Astro (2018)

This is one that's been on the shelf for a long time. Back in 2020 when I did my Gary Daniels Letterboxd list as part of my 1000th post celebration, I watched this along with a bunch of others of his that I hadn't seen in order to inform my decisions, but unlike those others which I had since reviewed, this one lingered to the point where I needed to rewatch it, and when a film hits the dreaded rewatch list it can take that much longer to get it done. At least we're finally doing it now.

Astro is about a billionaire (Marshal Hilton) whose company finds an alien, and when they sequence its DNA, discover it's related to a human who used to serve in the military with him, the one and only Gary Daniels. Now he needs to get Gary to join him, but unlike the real world where people seem to love billionaires, at least in movies people are still suspicious of them, and Daniels is right to be, because this man has ulterior motives. He sends a goon squad to take Daniels and his daughter out, and when that doesn't work, Daniels infiltrates the company compound to the bottom of things. Just wait till he meets the alien!

This is pretty unremarkable, which was probably a big reason why I didn't review it sooner. The thing is, it wasn't like it was bad, just unremarkable. It's definitely made on the cheap, and it's definitely made quickly, which isn't the worst thing, but it has a complicated plot with a lot of backstory and moving parts, and that results in a lot of exposition and padding. The film did a good job in replacing that exposition with actual scenes instead of explanations through dialog, but the problem was there was a lot there to catch us up on, and a lot of it had to do with the billionaire guy instead of Gary Daniels, even though Daniels was our star. The film also sets up for a sequel that it doesn't look like is happening, and that leaves us with this open ending that doesn't resolve anything. I think at least if we had had a more definitive ending, the other flaws would've been forgiven, but we didn't, so ultimately I was left with a lot of blah, which, as I said above, isn't exactly bad, but it isn't good either.

This is now 59 films for Daniels at the DTVC, second only to Dolph's 70. I looked at his IMDb bio between 2015 and now, and there aren't a lot of projects, just 12 feature films--compared to Dolph's 25+--and of that, only 10 really fit what we're doing on the site. What that tells me is Daniels is being more selective in what he chooses, evidenced too by the fact that only Zero Tolerance and Dancin' It's On are smaller parts. With that in mind, I have to assume that Astro looked better on paper than it was in execution. While we here at the DTVC have always leaned more toward Mitch at the Video Vacuum's tenet of quantity of quality, if Daniels is going in the other direction, I can appreciate it. But this film shows where that quality over quantity can split both ways, because we get a more engaged, fuller Daniels performance here, but is this better than three smaller parts in some Jesse V. Johnson or Daniel Zirilli actioners? It's an interesting question, both for him as an actor, and us as fans, which would we rather have too?

The writer, director, and producer of this film was Asif Akbar, and while this is the first time we've done one of his films on the site, we have seen some of the films he's produced on the podcast, including Phoenix (speaking of Daniel Zirilli) and The Weapon. As a director and producer, he's working with some bigger names that are familiar to fans of the site, like Michael Jai White, Mickey Rourke, and Art Camacho, but in looking at his bio, this was the first film he did with a lot of recognizable names in it. I think it's always cool to see where people start out in the business, and how they grow and move up. As much as this film may have its shortcomings, I do respect that for Akbar it was just another step in the journey. It'll be interesting to see what we get next from him, but in anticipation of more of his films coming to the site in the future, I've given him a tag.

I could get into the fact that we have more from Dominique Swain, or that this is 12 films for Louis Mandylor and 17 for Michael Pare, but there isn't much to say about their roles other than they were there, and they did well enough. So why then do I have a screen of Gianni Capaldi? Well, one, he finally got his own tag with this being his fifth film on the site; and two, one of those previous four was one of the most egregious bait-and-switches in the history of the site, the Dolph film Ambushed. That film came out in 2013, and it feels like the DTV world has only become more cynical since then, especially with the explosion of streaming. For distributors it's less about putting out good content, and more about what it will take to get us to stream something. EFO created the blue print, and so many others in the business are jumping onboard. If I can say one thing about this film, it at least feels like an earnest attempt, and I'll take that all day over a film like Ambushed that sold us on one thing, and gave us something entirely different.

Finally, as we do with all members of the 50 Club, Daniels is getting a second paragraph. Where we go next with him is anyone's guess. The Gardener would be a good pick for number 60, the problem is it's only available to rent on Amazon. How is that one not on Tubi yet? From there he has his Christian films, The Mark: Redemption and Encounter: Paradise Lost, which, we have done the first Mark movie, so it's not totally outside the realm of possibility, but do I want to do a Christian film for his entry into the 60 Club? That might mean that he sits on 59 for a while, which, from an actor standpoint, Cynthia Rothrock is 17 behind him with 42 films, so it's not like he'll be passed anytime soon, but with Dolph having at least one film coming out this year, but potentially two, he's going to keep expanding his all-time lead with the most ever. Back to that quantity over quality debate.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This has been on Tubi since I first watched it back in 2020, and I have a hunch if someone sees this review ten years from now it will still be on Tubi. For me it's really about watching and reviewing another Gary Daniels flick, and if you're a fan of him, this is worth it from that standpoint.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6156656

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

The Mercenary (2019)

This is one that's been in the can for a bit, waiting for me to review it. The problem was, despite being directed by Jesse V. Johnson, it doesn't have many names beyond Louis Mandylor, plus Jesse V. Johnson action muse Dominique Vandenberg in the lead. Still, with the goal of getting all of Jesse V. Johnson's work on here, I knew I needed to review it at some point, so here we are. In addition to us, our friend Todd Gaines reviewed this both for Bulletproof Action, and his YouTube channel.

The Mercenary has Vandenberg as Maxx, the best at what he does, who almost dies in a mission in South America gone wrong. Nursed to health by priest in a remote area, he finds a new purpose working among the villagers there. But his violent past is never too far behind, and he now has a chance for redemption when his old mercenary gang, led by Louis Mandylor, comes to town to violently rule over the villagers. After training the villagers to defend themselves, Maxx realizes it's ultimately on him to take down his old crew. They won't know what hit them.

This is the extreme, high-octane Jesse V. Johnson action you came for. Vandenberg is more than up to the task as Johnson's action muse to lead this, and we get a scene right away that let's us know what we're in for. It does drag a bit in spots as we're developing the story line based on Maxx's redemption, plus I think it does suffer a bit from not having bigger names; but you can't front on this level of action, and Johnson and Vandenberg, along with the rest of the cast and crew, give us something that is entertaining and worth the stream. I also liked Johnson bringing in a Western motif, and working in the tradition of the masterless ronin, but then putting his own spin on them so we know it's uniquely Johnson. Of the three films Johnson had come out in 2019, this isn't quite the classic Avengement was, but this is still pretty sweet and worth checking out.

We're now at 11 director's credits for Johnson, which again, as directors go, other than Albert Pyun, is a healthy tag number on here. We still have a good amount of stuff of his to watch and review, plus he has 6 projects in either post-production or pre-production, so we won't be exhausting his filmography any time soon. The thing about Johnson that I think is really important, is while not every film of his is Avengement, there's a high floor to his work, especially his stuff from the late 2010s on, which means there's always going to be a level of quality when we see one of his projects available on streaming. That's a big deal in a world where there are so many options to stream on places like Tubi and Hulu, if I can go in and know my 90-100 minutes are going to be well-spent, that's something that needs to be celebrated. Johnson's one of the best in the action directing world, and this film here demonstrates that. He takes a simple, clean story, with simple, clean sets, and then surrounds himself with great stunt workers and people who know how to shoot action, and gives us fantastic, inspired stuff. 

This is only our third Dominique Vandenberg film ("Dominiquie" in the credits) film on the site, the other two being Johnson films as well, Triple Threat and Alien Agent. When I say he's Johnson's muse, it's like there's a synergy in their film making, even more so than what Johnson has with Scott Adkins, and that actor-director pairing is pretty prodigious. It's almost like Johnson unleashes Vandenberg on us when we watch the movie, and Vandenberg leans into being unleashed. The problem, unfortunately, is he doesn't have the "it" factor of a Scott Adkins, so I don't know if Johnson can sell a project centered around him like he can an Adkins, or maybe an Olga Kurylenko. That's fine, I'm okay with Johnson centering a film around Vandenberg to give us an action movie for action movie aficionados. Vandenberg might not be the name Adkins is, or Frank Grillo, or any number of names we expect to see on the tin, but he delivers where it counts, and as an action fan it would be great to see Vandenberg and Johnson team up some more to give us more films like this.

Like Jesse V. Johnson, where this film is his 11th on the site, this is also Louis Mandylor's 11th. He's been working a lot over the past 5 or so years, almost in that Eric Roberts vein, but these aren't one-and-done parts, at least with what we've been seeing on here. He's playing more robust roles, like in this film where he plays the main baddie, and doing a great job at it. These baddies are great foils to our heroes, which in a film like this where we have Vandenberg who doesn't speak much, the actor playing the baddie needs to not only develop their own character, but their performance helps to develop the hero too,and Mandylor pulls that off. In addition to Johnson, he works a lot with another director/producer we see on here often, R. Ellis Frazier, so between the two of them, we'll be seeing Mandylor a lot in the future. Is a Hall of Fame nod a possibility? If he keeps this kind of work up, I think so.

Finally, among Mandylor's mercenary team is Alina Andrei, an accomplished stunt performer and weapons expert. She's good in her role, as are a lot of the stunt performers Johnson casts, but seeing her in this had me thinking, especially with the new Expendables movie coming out soon, how we need a re-do of Mercenaries, the Asylum's female Expendables, and Jesse V. Johnson would be the perfect person to direct it. Imagine some of the names. Andrei would be one. Bring Zoe Bell back. Add in Olga Kurylenko, Natalie Burn, and Amy Johnston. And of course, give Cynthia Rothrock a bigger part. How fantastic would that be? With those names and Johnson behind it, it could be something really special, something potentially on the level of an Avengement, and the kind of movie those names I mentioned deserve to show everyone what they can do. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can stream this free in the States on Tubi. It's an action movie for action fans, Johnson, Vandenberg, and company deliver. If you've seen Avengement and you're looking for more Jesse V. Johnson, this is a great place to go next.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8408218

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

Renegades (2022)

I'd been waiting on this one since I reviewed Nemesis (2021), but unfortunately ended up waiting a bit too long, as the screener screenwriter Tom Jolliffe had Shogun Films send me unfortunately ended up in my spam folder. Luckily I decided to check there two weeks later, found it, and am now able to make this review happen. 

Renegades has the great Lee Majors as a former Green Beret who's murdered by a gang run by Louis Mandylor, after Majors tries to get them to leave his daughter, Patsy Kensit, alone. This is right after he helps Nick Moran, a down on his luck former special forces soldier whose father served with Majors, and when Moran hears of the murder, he goes to Majors's former fellow soldiers, Billy Murray, Ian Ogilvy, and Paul Barber, so they can exact their revenge on Mandylor. At the same time, Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott is a police detective who's been trying to take Mandylor down, and when she discovers that Moran and crew are going after Mandylor, she has a decision to make: stop them so she can do her job and let the law handle it, or stand back and see if these older former soldiers can do what the law can't. Will they prevail?

This was fantastic. When I reviewed Nemesis earlier this year, both Jonathan Sothcott and Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott told me if I enjoyed that, I'd love this, and they were right. Simple concept: evil, ruthless baddie, against a fun, ragtag group of underdog heroes that you can't help rooting for, and I think this would've been great on its own if that's all this was; but from there, the performances were great, even from the cameos like Danny Trejo and Michael Pare; plus the way the story grew organically, allowing for the nuance to develop in certain aspects, like what Nick Moran's character was going through as a former soldier trying to make it in civilian life. It's the kind of thing a churn-and-burn DTV actioner wouldn't have the bandwidth to pull off, but here it's handled with a level of depth and allowed to flourish in a way I didn't come in expecting. There were other aspects I appreciated as well, like how we get the scene of Mandylor beating up a rival gang member he captured cut with and juxtaposed with the scene of Moran's character talking to the other guys about what he's been going through, trying to move onto civilian life after the war. It was like we had two distinct forms of intensity, one that's more common in an action film, and one that we might see more in an indie drama, and we're shuttling back and forth between both. As a device I liked it, because it allowed those more dramatic elements to flourish without weighing the film down in what is ultimately an action film. This might not be the best film for Christmas, but considering we all get the 26th off this year, I can't think of a better way for us Yanks to celebrate Boxing Day than to fire this one up.

When I reviewed Nemesis I was really big on Nick Moran's performance, and he came back in this and was even better. The opening of the film is anchored by him, and he really leans into who that character is, so it was great to see him hit that out of the park. As I mentioned above, I also liked the way the story moved organically, it allowed Moran's character's past to take on a depth that we wouldn't see in most DTV flicks, and I think that's important. My wife and I were watching an old episode of Emergency! recently, and it had the trope of the crazed Vietnam vet who's violent and seeing ghosts, and while we've come a long way in our depiction of veterans in popular media, the idea of the combat vet suffering from PTSD is one that's often handled in films in a way that's too reductive, which then often leads it to being exploitative. The fact that this film didn't do that with Moran's character was refreshing, but I also think a sign of how the people working at Shogun Films not taking the churn-and-burn approach to film making can give us something like this more nuanced, three-dimensional hero, so I'm looking at it and saying "this isn't the usual bearded, grimacing, white guy former special forces dude I'm used to seeing, this guy has me pulled in and invested, and I'm ready to see him and everyone else through the rest of this film." When I talked with screenwriter Tom Jolliffe about his previous film When Darkness Falls, and the previous Shogun film Nemesis, he mentioned the slow burn aspect both of those films had. I think Tom's screenplay here does a great job of drawing on that slow burn aspect enough to let things grow organically, even if the action kicks in sooner than it does in those others; but for the slow burn to work, even in the more limited capacity in which it's used here, it needs a performance like Moran's, plus the directing and editing that trusts it'll all work, and we definitely get all of it.

Speaking of the directing, Daniel Zirilli is a name that's popped up on our site quite a bit, so when I found out he was working with Shogun Films and Jonathan Sothcott on this, I was excited to see what would come of that collaboration. The last Zirilli-directed film we looked at on the site was the Dolph flick Acceleration, and while I enjoyed that, I didn't enjoy it as much as this because it had too many other elements that weighed the film down when it didn't need to, while this had a simple premise that I think they were able to add elements to--like Moran's character's development--in ways that didn't impede the fun and the action, which ended up enhancing the film overall. Like I've been doing with Shogun Films, I've also been following Zirilli on Instgram, and it's fun to see what projects he's working on and who he's working on them with. In that sense, like Sothcott, Jolliffe, and the rest of Shogun, Zirilli's a fellow fan who's making these movies for fans like us, and it's great to see it all come together like it did here.

Also from Nemesis we have Billy Murray and Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, with Murray as a part of the crew of retired soldiers, and Nerissa Sothcott as the Scotland Yard Detective trying to take Mandylor's crime syndicate down. Having Murray with Paul Barber and Ian Ogilvy really made that gang extra fun, which not only made it easy for us to root for them and be invested in their success, but also worked as a good juxtaposition from Moran's more serious character. I could see Murray in anything really, so to see him turning in such a fun performance is even better. With Nerissa Sothcott's character, I think because the only other main female character was Patsy Kensit's, and she was more set up as the damsel in distress at the end, we needed Sothcott's to make the film less boys club-ish. I also really liked how they used her character as the bridge to get Michael Pare's cameo in the film, because it both got us Pare in a way that worked, but also set up her character less as someone passively letting Moran and company take care of her Mandylor problem for her, but rather strategically weighing her options on whether or not this is a good play. Finally, with the human trafficking element to Mandylor's crime syndicate, Nerissa Sothcott's character also prevents the film from being too "women are helpless and need their White Knight male heroes to come and save them," and we especially get this kind of mitigation when Mandlyor's character makes a crack about Sothcott potentially dancing for him at his club, and she shuts him down. This is another area where Shogun gets it right. Most DTV flicks would take her role, whittle it down to a day's worth of shooting, and get a big name like Pare to play it so they can stick him on the tin. Instead, Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott takes the part and invests more in it, and the result is something we didn't know we needed, but helps to give the film more depth and make it more enjoyable--plus we still get our fun Pare cameo too.

Finally, two last points. First, I liked the way the film used London as a character by giving us these beautiful establishing shots of the city, the images we in the rest of the world think of when we hear "London;" and then jumping down into the grittier underbelly of gangs and organized crime that me on my 1997 class trip there was oblivious to--though I did see a man speeding the wrong way up a street in a stolen car, so there was that. The other piece was the use of Mandylor's character as an outsider by being an Aussie. Too often in the States films use African American or Latin American gangs as a way to depict this concept of the outsider "invading" a neighborhood, from which the overtones and dog whistles are obvious. Having the character be from a Commonwealth country though, we could have the outsider "invading" London aspect without the racism that usually comes with that approach. To further divorce it, we have Danny Trejo's character playing someone who's an adopted Londoner further depicting Mandylor and his gang as the outsiders. I don't know that this was a conscious decision, or more like "we have Louis Mandylor as the baddie, what can we do with that?" but I appreciated the way it worked out.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can get this through VOD in the States, and I think it's also available on Blu-ray in Germany. For the UK, January 30th it'll be available as well. This is well worth checking out. You can support indie filmmakers and enjoy a fun actioner while you do it. What's better than that?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11696276

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

Bring Him Back Dead (2022)

I popped open Tubi last weekend to watch a couple movies for upcoming podcast appearances, and what do you know, this bad boy was there! I figured it would be VOD for a period before a free streamer like Tubi got it, but here we are, so I bumped my other planned posts down the list to make this one happen. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Bring Him Back Dead is about a jewelry heist gone wrong after a member of the gang who looks like a cross between Carrot Top and Jesse Eisenberg (Ryan M. Shaw) kills a guard. Driver Gary Daniels is none too pleased, as is the guy who organized everything, Louis Mandylor. Things get crazier when Daniels drugs everyone except for Mandylor's daughter (Katie Keene), and the two take off with the satchel of diamonds from the heist. When the rest of the gang wakes up, they're understandably upset, and Mandylor sends them out to get the diamonds, his daughter, and Daniels--about whom Mandylor says "bring him back dead!" Now it's a forest slog aka game of cat and mouse, as Daniels and Keene need to fend off the rest of his gang and make it out alive so he can bring the diamonds to his new fence, Daniel Baldwin. 

This isn't horrible, especially at 89 minutes long, but I don't know that it's worth a watch beyond being a Gary Daniels completist. We've seen the heist gone wrong film before, and we've seen it done better. We've seen the forest cat-and-mouse game done before, and we've seen it done better. Director Mark Savage does a great job of shooting the dramatic scenes, but the fights didn't look as great, especially Daniels as the one key experienced fighter. Even some of characters' motivations, like Daniels needing money for his son's kidney transplant, we've seen before, and seen done better--think Dolph in Castle Falls for example--I mean, the sheer volume of diamonds they stole would've meant Daniels's cut if they'd just cut out Mandylor would've covered what he needed, he didn't need to screw over his whole crew I don't think. All that said, again, at 89 minutes on a free streamer like Tubi, especially for a Daniels completist like me, you could do a lot worse.

We last saw Daniels back in July, and this is only his fourth film review for 2022. I was trying to figure out why that happened, and I think a big part of it is I only have two other films of his left to review, Astro and City Hunter, and Astro was scheduled to be this post until I saw this was available. Beyond those other two, there's The Gardener, which after a year out still isn't on a free streamer yet, then he has three Christian films, and a movie I have yet to be able to track down, A Stranger in Paradise. If you add those numbers up, he's at 56 films now, so that means he could pass the 60 Club mark with Dolph next year. There was a time, when his output was higher, and Dolph wasn't doing as much, that we thought Daniels could actually pass Dolph for the all-time top number, but that's flipped now, with Dolph doing, if not more DTV films per year, at least as many as Daniels. On the other hand, Daniels is pretty secure in his second spot, as the next closest to him is Art Camacho, who will probably join Daniels and Dolph in the 50 Club next year, but is still far enough away.

Getting back to this movie and how he did, I think this is his first starring role since 2018's Astro, and only the fourth total since 2015, the other two being Rumble and Skin Traffik. To see him back as the star of a picture, with a lot of screentime, was refreshing, and good to see a film feature him that way. Also good to see him up to the task, which he was here. I think for us who have been fans of his for a long time, it's a no-brainer that he'd be leading DTV pictures like this, but I think for the rest of the film industry, he's still being forced to prove himself worthy of roles like this--at least that's how it feels--and he keeps proving why they should have faith in him. I don't know too if from a name standpoint he's not considered big enough be cast as the lead as often. Maybe that's the case, but one hope I have is, with the trend of more DTV action coming out of England, he'll be a natural choice to get cast in some of them, and his profile will grow with it.

Starring with Daniels are two actors who are no strangers to DTV supporting roles, Daniel Baldwin and Louis Mandylor. Baldwin looks like he's slowed down a bit, but in the 2010s he was on a shortlist of actors looking to become the next Eric Roberts; and Mandylor hasn't slowed down and looks like he's still looking to gain that title. The thing about Mandylor though is, despite being in so much, most of his parts aren't the one-scene appearances Roberts does--or Baldwin does here. At the very least, what Mandylor is doing is setting himself up to be a 21st Century Charles Napier, which I think would be fantastic, and I hope he continues on that track--he's at 9 films now on the site, which puts him near Napes's 11. Between the two here though, I preferred Baldwin's one-off character, and it would've been nice if he'd had a bigger part--though not enough to warrant a longer runtime. According to the tags, this was only Baldwin's second film, the other being Crossbreed, which I thought sounded low, but after I went through his bio, I only found one other, Knight Moves. It looks like Baldwin has a lot of DTV films I've been meaning to watch, but haven't yet, so we may see more of him soon.

Finally, according to IMDb this was released on DVD here in the States on August 2nd of this year, meaning within four months we had it available streaming free on Tubi. On the other hand, you have The Gardiner, which has been out for almost a year now, and still is only available to pay to rent on demand for $5.99. I get that there's a large, complicated calculus that goes into whether or not a film should be on something like Tubi, or if it makes more money with $3.99 or even $5.99 rentals, but in terms of generating buzz, it feels like including it on some streamer, whether that's Tubi like this film, or one people pay for like Hulu, would do a better job of that. Would I have bumped this up in my review queue if it was still a rental? Of course not, I have too many other films to cover--including two other Daniels films that are on Tubi. I'm not saying we should never pay, or there isn't a case for initially having a pay-to-stream period when the film first comes out, but it also feels like putting it on something like Tubi sometime after can maybe generate more interest than keeping it at rent only--and for a higher number like $5.99.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi. I think that's your best bet, especially if you're looking for more Daniels. He's good in this, and it's good to see him as the lead in something. If you're not a big Daniels fan (and why wouldn't you be?), I don't know if this has enough for you, but as a 90-minute free-streamer, you could do a lot worse.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14385300

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

Code of Honor (2016)

With Mr. Seagal turning 70 this weekend, we had to do one of his movies to celebrate, and this one's been in the can for a long time, so what better time to review it--especially since soon I'll be getting to the point where I'll need to watch it again in order to remember what happens in it. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has done this one as well.

Code of Honor has Seagal as a retired military colonel who has snapped and is now waging a vigilante war against local drug dealers and mobsters. The cops have no idea how to stop him, but as luck would have it, his former protege, Craig Sheffer, is in town, and he knows what they need to do to take him down. The problem is, Sheffer has his own demons to tackle. When a dancer at a local club is a witness to one of Seagal's attacks, Sheffer agrees to help her, and protecting her and her son proves to be the chance at redemption he's needed. At the same time, criminals are still dying. What does Sheffer know about his former mentor that could help bring him down? It turns out they're connected in a way that goes much deeper than just Sheffer trying to stop him.

 

For a Seagal DTV actioner, especially one from this period, this isn't too bad. Mitch had this as his best DTV flick since Pistol Whipped, which I agree with and think was definitely true when it came out, and really only now I'd personally put Attrition over it. The major difference between this and Attrition though, is in Attrition we had a totally invested Seagal, whereas here we have our usual not invested Seagal, but the film construct makes it all work. Seagal doesn't talk until 48 minutes in. It works. He sits most of the time. Same thing, it worked with what they were going for here. The problem is, the card this film played from a story standpoint, can only be played once--it's the film equivalent of a gun with only one bullet, and they fire it here, so no other movie can use this approach to mitigating the Seagal Factor. Beyond that, the action was good, Sheffer was solid, and Louis Mandylor was the DTV mainstay we've come to know and love. For 2010s DTV Seagal, this is a pretty good bet.

By my count, we have three Seagal films left, Cartels, Gutshot Straight, and End of a Gun; and then we have others like Clementine and The Onion Movie if we want to do that. It makes sense, as he hits the big seven-oh, that he'd slow down some. We can compare his turn in this to another vigilante flick, Death Wish V, where Bronson was 73 when he made that. Is that the number for Seagal? Or should we expect him to go beyond that? An 80-year-old Seagal still making DTV actioners? And considering Bronson was killing people with remote control soccer balls in that movie, and also considering Seagal has been sitting more in his films since he's hit his 60s, maybe Death Wish V is the model for the newly septuagenarian Seagal going forward. I for one would be okay with that. This film also provides a roadmap for a potential less active Seagal, but, as I mentioned above, it's the gun with one bullet, and the film has already shot the bullet, so another film can't use this story device. 

This is our fourth Craig Sheffer film here on the site, but this might have been my favorite role of his. He does the heavy lifting expected of someone costarring in a Seagal DTV actioner, but it doesn't feel like he's doing the heavy lifting to support Seagal. The way the story unfolds, it slowly becomes more about Sheffer, which is very different from the usual Seagal fare where Seagal remains the main character around which the story revolves, but he sits while the younger star has all the hard action scenes. It's the perfect mitigation of all the limitations Seagal puts on a production he's in, and Sheffer is great in his part to make it all work. I don't know how many more times we'll see Sheffer on here, but he has a fair amount of older DTV stuff that we haven't done yet, so this definitely won't be the last time. Another DTV mainstay who we've been seeing a lot of here lately is Louis Mandylor. He's in that new breed in the mold of Eric Roberts where he's trying to pump out as many films in a year as he can, yet unlike Roberts he also has some pretty substantial parts in some of these movies, especially the Jesse V. Johnson actioners. He I definitely can say this isn't the last time we'll see him, because he's been in some films I have in the can that I'm ready to review.

One of my favorite comic book characters is The Punisher, and I appreciated the way this movie used the Punisher Paradigm. It's easy to just rip off that concept, but they did some unique things that worked. By the same token, I like the idea of Seagal as the actual Punisher in a reboot DTV film series. If you think about it, his first appearance was in Spider-Man 129 in 1974, which would've made Seagal 22, so he could be a modern, elder Punisher, making sense of nearly five decades of killing. That's the thing with comic book characters, instead of aging they're often rebooted, but for someone like the Punisher, who has no superpowers, he'd age like the rest of us, and it would be great to see that ground covered. There is some hope now that despite Disney taking over the Netflix Marvel shows, they haven't cut them at all; by the same token, could we see Disney doing the Punisher, especially a 70-year-old Seagal Punisher, the way it needs to be done?

Finally, back to Seagal, in addition to those last few DTV flicks I have to do here, there's the matter of the True Justice releases. For those that aren't sure what those are, instead of releasing Seagal's True Justice series as complete seasons on DVD, they released a series of two-episode "movies," and these "movies" are now available on Tubi. What's interesting is these were once listed on Letterboxd as part of his filmography, but have since been removed, I think because they're technically not movies; though, in the DTV world, we see this thing a lot, especially with failed TV shows, they'll be merged and packaged as movies to recoup some of the lost revenue on them. I guess the thing with these True Justice ones is we'll worry about them when we finish the last few actual DTV movies Seagal has left that we still haven't reviewed. It is very Seagal though that he would have his TV series released this way, isn't it?

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing this, you can stream this for free on Tubi. I think if you're looking for great Seagal on his 70th birthday, a classic like Hard to Kill or Marked for Death is a better way to go; but as far as DTV Seagal from the 2010s, this is one of the best--which isn't saying much, but still means this is a good time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4060866

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

Larceny (2017)

With Dolph's birthday this past week, I figured we'd catch up with the big fella and review another one of his films that's been sitting in the hopper. This was one I caught on Netflix a long time ago that's no longer there--one of those I'm glad I grabbed the images I needed before it was gone kind of deals. In addition to us, our buddy Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this as well, so you can go to his site to see what he thought.

Larceny is another R. Ellis Frazier crime yarn that takes place in Mexico, only this time, instead of Gary Daniels or Luke Goss, he's got our main man Dolph in the lead. Dolph and his crew have a heist planned: rob one of the biggest drug dealers in Mexico, whose money is being kept in a vault in a prison. So Dolph gets himself arrested, his crew sneak in, and then they grab the cash and try to break back out. Problem is, as always, things aren't what they seem. Can the Dolph-inator pull this one off? And how many R. Ellis Frazier mainstays will we see before he does?

 

This wasn't horrible. The thing that ultimately was its undoing though was, yet again, it only had about 43 minutes of story that it stretched into 90. I feel like I'm saying this every week, "this movie would have been a great episode of a syndicated action show." The thing is here, not much happens in the middle, and when not much is happening, it feels like padding for the sake of a 90-minute runtime. Also, on the IMDb we have a "(rewrite)" credit, and as we know, whenever a script gets a rewrite, we tend to get uneveness and issues with the pacing. Dolph is still Dolph though, and he's in enough scenes that he can carry the film to some extent; and I also liked Jocelyn Osorio as a part of Dolph's crew/love interest, though for some reason she has a shoehorned-in damsel in distress routine at the end of the film that made no sense except as a byproduct of a rewrite. I think ultimately this ends up as another one of these Dolph 2010s DTV flicks that's not as bad as some, but not as good as others.

This is our 61st Dolph flick on the week that he turned 64. I don't know that anyone on the DTVC has as many films as their age. Gary Daniels turned 58 this year, so he's close at 52 films. Right now we have four Dolph DTV films left to review--one of which though is Sharknado 5, and when I reviewed Sharknado 3 in 2020, it ended up with the fewest views of any review I've posted since I've come back from hiatus, so I think we'll leave that for last, as people seem to be Sharknadoed out--plus he has some new ones coming out soon, so 65 by 65 is almost a foregone conclusion as long as I'm still making posts. There was a part of me in watching this that felt like this could have been one of his late 90s/early 2000s films, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but it had a bit of that feel to it. The problem is, a lot of those movies had a really fun quality to them that this lacked, and I think a big part of that was the middle where not much was happening. Dolph can usually prop that kind of thing up by just being Dolph, but sometimes it's even too much for him.

 

We've seen our share of R. Ellis Frazier films here, whether he's writing, directing, producing, or all three. Most of his movies are made in Mexico, they have a stable of core actors that he always uses, then stars sprinkled in like Dolph or Daniels, and smaller supporting roles for other stars like Corbin Bernsen or Louis Mandylor. There's a sense with these supporting roles that it's whoever has time between films that can make it down there. There's an earnestness to the whole process that I appreciate, as that's kind of the DTV spirit we look for; but I wish the stories themselves had a little more to them. They feel like your standard 2010s DTV storylines that we see in countless Tubi offerings: pulling off a heist but something goes wrong; guy stuck in Mexico and doesn't know what to do to get out of a bad situation; white guy in Mexico trying to piece together a crime and seemingly gets nowhere until he doesn't. He has another film with Gary Daniels coming, Repeater, plus I still need to review a previous Daniels collaboration, Misfire, so this won't be the last we see of Frazier. Maybe he needs to get a tag on soon...

Speaking of getting tags, we're up to 7 on Louis Mandylor, of which this is the fourth since we've been back from hiatus. I think a big part of it is he works with Jesse V. Johnson, and we can't not review his movies. According to IMDb, this isn't the last time he worked with Frazier either. What I like about him doing all these films is, sometimes he has small Eric Roberts-esque roles, like in this movie, but others he plays a main baddie or hero, like in the Debt Collector movies or Mercenary. It'll be interesting to see how many more of his films we get here on the site, but if he keeps working at this clip, I imagine quite a few.

 

One thing I haven't explored on here yet, is how this film falls for what I'm terming the "Prison Film Trap." I've been seeing it more and more, especially lately. The Prison Film Trap is the idea that a prison is a great place to set a film, but when you get into making it, it turns out not so much. That's because, in one location like that, it's hard to have continuous action. It starts to become repetitive, which ultimately felled this film here. A prison is a perfect place to set a video game, as you can really play with that space to have things happen. In a movie, the novelty wears off soon, and you're left with a sense of "we get it, let's get on with it." Riot is another recent example where it went wrong. Avengement worked, but it worked because it mitigated the prison aspect by having a lot of action outside the prison mixed in. I wonder if all these filmmakers watched Death Warrant and thought, "that looks easy!" I was trying to think of another prison movie that I liked, and the only one I could think of was Bloodfist IV, which had Ben Franklin running a Dark Kumite. I guess that's the recipe for success then.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I went on IMDb to see where you can find it now that Netflix dumped it, and I can't find it anywhere here in the States, not even on DVD. Netflix was the original distributor for the US, which may explain it, but also is scary to think they can cut a film and, because they had the distribution rights, that's it, no one else gets it. Hopefully it'll get back out there, maybe on Tubi, but it's also a bit unnerving that a movie from 2017 with Dolph in it has just disappeared, at least here in the US--according to IMDb it did get DVD releases in most other places, though Australia looks like they're in the same boat we're in. Netflix just seems more insidious by the day. Maybe I need to watch the remaining movies in my queue and finally cut my subscription...

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4797160

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

 

Debt Collectors (2020)

When I watched this, this was the most recent Scott Adkins film out, but between then and now, he's had a new film released, Legacy of Lies, which shows you just how much Adkins is living up to his title of hardest working person in action right now. Considering I have a bunch of Adkins from when I was on hiatus that I need to catch up on, being one movie behind on this isn't such a big deal.

Debt Collectors picks up where Debt Collector left off, sometime in the future Louis Mandylor visits Scott Adkins at the dive bar he's working in, and offers him a chance to get back into the debt collecting game--one round of collecting, big bonus, and he's done. Adkins agrees, but as they're collecting debts, something isn't adding up, and as the film goes on we realize that someone from the past wants revenge on them and their boss Tommy, and it's this revenge character that's driving all the debt collecting action. Will the guys figure out the situation and find a way out in time to save Tommy and the whole operation?

When I did Debt Collector, the message I got was "Debt Collectors is nice, but you really should be reviewing Avengement." It felt like though when Debt Collector got a sequel, more people were saying what a great movie it was, and how they couldn't wait for this one. For me, the main issue I had with the first one was that it kind of spun its wheels based on the construct of them going from place to place to collect debts and get into fights, and that isn't really mitigated here with the inclusion of the baddie; but by the same token, I think the individual confrontations were more exciting in this one than that one. The reality is, this concept works better as a TV show, where the main characters can run into 43-minute five-act problems each week, and that keeps the story from needing any padding to keep us from the end. I still enjoyed myself though.

I was looking at Adkins IMDb bio, and from 2016 to 2020, he's had 21 movies come out (plus it looks like he has number 22 in Seized coming out in October). Of those 21 (almost 22), I've only seen 8, so I can't say how big his part is in all of them, but of the ones I have seen he's usually the lead, and he's the lead while doing a lot of high-octane fight scenes. This is his 16th film on the site, plus I believe I have five that I've watched that I'm waiting to review, so we should have a lot more from him coming in the near future, especially once we get caught up on the massive Dolph, Daniels, and Seagal backlog I still have.

Louis Mandylor is back as well. Like the previous one, he does a great job in making his character Sue a guy you want to root for. I can tell he enjoys playing this part, which helps us manage the scenes where there isn't as much action. He's become something of a Jesse V. Johnson mainstay, as he's not just in this but also The Mercenary and Avengement. In looking at his bio, he's doing a lot of smaller parts in things, so it's good to see him in something like this where he has one of the lead roles and he's able to take a character he really likes and run with it.

We're always on the lookout for Star Trek alums, so it was great to see Marina Sirtis here as another organized crime boss that the guys are collecting money from. I was trying to think how many other cast members from TNG we've seen on the site. I know Michael Dorn has made a couple of appearances; then Gates McFadden was in one of my favorite Christmas movies ever, Make the Yuletide Gay; and one of our earliest movies was Mortuary with Denise Crosby. I was surprised we didn't have any Brent Spiner, but I never tagged him if we did, and I can't think of anything we've reviewed that had him in it.

This is Jesse V. Johnson's 8th tag as director here at the DTVC, which moves him past the great Jim Wynorski. Where does this put him overall as a director on the site? Albert Pyun has the most with 41 (he has 43 tags listed, but one tag is from the second Mean Guns review, and one is for being producer on Nemesis 5). Second we have a big drop down to Fred Olen Ray, who has 14 movies tagged, and then Sam Firstenberg comes in third with 12. Of Art Camacho's 46 tags, I think 11 are as director, and that ties him with Isaac Florentine, who also has 11. And then DTVC Hall of Famer Cirio H. Santiago has 9. After that it's Jesse V. Johnson at 8. That's quite elite company when you think about it, but Johnson has been putting out some pretty exciting stuff recently that's hard to ignore, so he gives me no choice but to review it and keep his tagged number growing.

And with that we wrap this up. Most people will get this to rent or buy on VOD, but in the US it's no available on Netflix, and it's also available on Hoopla as of my writing this post. If you're not familiar with it, Hoopla allows you to use you local library card to stream movies in their library for a few days, as if you're borrowing them. Some of the other titles on there that I had trouble finding other places: Battle of the Damned, VFW, and Beyond the Law. Hopefully they'll add more in the future, as there are a lot of titles out there that are only available to rent.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10933680/

Avengement (2019)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Debt Collector (2018)

It was about time we got some Scott Adkins up on the blog now that we're back, and he certainly has a lot to choose from.  I saw that this one has a sequel in post production, so I figured it would be the one to do.  Let's see how it went.

The Debt Collector has Adkins as a guy who runs a dojo that is short on funds.  His buddy, Michael Paré, gets him a job as a debt collector for an organized crime boss.  For orientation, he shadows one of the Mandylor brothers, Louis.  Things get crazy though when they take a job from Tony Todd that may not be what it seems.  Can the guys do the right thing, or will they carry out their job no matter what?

I don't know what to think of this one.  It had action, but was it the best action?  It had a nice 95-minute runtime, and I don't know that it moved slowly, but the earlier construct of the guys just doing jobs felt a little repetitive.  How many times do I need to see them go to collect money, Scott Adkins get thrown through a wall, then win the fight and the guys get the cash, before I get the idea?  I think the movie understood that too, because at the point where I might have said "this movie is just spinning its wheels," they interject the Tony Todd element into the story.  The problem was, beyond the dilemma the characters had in whether or not they go against orders, they were really just going from going place to place to collect money, to going place to place to get information.  I don't know how you mitigate that, other than maybe having less of that construct, moving up the dilemma to earlier in the story, and then changing the paradigm to something that's more cat-and-mouse or two guys trying to stay alive and clear their names.

This movie got Scott Adkins half-right.  The half they got right was keeping his native English accent, and not forcing him to affect an American one.  I know for me, I would rather have Scott Adkins as a Brit living in LA with no explanation on how he got there, than him affecting an American accent.  The half they got wrong was in the fight scenes.  They were too knock-down-drag-em-out, which to me wastes what makes Adkins so great: full-throttle martial arts action.  I want lightning fast kicks and chops, taking out three guys at a time, maybe throwing in a few jump kicks; not trading punch with big guys who pick him up and throw him through plaster walls before Louis Mandylor swoops in and smashes a vase on the big guy's head.  This might be the first Adkins movie I've seen where his non-fight scenes outshone the ones where he fought.

As I mentioned above, this has one of the Mandylor brothers, Louis, as the old veteran debt collector showing Adkins the ropes.  I would say between the two of them, he may have made more sense in this than Adkins.  I think you could have made a compelling, mid-to-late 90s independent flick about a debt collector with a tough past who found his way into this sordid life and now is trying to cope.  Dial down the action a bit, add in some quirky supporting characters, and we could have had something really compelling.  I think that might have been another problem, this movie didn't know what it wanted to be, hard-hitting action flick or 90s throwback indie character study, and I think if it had picked one or the other and stuck with it, we could have something really great.

Tony Todd's character felt like another miss, as it really could have been that offbeat yet very evil organized crime boss that a lot of 90s indie flicks, especially post-Pulp Fiction, featured.  The way that whole plot  comes into the film, with his character wanting them to track someone down, it didn't feel fully fleshed out, almost like it was there to mitigate that issue I described where the paradigm of them going to collect money started spinning its wheels.  I wonder if the better way wasn't to mix some of those earlier debt collections into a montage, then have this Tony Todd thing be a bigger part.  Again, it was just something about the film that felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be.

Michael Paré is looking to outdo Eric Roberts for most movies coming out.  If you look at his imdb, he's been doing like 4 or 5 movies a year for over a decade now, and he's not showing any signs of slowing up.  I remember imdb used to have this thing where you could look at two actors and see how many times they've worked together.  It would be interesting to see how many times Paré has been with Roberts.  I think those two would make for a great buddy cop movie, the problem is, neither of them would have time to be the leads if they're appearing in five other movies each a year.

I think you could have some fun with this one.  For me, it just felt like it had too much that wasn't fully fleshed out, plus, I personally prefer high-octane martial arts action as opposed to "I hit you, you hit me, then throw me through a wall, and then my partner will smash a vase over your head" kind of action.  At the very least, Scott Adkins keeps his natural accent, which for me is always a plus.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7448180

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/