do a series of ninja films-- or even just more action films. Even though this is the fourth film of his we've reviewed, Shepherd: Border Patrol, The Tournament, and Undisputed II being the other three, this is the first where he was the lead, and when he was allowed by the film to be the lead, he did great. Not only that, but with a lot of our great action stars in their fifties going on sixties, Adkins isn't even 34 yet, so he's a solid candidate to have the torch handed to.

I didn't show a picture of the guy who ran the secret organization of Slavs that the evil ninja turned to for help, because this guy was one of the worst Poor Man's Lance Henriksens I've ever seen. I mean, Lance Henriksen's not so great to begin with, but then to try emulate him, that's even worse. Who knows why the people making this couldn't get the real Lance Henriksen-- I mean, it seems like everyone else can-- but once they couldn't get him, the worst possible thing they could do was get someone else to act like him. You either have Henriksen or you don't, and when you don't, move on.



This film was shot in Bulgaria, but this shot looks like New York City, so I'm assuming they used file footage and mixed it in, which is fine with me. Anyone who's been rocking with me for a little while probably knows that I have a thing for spotting McDonald's in movies. I think this is the fifth one, after Direct Contact, Hardwired, The Keeper, and American Ninja V. I know, I'm a little nutty with that kind of thing, but McDonald's is just a guilty pleasure of mine. I didn't see a McDonald's in the Tokyo file footage they used, but I did see a KFC, so that was kind of cool.

I guess I would give this caveat before I recommend it: for an 88 minute film, there's more downtime than you'd imagine. Towards the end, it really hits its stride, but for me, as a self-professed connoisseur of this kind of thing, it needs to hit its stride at the five minute mark if it wants to be truly great, and this one just didn't do that. Worst of all was the film makers forcing our hero, Scott Adkins, to run away from the baddies for a good portion of the film. Even Franco Nero in Enter the Ninja didn't do that.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182921/