The Stray (2000)

We lost another all-time great this past week in the legendary Michael Madsen. This is a film of his I'd been meaning to do for sometime, because it's a PM flick and also has DTVC Hall of Famer Frank Zagarino, so I figured it would be a good one for Madsen's in memoriam post. In addition to us, Comeuppance Reviews has done this as well.

The Stray has Madsen and Zagarino as cops hot on the trail of some guys in Uncle Sam masks picking up bags of drugs or money or whatever at public trash cans on the 4th of July (total coincidence that I'm reviewing this on 4th of July weekend!). After a big PM-style explosion, Madsen is suspended, so he lives with his girlfriend, Angie Everhart. Soon after, Everhart hits a guy in the road because she's using her cellphone while driving (it was an issue even in 2000!), and when she finds out he's homeless, she offers to let him live in the garage of the mansion she's living in with Madsen. Could this drifter have ulterior motives? And what about those guys in Uncle Sam masks? Madsen is suspicious of this drifter, but is there a basis for it, or is he just being a jerk? Everhart should probably figure it all out before she gets hurt--or worse!

This is a movie that I think I would've killed had I reviewed it in 2007 when I started the site. The story is that unique combination of all over the place, and contrived as all get-out. I'm supposed to believe this drifter who has it in for Everhart knew she was going to use her cellphone at exactly the time he put himself in the middle of the road so she could hit him? And then that she'd definitely take him in and give him a place to stay? But then we have the PM aspect, where foot chases turn into car chases, which turn into flipped cars and explosions. In one scene near the end, our drifter guy gets fired from his job as a dishwasher at Everhart's restaurant, and he causes a scene. In a Lifetime version of this film, the police would escort him out, give him a summons, and that would be it. Here, he smashes through a window, leading to a foot chase, which becomes a car chase when he steals a motorcycle. It's the kind of thing that I can really get down on. And then Madsen is great as the grizzled detective. He might be mailing this performance in in spots, but even when he's doing that, it's great to see. I don't know where this goes on your PM journey, or if this is the film you should watch to honor Madsen's memory versus something like Reservoir Dogs, but it did the trick for me.

When I started this site, I think I expected more Madsen films, but his first appearance wasn't until 2010 with Luck of the Draw, and now in 2025, as we're honoring his memory, I'm shocked that this is only his 16th film. If you look at his IMDb bio though, he has a lot of really low-budget ones, the kinds of things where you don't know how much Madsen you'll get, and whether it's even worth it either way, and I think that explains why he has such a low tag count. Of the films of his we've reviewed, the most infamous is Extreme Honor, the write-up which birthed the term "300-pound pork roast;" and I think his best performance of the films we've covered was in Vice, with then another one of my favorites one we did more recently, Executive Target, also a PM flick. The thing about Madsen was he had an effortless style, where even if he mailed it in, it looks great, but when he brought it, it could be something magical, and I think we see both sides here, like when he can't be bothered during the classic "your suspended!" scene with their chief after the bust gone bad, to the unleashed Madsen beating the drifter with his crutch after the guy sets him off--he had the crutch after a dirt bike accident, because PM needed to get some action in there somewhere. He does have one more PM flick that we need to cover, The Sender, which was directed by Richard Pepin and has a pretty robust cast, and then from there it'll probably be a matter of how many of the really low-budget ones he's done that we get to. Even if it isn't that many, Madsen has left an indelible legacy. One of the best to do it, Mr. Madsen, you truly will be missed.

This is now 50 PM flicks on the site, which I didn't realize when I picked this movie, I thought we would only be at 49. At some point we'll do a proper 50th film on PM celebration, but I don't think it's appropriate now as we're honoring Madsen. This is one of those interesting PM mash-ups. More suspense thriller than anything, and not really on the erotic side, but then to follow the PM rule, we have plenty of chases, shootouts, and explosions. It's this alchemy that shouldn't work--and probably doesn't work--but after seeing enough of these PM movies it's all a lot of fun. Two interesting aspects that I think it help it here too: one, cinematographer Ken Blakey, who worked on a ton of PM flicks and had a huge part in crafting what we know as the "PM look," really seems to be able to spread his wings more here, and we get some inspired shots; and two, Cole S. McKay (in now his 59th film on the site) is stunt coordinator, and he wasn't only versed in action films, but had done a lot of thrillers as well, and I think the fact that he can live in both worlds marries this combination of PM flick with Lifetime-style suspense thriller in a way that feels more organic. So with all the ways this shouldn't have worked, it's fascinating with PM how many ways they manage to make other elements work and give us something a bit more than the average fare.

We do have another Hall of Famer in this, Frank Zagarino. He doesn't have a big role, but it's fun to see him act opposite Madsen. This is one of only two PM flicks he did, the other being No Tomorrow, and neither were a starring vehicle for him, which is too bad. I guess around this time PM was focusing on big names like Madsen, or action leads like Speakman, plus their own in-house guys like Daniels, so someone like a Zagarino would've been the odd one out, but seeing him here as a cop with Madsen, he would've made a great cop on the edge in a PM action romp. Looking over his bio, there's maybe 25 movies of his I have left to cover, including all four of the Airboss movies, and with him at 16 films now, that means somewhere down the road the 40 Club is in play. We probably should get him to 20 and 30 movies first before we think 40 Club, but at least we know that's the ceiling. On the other hand, our last Zags film was Project Eliminator in June of 2023, so it's been over two years since his last flick. At that pace we'd get him into the 40 Club in 2075? If I'm still alive then, and still reviewing movies on this site... I don't know, I feel like by then the nuclear apocalypse will have happened, but if I'm still around for it, maybe a guy in a leather vest with no shirt underneath will be my caretaker, and in between driving me to my appointments in his black Chevy Impala with a spiked grill, he can help me get my Zags 40th Club post up on the site--only to have us ambushed by evil water farmers or tire farmers or whatever.

We got off the rails quick there, and I don't know how we'll get back on track, but maybe Angie Everhart's a good place to go. More than Madsen, she's the star of this, even though the way the film opens they make us think he is, but I think as the lead she does a great job of being the central focus around which everything else revolves. With how good she does here, you'd think, why didn't she have a bigger DTV career? More movies like The Substitute: Failure Is Not an Option would've made sense at least, and to be fair, in the period right before and after this she does have some other stuff that we should review, but then it tails off. According to the IMDb trivia, there were some factors in her personal life that probably contributed to this, plus maybe there's a point too where you're just tired of making The Substitute: Failure Is Not an Option, which I can respect. At least she does great here, and adds more to the proceedings to get us over the finish line.

Finally, we'll do one last paragraph on Madsen, since this is the post in honor of his passing. Madsen had the kind of talent that shouldn't have put him anywhere near DTV flicks, but even as far back as this, he was in that realm. If you go on Tubi now, you could do a whole month watching one Madsen film a day on there, and not run out before the calendar turns. And I think when you get movies like this, that have a fair amount of him in it, it's something really special and fun to watch. And that's the thing, out of those 30, there might be five of these, maybe ten if we're being generous, but when you find them, it makes it all worth it. That's why we love movies, whether they're blockbusters, Oscar winners, or PM DTV flicks like this, we want to be entertained, and perhaps see something special, and with Madsen, if his name was on the tin, there was always that possibility. I don't know if I suggest doing a month of Madsen movies on Tubi, but I think he'll always be one of those names that's fun to watch, and while it's sad he's no longer with us, we were all lucky to have him while we did.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Tubi, perhaps as part of your month of Madsen, but if you're just going to do one, this isn't a bad deal either. Also, if you want more Madsen, Ty and I did a double-bill of his DTV flicks in episode 159, "Madsen MAYhem," which you can find in the podcast archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0194410

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

Project Eliminator (1991)

This is one I watched ahead of a podcast episode I did with the guys from Comeuppance Reviews almost a year ago to the day that I'm writing this post. We were discussing our top five Frank Zagarino films, and as you can imagine, any discussion like that would include this gem. You can check that out, episode 100 in the archives. In addition to us and Comeuppance, Chris from Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Project Eliminator is essentially a sequel to the Zagarino film Striker, where he's back as John "Striker" Slade. We start with our hero is getting a ride from a trucker out in the Southwest somewhere, wearing a Canadian tuxedo and sporting a fantastic man mane. He has the trucker let him off and calls a buddy, David Carradine, who has work for him. While he's waiting though, he needs to take out some Point Break-esque Former Presidents robbers, because we can't wait that long for some sweet Zags action. After Carradine picks him up he finds out his job: the creator of a flying laser has been kidnapped by some terrorists that are forcing him to remake it for them. Those baddies include classics like David "Shark" Fralick and Brett Baxter Clark. They don't stand a chance against Zags.

This is a pretty sweet deal. First off, while I prefer my Zags with a crew cut or a nice surfer cut, the man mane was fantastic too. With that, the Zagarino alone would be enough to recommend this, but what we also get is the rare 90s Engaged Carradine. He's yucking it up with Zagarino, playing the piano in a bar, wearing a cowboy hat and a bolo tie. This is no sit down role. This is no Karate Cop, where we last saw him back in 2021, serving up some jackrabbit stew to Ron Marchini, he's actually a fully fleshed out part of this film. On top of that, we get some recognizable toughs, like David "Shark" Fralick, and Brett Baxter Clark--who interestingly enough played a character named Shark in Shootfighter II. If you're going to have a fully man-maned Zags in a Canadian tuxedo, you need a be-five-o'clock-shadowed Clark with nicely poofed and feathered hair giving him dirty looks as a counter. And no, this isn't a Members Only jacket Clark has tucked into his pants, it just looks like it.

We haven't seen Zags since he was inaugurated last fall, which is a shame that we lost track of him that much. We're now at 15 films for him, which normally we'd say isn't great, but for someone like him that we're just starting to push to get more films up for, it's not horrible. Here we get the whole package, and as I mentioned, I prefer him with the shorter hair look, but to get this once in a while isn't horrible. I think I have a couple more that I watched for that podcast last year that we can cover, plus he has some on Tubi that I can grab, so we should see him again soon. One thing that struck me about this one though, is how good he is, but for the late 80s/early 90s, which was such a deep reservoir of great DTV action, he and this film are definitely a few tiers below. I don't know that we ever get back to that level of great DTV film again, but what's great is we can enjoy it now on various streaming services. Getting him to 20 by the end of the year is probably a stretch, but I think if I make more of a conscious effort to get more of his stuff up, we should see him a few more times before the year is out.

As I mentioned above, we last saw David Carradine in 2021 with Karate Cop, which happened to come out the same year as this one. His performances couldn't be more different. I looked and we've also reviewed two others he had in 1991, the Daniels flick Capital Punishment, and the Cirio H. Santiago joint Dune Warriors--also when I wrote the Martial Law post that was listed as '91, but it's now been moved to 1990. That gives you a sense of the fast and loose nature of Carradine's 90s DTV career, which, to be honest, is a large part of what got him into the Hall of Fame. Quantity over quality, but on this scale where you get something like Capital Punishment where his scenes feel grafted in, Karate Cop where he only has one scene that involves him selling this disgusting looking jackrabbit stew in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and something like this where he's a full participant. It was like the old video store, you went in and never knew what you were going to get--like when I rented Dune Warriors thinking it had something to do with Dune--but you kept going back, because you never knew when you were going to get a gem like this.

Because this came out the same year as Point Break, we can't assume either was ripping off the other by using Former Presidents robbers, it's an apparent case of polygenesis. The other thing here is that the Former Presidents are only in it for a short scene, and then that's it. I don't know that we needed a man-maned Zags in the original Point Break, but the idea of a DTV sequel would've been pretty sweet. At this stage we could still do it, only with Zags in the Busey role, and maybe you mix it up for the Keanu, like Amy Johnston or Natalie Burn. Iko Uwais actually looks young enough that he could pass for Keanu's age at that time. You could do like a whole series of Point Break DTV sequels maybe. I'd be up for writing the scripts if someone wants to give me a call...

Finally, this was shot in Albuquerque, NM, which is a place I've never been to before--need to get out there and see the Isotopes play, right? I have been to New Mexico before though, when I visited Four Corners, which, for people outside the US, is the only place in the US where four states touch. There's a whole park on Navajo land dedicated to it, and they have stations set up in each state where you can buy souvenirs. I have a shot of me in a push up stance with a foot or hand in all four states at once. If you're curious, as of this writing I've been to 28 of the 50 states. I read somewhere that the average American has been to 17, but only 2% of all Americans have been to all 50. If you look at the ones I've been to on a map, there's a hole where West Virginia is, as I have all the states around it, and then a huge chunk in the center of the county other than Texas is missing too, including Illinois where Chicago is. What constitutes a visit for me is leaving the airport or getting out of the car off the highway, which means Wyoming counts when my buddy and I shot up 25 to Cheyenne and hit a McDonald's, visitor center, and truck stop off one of the exits; but Illinois doesn't, despite me changing planes in Chicago multiple times, and New Jersey, which I'd ridden through countless times, didn't officially count for me until my wife and I went to Atlantic City in 2014. One area where I'm hampered in my quest, is I don't drive, and a lot of a Americans get a bunch of states on cross-country drives--even something like Four Corners requires a car, which fortunately I had my buddy driving while we were in Colorado on hiking trip. Unfortunately this means I may leave the planet without becoming one of those 2%, a sad reality that I either have to accept, or I need to pack up my bindle and hope a freight at the local train yard here in Philly--which if you're wondering, yes it's within walking distance to me, or I can take the bus some of the way there.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can currently get this on Tubi, which is a good deal. It's a fun Zagarino actioner with the rare Engaged 90s Carradine included. In addition, you can check out the episode where the guys from Comeuppance and I discuss Zagarino, episode 100 in the archives, "Zig-Zagarino."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0148639

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

Ten Zan - The Ultimate Mission (1988)

For our next DTVC Hall of Fame inductee, we have the one, the only, Frank Zagarino. He was featured on a DTVC podcast episode back in June that I did with the guys from Comeuppance, and I had this one on my top five Zags, so I figured it was a good one to review, especially with the novelty of it being shot in North Korea. In addition to us, the guys at Comeuppance have also covered this, so you can go to their site to see what they thought.

Ten Zan - The Ultimate Mission is about Charles Borromel ("Borromel, the thorough, gentle laxative") running experiments on kidnapped women. Some people aren't happy about that, so they send Zags in to find out what's happening and take him down. When he gets there, he teams up with a buddy on the ground, and said buddy's sister, whom Zags falls in love with. At the same time, Borromel is working with some tough customers, including Glenda (The Not so Good Witch), played by Sabrina Siani (of another Ator film fame) in a leather jumpsuit. As Zags gets closer to the truth, things get more dangerous, and it's going to take all he's got to stop Borromel and his sinister plans. Oh, and it was shot in North Korea.

This is a fascinating film. It's essentially a late 80s Philippine action film with an Italian director using an English name (Ferndinando Baldi as Ted Kaplan), but shot in North Korea! I think this was a one-off because Zags was arrested by the North Koreans after he took some pictures and they thought he was a spy. Can you imagine that happening in the Philippines? Or Thailand? Beyond that, Zags is great as the hero, he's the perfect blond-haired all-American these Italian directors love when trying to get funding and sell the film abroad--this version I watched was on YouTube of a Dutch VHS rip. Had it been made in the Philippines, I think it still would've been fun, but it has that added kick of the North Korea novelty, and I love the idea beyond that that North Korea couldn't not North Korea long enough to avoid arresting Zags for being spy during filming. Oh you guys!

This is our first Zags review since 2013, and while with most stars we induct into the Hall of Fame I give the requisite "this was long overdue," in Zags's case I don't think that's true. This is about the time he should've gotten in after all the other names were inducted. The thing is, he's known for a lower tier of movie, but as a star he's probably more deserving of higher tier films, as this movie shows. He has a leading man quality that should've made him a lead in more films, but I guess the name recognition is what hurt him--maybe his best known movies are the Project Shadowchasers, which he plays a baddie, and an android baddie at that. He was an integral part of the 80s and 90s though, and beyond the Project Shadowchaser franchise he also had the Airboss franchise, which may or may not have been good, but it's a franchise for him nonetheless. Zags is truly one of the great ones, so it's good for us to be able to celebrate him officially with his induction into the DTVC Hall of Fame.

"Borromel, the thorough, gentle laxative." One of my favorite jokes from MSTK's Cave Dwellers episode. It also carried over to the Boromir character in Lord of the Rings for me. I was looking through our archives, and I think Cave Dwellers is the only other Borromel film we've done on here, which isn't surprising considering he last worked in 1990, so he didn't do many films in the video age. Some things I didn't know about him: he was born in Scotland, where he moved back to after he was done in movies, and where he eventually passed away in 2007 at the age of 74. Unlike in Cave Dwellers where he played a benevolent, heroic scientist, here he plays an evil, baddie scientist, but still a scientist all the same. I guess with a name like "Borromel," if you're not a laxative company, scientist is your next best bet. Here's to you Borromel, you were one of the great ones.

This might have been director Ferdinando Baldi's final film, at least how it's listed on IMDb anyway. Like Borromel, he didn't go far into the DTV age, so beyond the fact that this is our first film of his on here, he's only done a couple others that we could review, Just a Damned Soldier and Warbus--both of which the guys at Comeuppance have covered. Like his contemporaries, Bruno Mattei and Antonio Margheriti, Baldi has that professional, Italian style, that gets the film done quick, efficiently, but artistically enough that it doesn't feel like it was produced on an assembly line, which is something I've always appreciated about these directors. It's one thing I've noticed too about Williamson's style, in his late 80s/early 90s films, as it seems like he was influenced by these directors in his time over in Italy working. It was a unique moment in time, but these directors and their upbringing in the Italian cinema industry added a fascinating element to the low-budget actioners they made, which to me is a big part of why that period from the late 80s to the early 90s was so big for low-budget action.

 

If you go back to April and the episode Will from Exploding Helicopter was on, "Virtual Reality Action Movies," I get into my passion for train travel and how important I think it is, and how America is so far behind on that, after I bring up the high speed train from Vegas to LA in Virtual Assassin that I think is unfortunately never going to happen. Anyway, here we get a look at a train station in North Korea. It's really nice, and I have to assume it was included here as a way to show off some of the nicer aspects of the country. And to be fair, I don't think you'd see a train station like this in a film shot in the Philippines, Thailand, or Indonesia at this time. Overall North Korea looked like a nice place to film a movie like this, the problem was, North Korea just couldn't keep their shit together long enough, and I have to assume once Zags was arrested and spent two days in jail that they were like "no more making movies in North Korea," so instead of becoming the start of an industry or sub-genre, this movie ends up simply being a novelty, but a fun one at that.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, it looks like YouTube is your best bet, unless you're a collector and go the foreign VHS route. I think it's worth checking out, especially if you're a fan of Philippine actioners from the late 80s, simply for the novelty. Beyond that, it's a fun film, and the Zags is solid, so it does what you want for a Saturday night time killer. I think a great one to get Zags into the Hall of Fame on too.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254814

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

The Protector (1998)

A friend of mine hooked me up with a copy of his VHS of this flick.  The names Frank Zagarino and Matthias Hues were all I needed to hear to give it a look.  At the very least it might be so bad it's good, right?

The Protector is about a dude with amnesia, played by Steven Nijjar, who is being chased by all kinds of people, like Matthias Hues and Frank Zagarino and the NSA.  He has a disc, or knows where a disc might be, with a virus on it that could have a massive impact on the world economy.  Now Nijjar needs to stay alive, find out who he can trust, oh, and I forgot to mention, someone kidnapped his son.  Will he make it happen?



We use the term "so bad it's good" so often when dealing with these kinds of movies, but what about "so awesome it's good"?, because, while this is pretty bad, it's pretty awesomely bad.  Right away, Nijjar is in a diner which is shot up by a bunch of women who look like a cross between a hit squad and back-up dancers in a Robert Palmer video.  His feet catch on fire, he runs away-- into a body of water to extinguish the flames-- and the ladies start shooting at him with rocket launchers, which blow up the junkers at the car lot Nijjar runs through.  How amazing is that?  Even better, Nijjar's son's voice is dubbed over by a guy trying to sound like a kid.  I'm not kidding.  How much more amazing is that?  Then you have some sweet fights, especially with Zagarino, and between Hues and Zagarino-- some that are choreographed at a higher level than we usually see for a film of this grade.  Just a fun 90s DTV actioner.

Let's start with Zagarino.  He had some really nice fights, which is what you really want from him in a film like this.  He also had some great lines.  I've noticed he's at his best as an actor when he's allowed to deliver sophisticated dialog in a monotone voice.  When he yells at Nijjar "you're an asshole!", it sounds silly, but if he'd just said it calmly, it would've been perfect.  It's a difficult thing for an actor to mitigate a rough screenplay and make it sound natural, and poor Zagarino is often forced to act in films with rough screenplays, meaning he's often caught out.  That's okay if he's allowed to deliver on some good fights, and he has a couple nice ones here, especially a good strip club brawl.  Not the most memorable of Zagarino's flicks, but not horrible either.



Matthias Hues is up to his old tricks as the film's baddie.  I got the sense that most of his scenes were shot in a day, because he's not in many locations.  You get a lot of him smoking a cigar, delivering bad dialog, and either shirtless or in a leopard-print silk shirt.  Then at the end he gets after it with two fight scenes against Zagarino.  Before those scenes, he runs around quite a bit firing a couple machine guns at people off-screen.  You could tell that he's done that enough, because he posed in those shots with style.  That's what you want from a baddie, loads of style.  It would've been nice to see more fights with him though.  Like Dolph, he's one of the best pure athletes we see here at the DTVC, especially for his size, and he makes the fights exciting because of that.

I had heard of Steven Nijjar before reviewing this film, but his parts in the other movies I'd done were small (those movies were TC 2000 and Expect No Mercy).  This one he's in it quite a bit, and while he can't carry a movie the way Zagarino can as a hero or Hues can as the baddie, he's not bad.  He doesn't have many credits to his name after this, so we'll see how many more times he makes it on the DTVC.



There are two kinds of people in this world: those who hear a man speak in a high pitched voice trying to mimic the child that he's dubbing over and think "I need to go on imdb and kill this movie"; and people like me who laugh, text my girlfriend about it, and give the ol' Tiger Woods fist pump.  With over 900 of these reviews in the can at this point, it's moments like this that keep me sane; but, also, it's moments like this that I started the DTVC for, and I love that over six years and 930-plus reviews later that I can still be surprised by something I haven't seen before.

This one is not an easy find.  As of this posting, Amazon doesn't even have it.  It's worth keeping an eye out for it though, because it's a fun time.  Low-budget 90s bad action, a great way to kill 90 minutes.  So awesome it's good.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137180/

Warhead (1996)

I came across this one on Watch Instantly, and have kept it on my radar until this week, when I finally decided to make it happen. The combination of Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara could be, if anything, at least a fun time-- though they could also be a boring slog too, you never know. Let's see what this spin of the roulette wheel yields. Also, our buddy Kenner at Movies in the Attic hit this one too.

Warhead has Lara as the head of a white supremacist separatist paramilitary organization, and Zagarino as the special forces soldier that leads a unit of elite troops to stop him. He has his work cut out for him though when Lara gets his hands on the codes to launch some nuclear missiles, and it looks like he has intel on the inside that warns him when Zagarino tries to take him down. Now it's do or die, as the fate of the free world hangs in the balance and only Zags can save the day.



This one is a definite 3AM gem. It's too D-grade and too obscure as far as the lead actors go to make for a good bad movie night flick, and the plot and action, though plenty mindless, aren't solid enough to make this one good. But at 3AM, whether you're procrastinating on a paper, trying to get the room to stop spinning after a heavy duty bender, or battling insomnia, this is the kind of thing that will get you to the church on time. It's something you'd've been lucky to find on EncoreAction, or TNT or USA back in the late 90s, but with it's availability on Watch Instantly, it's at your disposal whenever you need it.

Zagarino is a D-grade mainstay. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing though. We need that level of action flick, and it's good to have someone to helm it. The acting is a little more wooden, the bad script isn't papered over as well, and watching him, there's almost a sense that we are seeing the scenes as they're shot, as if we can hear the director yell "cut!" after. There's a place in the market for this kind of movie, and Zagarino is the quintessential actor to cast as its hero.



The best way to describe Joe Lara's performance is to imagine a Lifetime movie where a guy plays a sleazy pimp that seduces a young girl from a small town into running off with him, not knowing he's planning to sell her on the street. A big part of it is his voice. It's this creepy monotone, and it sounded like that predatory Lifetime villain much more than the action hero main baddie. Then you factor in the ponytail too. All he needed were the double-breasted blazers and the fancy cherry apple red sports car, and we could see him pulling up to the girl's cheer-leading practice, telling her how beautiful she is and how he'll give her all the finer things in life that she deserves, and next thing you know they're holed up in a cheap motel and Joanna Kearns is teaming up with disgraced alcoholic former cop Treat Williams to track them down.

Even though this movie was shot in South Africa, an early scene took place in Idaho, making it the first time Idaho popped up on the DTVC. I imagine Idaho and New England-- especially Maine-- are as far as you can get from one another, though Maine has potato farming in common with Idaho. Like every state in the US that I haven't been to, I'd like to get out there and see it some day, if only to hike Borah Peak, maybe see what Boise's got going on too. If anyone reading this is from Idaho and can suggest some other places to check out, that would be cool.



I recently watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and was struck most of all by how little the film captured the essence of what made the Super Mario Bros. games such a great series. Somehow though, Warhead has done that. It just seemed like a fun ride with stuff blowing up around Zagarino, and him swinging on things and sliding down pipes and riding jet skies with bombs into militia men. The best one came when Zags was fighting some guys on an ice skating rink while some kids played a hockey game. He'd grab onto to one of the kids' backs, and instead of stopping and turning around and asking why he did that, they'd just skate away and take him for a ride. Even crazier was how they kept playing while this shootout and brawl was happening around them. It felt like one of those levels in a Super Mario Bros. game where you'd have to ride a bird or something.

This is not so bad it's good or a great bad movie night flick, it's mid-90s South African D-grade action that is a great 3AM time killer. With the advent of Netflix, Hulu, etc. and the ability to stream movies, these 3AM gems are now at your fingertips as opposed to something you stumble upon as you flip through the channels. Not a bad deal.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118119

Blood Warriors (1993)

It was time to get a little David Bradley up on the DTVC again, and this one also starred Frank Zagarino, so I thought, what the hell. That, and I got this from a friend on VHS, had an open slot here, and figured I'd go for it. I can always go to David Bradley in a pinch.

Blood Warriors has native Texan David Bradley playing a Marine from Texas who finds himself in jail. His ol' Marine buddy Frank Zagarino bails him out, gets his sentence dropped, and covers the mortgage on his dad's farm. The catch: he needs to board a plane to Jakarta and help Zags out on some business there. En route, Zags is killed, so Bradley catches up with his hot sister. When Zags's business competitor finds out his casket is empty, things get crazy. Is Zags still alive? And if he is, can Bradley trust him? And isn't this action hero gig a pretty sweet deal when you get love scenes with the woman who played the model on Seinfeld?



This isn't horrible, but it's not exactly great either. The beginning goes a little long before we get any good action, and while the action is decent, it's nothing spectacular. I felt like there were more missed opportunities than great moments, which is never a good thing. For instance, Zags is showing off for Bradley how well his mercs can fight. Bradley just sits there, then is all like "I don't want to be in your gang, Zags." What we needed there was a Jeff Wincott in Mission of Justice scene, you know, the one where he's supposed to walk this gauntlet, acts like he's not going to do it, then quickly turns and flips into the middle of all these dudes, and totally houses them. Bradley needed to kick all their asses, then throw on his cowboy hat, pop his collar, and tell Zags he'll be in his room if he needs him. With an action movie that has guys like Bradley and Zagarino, you can't have them sitting on the sidelines, and unfortunately, that happened too often.

Gotta love the Bradley in a cowboy hat look. Maybe not quite the fanny pack, but it's close. I know Bradley is from Texas, but he's too much of a dandy for Texas good ol' boy to work. He's a thinking man's lead, smooth, cleancut, sharply tailored suits and sleek automobiles. He needs to cruise into town in an expensive convertible and take out gangs of toughs with nice looking roundhouses and jumpkicks, throw on his sunglasses and tell the guys to have a nice day. The fact that Bradley co-wrote the script tells me he wanted to get away from that image some. Come on man, be who you are, and be proud of it.



Zagarino isn't in this much. He's kind of like Orson Welles in The Third Man, only his name is "Stone" instead of "Lime". Keith Stone, actually, not to be confused with the guy from the Keystone beer commercials. As far as I can tell, beer commercials, and in particular light beer commercials, are so bad it's almost criminal, but the Keith Stone ones are one of the few I like. Really, I'm more of a man if I drink your light beer? Or maybe you're more of a moron.

Sam Firstenberg directed this, and as I'm sure you know, he has a pretty solid track record. American Ninja, American Ninja 2, Avenging Force-- though he was also the man who put Bradley in a fanny pack in Cyborg Cop-- though to his credit, he made fun of it in the sequel, Cyborg Cop II. This was a definite step down from any of the others of his we've reviewed, and it makes me wonder if maybe something went wrong in post-production that hurt this thing-- or maybe it's his Jersey Girl.



Seinfeld fans will recognize Jennifer Campbell as the model Jerry meets flying home in first class, and then who sees him scratching his nose at a red light, and erroneously thinks he's picking it. I looked on her resume, and though she did do some action based TV shows, I didn't see another action movie after this, and I can kind of see why. She was pushed and pulled and dragged and carried and sent through the ringer in this bad boy. At one point, Bradley is carrying her over his shoulder, which made very little sense, since she seemed like she could run just fine-- and run faster than Bradley could run carrying her. It probably makes sense why we don't see as many repeat action movie female co-stars, it's a much easier paycheck looking disgusted when you think Jerry Seinfeld picked his nose.

This is not an easy find, out of print, only available on VHS. Maybe for completists, because it is Bradley and Zagarino directed by Firstenberg, but that's a big stretch. If you see it cheap in a bargain bin and don't have much else already in your basket, I guess you could go for it and add it to your bad action collection.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106432/

Project Shadowchaser III aka Project Shadowchaser 3000 (1997)

I got this from Netflix as a part of a two-pack with Project Shadowchaser II. With only Frank Zagarino to tie it to the others-- that and I guess the guy who played the creepy womanizing orderly in Project: Shadowchaser was in this as one of the shipmates-- the whole thing seemed rather dubious, but the first two were pretty good, so I crossed my fingers.

Project Shadowchaser III takes place in the future, when a a ship called the Siberia goes missing. 25 years later it returns, on a collision course with a space station orbiting Mars, much to that crew's chagrin, considering they're two days out from going home. They link up with the ship to investigate, and find a mysterious, killer presence, in the form of a shapeshifting android, our old buddy Frank Zagarino. Can they make it out alive?



How many movies can you rip off in 90 minutes? Well, let's see. There's Alien, The Thing, Terminator 2, Solaris... that's four. I'm sure there're others, but that's enough for you to get the point. In DTV, it's okay to rip off other, bigger, more famous projects, as long as the movie is fun. This wasn't. It was really unremarkable, with nothing special, nothing over the top, a few funny bad movie moments, but beyond that, just a big ol' pile of blah. Not to mention, there was a lot of grossness, with Zagarino's android character's skin melting off and stuff. The only bright spot was Musetta Vander as the heroine, a Russian scientist on the space station, but that wasn't enough to save the rest of the film.

We had a major Zagarino bait-and-switch. They list Christopher Atkins's part as a "special appearance", even though he's in most of the movie. Zagarino should've been the "special appearance", and it should've been as the "Terminator Rip-off". None of the fun character we loved in the first two-- in fact, due to his odd shapeshifting abilities, he's often played by another actor. Whose idea was it to take the entire foundation Zagarino had built with this character over two movies, and dump it in favor of a bunch of cheap rip-off sci-fi characters?



The late Sam Bottoms is in this. Who is that you ask? None other than Timothy Bottoms's younger brother. I was going to go into a whole thing about how bad it is if you're leading man's claim to fame is that he's Timothy Bottoms's brother, but I saw on imdb that he died of brain cancer in 2008, and I felt like that would be in poor taste. Still, look at the progression: Martin Kove, Bryan Genesse, Sam Bottoms. In the female lead we've stayed pretty consistent, right? Meg Foster, Beth Toussaint, Musetta Vander. I was about to say "what, Frank Zagarino wasn't available?"... oh yeah, that's right-- though how cool would have been with him in the lead fighting an android built in his image?

You know when you fire up a movie, and the make-up effects or special effects coordinators get into the opening credits. It means the film makers have some crutches they plan to lean on in lieu of a solid story or great acting. In this case, it was vintage late 90s CGIs and the aforementioned gross skin melting as Zagarino the android changed shape. The thing is, in both cases, the effects weren't that great anyway, so to then ask them compensate for much bigger inadequacies was too much for them to bear. The reality is, both the computer and make-up effects can be horrible, as long as the film is fun, it'll still work.



We have a TGIF alum, Bill Kirchenbauer, also known as Coach Lubbock from Just the 10 of Us, the Growing Pains spin-off. He plays Wheels, a cigar smoking ship worker confined to a wheel chair, which goes all Christine on him and drives him to his death. That show, Just the Ten of Us, had two of Michael Dudikoff's female leads, Heather Langenkamp of Nightmare on Elm Street fame was in Fugitive Mind, and Brooke Theiss was in Quicksand. Another note on Brooke Theiss, she's married to Bryan Genesse, the star from the previous Project Shadowchaser.

The thing is, I think part 2 is worth a look, and if this is packaged with it, you might as well give it a whirl. On its own, though, I'd stay as far away as possible. Hopefully sometime they'll package parts 1 and 2, which makes more sense, because they're more alike-- and both of a higher quality.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114192/

Project Shadowchaser II aka Night Siege: Project Shadowchaser II (1994)

I first saw this during TNT's movie block that used to follow Monday Night Nitro. For my money, that block combined with TNT's Joe Bob Briggs show on Saturday nights made TNT the premier bad action, horror, and sci-fi movie channel on cable in the late 90s, even slightly better than USA's Up All Night-- which was still pretty solid on Fridays and Saturdays, don't get me wrong.

Project Shadowchaser II doesn't exactly pick up where part one left off. Whereas part 1 felt like it took place in the future, this one feels more like the present. Either way, what we have is a nuclear facility taken over by our favorite android, Frank Zagarino, this time so he can get his hands on some nuclear weapons and blow everything up. To stop him, we have hapless drunk maintenance dude Bryan Genesse, along with scientist Beth Toussaint and her son (annoying kid alert!). That's about it.



This is as close to a paint-by-numbers Die Hard rip-off as you can get. Christmas Eve? Check. Geeky guy hacking into computers and using sports references? Check, this time in the form of DTV action mainstay Todd Jensen. Firing rockets on the cops? Check, Mr. Zagarino does the honors using a few SAMs. Other than that, this is pretty original, right? I was torn on Project Shadowchaser II actually, because on the one hand, it ramps up the bad action factor of the first one pretty well, from the railing kills and hatchets to the foreheads to roundhouse kicking flaming stuntmen to the shimmying scientists blasted with machine gun fire, this hits all the spots-- hell, even Santa gets it. On the other hand, there's a lot of stupid stuff, like the kid-- seriously, who watches Die Hard and says "you know what this is missing? An annoying kid!"-- and the ending where Beth Toussaint is able to out-muscle an android with superhuman strength. It feels like for every great thing the film did, it mailed it in on something else.

Gotta love Genesse though. No one does all-American Orange County pure-bred varsity letterman high school quarterback like him-- which is great considering he's Canadian! He does us better than we do, doesn't he? But that works so well when he's driving a vintage muscle car and talking baseball and staring at the baddie with a silly look on his face, or telling Beth Toussaint she has a nice ass under his breath. On top of that, he's a great martial artist. Roundhouses left and right, great hand-to-hand stuff, and a pretty solid end fight with Zagarino. Genesse is definitely a guy I plan to do more of in the future, and I have a few in mind to go to, so don't worry.



Mr. Zagarino, building on his performance in part one to give us something even better: a sense of humor? Absolutely. Man Frank-- can I call you Frank?... all right, sorry, Mr. Zagarino-- have you been holding out on us? Not just a sense of humor, but an all around great baddie. Yes, the no shirt under the leather jacket was a tad obnoxious, but hey, obnoxious is what we're here for, and it looks great with the rest of the Susan Powter motif, so rock on. Frank Zagarino, where have you been all our lives?

We're back with the annoying kid factor again. I want to make clear, this is not an indictment of the people who played these annoying kids, it's an indictment of the whole concept. What is a kid doing in an action movie? Getting in the way and being annoying. That's it, that's the whole purpose, and for me, a plot device that's only purpose is to annoy is useless and a detriment to the film. To every action writer out there drafting up treatments, if a kid is in your plot, hit the damn delete button and save us a lot of pain. Thank you.



I'm a moron (I'm sure a lot of you are reading that and saying "no shit!"). Here I am so worried about capping an image of Ted Le Plat, the guy who played the reporter in American Kickboxer I and it's unofficial sequel To the Death, that I didn't know Gavin Hood was in this as well, and by coincidence just happened to have capped an image of him getting electrocuted, which is okay, but you can't see his face. Don't know who Gavin Hood is? He directed Tsotsi, a South African film that won for best foreign language picture at the Oscars in '06 (and made my top ten of the oughts), and also directed X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Yep, and I never thought to check imdb before I sent the DVD back to Netflix, meaning that pic is the best one I have of him from Project Shadowchaser II.

But that's neither here nor there. This one is available on DVD as part of a double feature with part three-- which I'll get into when I write the review for it. I don't know, I think for all its faults, this does all right. I think it would be cool if this were paired with part one though, because they'd make a great bad movie night double feature, but unfortunately that isn't the case.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110901/

Project: Shadowchaser aka Shadowchaser (1992)

I've had this one for some time now, but put it on my back burner in order to get a few other reviews up instead. Then Netflix sent me the DVD with parts two and three, which put my feet to the fire and made me shuffle things around some. It works though, I've been meaning to get some Martin Kove up here anyway. Also, our man Ty at Comeuppance Reviews has hit this one too.

Project: Shadowchaser has Frank Zagarino as Romulus, an android killing machine designed by diabolical scientist and apparent big time Susan Powter fan Joss Ackland. Romulus has something of an existentialist crisis, and takes it out on everyone else by taking a hospital hostage that just happens to have Meg Foster, the President's daughter, visiting. The feds need to get her back, so they erroneously take Martin Kove out of his deep freeze imprisonment, thinking they're freeing the hospital's architect with the hope that he could give them some insight into a rescue attempt, only to have the team die in an elevator explosion. Now Kove is knee deep in it, but he may also just be America and the First Daughter's last hope.



This had its issues, was pretty derivative-- see Die Hard in a hospital-- but overall I think it worked in that 90s DTV sci-fi action cheese vein. I mean, you're not looking for Kurosawa when you fire one of these bad boys up, and this pretty much hit all the spots you'd want it too. It did have some slow areas, but with Kove involved they weren't too intolerable. He had fun with this, and his attitude had a trickle down affect through the cast, with everyone playing off him, and that fun translated well to the viewer. Maybe a little unremarkable, but for what it was, it worked for me.

Kove was great. He really played up that slick talking resourceful guy who finds himself in an impossible situation. We often don't get to see Kove as the hero (I know there are obvious examples of films where is the hero, I'm just saying they're outweighed by the roles he has as a baddie), so any chance we get is a bonus, because he's so good at it. I can see though why he might prefer being a baddie, because roles like this where the good guy is as fun as the baddie is a rarity-- have you ever noticed the baddie is almost always the most fun role in the film?



Frank Zagarino makes an excellent robot baddie-- though one could make the case that he's even better in part two when his character is given more of a personality. Either way, this is the role Frank Zagarino was made for. How is it that film makers don't look at this and say "man, this guy is so wooden, why don't we do a Project: Shadowchaser and cut the amount of acting that's required?" Also, love the Susan Powter look.

Meg Foster's character was one of the parts of the film I didn't care for, and not because of her, but because it was written very inconsistently. At the beginning we had a tough woman, won't take any crap, not just another pretty face/rich daddy's girl style character that worked really well. Then, as Kove's rescuing her, she suddenly turns vain, decides she needs to change into a dress and heels for her escape, completely betraying anything good the character had built up to that point. Over-writing strikes again, and make a muddled mess out of something that could've been so good-- and that's too bad, because she and Kove had great chemistry.



Your eyes aren't deceiving you, that's Kove with a glued on Grizzly Adams. It doesn't get any better, does it? Forget the goatee, the glued on Grizzly Adams is the way to go. I wonder if he's ever rocked the Grizz in any other roles? See, this is where the reader comments section comes in most handy. If you're going to dismiss discussing the movie completely to read off a list of other movies the cast have been in instead, give me something more than just "such and such was a WAY better movie IMO", give me some meat damn it, tell me some other movies that Martin Kove has been in where he rocks the Grizz. The request/suggestion box is full of movies right now, so if you want to stand out you need to bring it.

Now I'm rambling, so it's best we wrap this up. As far as I know, this is only available on VHS, and can be pretty pricey, even used. Not sure it's worth that, but this is a good one for collectors, so you may want to make that decision for yourself. For me, if you can't get it for less than $5, I'd wait.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105178/

Lethal (2005)

Based on the Netflix description of this one, I thought I was going to get some sweet Frank Zagarino versus Lorenzo Lamas action. Maybe not that sweet, but sweet enough. Zagarino and Lamas can really mix it up if given a chance, right?

Lethal has Heather Marie Marsden as a mercenary who comes into possession of a weapon or the codes to activate a weapon or some such crap. It wasn't all that important to the people making the film, they were too worried about Marsden's past as an FBI trainee, her dad's untimely death on an FBI mission, and how FBI agent Frank Zagarino liked her dad. Also, there's some tool FBI agent that had a romantic past with Marsden that the film tediously inserts into the plot just to twist the knife even more. Oh yeah, and she has a teen sister she's taking care of, and Russian mob boss Lorenzo Lamas kidnaps her to get Marsden to give him the weapon or whatever.



What do I always say is rule number 1 to a good action movie? Don't let the plot get in the way, and this movie breaks that rule in an excruciating way. Too much backstory, too much crap about Marsden's past, too many characters floating around that we really don't need, and in the end, it was all too heavy and weighed down whatever bonuses the film offered. On top of that, the action was often shot with Matrix-wannabe camera effects that caused vertigo in the best instances, and looked trite and gimmicky in the worst. This should've been streamlined: keep Marsden as the heroine, but make her a lone wolf, maybe Yojimbo-style, pitting Zagarino against Lamas, cut out the sister, the love interest, the backstory about the dad in the FBI, and just give us a taut, stylish action thriller. Is that so hard?

Rule 2 would be to avoid what I call The Destro Effect, essentially don't make the villain cooler than the heroes. Yes, Lamas's Russian accent was atrocious, but his baddie was great. This is the second time, after Blood Angels, that we've seen Lamas do a great turn as the bad guy, though in Blood Angels he was much more sinister, which controlled The Destro Effect. Here, he was just having so much fun with it, and with heroes that were either poorly written, too bogged down with baggage, or removed as heroes through plot twists, that a strong Lamas ended up stealing the show.



Do I think Heather Marie Marsden can carry a DTV actioner? Absolutely, but not this one. Lethal made plenty of bad mistakes for any lead character in an action flick, but some were exacerbated because she's a woman. First, the baggage between the kid, the dad, and the love interest weighed her down too much. Second, she had only few decent action scenes, one at the beginning and a couple at the end when she and Lamas and Zags mixed it up, and in between all she did was fire guns-- and often the way she held them looked awkward. Third, her very first scene has her in her underwear as she's helping her sister get ready for school. What this did was create a sense of vulnerability that worked against her as a strong lead-- and the bad writing after prevented her from recovering that lost mojo. I get using her looks and sexuality as a way to disarm guys, but there were no bad guys around-- it was like we were voyeurs or peeping toms, and the whole point of the peeping tom is control and violating a woman's sense of herself, which does not a strong hero make. Not only that, but the one time they had her use her looks to seduce a man to get what she wants, it doesn't work, and she gets past the guard using another tactic, meaning that scene was totally useless and moved the plot nowhere. It wasn't Marsden's fault that she didn't work as the heroine, rather it was disappointing that she was given such poor material to work with. Besides, if they were really sold on Marsden as the lead, she wouldn't be taking a backseat to Lamas on the cover.

Zagarino is almost totally wasted. I don't know whose bright idea it was to give him a lesser part, and throw in some superfluous character as Marsden's romantic love interest. Get rid of that guy, and beef up Zag's part, and most importantly, give him a fight scene with Lamas. I'm telling you, the Yojimbo plot would've made this fantastic, could've provided the vehicle to showcase Marsden as the lead, given Zagarino a better part to showcase his martial arts, and kept Lamas as a great baddie without The Destro Effect.



I shouldn't have been surprised that this movie committed another action movie sin, though one that ranks much further down the list than the couple we've discussed above. This one was the classic "baddie doesn't understand the concept of restraints on a prisoner" or in this case, the much worse "baddie forgets the concept of restraints on a prisoner", which then leads to what we in The Biz call Plot Convenience Theater. When Lamas first kidnaps Marsden's sister, she has her hands cuffed behind her back. Then, for some reason, for the final showdown, he brings her out to meet Marsden, completely unrestrained. Guess what happened next? Yep, the sister has the freedom, now that she's inexplicably unrestrained, to help her sister to defeat Lamas. When a movie is this sautéed in wrong sauce from top to bottom, crap like this is just par for the course.

This is available on DVD from either Netflix or Amazon, but I'm telling you to stay away. Marsden is hot, Lamas is excellent, but everything is just ten kinds of bad. Bad idea for a movie, made worse in the execution.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366711/

Deadly Reckoning aka The Company Man (1998)

This movie should not be confused with the great Bogart Noir flick Dead Reckoning, because Deadly Reckoning is a bad actioner from the late 90s that has nothing to do with it. I found this on Netflix Watch Instantly, and when I looked it up on imdb, the cast looked stellar. Perhaps I should've looked at the review Ty did at Comeuppancereviews, but I didn't know he'd covered it until I went looking for a cover image to hotlink-- I got mine from Amazon. It should also be noted that that cover is not the one Netflix uses on their site.

Deadly Reckoning has Frank Zagarino as a CIA agent who retires and opens a used bookstore in a bad part of LA while raising his daughter alone after his wife dies. Turns out Robert Vaughn, aka Control 5, wants a disk Zags has with the names and numbers of all the CIA agents-- he plans to prank call them-- and he assembles a team of East German convicts, including the great Matthias Hues, in order to retrieve it. Now Zags needs help, and luckily his old buddy Bryan Genesse and an old flame come to see him just in time. Can he defeat the evil Robert Vaughn and go back to his used bookstore life?



This was a rough watch. Not a lot of action, a lot of bad padding, and what action there was had very few inspired moments. What would I rather do, listen to Frank Zagarino recite bad dialog in his best National Weather Service computer voice, or watch him kick the ass I've seen him kick in better movies? What would I rather see, gunfights with a purpose, or just people shooting from indiscriminate locations at targets that they never seem able to hit? I get one excellent fight between Bryan Genesse and some other dude, and what does this movie do? Kill Genesse off! My one hope for great action killed. Also, there was a decent fight between Hues and Zagarino, but that came after some atrocious plot convenience theater where Hues had Zags at gunpoint and could've killed him, but opted for a fight instead. Bad bad bad, but should've been so great with the cast we had.

A big disappointment here was seeing that this was an Art Camacho directed film. The fights were substandard based on a lot of his other work. He had to know a lot of this stuff wasn't up to snuff, and maybe he didn't have any choice, he just needed to get it out there, but still, with guys like Zagarino, Genesse, and Hues, more needed to be done there. Keep Genesse in the film more, cut out the crap with Zagarino and his kid, and Zagarino and the old flame, and line up some stuntment for these guys to get into it with. Mr. Camacho, you're known for you're great fight choreography, not your dramatic scenes-- at least not with Frank Zagarino and a bad script-- cut that crap out and give us some ass kicking action!



One of my rules to action films is that kids almost never work-- they're a dicey proposition at best, but at the worst they really hurt the overall quality. That was the case here, because Zagarino's daughter was one of those never listens kinds of child parts. You know, Zags tells her to stay in the car and hide, and what does she do the first chance she gets? hits the road of course and ends up a hostage by one of the baddies. She also screams, gives Zags a hard time about crap, and doesn't contribute anything worthwhile to what is going in the plot. Whoever came up with this idea to give Zags a daughter when writing the script was sautéed in wrong sauce.

We last saw Robert Vaughn in the Michael Dudikoff flick River of Death-- in fact, that was the only time we'd seen him to that point, making this only his second film at the DTVC. His imdb bio is littered with DTV flicks, so I'm surprised we haven't seen more of him. He wasn't bad in this one, but the material was pretty atrocious, leaving him a neutered baddie, which is kind of a waste, considering you cast Robert Vaughn. Rewrite the script and give him a character worthy of him and the name Control 5.



I was trying to figure out where to go with this seventh paragraph. I could the usual route, and discuss the local landmark that I'd been to before, in this case Union Station in LA. I could go the lowest common denominator route and discuss the sweet rack on Zagarino's old flame, which was pretty stupendous. I decided instead to talk about Zagarino's wooden acting style. His voice sounded exactly like the monotone computer voice the National Weather Service uses when they announce warnings. Part of me wondered if he was doing that on purpose. I guess it makes sense that he played a robot in the Project Shadowchaser movies.

Even at a free-fer on Netflix Watch Instantly, the 90 minutes involved my not be worth it. Bad padding, bad plot, and not enough solid action to make up for all those shortcomings. A shame too, considering the great cast we had here and with Art Camacho directing them. It just shows that a bad plot and an approach sautéed in wrong sauce can kill even the best accumulated talent.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1086274/

Armstrong (1998)

I've been meaning to get to this one for some time now. First it was on Netflix Watch Instantly, then it wasn't, then I went on hiatus at the end of the summer, then I came back, it came back, but other movies kept bumping it down the pecking order. Now we're finally here. Also, this has been done by two other blogs that are well known to readers of the DTVC, Ty at Comeuppance Reviews, and Sutekh at Explosive Action.

Armstrong has Frank Zagarino as an ex-CIA dude in Russia training their new version of the KGB that's supposed to be more US friendly. At the same time, a very moist Charles Napier has been sent by the President to look into some nukes being sold by rogue members of the Russian military to terrorist organizations. He's killed by Joe Lara, but not before Zagarino gets the proof he needs on a video tape. The problem is, how far up the military chain does this go in Russia? As far as Richard Lynch?



I kind of dug this one. It was a little long, but the whole thing was so gratuitous that I kind of let that pass. I mean, the plot was pretty well worn but funny, the action scenes were hilarious but in a fun way, plus, this was directed by Menahem Golan, and we know he knows how to do bad action. In fact, this felt like something that was made in the early 90s, not 1998-- only the style of the Pepsi logo in one scene gave the shooting date away-- so you could see how it might have fit Golan's other "Cannon", get it? This is the kind of movie you're dealing with here: Kimberley Kates has a full-frontal scene when she comes out of the shower, which transitions into her putting on wet clothes, no underwear, Lara pointing a gun between her legs and looking up her skirt, then her running around in a see-through wet blouse during a foot chase. The foot chase goes on way longer than the action warranted, and really kills the film's momentum, but there was a sense that Golan and whoever else that was involved in making the film were like "hey, we convinced Kimberley to do the wet T-shirt scene, let's get our money's worth." If you dig that kind of thing, you'll dig this.

Frank Zagarino is back again. This will be his fourth film, but only his third starring role. We didn't do this one though solely for him, though having him helped. The Napier and the Lynch didn't hurt things either, plus, having Lara as the heel really worked. I mean, replace Lara's double-breasted suit with a Star Trek: The Next Generation T, and he'd be one of those guys they showed in Trekkies selling replica Klingon weapons at the convention. It would've been nice if he and Zagarino had a better end fight, but it was still good.



Richard Lynch was in this as a Russian colonel, so he affected a Russian accent. It was funny, because his native Brooklyn accent is still pretty apparent. Try to mix those two together. He was also kind of a secondary baddie to Joe Lara, which didn't feel right-- Lynch should always be the big baddie. This is only his sixth film on the DTVC, and I know we had talking in the past about making a concerted effort to get more of his films up here, because he is such a great DTV baddie. He's always on my radar for that reason, it's just a matter of making it happen.

This had to be the most moist film we've ever reviewed on here. Everyone was just covered in Patrick Ewing style perspiration. First it was Napier, but then the rest of them followed suit. I'm talking like "I've been hiking in 90-degree weather" dripping wet kind of moistness; or "I'm way overweight and the AC doesn't work at the Chinese food buffet" kind of moistness. Whose idea was that? It wasn't appealing, it was gross.



As I mentioned above, Kimberley Kates has a full-frontal nude scene-- we're talking top and bottom. Then she runs around for a good ten minutes of screen time in a wet see-through blouse. There's even a very tasteful part where she sits down in front of a room service cart to eat, and Lara pops out from underneath it and points his gun between her legs, making sure he gets a good look too-- she's wearing no underwear. She also gets punched in the face a few times, tied to a chair, and when all is said and done, she's rescued by Zagarino and his Russian friend, and the three walk off into the sunset together, none the worse for wear. One of the funnier things she did was make this pirate "Arrgh!" when she's first getting tied up.

This is pure bad Menahem Golan, reminiscent of the Cannon days, but not quite as good. I saw it as a solid bad movie night film. It's not just so bad it's good, but it's gratuitously bad it's good, and sometimes that gratuitousness (gratuity?) can be too much for some people, i.e. the film takes on too much of that lowest common denominator principle. I can see that, and Armstrong definitely pushed it, but in the end it worked for me.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139029/