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!

Diamond Cartel (2015)

This is it, post number 1300! Not only that, but Mr. Don "The Dragon" Wilson becomes the eighth member of the 40 Club, and the fourth member to reach the club primarily as an actor. In trying to find the right film, I went with this star-studded bonkersfest from Kazakhstan, which has also been covered by Ty and Brett from Comeuppance--who have been telling me I needed to do this one for some time, so good to finally make it happen!

Diamond Cartel involves a deal between (I think) crime boss Armand Assante and (maybe) crime boss Michael Madsen, that's been brokered by Don "the Dragon" Wilson. As happens with most deals at the beginnings of movies, this deal goes bad, in this case because of an ambush. Among those ambushers is young lady Aliya (Karlygash Mukhamedzhanova), who takes the money and tries to run off with her boyfriend. Now we don't know who to trust. Assante wants his money. Rival crime boss Cary Tagawa wants Assante's money. Wilson wants Assante to pay him. And then when things can't get any wackier, our young couple get to the coast to get a boat out of dodge, and none other than Peter O'Toole is there to help them escape.

Where do we start with this one? We got a dubbed Wilson, a dubbed Olivier Gruner, and a dubbed Peter O'Toole. The plot is all over the place--I made it look pretty straight forward, but, like the Aliya character is a dealer at Assante's casino, and he sets her up so she owes him a lot of money, but instead of being under his thumb, a guy she grew up with gets her stuck in with Tagawa's gang so she can be trained as a sniper. I'm sorry, what? And when she tells the boyfriend this after they're reunited, he's angry with her about it? Later when she thinks he's agreed to give Assante all the money so he leaves them alone, she shoots him. Luckily he doesn't die? This is like a modern companion to White Fire, it's that bonkers, and features a big diamond too. Plus the names are prodigious. In addition to the ones I've mentioned, we also had Tom "Tiny" Lister and Bolo Yeung, because why wouldn't we? (More on Bolo Yeung later.) Is the action good? I don't know, I don't know that value judgements like "good" or "bad" make sense with something like this, you just go with it, buy the ticket, take the ride, and wake up in Astana--just make sure to check that both of your kidneys are intact!

The 40 Club for Mr. Wilson, one of the best to ever do it; and a very circuitous route to get here, as he's one of the few to ever have tags removed because films that IMDb said he was in, like Siege of Firebase Gloria, we later found out he wasn't. But we're here now, we've made it, and for as bonkers as this film is, including the dubbed voice, it might be a fitting film for his 40 Club entry because he's here strictly due to the name he's created for himself all these years. As a kid, when I was first learning what DTV movies were, he was one of the first names I gravitated to, you knew if his face and name were on the tin, that you were in for a great time. At this point he does more supporting roles like this than he does starring roles, which I'm okay with considering how many great films he's given us. The 40 Club has been a long time coming, but we got there, and there isn't a DTV star who's more deserving.

Among the many other names in this, the star is Karlygash Mukhamedzhanova, who plays Aliya. The problem is, between all the name actors that needed screentime, and the story that seems to be shoehorning all kinds of stuff in, we lose her as the lead for chunks of time. She's also the narrator--at least we think, or her narration could be dubbed too. The thing is, the left-turn-ski stuff we get with her character, when she's telling her boyfriend how she was missing for two years because she had to escape Armand Assante by becoming an assassin for Cary Tagawa, it's not as ridiculous as White Fire's "give a woman at a bar plastic surgery so she looks like Ginty's sister, and then Ginty has sex with her" storyline, but it's ridiculous enough, and I don't know how you sell that, but she does her darndest. I saw on IMDb that she did another Kazakhstan action production, this time starring Vinnie Jones, but no one else with him. Michael Madsen must've been too busy I guess, but based on this performance, there are a lot of direct to video movies here in the States that could use her, so perhaps this won't be the last time we see her.

This film has two other Hall of Famers, Bolo Yeung and Olivier Gruner, the 11th and 25th tag for each respectively. Again, more on Yeung in a second, but the fact that Gruner is only 5 away from the 30 Club is a big deal. And as bonkers as this movie is, check out screenwriter Richard Pierce's appearances on the Comeuppance podcast to hear some great stories about making Sector 4: Extraction with him. To round out everyone else, Madsen is now at 15 films, Armand Assante is at 7--which I couldn't believe we'd done that many of his films!--, Cary Tagawa is at 14, and Tom "Tiny" Lister is at 8 films. And then, craziest of crazy, we have one tag now for Peter O'Toole, right? Actually, I forgot that I also reviewed Supergirl during my DTVC Wild Card series look at comic book films. In 2019 my friend and I saw Lawrence of Arabia in the theater, and now I'm seeing him here, dubbed by someone who may or may not have had a stroke, in what ended up being his final film performance. It's always amazing who we end up finding in the world of DTV.

As if this film couldn't get anymore bonkers, according to the IMDb trivia, Bolo Yeung requested that a cat be present in his fight scene near the end of the film, as a tribute to Bruce Lee and his fight with Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon, which also has a cat onlooker. I believe this one was CGI, which, as you may know if you've been on here enough, I'm fully in favor of CGI animals being used in films. Cats want to relax, run around and chase things, and eat, possibly with some head scritches and pets mixed in. As much as I'd enjoy a nice Bolo Yeung fight, for a cat, it's really not all that important, and I respect that and think we all should as well. I do think though if you're going to go CGI cat, why not go full Sebastian from Josie and the Pussycats, right? Maybe have him laugh at them, or put a fishbowl on his head and go snorkeling. Just a thought, but even as simply an onlooker, cats always add value to any film they're in. Why more DTV filmmakers don't add them, especially CGI ones, is beyond me. It's easy points with me. Two simple rules to get you a recommendation: stay under 90 minutes, and add cats.

I figured we'd do a bonus paragraph for Mr. Wilson on getting to the 40 Club, and on us getting to 1300 posts. When I started this site in 2007, I never thought I'd be here 18 years later still plugging away at it, or that the posts would still be getting the kind of readership and reception they still do, especially with me taking a four-year hiatus in the middle. After all the people I've met along the way, the next best thing has been to go through so many films from stars like Don "The Dragon" Wilson, who I love. Some I'd seen before I started the site, like some of the Bloodfist films, but many were things I'd never heard of; and if it wasn't for Wilson, I probably wouldn't be reviewing this gem, but here we are, and I'm still enjoying it. So here's to you Mr. Wilson on making it to the 40 Club; and here's to you, everyone who's still with us after all these years. I wouldn't have kept the train moving--or gotten it back on the tracks in 2019--if it wasn't for the support and readership, so thank you very much for that, it means the world, and hopefully we're all still here for the next 1300 posts!

And with that, let's wrap this up. Right now this is on Fawesome here in the States, after sitting in my Tubi queue for about five years then getting removed by them. You never know when a film like this will get bounced, but luckily the name recognition tends to keep it on at least one of the free streamers.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2538778

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

Outlaw Johnny Black (2023)

This is one I'd been waiting for for some time, once I saw it listed on Michael Jai White's IMDb bio. After how great Black Dynamite was, 14 years was plenty of time in between to get his next effort, and I was excited by the fact that he was going to take a stab at Blaxploitation Westerns. When my cable company offered their $1 weekend rental deal again, I figured that was the perfect time to make this happen.

Outlaw Johnny Black has White as the eponymous hero. He's searching for a guy named Clayton (Chris Browning) who killed his father, but in the process gets mixed up with the law, and finds himself pretending to be a preacher in the small town of Hope Springs. Beyond his own subterfuge, an evil land baron (Barry Bostwick) is trying to take the old preacher's property through violent and corrupt means, meaning someone with Black's skills are needed. A woman named Jessie Lee (Anika Noni Rose) has been mobilizing the townspeople against Bostwick, and while she and Black don't get along initially, she realizes he's the man to help them. But will his past catch up with him before he has the chance?

This is really good. It's 2 hours and 10 minutes long, which is longer than my usual 90 minutes, but I could tell that White, Byron Minns, and company really wanted to go bigger with this, which is something I could appreciate, and most importantly, I think they pulled it off. This is bigger than just a DTV actioner, and bigger than just White and co. dipping their feet into making Westerns, and I think it worked. Like Black Dynamite, the comedy is there, as is the send up to Westerns, but then also the proper tribute to the Blaxploitation Western, a sub-genre that I wasn't as familiar with myself until I started digging more into Fred Williamson's career--Johnny Black's outfit is a tribute to Williamson's in Joshua. White delivers as the hero the way he does in Black Dynamite as well, giving us a larger than life presence but also excels in his comedic timing; and then the rest of the cast does their thing as well, from Minns as the preacher whose name White steals, Rose as the leading lady, our baddies in Bostwick and Browning, and then like Black Dynamite, a whole host of supporting names like Kym Whitley, Tommy Davidson, Jill Scott, and Randy Couture, among many others. This is the movie I was looking for from White as a next film after Black Dynamite.

This is only Michael Jai White's third film of the year, which isn't great considering the number of stuff he has out there, and that was a big reason why I wanted to get this one as soon as I could. When I had Jon Cross of After Movie Diner on the DTVC Extra podcast to talk about Bloodfist III and IV, we talked about my top 5 DTV actions stars of all time, which are 1. Dolph, 2. Williamson, tied for 3. Wilson and Rothrock, and 5. Gary Daniels. He asked me if Wilson could ever move up that list, and I didn't think so, that if any change could happen in the top 5, it might be as we go on with Williamson that he may pass Dolph. With that in mind, in looking at Michael Jai White, he's someone who could crack the top 5 and maybe go higher, based on stuff like this. I mean no one other than Williamson has ever made anything like this before, let alone Black Dynamite as well, and that has to weigh heavily into a ranking like that. If you go 6-10, I have 6. Lamas, 7. Seagal, 8. Dudikoff, and 9. Van Damme. I used to have Adkins at 10, but I think at the very least White is tied with him now, if not passing him into the 10th spot with a film like this. White is not only a dynamic martial artist, but he's a dynamic overall talent, and he shows us that again in this film.

With a Western featuring black and white characters, the issue of the N word is inevitably going to come into play. If you look at Williamson's Westerns in the 70s, white characters threw the word around constantly, to the point one of his movies even had it in the title. Then you had Tarantino's Hateful Eight, where Samuel L. Jackson's character gets called it a lot. White and Minns in writing the script went a different route here by using a word that's similar but not the same. It's still close enough that I feel awkward using it in this review, but I liked that they did that. There's a debate around using that word in an artistic sense. Who should be able to say it or write it, especially in Tarantino's case as a white person writing dialog for white characters that are saying it. White and Minns don't even mess with it, but they do joke about it, like when a baddie goes to call Johnny Black a "Ni--" and gets kicked in the face, and while he's on the ground says "I was going to say nincompoop!" I think it just gets back to the fact that White and Minns and the rest of the people making this and Black Dynamite are working on a different level.

People have sometimes complained that I'm too hung up on runtimes, which is fair, even though it's pretty consistent among the DTV/low-budget movie blogging/podcasting community that anything over 90 minutes is borrowed time, which means as a filmmaker you need to make more out of that time to make it worth it for us. More often than not, those 100-minute plus films don't manage to make that extra time worth it, and for Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, and co. to go in planning to make something over two hours, it was a gamble, but one that paid off. I'd say around the 45-minute mark the film loses steam a bit, but for the most part it manages to stay entertaining throughout. Part of it is the writing, and Jon Cross made a point about this when he was on the DTVC Extra podcast I mentioned above: humans can only laugh or be scared so much before it comes too much. What White and Minns do to mitigate that is they give us enough that's entertaining without while giving us a break from laughing or feeling tense, which, combined with a story that progresses along pretty well except for that one slower patch I mentioned. The thing is though, it is a gamble, and it requires great material. This movie is the exception that proves our 90-minute rule, but it is the rare film that's worth that extra time.

Finally, Fred Williamson has a cameo at the end along with Jim Brown and Michael Madsen. The issue then is that make this Williamson's 30th film on the site! I considered holding off on this one so we could get a better film for his 30th post, one that has him in it more, but I thought that would be too ridiculous, especially when I had this film watched and was planning to review it in this slot, to make it sit for a month or more while I try to get another Williamson post in? The other thing though is, while he only has this one cameo, he has it because the film is paying tribute to his influence and contributions to the world of cinema, so I think that combined with the fact that I can just make his 31st movie be the one where he gets the full accolades, made the decision to just go ahead with this review an easy one. It's a really great scene, where he and Jim Brown are watching everyone from a balcony at the end, and they recognize the job every did making the movie and upholding the traditions they started in the 70s.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can rent this on Amazon Prime or your cable company here in the States. From a money standpoint, you have to decide what your budget is, but I think renting something like this has the added benefit of showing the studios that a movie like this can sell, it doesn't need to be all comic book heroes or Bruce Willis to draw us in.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8667828

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

Executive Target (1997)

It's been a little while since we've last had PM on the site, back in February when they joined the 40 Club. With that in mind, I'd had this as one of theirs I'd been meaning to look at for a while now. Beyond the PM factor, we had one of my favorites Michael Madsen, plus DTVC Hall of Famer Matthias Hues, and greats like Keith David and Roy Scheider. In addition to us, out of the six critic reviews on IMDb, three of them are the guys at Comeuppance, Will at Exploding Helicopter, and Simon at Explosive Action, so that tells you this has to be pretty sweet.

Executive Target has Madsen as a stunt driver serving time in prison who's broken out by a terrorist group while he's being transported. The terrorist group, led by Keith David, and featuring Angie Everhart, Matthias Hues, and Robert Miano among their members, want Madsen to drive for them, and to make sure he does, they kidnap his wife (Kathy Christopherson). First he drives for them in a bank heist, and then the real fun begins: they want him to kidnap the President, none other than Roy Scheider. But Madsen has other plans, and while he does kidnap the President, he takes him to a friend's place, and together they hatch a plan to take David and his baddies down. No matter what, in PM fashion it'll be all car flips and explosions to get us there.

PM does it again. Even at 100 minutes, which would be death for many other films, for PM it's just an extra ten minutes of car flips, explosions, Madsen being too cool for school, David chewing scenery as the baddie, and Scheider being bad ass Presidential. As Simon said in his review on Explosive Action: "this is why I got into this game." Here here. They really don't make 'em like this anymore, but PM made 'em like this back then, and we have them available on streaming sites or YouTube for us to enjoy. And it's classic PM too. When we hear bank heist, we know this can't be a simple smash and grab job, and PM gives us the chase we want. Plus it's the 90s, when we see Madsen on the tin it means he's really going to be in the film, not like today where he might be in for like 10 or 20 minutes. This probably isn't even a top 20 PM flick for me, but that's how great PM was back then that this is so entertaining.

I went back to look at the previous 12 Madsen films we'd looked at to see where this ranked, and it might be the best of his we've done. We have a great performance by him in Vice, and then Final Combination aka Dead Connection is probably the other one I'd consider for the best of his we've covered, but I think that one loses itself a bit in the end, whereas this is consistently PM throughout. Recently we did Dolph's 69th film, and there was a thought of who could catch him. Madsen has the credits, but with this only being his 13th film on the site, he's now 56 behind Dolph, so even if we did one Madsen film a week for a year, he'd still be behind Dolph. The thing is though, I looked on Tubi, and he has like 90 or 100 films on there, and while some are ones we've done before, or they're not DTV flicks so they wouldn't fit on the site, there are at least 60 we could do. Back when I used to do 3 posts a week, that would be feasible, but now that I barely do 60 posts a year it's harder to pull off. Another one we could do that with is Eric Roberts, who has 180+ films on Tubi. So if we did a movie a week for each of them, it would be like a George Thorogood song, "one Madsen, one Roberts, and one beeeeer..."

This is the second time we've seen Roy Scheider play the president on the site, the other being Dolph's The Peacekeeper--and he has another in addition to that, 2000's Chain of Command, which I haven't reviewed yet. Of all the people we've had play the President on here, he might be the most Presidential. Ty and I joke on the podcast about Randall Emmett convincing Donald Trump to play a baddie in some of their movies, but this Scheider performance has me thinking Biden would be one of the best badass Presidents the way Scheider is here, as he seems very Biden-ish. Maybe the best badass ever would be Teddy Roosevelt. Eisenhower was pretty badass too. And don't sleep on George Washington. And while I'm not sure if Bill Clinton would've made a great action star, at least he could play the sax if he was taking Busey's role in a shot-by-shot remake of Bulletproof--and who wouldn't pay to hear Bill Clinton call people "butthorns"?

Usually the film's Hall of Famers are covered in the first paragraph after my initial reaction, but Matthias Hues is barely in this, and I wanted to save my PM paragraph for the penultimate one, so here we are. This is now 19 for Hues, so he's about to pass 20, which doesn't sound like a lot, but as a Hall of Famer, we'd like to get that count higher, so hitting that milestone would be important. According to the trivia, he asked Merhi to be killed off, which may explain the scant Hues we got. We had Keith David as well, this is only 9 for him, but fun to see him acting opposite Madsen, two greats getting after it. We finally tagged Angie Everhart with this being her third film on the site. I'm expecting we'll see her more though, especially with the number of DTV films she did around this time, including more PM flicks. As someone known for her great hair, in this her character has it in a ponytail for good chunks of the film, so it's almost a hair bait-and-switch, though to be fair, we can't really see her hair on the cover, so they didn't sell us on her hair going in, just had us expect it on reputation alone.

Finally, I saved the PM paragraph for last. This is our 41st PM flick we've looked at on the site. The goal is to get as many, if not all, of PM's feature films reviewed on here. According to IMDb, they list 202 titles, of which 48 are LA Heat episodes, so that leaves us with 154, minus the 41 we've already done, so 113 or so to go? That seems pretty daunting--maybe instead of a Madsen project I should do a PM flick every week. A lot of them are available either on streaming sites, or YouTube--in fact, on my YouTube page, I've created a playlist of the PM flicks I've found so far on there. I think at the very least, the action films need to be on here, and there are still a ton of those that need to be covered too. I think what watching this film does is reminds me that, while newer films are good to cover, I should never go too long without covering something from this time, especially a PM flick, because there isn't much happening today that matches what they did back then. Maybe Jesse V. Johnson or Isaac Florentine, but neither of them are doing what PM did at the scale and absurdity we see in something like this. Here's to you PM, you were one of the greatest. As I always say, you don't need the "entertainment" in their name, because when we see "PM," the "entertainment" is a given.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Right now YouTube is the best way to check this out, though Amazon has used VHS and DVD at good prices. This is pure PM, with solid Madsen, great explosions and car chases, and a fun supporting cast. Maybe they don't make 'em like this anymore, but they did back then, and we have the means to watch them now.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119088

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

The Alternate (2000)

We finish the month of October with the last of our 2021 Hall of Fame inductees, Ice-T and Sam Firstenberg. With that in mind, what better film to cover than one that starred Ice-T and was directed by Firstenberg? Well, I guess we'll see how good a film it was before we say. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance, Exploding Helicopter, and Cool Target have covered this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

The Alternate has Bryan Genesse as a CIA agent tasked with an interesting job: stage a kidnapping of the president to help boost the prez's poll numbers ahead of the upcoming election. He forms a team, including maverick former CIA guy Eric Roberts, they succeed in taking their target, only to have Genesse decide he'd rather make this a real kidnapping. Now only Eric Roberts can stop him, with his only assistance in the form of a Michael Madsen on a phone on the ground who is really only there to smoke and look cool for the camera.

 

Does it sound Die Hard-y? It does, doesn't it? The thing is though, it's a slimmed-down lite Die Hard. Shorter run time, not as many baddies to manage, smaller location, and fewer explosions. I think this film might have been a fun DTV actioner, the problem is, it fell into the trap a lot of modern DTV flicks do: it only had enough material for an episode of a syndicated TV show. This was especially rough when we get to the end, where it seems like our hero and the baddie are having their final showdown, but the slider bar is telling me there's 17 minutes left. How can this be? False endings of course. Oh, we thought Roberts had killed Genesse? There's still 15 minutes left, time for Genesse to pop back in again. It's like the cinematic equivalent of using a larger font and greater line-spacing to make that high school paper seem longer. By the same token, an episode of a syndicated TV show wouldn't have had the prodigious cast this had. So where does that leave us? Maybe our friend Will at Exploding Helicopter said it best: "What you get here is more Try Hard than Die Hard."

Last year when I had Jon Cross of the After Movie Diner (which just celebrated 10 years!) and Miscellaneous Plumbing Fixtures on to talk Fred Williamson, he mentioned having Ice-T in our Hall of Fame, and when he said it, there was a sense of "yeah, why isn't he in the Hall of Fame?" He's got pretty solid numbers (this is his 16th film on the site), has worked with a lot of the greats--Pyun, Firstenberg, Olen Ray, Williamson, Wynorski, and Camacho--, and it seems like no matter how good or bad the film is, he brings it. In this film, I found out in Marco Siedelmann's Stories from the Trenches that despite Ice-T only being in this for a short time, because his character was a CIA agent, he felt he needed to cut his hair. That kind of commitment takes a film like this, and elevates it simply from his appearance. I can't think of a better reason why he should be in the Hall of Fame.

 

Our other inductee, taking the director spot for 2021, is Sam Firstenberg. We know his rap sheet: Ninjas, American Ninjas, Dancing Ninja, Cyborg Cops, and Delta Forces. He helmed some of the greatest DTV flicks ever. I think with this one, you can see his skills in the way the film was put together, it seems more competent than your usual DTV fare; by the same token, you can see the limitations in both time and budget that prevented him from making this what he really wanted it to be. In Marco's book, he both said he really liked this film, and admitted to those limitations. I get that on both scores too. This feels a little more serious than an American Ninja 2, Cyborg Cop 2, or Breakin' 2... Electric Boogaloo; but, I can't let this film think it's so much better than those other movies, because the terrorists were taking out the CIA agents by blowing laced toothpick through straws because they could get them through security. Watching Eric Roberts and Bryan Genesse blowing through straws and then CIA agents grabbing at their necks and falling over isn't too far away on the silliness scale from Ninja III. Overall, this film is better, not worse, for Firstenberg's direction, and that tends to always be the case with his films, which is why he's being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

I already have the something for the seventh paragraph, so it's actually this sixth one I wasn't sure about. One idea was extolling the virtues of the one set Michael Madsen role. Maybe he's mailing it in, but it was a lot of fun watching him do it. The sunglasses, cigarettes, and gravelly voice always work. Another was the fact that this was supposed to be called The Replacement, but Ty from Comeuppance surmised--I think correctly--that the big screen Keanu Reeves film The Replacements came out the same year, so perhaps that's why they changed the name--though they didn't change Eric Roberts at the end saying "call me the replacement..." Or maybe it was the fact that Bryan Genesse wrote this, which is a fun fact, and I don't think it was a horrible effort, but it also makes me wonder if he or anyone else work-shopped the laced toothpicks shot out of straws idea. 

 

Finally, the president in this film is played by John Beck. I've lost track of how many times we've done a film that featured someone playing the president, but I believe this is the first mustachioed one. It made me wonder: when was the last time we had a mustachioed president here in the US? My guess was Teddy Roosevelt, and I was close--it was Taft right after him. In fact, we haven't had many 'Stache Prezes in US history. Most opted for no facial hair--I think Lincoln was the first with his non-'stache beard. Chester A. Arthur had a 'stache prior to becoming president, but as far as I can tell, in office he only had that mustache that connected to his sideburns, which in my mind is still a form of beard and doesn't count. That would make Grover Cleveland the first, and Harrison after him had a beard, so that makes Cleveland the second as well. From there we just have Roosevelt and Taft, and that's it--and not only that, Taft was the last prez to sport any facial hair. What that tells me is the entire premise of this film is off: why would the first mustachioed president since Taft be losing in the polls? That's less believable than the straw-toothpick darts. Just the slogan "Four More Years of the 'Stache" would win it, there'd be no need for all this Genesse tomfoolery to make him look better.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can currently get this on Tubi. While I say 90 minutes on Tubi is a good deal, this one feels like closer to 100, so keep that in mind. On the other hand, you have a great cast directed by Firstenberg, so that mitigates those issues somewhat. Congratulations again to Ice-T and Sam Firstenberg for being the last two of our 2021 Hall of Fame inductees. We'll see who gets inducted next year at this time!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203835

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

 

Skin Traffik aka Hitman in London (2015)

This is it, Gary Daniels, with this post, joins Dolph Lundgren in our most exclusive of DTVC clubs, the 50 Club. That's right, this is the 50th film we've reviewed that has Daniels in it, and only Dolph has more on here. It's an amazing and well-deserved honor for him as one of the best to do it. In addition to this review, we also did a podcast with Simon of Explosive Action, so you can check that out as well for more Daniels discussion. Now, without any further ado.

Skin Traffik has Daniels as a hitman who, in carrying out a job, accidentally kills the mark's pregnant daughter. Distraught, he goes dark in a bad neighborhood of London. As luck would have it, a bad brothel run by some bad Russians is in that same neighborhood, and he needs to sort those guys out and free the women, one of whom is Dominique Swain, and she enlists Daniels to help him find her sister. At the same time, Daniels's old boss, Eric Roberts, isn't happy he went dark, and in working with the angry people running the brothel, tries to take Daniels out.

 

This one isn't bad. From the description, it sounds like your typical hitman redemption by saving white slave victim who marries him and they live happily ever after, but that ain't this. Dominique Swain brings more nuance to that role, and I could also tell Daniels appreciated that this gave him more to work with than that standard tired trope. On top of that, his action scenes were top notch--I'd say some of his best, except he has so many great ones that he's set such a high standard on his own, so we'll stick with "great" to describe them. On top of that, while the massive cast individually isn't in the film much, they all do a great job in their small parts to enhance everything else about this that's good. I think this just works.

Again, Daniels is joining our most exclusive of clubs here at the DTVC. From a pure actor/star standpoint, there may not be many others who can catch him in tags and reach this club. Art Camacho at 46 would be next, but those are mostly behind the camera credits. Same with production companies like PM and Canon. Cynthia Rothrock is at 35, but I don't know if there are 15 more movies to do for the site for her. Don "The Dragon" Wilson is at 34, and I'm cracking some of his early stuff that barely has him in them, but same thing, are there 16 more? Perhaps it would be someone like Fred Williamson, who only has 18 so far but has a bunch out there that we need to do. It could be years before he gets there though. The fact that we don't have another actor outside of Dolph and Daniels in the 40 Club, let alone the 50 Club, should give you an idea of how big of a deal this is, and again, it's well-deserved.

 

From a performance standpoint, say what you want about this movie, Daniels brings it. Yes, some of his tags come from early PM films where he didn't have a big part, but most are like this, where he doesn't short-change us on the action. I think that's what I've always appreciated about Daniels, when it comes to action and martial arts scenes, he gives us what we've come for. I do think there was also a part of him that liked the idea of this being not your usual hitman redemption story, because he seemed to lean into that aspect. In that sense, I think this was a good one to look at for a post like this to honor his entry into the 50 Club. If you're looking for more Daniels to explore, I have a Letterboxd list where I rank them, which may be easier than clicking his name on the tags and browsing through 50 movies.

This film has a really prodigious cast, including Eric Roberts, who many think would have been the one with the most tags on here. He's only at 11 though. Obviously, with over 600 credits, he could be another contender to get to 50 and beyond, but because a lot of his roles are like this, a small supporting character, one to two locations, mostly sitting and talking by himself, how many of those do I want to tackle if they don't have a big name like Daniels attached? That's the thing though, he's done so many of these with DTVC Hall of Famers, it is possible that he could get to 50 just by the sheer volume of these roles.

 

Of the many others in this, one I really enjoyed was Michael Madsen. It was a very Michael Madsen-esque performance, which is all you can ask for when you see his name on the tin. He has a scene with Eric Roberts that may or may not have been shot with him, which is the kind of thing I love in a film like this. Jeff Fahey has a small part at the end that I also really enjoyed. Finally, the fact that they cast Dominique Swain in the part of the victim of white slavery was a really good choice. She added some harshness to a part that in a lot of action films is glamorized and there strictly for the hero to rescue and marry after. No one would have missed a beat if they'd just cast an Eastern European fashion model and called it good, but the fact that they didn't elevated this above the usual trope--which again I think was why Daniels went for this part too.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. You can stream this for free on Tubi right now, and I think it's worth a look. It's not perfect, but the action is there, and Daniels doesn't mail it in. What more can you ask for? Also, check out the podcast Simon and I did on this film. There are links on the left, or you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3120960

Pressure Point (2001)

I had been looking to get some more Jeff Wincott up here, and when I saw this on Instant I knew it was a good bet.  Then I saw it had Michael Madsen, which made it even better.  Even if it's a dud, it's got those two right?

Pressure Point has Madsen as a father taking his wife and kids through Vermont on vacation.  They're in a big broken-down old camper, and no one is stoked about it.  At the same time, Wincott and a buddy try to pull off a bank heist in a sleepy little Vermont town, only to have things go wrong, people die, and Wincott on the run.  When he comes across Madsen and crew working on the camper by the side of the road, they seem like a match made in heaven.  Only one problem: you don't mess with Madsen.



This one is a little rough.  In general this type of movie is rough.  From Dusk Till Dawn pulled it off by inserting vampires in in the middle.  Beyond that, how do you keep us interested from the 20 or 30 minute mark when Wincott takes the family hostage, to the finale?  This had other issues though too.  For instance, it was very keen on the verisimilitude of rough video, like from a bank camera or a police officer's dash.  In one scene, they did this whole thing with the police piecing together a tape that Wincott destroyed, and all it did was show us a garbled, tough to watch thing that went over material we'd already seen.  On the other hand, we had good performances from Madsen and Wincott, along with Victoria Snow, who played Madsen's wife, and Michelle Scarabelli, who played the local deputy.  There were some tense moments, and some solid cat and mouse, but, again, it felt like all it was doing was keeping us from getting to the end at the 90 minute mark, as opposed to feeling like organic plot points.

One thing I really liked was that there was no explanation for why Michael Madsen's character being the bad ass that he was.  No "former cop" or "ex-special forces".  It was simply "because he's Michael Madsen", which should be enough for any movie.  The one issue for me was that there was a lot going on between the family and the police cracking the case, that we lose him for portions of the film, which doesn't work.  I think this could've done for a more slimmed down approach, with fewer bells and whistles, and someone like Madsen could've carried it.



And Wincott was great too as the main baddie.  One thing I liked too about him being the baddie, was that it was okay that he wasn't using his martial arts-- in fact, we wouldn't want someone as bad as him to know martial arts.  I think if the roles had been reversed, it would've been hard to see someone like Wincott not use his martial arts on someone like Madsen, even if his character didn't know how.  Even though I'd much rather see him as the lead in a martial arts-heavy action flick-- and it's for movies like that that we love him-- this was a cool role for him too, and he did well.

I always have trouble when movies like this have kids involved.  Like Wincott putting a gun to Madsen's son's head, or pointing it at his young daughter.  It all makes me uneasy.  Maybe it's supposed to, but while it makes me uneasy, it's then trying to have it both ways and make me unring the bell and think, once the movie's over, that everyone lives happily ever after.  No kid lives happily ever after after a traumatic experience like that.  The movie can't have it both ways: realistic police work and cracking the case, yet unrealistic no long-term effects on the kids.  As is often the case, it's better to just leave the kids out.



As I said above, Michelle Scarabelli was really good as the deputy sheriff, and Victoria Snow too as Madsen's wife.  Both women have had solid careers in movies and TV shows.  That's one thing I like about Canadian movies-- beyond little touches like a speed limit listed in kilometers per hour even though it's supposed to be Vermont-- they have this cadre of great professional actors that really fill out the cast and give these movies a little more than you'd expect.  Maybe the best of the lot is Kim Coates, but I've seen Scarabelli and Snow in plenty of stuff, and I think they always give a solid performance.  One could say Wincott is in that category now too, though I still like to think of him as an action lead.

So this is a pass for me.  You've seen this before, and while it has some good performances, it doesn't bring much new to the table and has dead moments that hurt things.  If you're interested though, it's available on Instant.  Sometimes Wincott and Madsen are enough, sometimes they aren't.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268548/

Ides of March aka Ultimate Target (2000)

This movie has a very interesting back story.  Made in 2000, the production company went bankrupt before the film was released, so it sat on the shelf.  Then, somewhat recently, a copy taken from a Russian TV recording surfaced, the only problem being that it was dubbed in Russian.  No good for us, right?  But there was a rumor of a Greek DVD release, which would mean an English language version if the rumor were true.  Turns out it was, and a friend of mine was nice enough to hook me up with a copy.

Ides of March has DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels as a hit man working for a large hit man corporation. He has a falling out with his fellow hit men, among them DTVC favorite Michael Madsen, and now they're after him.  Daniels sends his family away up north, and establishes himself in a small town in New Mexico, waiting for his pursuers to arrive.  When they do, will he be able to take them all down?



This isn't very good, and perhaps sat on the shelf for a good reason.  We have a lot of plot exposition with nothing really happening.  The mindset was that this plot exposition was entertaining and funny and filled with enough irony that it was worth keeping us from the action.  It couldn't have been more wrong.  It was supposed to be a mix of 90s Neo-Noir and Pulp Fiction style action/macabre comedy, and ends up missing on all accounts.  We get it, two killers are discussing Crunch Berries while eating breakfast over the dead body of one of their hits.  Great, it's so off-beat and ironic, I can't contain myself.  In another instance, we have what would've been a great fight scene between Daniels and some samurai sword wielding thugs, only to have it interrupted by a hit man talking on a cell phone with his mother.  Oh, such sweet comedic irony, I can hardly stand it.  The problem is, when the action was there, it was so good, especially the Western-style/modern action showdown at the end.  If we'd had more of it, this would've been a winner.  This is another example of the old adage: keep it simple.  Trying too hard to be a talky-90s indie flick when you could've been a solid DTV action flick is a bad formula.

The biggest reason why getting my hands on this was such a priority, was Mr. Daniels here.  Any time we're talking DTVC Hall of Famer, I want to see their movies and review them on here.  Unfortunately, because we're dealing in low budget DTV flicks, this kind of thing happens where we can't find them-- in fact, Daniels has a few others that I've had trouble tracking down.  In terms of how he is here, when he's allowed to let his action star prowess come through, it's all there.  The thing is though, he doesn't get much.  When we get to the end, it's almost like he's unleashed, which is good, but when I'm coming to the table for a Daniels film, I want more of him fighting and less of him doing glib voice-overs.  Even in his English accent, they don't work.



Then we had Michael Madsen.  He was great as a competing hit man.  The thing with Madsen is, he can take a lackluster script, and make it enjoyable.  It's always interesting to see an actor of his quality fall through the cracks and end up in films like these, because most of the other actors are there because that is the ceiling of their ability-- which is fine, I'm not knocking it, but Madsen is on a different level, and you can really see it in something like this.  Always good to see Madsen.

Another major notable in this film is veteran character actor George Cheung-- also known as "George Kee Cheung", which, if you look at the image I got for the cover, the names "Kee" and "Cheung" accompany "Madsen" and "Daniels".  That's right, one man listed twice, not to mention, that young fella in the middle in the picture, he's not even in the film, I have no idea what he's doing there.  Anyway, back to Cheung.  Among his 175 credits on imdb, he was in the Seinfeld episode where Elaine tries to get flounder delivered from a Chinese restaurant, and has to pretend she lives in a janitor's closet.



Finally, here are our two hit men discussing Crunch Berries over their deceased hit.  Everybody together now: "wacka wacka waaackaaa!"  This is one of those things that sounds great at the time, but the whole idea is that it's supposed to be so ironic that two hit men that just killed someone would sit in the guy's house and discuss Crunch Berries, and as much as the people making the film might thing that was so creative and unique, the rest of us have seen it so many times.  Even in 2000, when this was made, the whole irony mixed with people killing each other had beyond run its course.  How many potentially great action films were felled by the 90s irony movement?  More than I care to count.  Put this one down as another.

If you live in Greece you can find this on DVD, or if you have a region free DVD player and want to get it on the secondary market from there.  I won't go so far as to say it doesn't deserve to be released here in the States, because there have been a lot worse, and this has some big enough names that it deserves at least a $5 DVD; but would I say it's worth going through the trouble to track it down?  Probably not.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243327/

Vice (2008)

This is one that's been on my radar for some time, so when I saw that it was one of the many Stars Play flicks that were getting the dump on Watch Instantly, it became an instant priority to watch it (hey-oh!). Perhaps of all the Stars Play 11 then, this is the one I wanted to watch most. Let's see if it lived up to that promise.

Vice has Michael Madsen as a vice cop who, after a drug bust gone bad, accidentally shoots an unarmed hooker, and has fellow vice cop Daryl Hannah plant a gun on her. That coincides with the drug lord that escaped the drug bust, Darius, sending his goons around to kill the members of the vice squad. Why would he be doing this? Was there more to this bust than they know? Is someone dirty?



This was a pretty solid flick on it's own up until the last twenty minutes. It was just a gritty, dirty, foul police drama, with a cast anchored by Michael Madsen, a nice script and story, and some equally nasty sets and cinematography. Then, in that last twenty minutes, it becomes something else. It's as if Michael Madsen is unleashed. Before it was pretty good Michael Madsen, the kind of thing where you go "nice, I love Michael Madsen", but then it's like "oh my God, I frickin' love Michael Madsen! This is amazing!" He has this one scene, where his partner is killed, and he loses it. And it's from that point that this film transforms, becomes almost Bad Lieutenant in intensity, only with Michael Madsen being quintessentially Michael Madsen the way Harvey Keitel was quintessentially Harvey Keitel. For me it made a solid movie a can't miss.

We've been through a fair amount of Michael Madsen here at the DTVC, and they've run the gamut from bait-and-switch or we wish we had more Madsen, to really great Madsen and the kind of thing you came for. This movie was firmly in that latter category, until his buddy dies, and then he surges right off the meter. And what got me, was it wasn't just that scene, it was every scene after. It makes me wonder, when you consider these scenes probably weren't shot in sequence, how he pulled that off. Who cares, it's there, and it's that good. I said earlier in the year that I wanted to get more Madsen up here, and this more than delivered.



I really liked the atmosphere of this film. So often we see modern film makers unable to pull off dark and gritty, usually tacking on a severed finger in an interrogation scene to an otherwise paint-by-numbers actioner. We had no severed fingers here, yet this had all the atmosphere it wanted, and much more organically. It's about more than a severed finger, it's about dialog, sets, performances, costumes-- and it's refreshing to see it done well for once. Also, this had some male full frontal nudity (sorry ladies and some males, it wasn't Madsen), including naked running, which, for a guy, just doesn't seem to work. I have a feeling, if I polled all my readers, they'd prefer the severed finger to the male full frontal nudity running. I don't know though.

Figured we'd look at some of the rest of the cast here. Daryl Hannah played the one woman in the vice squad, trying to earn respect from her fellow officers. It would've been very easily to make her a total dude, or make her a total damsel in distress, and this went in another direction, just making her a woman detective fighting for her spot. It sounds easy, but we seldom see it. Mykelti Williamson plays Madsen's partner. No mention of selling or preparing shrimp though. Kurupt, former member of Tha Dogg Pound, and known as much for the corrupt spelling of his name, has a cameo as one of the dealers in the opening drug bust. One of my favorites was Mark Boone Junior, who played one of the other vice cops. Always like seeing him. Couple other notables were John Cassini as Boone's partner, and Nicholas Lea as a homicide detective. Finally, I wanted to make a special mention for Aaron Pearl, pictured above. I don't know what it is about this guy, but I think he's the bee's knees. Can never get enough Aaron Pearl.



Someone who didn't star in this was the late Chris Penn, but the film was dedicated to him. According to the trivia section of this film's imdb page, Madsen had celebrity attorney Vicki Roberts host a private screening of Vice, which Penn's mom attended. It's weird, because I felt while watching the film that this was something Penn would've been great in, so I think it's really cool that the film was dedicated to his memory. To further the sentiment, I'm going to tag him, even though he wasn't in the movie. Here's to you Chris Penn, you were one of the good ones.

And this is one of the good ones. DVD, probably can rent it anywhere, and I say do it, it's worth it. If you can find it used to buy, I'd do that too. Even without Madsen going off for the last 20 minutes, this is a good watch; but with that, it's something more. This is better than the Michael Madsen you came for, so don't miss it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762145/

Road of No Return (2009)

I came across this one while doing a search of Michael Madsen on Netflix Watch Instantly. It also had DTVC Hall of Famer David Carradine, which made it even more of a draw. I was a little nervous though, because I've seen these ones with guys like this in them before, and seen them go horribly wrong. Let's hope this one didn't.

Road of No Return is about four hit men that are brought together by Madsen and Carradine as part of a secret extra-judicial mission to assassinate drug kingpins. When one of the four does a little research to find out who the guys are that hired them, Carradine gets scared and calls in the cleaners to deal with the whole thing. As if things couldn't get any more difficult for our quartet, during one of their hits they save two very young girls that were about to be sold into white slavery. Now they have to save themselves and protect the kids.



Okay, we get it, you're ironic. No no, really, we get it. The hit man's mom coming to clean the hit men's house? Get it, ironic. The Chinese Christian missionaries that interrupt one of the hits. Yep, pretty ironic. There's a point though where so much irony makes it not ironic, it makes it contrived, and that's what this was. Throw in some lame sentimentality, and some really serious elements that didn't blend at all with the quirky ironic ones, and you've got a 90 minute pain fest.

One thing about this one though was that the scenes with Carradine and Madsen were great, and Carradine especially. Usually seeing Carradine on the cover of a flick from 2009 means he's in it for like five minutes, and while he's nowhere near the star that the cover shot and top billing will have you believe, he is something of a main baddie, and as such, had his screen time. He does this kind of movie well. He can handle the scenes that are a little too talky, and make fun material that was increasingly becoming more and more contrived. This film came out the year he passed away, and a quick check of his imdb bio shows that he still has three more posthumous projects on the way, on top of the seven that came out from 2010 on. Just shows you how much he worked, right up to the end-- and why he's a DTVC Hall of Famer.



Madsen, though still pretty good, wasn't quite what Carradine was. I don't want to say he mailed this one in, but maybe that he was too comfortable. He's probably seen this material so many times, and seen it better so many times, that he played down to what he was given. I still enjoyed seeing Madsen on screen, and he still elevated the material, but this wasn't what he was in something like Final Combination.

I think a big part in pulling off irony is in making it not seem contrived, and we already mentioned that this film killed that possibility by loading up on it so much. This might as well have been a hipster with his beard and scarf waiting in line to get the new iPhone while reblogging memes on Tumblr with his old one, that's how ironic this was. Another big part of it though is the actors have to pull it off, and that didn't really happen either. We had this one dude that was playing like a white supremacist, and it felt like he was so uncomfortable playing that part, that the idea so abhorred him, that he went so over the top, which made it even worse and harder to watch. Then when he finds out (as we expected, it being ironic and all) that his ethnic background isn't entirely white, the reaction is even harder to watch. Why even have crap like this in the movie when it isn't going to work?



I don't really have a seventh paragraph for this one, so I guess I'll mention the other cliche convention it fell on, the "we'll start with the end first, then go to the beginning" device, which in this case actually gives away some of the movie. When we see only one girl, but later she's introduced with another, we know that other will bite it soon because we have to get back down to just one. And killing off little girls gives the film a mean-spirited feel that, again, betrays the quirky ironic tone the film is leaning so heavily on.

All right, this is enough. You know I didn't like this, and you don't need me to tell you anymore why. Don't let the Madsen and Carradine fool you. Both have tons on Watch Instantly to look at (though for some reason Netflix is only showing me two for Carradine, when I know he has more than that-- they need to get their shit together over there!). This is your run of the mill "hit men in ironic situations" yawnfest.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1298716/

Final Combination aka Dead Connection (1994)

This was a suggestion on the Facebook page from one of the readers, and if you don't know, that's the place to go to make requests or suggestions for things you've checked out recently that you want to bring to my attention, or personal favorites that you'd like me to review. What made this suggestion even better was the fact that Netflix has it on Watch Instantly-- always a plus.

Final Combination is an early 90s Film Noir starring the great Michael Madsen as an LA detective and former hockey enforcer. He's out investigating a serial killer (Gary Stretch) that likes to beat women to death while listening to phone sex and renting hotel rooms under the real names of boxing legends. Enter Lisa Bonet, a freelance reporter who's been hot on the killer's trail. She and Madsen become uneasy allies and very easy lovers. But does she have ulterior motives? And can Madsen avoid getting too tangled up in her and catch the killer before he strikes again?



Other than the ending, which was a little all over the place for me, I really enjoyed this movie. Madsen is the perfect choice for a 90s Film Noir lead. He gets it on a deeper level than most actors, and the director here got that he got it and leaned on him. He just exudes cool in everything he does. Then you add in Lisa Bonet, who is fantastic as the Film Noir femme fatale, and she and Madsen have great chemistry. This hits all the spots for me, from the cinematography to the music to the dialog. If you dig Michael Madsen, this is the kind of role he's made for, and worth your checking out.

There's something about Michael Madsen that's authentic, and I think that's why he's so good. Even in movies he's in that suck, he's great; but this movie is good, and as I said above, I think a big reason why is that this one is centered around Madsen's authenticity. Madsen has a way of channeling Noir icons of the 40s and 50s, but he never feels affected when he does it. He has a very deep DTV filmography that we've only scratched the surface of here, so who knows, maybe we're talking about a 2012 Hall of Fame inductee.



If you're my age you grew up with The Cosby Show on Thursday nights, so you're familiar with Lisa Bonet and wouldn't surprised that she does well in a movie like this opposite Madsen. Another thing I like about her casting here is that she wouldn't have been cast in a Film Noir of the 40s and 50s, so she brings the movie into the 90s better than Madsen does; but she still has all the elements of the classic Noir femme fatale, from the femininity and seductiveness, to the assertiveness and ability to put the lead on his heels.

After Madsen and Bonet, there are a lot of other people in this worth mentioning. This was Gary Stretch's first feature length movie, and I believe he was still a boxer at the time. I think our only Gary Stretch movie other than this one was Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. Then there's U.S. Seals 2's Damian Chapa, as a detective working under Madsen. One of my personal favorites was a small cameo by Parker Posey as Stretch's first victim. This was one year before she broke out as the 90s indie it girl with Party Girl. Susan Byun from Sgt. Kabukiman and the Gary Daniels film Deadly Target plays another potential Stretch victim. Finally, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears has one scene as a desk clerk in a hotel. How awesome is that?



Actually, that's not finally, because there's one more I need to mention. That's right, Tuvok is back, this time as another detective working under Madsen. We last saw Tuvok as a drug dealer in Death Wish 4. This may become our thing, a little novelty. It's not about seeking out Tuvok movies, but seeing how many times he'll pop up in something coincidentally-- like the McDonald's thing I've done in the past. Again, I've never really even seen Star Trek: Voyager, but maybe if we keep seeing Tuvok in our movies I'll have to start.

Considering this is on Watch Instantly here in the States, I think it's worth checking out; but even if you don't have Watch Instantly or live outside the US, if you can track this down I'd say go for it, especially if you're a Michael Madsen fan. You'll enjoy it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107417/

Hell Ride (2008)

When I came across this on imdb, I was excited. A throwback biker flick produced by Quentin Tarentino, directed by Larry Bishop, and co-starring Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper, and David Carradine. Problem was: my copy from Netflix had a deep scratch near the outside, preventing me from watching the last 10 minutes. I had to wait for a replacement to be sent, which took two days. The last ten frickin' minutes... Also, this one was done by our buddy Mitch, at The Video Vacuum, over at LiveJournal.

Hell Ride is directed, written, and stars Larry Bishop as Pistolero, the president of a biker gang. When one of his gang is killed by a rival biker gang, old hatreds and grudges come to the fore, including a promise Pistolero made to the beautiful Cherokee Kisum to protect her son after she was murdered in 1976. Now it's time to round up the gang and make good on his word.



This one didn't quite work for me, which sucked, because I wanted it to really bad. It had some really great elements: a ramped up sexuality led by some really sexy actresses, some great performances by Bishop, Madsen, and Hopper, and a killer soundtrack. Where it missed for me was how much it lost itself in its script and its dialog, neither of which were that spectacular, and neither of which are things I expect a lot of in a biker flick-- when was the last time you watched a 60s biker movie and thought "boy, that was a little too talky for me"? Bishop said two things in the making of featurette that were really telling: first, "you'll know if you made a good biker film if your family won't speak to you after", and as far as I could tell, this was much safer than that; and second: "I didn't care if everyone hated this, as long as Quentin [Tarentino] liked it." It goes without saying that if you make a movie and don't care what your audience thinks, they probably won't enjoy it.

It's been a while since I've seen a good biker exploitation flick, so in doing my due diligence, I decided to take one in before I wrote this review, in order to compare it with Hell Ride. I went with The Savage Seven, which actually stars Larry Bishop, and was the one that Tarentino cited as a reason he went to Bishop to make a biker flick in 2008 (the character name Cherokee Kisum came from the lead character Kisum in Savage Seven, I'm assuming). The older flick was by far superior. First, the story had much more below the surface exposition that the movie didn't need to tell us, which allowed it to enhance the film without boring us with added overt plot exposition. We had the interplay between the Native Americans and the white capitalist exploiting them, then the added dynamic of whether or not bikers and Native Americans are kindred spirits, two sides of the same coin, or polar opposites. It was all tension bubbling to a boil without an ounce of back story. The other big thing The Savage Seven had that Hell Ride lacked was a lot of action. They never went anywhere near the stretches Hell Ride went with nothing happening. Further on that point, the end battle between the Native Americans and bikers was immense, and Hell Ride not only didn't have any of that, but the end confrontation with the rival gang was so neutered I wondered why it was even there. Madsen just shot them all without a fight. For me, Hell Ride was too wrapped up in its own substandard plot and abandoned a lot of the great elements that made biker films so much fun.



As I mentioned above, I liked that Bishop added a greater level of sexuality to his biker film. Most of the older ones had attractive women, but nothing we have here with buck naked women, women exuding seductiveness-- just a raw sexuality fueling some excellent scenes. One reason why I think the scenes came off so well is that Bishop didn't tell the women what he wanted them to do, he said in the featurette that he just gave them an idea, and then let them take it as far as they were comfortable. As a result, the women were comfortable, and that showed. I just wish Bishop would've fused that element with the other great elements of the biker film, in particular the action.

This movie had some big names. I mentioned Madsen, Hopper, and Carradine above. Of those three, the first two were great, but Carradine was just thrown in, and that was a disappointment, because he was the head baddie, and you'd like the head baddie to be an obstacle for the hero. He had one scene, tied to a chair, and Bishop killed him. Vinnie Jones was in it a little more, but equally wasted at the end as a baddie. What is this, Steven Seagal theater with these ineffective baddies? Finally, DTVC (not so) favorite Eric Balfour is in this as a biker named Comanche. Yes, you read right. Does he work? I don't know, it's hard to tell based on the material. Could he have worked? Maybe, but you'd have to get past your preconceived notions of Eric Balfour. For me, I'm okay with it, just because he's 34 years old now, and that's getting up there for getting parts as the high school bully in teen movies and TV shows. He needs to think about his next career move, right?



I had to finish this with a personal anecdote. The title, Hell Ride, evokes a memory in me of an interview the late Wesley Willis did with Howard Stern about ten years ago. In it, he says his life was a "Demon Hell Ride", said more like "Demon He'rite", but you get the picture. Every time I wrote the title in this blog post, in my head I was thinking "Demon He'rite". As an aside, what is everyone's favorite Wesley Willis song? I gotta go with "Birdman Whipped My Ass". Here's to you Wesley Willis, you were one of the good ones.

I'm going to go with a no on this one as far as the recommendation. Though it has some solid elements, overall it gets lost in its own story, which is too bad considering the cast, and where a movie like this could've gone and should've gone. But as Larry Bishop himself said, he doesn't care if any of us liked it, as long as Mr. Tarentino dug it. "Rock over London, rock on Chicago, Pontiac, we are building excitement."

[As an aside, this is the second film we've done that Quentin Tarentino was associated with, the other being Dolph Lundgren's workout video, Maximum Potential, on which Tarentino worked craft services.]

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411475/