Skin Trade (2014)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forced to Fight (2011)

We're looking here at a film with two DTVC Hall of Famers, Gary Daniels and Peter Weller. Who wouldn't want to see that? I was waiting for it to be released on DVD here in the States, and seemingly out of nowhere, it became available on Netflix Instant--though still not on DVD. Hey, however we can get it right? And Netflix Instant is a lot easier than hoping someone will send me a VHS rip off an obscure Region 2 European tape with hard subs--that's what I always say anyway.

Forced to Fight has Daniels as a former fighter whose brother, also a fighter, gets in deep with underground fight organizer Peter Weller. After Weller's goons beat up the brother, Daniels finds out the brother is into him for 60K, and it's now up to Daniels to make that money back by fighting. The problem is, the more he fights, the more of a jerk he becomes, and in the process he alienates his wife and son; not to mention, Weller is not one to be trusted, so it's only a matter of time before he doesn't keep his word to Daniels. Will he make it out alive?

Before I get into why this didn't work for me, and there are many reasons why, I want to first applaud this film for trying to do something new with the forced to fight paradigm. First, these aren't fights to the death, they're more like realistic--but still illegal--underground fights. Second, I like the idea that Daniels is only kind of forced to fight, i.e. that he's not kidnapped and held in a cell, just forced to fight in the sense that he's paying off his brother's debt. Further on that point, I liked that we had a hero that was fighting for more than just his life. I liked that he was fighting to see if he still had it, and that his hyper-competitive side was consuming him. All of this added some nuance that we don't usually see in movies like this.

The problem is, the execution was off. First and foremost, the whole construct of making Daniels a jerk was sauteed in wrong sauce. The idea is that we want to root for this guy, and when he calls his sensitive, young son "cry baby," that can't be unsaid with a simple apology. The Lionheart construct would've worked better here I think, by having it be his brother's wife and kid, by killing the brother off, and still having Daniels pay off the brother's debt. I'm going to get into the brother in the final paragraph because it has spoilers, but I think his character was totally off and caused a lot of confusion in how we were supposed to take the plot. The way the fights went too were off. He fights in a bunch, wins, then has to take dives for a while. Just have him train for a Weller hosted Battle Royale, with a few bar fights and whatnot thrown in to keep the action quotient up. Keep the nuance of him wanting to see if he's still got it, and of his competitive drive, but let everything play out a little more organically. Finally, the interactions between Daniels's character and his wife demonstrated the limitations of a plot like this when shown in the classic Alpha Male themed action movie. The wife is only there to provide a sense of his humanity, so when he turns on her in his jerk phase, it's him losing his humanity, and he only gets it back when he reunites with her--as opposed to finding his humanity on his own, without the need of a female proxy. There's still that overarching sense that full humanity is a weakness, and real men only experience it through their relationships with women, thus allowing the women to be weak so they don't have to. One can only get so nuanced while still in the classic One Dimensional Alpha Male construct.

I don't want any of this to be an indictment on Daniels's performance, because it's not his fault the movie had inconsistencies, nor that it thought making him into a jerk that called his young son a "cry baby" would somehow work in an action movie. What I saw as a complete missed opportunity here was the thing they tried to tap into, but never quite got there on, and that was his sense of competitiveness combined with age. A lot of these action stars, Daniels included, had a life before movies as a professional sport fighter, and all of them have that competitiveness in them; but because most of them play former special forces agents, we never see that aspect explored, even though I'm sure they feel it as actors as much as they would if they were still competing. That was the part of Daniels's performance here that felt authentic, and unfortunately that was ruined by the jerk aspect. That's too bad, because I think if we had had more Lionheart, Daniels would've nailed it out of the park, and it would've been nice to see. Oh, and as an aside, he channels his inner Jean-Claude Van Damme in one scene with his training montage split. No bare buttcheeks though.

There was no doubt in Weller as a baddie, though his baddie character had it's moments of inconsistency as well. He kind of just rolled off the rails near the end, but Weller's so entertaining that it's still fun. His yelling is the best. No one yells like Weller does. He's also great at being disillusioned, which is an underrated baddie trait. I wonder how much of what he says in this is ad libbed, and how much was written. Some of the lines made no sense, and some of them, while still making no sense, sounded great because he was saying them. You can never have enough Peter Weller, that's a great rule to live by.

SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!
Back to the brother. After healing at Daniels's place while Daniels is out there fighting for him and turning into a jerk, the brother is kicked out by Daniels in a fit of jerkiness, and then goes to Peter Weller to see if he can settle things with him and let Daniels off the hook. Weller shoots and kills him. What? What was the point of having the brother throughout this whole thing if you're just going to kill him off anyway? Just kill him off to start with then. I don't understand what you're trying to do with him. Again, Lionheart was the way to go with this: kill brother off, have Daniels fight for brother's wife and kid, make Daniels a loner, add in aging athlete aspect. I don't see how hard any of this is.
END SPOILER!!! END SPOILER!!! END SPOILER!!!

This one is a disappointment, because it could've been so much, but ends up missing and missing in ways that ultimately doom it. That's too bad, because we had a great Weller, and a potential for the best acting Daniels we've ever seen. A message to all of you potential action film writers out there: don't make your lead hero a jerk who's verbally abusive to his young son.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1884312/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Dragon Eyes (2012)

This was one of the films I was looking forward to checking out once I added the DVD feature back to my Netflix account.  The cover looked pretty sweet with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Cung Le, and I knew from Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning that John Hyams could direct an action flick.  I just wanted to see these guys get after it. Also, our friend at The Video Vacuum did this one too, so you can go there to see what he thinks.

Dragon Eyes has a Yojimbo paradigm, with Cung Le as our hero going into the town of St. Jude, which is overrun by two gangs, whom he tries to pit against each other.  But then there's Peter Weller and his corrupt police force that is making money off the two gangs.  Then there's a Russian gang that wants to step in and pick up the pieces after Le takes down the other two.  Then there's scarecrow's brain.  Oh yeah, and Van Damme is barely in it, playing Le's mentor and martial arts trainer in jail.



I didn't care for this.  It had too many moving parts, too few fight scenes, and while some of the fights were good, others left a good amount to be desired.  I mean, we have one where Le takes on three or four guys and handles them pretty well, and then another where a guy who weighs like 140 pounds soaking wet gets into a mini They Live style fight with Le that destroys his apartment.  How does that make any sense?  And this whole thing with the police force and the Russian gang was too much.  Yojimbo is a very simple structure, and we've seen it done well so many times-- like in the original Django-- and I thought from the way it was starting that this is what we had going on; but then it spiraled out of control, and by the time we hit the 80 minute mark, the writer/s were scrambling to wrap things up, so we had an ending that was as abrupt as the rest of it was unwieldy.  Overall, a disappointment.

We haven't done a flick from DTVC Hall of Famer Peter Weller in almost three years and over 350 posts, back when we celebrated our 500th and 501st with RoboCop and RoboCop 2.  He was fantastic in this, one of the few bright points in the film.  Over the top, equal parts sinister and clown, all that you'd want in a great action baddie.  In fact, the film was suffering from a lack of anything happening for about twenty minutes or so, and he comes in and saves it from that.  Unfortunately he was just keeping the film's head above water, and he could only do that for so long.



I have no idea what was going in with Jean-Claude Van Damme here.  Really?  The wise prison mentor?  What, James Hong wasn't available?  Seriously, he's too young for that, the wise mentor.  He's still plenty young enough to have played Le's part.  It just made the whole thing weird.  Not to mention, we have the immense bait-and-switch from the fact that the cover is selling us this awesome actionfest starring Van Damme, Le, and directed by Hyams.  To fire the movie up and get this, I don't know, it's like seeing some gimmicky "Seen on TV" thing that looks pretty sweet in the commercials, but you buy it, and it doesn't work.  I guess I was ripped off again, huh?  I'm really beginning to wonder if I can't go to the Better Business Bureau about these bait-and-switches in these DTV action movies.  I mean, seriously, was there anything on that cover that says "Van Damme as the wise prison mentor"?  I checked the Netflix description, and I saw nothing of the sort.

That isn't to take anything away from Cung Le, he was a very capable hero, and I think with a better story that wasn't so all over the place, he would've excelled.  He had this great scene at the very beginning, where he goes to his car, and this local thug puts his hand on it, and Le says "Don't ever touch the car", and then a great fight ensues-- which had me thinking this was going to be that awesomefest, only to see the action diminish to nil for the next twenty minutes.  I also think the amount of hits his character took was a great disservice to him as a hero.  I go back to that one with the guy who was barely 140 pounds.  He should destroy that guy, and it was a total back and forth.  And he has this big showdown with the two gangs early on, and while he has some great fights with them, there's also this weird construct where some of the guys he fought in the first scene are now fighting for him, like he hypnotized them or something.  Le was good, the movie was weird.



As I said above, we know from Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning what Hyams brings to the table, and I can't blame him for the story when he isn't listed with the screenplay credit-- and really, when you consider this is available new from Amazon for $5.97 already, this whole thing could've been sauteed in wrong sauce and we have no idea who to blame.  One thing that annoyed me, and I feel like this is a Hyams call, was this constant need to freeze the film, make it a different color, and tell us who we were seeing on-screen, as if it told us anything at all.  All that does is destroy the rhythm of the film.  Telling us who someone is without any context or background whatsoever is a waste of time, and also a sign of weak writing.  Characters introduce themselves organically through their actions.  Do we need a freeze screen and Peter Weller's character name?  Why, when all it is is his name.  What's important to us is what he does, that's when he reveals himself to us, not through some gimmicky intro shot.  And there were so many of them, it go to a point when I was like "Oh, it's an old man painting a wall, where's the freeze frame?  Who is he?"

This has some decent fights, some decent action, but for me that is overshadowed by a story that can't stop itself, a weird construct that had Van Damme as the wise prison mentor, and an ending that just felt like "we need to end this now, it's gone on too long."  Not to mention, while some of the fights were good, others made no sense.  That's too bad, because Weller and Le were really good.  Also too bad, because it's really cheap new.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735862/

RoboCop 2 (1990)

In continuing our celebration of the DTVC's 500th post, we're looking at RoboCop 2, the bigger budget sequel to the Paul Verhoeven classic. Verhoeven didn't direct this one, and Ed Neumeier also stepped aside as co-writer, with that duty being taken by Frank Miller.

RoboCop 2 picks up where part one leaves off. Peter Weller is our hero again, and he's starting to have more flashbacks to his former life, and is longing for his humanity. At the same time OCP is looking for the next better RoboCop so they won't have to use the Weller version, and they have their chance when RoboCop is blown apart by a gang manufacturing the narcotic NUKE. At the same time, OCP is looking to take over the city after they've defaulted on their debt because OCP runs their police force. To keep the mayor from getting funds elsewhere, OCP has sent their new creation, RoboCop version 2.0 into stop him. Problem with the new RoboCop: the crazy psychologist OCP has on their payroll decided the psychotic leader of the NUKE gang RoboCop took down would make the perfect brain for the machine. Man, RoboCop has really got his work cut out for himself how, huh?



This one was good, but nowhere near as groundbreaking as it's predecessor. That was probably to be expected, especially since to my mind RoboCop was a very complete movie, leaving very little behind for a sequel to be made with. I do like questions about what drugs are good and what drugs are bad, and the validity of Reagan's War on Drugs; and the idea that governments and corporations need to be as separate as the branches of government do, otherwise we could be in for problems. Overall, it wasn't bad. Sure, tons of violence, but done in a very satirical way, similar to the first one, just not quite as good.

One of the best concepts was the overly PC RoboCop who had too many directives to be able to function properly. This was a very Team America approach about 15 years ahead of schedule, the way they made fun of both the right and the left. It's funny that a film as over the top as RoboCop 2 would have as its ultimate message that we need to practice a little moderation. What's more amazing is how relevant the message is today, especially with the no government no taxes Tea Baggers. I remember seeing a sign someone made as a joke to hold up at one of the rallies that read: "I hate government, I hate taxes, I'm moving to Somalia." The truth is, no government and no taxes would probably lead us more down the road of OCP than it would Somalia-- or rather the lawlessness of RoboCop's Detroit-- but neither is a welcome sight. But too much government can be a bad thing too, and though this film replaces government fascists with corporate ones, the historical alternative can be a bad one too. (I also think the overly PC RoboCop was poking fun at the first film's critics who said it was too violent.)



This would be the last RoboCop film Peter Weller would star in, having a conflict that prevented him from acting in part 3. It's an interesting question, whether or not he made a good or bad choice to stay on and do this one. I'm not sure about that, but what I do know is if he hadn't been in it, it would've been a lot worse. He's just a great professional actor, which I'm sure everyone's familiar with being that he's a DTVC Hall of Famer. Other than Buckeroo Bonzai, and probably more than Buckeroo Bonzai, this is his best known role. I think it was good, no matter how much of a step down this one might have been, for him to play the part again. As a side note, Patricia Charbonneau was in this as a scientist who works on Weller. You may remember her from Shakedown, another Weller picture that came out in 1988.

According to the trivia section for RoboCop 2's imdb entry, Paul Verhoeven was approached about a sequel, and he was for it, but wanted to wait for the right script, and give it some time so a sequel wouldn't look like a cash grab. Orion disagreed, and they called in Miller, whose script was unfilmable, forcing them to rewrite it. Verhoeven said had he been given time, what he had in mind would've been much better than what we got.



I included a picture from the scene where the Little League team robs an electronics store and brutally beats the owner. I did this from my own personal memories. I don't remember what talk show it was at the time, Donahue or Geraldo, but one of them did a show on violence in movies, and a woman they had as one of the guests was freaking out about that scene. For her that was the lowest of the low. Maybe at 11 (which was how old I was when RoboCop 2 came out), I would think the same way she did, but as an adult, I can't see how she didn't see the humor in it. Obviously it was meant as a satire of all the complaints people were making about how violence was ruining our youth, essentially making fun of her as well; but the key to the scene is the coach loading the stuff onto the truck. He's the ring leader, and also the adult figure that's really influencing kids. What they were saying is, it's the adults closest to kids that determine what their behavior will be like as adults more than anything else.

If you liked the first one (and I loved it), this is a pretty fun time. Again, it's nowhere near what the first one was, but few films are, and viewed within the context of the first one, it's actually a little better than most people were giving it credit. A little.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100502/

RoboCop (1987)

We've hit a major milestone here at the Direct to Video Connoisseur. This is our 500th post. That's right, just over three years ago I started a blog so I could share my love of movies, in particular Direct to Video movies, with like and notso-like minded individuals, and now here I am, after various starts and stops, from almost no one reading it to a little more than no one reading it, posting four times a week, and meeting and conversing with people from all over the world. To celebrate this milestone, I wanted to review one of my all time favorites. I also wanted to review something that all of you would like as well. Something that encapsulates what the DTVC is about. Sure, I love Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but how appropriate would those be? That's when it hit me, one of the greatest action, sci-fi, comedy, and existentialist films of all time, RoboCop. What movie fits what we do better than the Paul Verhoeven classic? It's perfect.

RoboCop takes place in Detroit in the near future. Crime is at an all time high, and the corporate world thinks it has the solution, as proposed by one Miguel Ferrer. They just need an unfortunate volunteer, and that comes when Officer Murphy, played by Peter Weller, is brutally murdered by a vicious gang of thugs, led by the dad from That 70's Show. Ferrer's scientists turn him into an indestructible crime fighting robot, and send him out onto the streets to much success. But there are some that aren't happy about this. Ferrer's superior is unhappy that RoboCop has upstaged his invention, ED-209, and he sends the dad from That 70's Show to kill him. RoboCop also remembers from his former life that the dad from That 70's Show killed his former self, and he goes after him, which leads him to Ferrer's boss. Will he be able to stop both, or will they shut him off before he gets his chance?



Where to start. I guess I'll start with why I like it so much, and move from there. I was 9 when I saw it on HBO at a friend's house a year after it came out. It was a frightening, yet extremely awesome movie. The way Murphy is killed was just so extreme, and the violence everywhere else was just so hardcore, that it really freaked me out. What I didn't realize was I was watching an edited version so the film could avoid an X rating. Still, the action was great, and RoboCop was such a cool hero in a very comic book like way. But RoboCop was a movie I would come back to frequently, and as I matured I saw the humor in it, saw the social commentary, and understood how great Ferrer and Weller's performances were. Then I saw the un-cut version and it all made sense. Cutting the over-the-top violence made it too realistic, which wasn't what RoboCop was going for. This needed to be ridiculous throughout, in everything from the dialog to the violence. Editing out the gore actually makes it scarier.

Of course when I say ridiculous I mean in a satirical sense. This wasn't mocking violence in society, it was mocking society for being violent, yet abhorring and blaming violence in films. It was mocking a society where so much money is made on violence, where violence is so ingrained in our culture, yet we blame movies and other media when society becomes violent as a result. Think of Ronny Cox's character confronting Miguel Ferrer in the bathroom, telling him how RoboCop kept him from selling his ED-209 units to the military. Remember what he says? "Who cares if it worked or not?", meaning the government will pay anything for new military equipment, and probably won't ever use it. It's more than just the Military Industrial Complex, though. The news reports killings (especially at that time and for a few years after) all the time, perpetuating a culture of fear and violence. And look at all those Second Amendment honks and Tea Baggers rocking guns in anti-Obama rallies. What RoboCop was trying to do was show the Beast what it looked like in the mirror, and for that the MPAA freaked out.



For the first time, in watching the film again for this review, I turned on the audio commentary track. Also I should mention that I have the out of print Criterion Collection version. I don't know if some of the newer versions are better, but they could be worth checking out. Anyway, the commentary was from Verhoeven, co-writer Edward Neumeier, executive producer Jon Davison, and RobocCop expert Paul M. Sammon. It's really cool and provides much more insight into why things were a certain way. Verhoeven, for instance, describes what it was like growing up in Nazi occupied Den Haag, between the Allied bombings and German soldiers killing locals. He said that violence influenced a lot of what he did later in life, espcially in this film. Then Neumeier described how he wanted a lot of US in Vietnam in the film, which was why ED-209 (named after him) looked like a gun boat, and why the doctor bringing ED-209 in was named McNamara. As I go on, I'll mention other things they added.

Then there's DTVC Hall of Famer Peter Weller. You may notice that I often extol the virtues of actors who play it straight in tongue and cheek films like this, and how much I don't like when other actors give us too much of the old wink-wink nudge-nudge to the camera, ruining the tone of the film. In the commentary, the people involved with making the film said the same thing: Weller made the picture great by playing it straight. And he didn't just play it straight, he made it his. He embellished it with his own movements and gestures. Without him going for it, RoboCop would've just been a man in a suit, and if we don't buy that, we miss everything else. Amazing role by an amazing actor.



One thing I always had trouble with was how geeky the That 70's Show dad looked as the baddie in this film. Bad guys were always more like Hans Gruber as far as I could tell. In the commentary, I found out why this was. Verhoeven wanted him to look like Heinrich Himmler, the man who he thought was the ultimate baddie. Another thing he mentioned was that the dad from That 70's Show is a really nice guy in real life, and it's really nice guys who tend to make the best bad guys in movies. What does that say about Bruce Payne or Julian Sands then? (Oh, and before anyone comments and tells me what the guy's real name is: Kurtwood Smith.)

One of my all time favorite actors has always been Miguel Ferrer, and this of course is one of his best roles. I couldn't remember who said it in the commentary, but the goal was to make Ferrer such a dork that the scene where the dad from That 70's Show blows him up is supposed to be something we're rooting for, and he was surprised that that wasn't the case. I think in the writer's mind he was the classic Yuppy jackass, but to us he also created RoboCop, our hero, and he opposed Ronny Cox, the real baddie. Plus Ferrer was so cool, why would we want him to die?



I've always seen the Frankenstein metaphors in RoboCop, but for some reason the Beauty and the Beast ones escaped me until the commentary, which is crazy, because it's so obvious in the scene where Weller takes off his RoboCop helmet and looks into the distorted mirror. Another one that I didn't pick up on came right after, when Nancy Allen is guiding Weller's hand as he aims at the baby food jars. That's the movie's one love scene, and they're shooting the baby food jars to show us the kids they can't have.



I found out that there was a scene where RoboCop visits Murphy's grave that was cut, and it was cut because Verhoeven wanted to keep with the theme of the pervasiveness of technology, and have a computer tell him Murphy's dead. That scene has always worked so well, I never even questioned it. Had they gone with a graveyard scene, it would've seemed out of place, and I think the Paradise Lost scene where RoboCop goes back to his home was out of place enough.



Finally, I just needed to show the NUKEM board game. How fantastic is that? But it makes perfect sense, if you're going to up the violence, why not up the ante in one of the more violent board games ever too. We never think of it like that though, do we? "You sunk my battleship!" "You sunk a boat full of sailors!" "You killed hundreds of people!" But it didn't do it in a way that was preachy, it did it in a way that was hilarious, and just made us think about what the games we played meant.

All right, it's time to wrap this up. I figured I'd go a little longer than usual because this is number 500, so thank for indulging me. Also thank you to everyone who's supported us here, because without you, I'm not sure there'd be a 100 or 200, let alone a 500 and counting over three years and counting. It's been a fun ride so far, and I can't wait to see what we do in the future. As far as RoboCop goes, I'm sure any of the recent DVD versions of it are fine, just make sure you get the unrated director's cut, not the R rated version, because you're missing a lot. Though the Criterion Version is out of print, if you keep your eye out, you should still be able to get it used for like $20, which I think is a great deal.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/

Of Unknown Origin (1983)

An old roommate and friend who was also a huge Weller fan first came across this. He said it was pretty hilarious, and I needed to see it. So I checked out his copy from his DVD library. He and I had an extensive DVD collection, and it was kind of too bad when we parted ways that half of those films went with him. Ah, c'est la vie.

Of Unknown Origin has Weller as an early 80s businessman quickly making his way up the corporate ladder. He has a hot wife and a nice kid, and he's just bought and renovated a house in New York City. When his family goes away, he finds himself alone in the house with an uninvited guest: a nasty rat. What follows is a study on obsession and Man's struggle with the animal world. He slowly sinks into insanity as he tries everything to remove the vermin from his dwelling.



This was an interesting film. In my mind, there wasn't enough material for a full 90 minute movie: it was probably better as a 22 minute Tales from the Crypt episode. That being said, there were some funny parts with Weller. In one scene, he tries to kill the rat, and ends up in his pantry with a sack of flour or whatever falling on his head. Little moments like that made things bearable, but only so much. The ADD kicks in around the 45 minute mark, and it's all down hill from there.

Weller is great in this, but is that saying much? He's great in everything, so it's no surprise. The film is almost a one-man Weller show, which is cute, but I'd rather have some variety. Say twenty minutes of Weller dealing with the rat, then twenty minutes of Weller as a hobo with badly sprayed on five o'clock shadow, then maybe him in jail, then remaking Animal Crackers with some other members of the DTVC Hall of Fame. Now that's a movie.



This is Shannon Tweed's first film, or at least the first one where she receives a starring role. She's had a pretty decent direct to video career, and it's interesting that this is only the second film of hers that I've reviewed, the other being Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. In this one, she's not in it much, mostly either calling Weller from her parents' house where she's vacationing or having sex with him. I guess it's not a bad start, but I'm wondering if she saw her career moving towards Night Eyes Three or Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure. Does anyone plan for a career like that? And if not, does one ever except that fate and decide to enjoy it? Dolph Lundgren, maybe.

While we're on the subject of rats, I must mention the film Ratatouille. I know the en vogue thing is for adults to like these Pixar animated features, and tell people like me how much I should enjoy them and how many of the jokes are meant for adults, and I think that's great. Finding Nemo was funny when I was baked (back when I did that kind of thing), and not so much when I was sober. Cars, which I've seen in parts myriad times through all my friends' children, made me uneasy, because the cars had eyes that were like all whites with small irises and whatnot, and that just looked gross. Anyway, the one I refused to see was Ratatouille, because the idea of a rat cooking is just disgusting. My friend tried to explain that the whole point was that you can be what you want in life, even if the odds are stacked against you. Fine, but I don't want rats in any kitchen that's serving me food. Blah!



Corporate America in the 1980s seemed like the coolest place ever. I know Black Monday and the recession of the late 80s early 90s kind of ended that lifestyle, but I find myself nostalgic for it. I don't know, the music, the cars, the suits, the coke: it's all very alluring. This film is supposed to be the deconstruction of that man into his basest parts, and I guess that's cool; but I felt like something was slipping through my fingers as the movie devolved from the fast world of '83 high stakes business into one man's struggle against The Wild and his own sanity. I could've done with 90 minutes of Weller partying and engineering hostile takeovers while his wife was out of town much more than his war with the rat.

This is a No Go for me. Just not enough material to keep anyone interested long enough. If you and your friends try this for a bad movie night, make sure you have a back-up, because you might be bored. There are some great Weller scenes, so if you're an aficionado you might appreciate it. Otherwise, avoid it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086036/

Prey (2007)

I must confess, I hadn't been keeping up with Peter Weller's current acting career as well as I should have. Between his stints on the History Channel and re-watching some of his old classics like Robocop and The Naked Lunch, and the fact that The Hard Easy was something of a disappointment, I guess I just fell behind. When I typed his name into my Netflix search engine, this film popped up, and I figured I'd give it a shot.

Prey is about a family traveling in Africa. Peter Weller is the dad, and he's trying to bond his new, young wife, Bridget Moynahan, and his two kids, a teenage daughter and younger son. The daughter doesn't like the wife, and blames her for her parents' break up. Naturally, a vacation to a secluded part of Africa is just what the doctor ordered. Anyway, Weller goes to look at some dam on business while his wife and two kids go on a day safari. Their guide is eaten by lions while trying to take the son out to the bush to take a dump. Weller finds some expert hunter/tracker to help find his family because the park rangers are inept (they always are in movies). It's up to Moynahan to hold down the fort and not get eaten before they can find her and the kids.



This was horrible. I was rooting for the lions. The plot was fairly ridiculous, with Moynahan being pretty much a waste-of-space besides her beauty, but somehow has the ability to devise this elaborate scheme to blow up the head lion in a car and come away from the explosion unscathed. She didn't even have the wherewithal to drive the safari vehicle after the guide died, making their plight worse when she crashed it into a ditch. But now she's the hero? It was like a bad Lifetime movie. Not even that, the guide's killed in the first twenty minutes. The script writers stretch out twenty more minutes of story to make it last over an hour. It hurt.

Weller wasn't in this enough, and when he was, he was cool, but didn't fit. He was too cool for the character he was playing. The father was supposed to be naive enough to take his family on a trip to Africa when he knew they weren't getting along, and then be dumb enough to let them go on a safari without researching first to see what kind of contingencies were in place should something go wrong. The reality is the no-nonsense Peter Weller we've grown to know and love didn't jive here. We needed a Brian Benben playing the role of the dad, not our resident DTVC Hall of Famer.



I didn't know Bridget Moynahan was as old as she is. She just turned 37. That makes her like five or six years older than Tom Brady, when I thought they were the same age. I believe in this film she's supposed to be playing someone younger, and she can definitely pull that off. I'm not sure how she went from I, Robot and Art of War to this near-Lifetime movie, but I could see her coming up with ways to kill her agent in her head as she recited the crummy script on screen.

I think the organization for international park rangers needs a better PR person. I can't recall how many films I've seen like this where inept park rangers wander around the wilderness while some crack guide who lives in a shack swoops in and saves the day. Now, mind you, there are films where the park ranger is on the ball, but not many. I can't exactly say I blame these film makers, though. I've had one bad experience where a park ranger threw me and my friends out of our local state park because I was smoking a cigar. He said: "That better not be a joint!" to which my friend said "And those better not be ranger issue shorts you're wearing." Maybe the whole park ranger system needs a complete image overhaul. They can't all be douchebags.



This film employed a plot device that I've always found hard to swallow: the one where everyone who helps the protagonists gets killed. It was just weird how everyone's going out of their way to save these four rich Americans, and they all die. The only people who lived were the ones smart enough to stay behind and man the radio, and it's possible they were killed too, and the scenes were just cut out of the final edit. I'm not sure if the film makers were sending a message about how reckless we Americans live our lives and how it affects the rest of the world, but if so, that's worse than lazy script writing. First, there's nothing more annoying than being preached to by people dumb enough to make a bad movie. Second, most Americans, like myself, don't have the kind of scratch available to go to Africa, so the film's preaching to a small segment of the population that probably wouldn't watch this anyway. Whatever.

Steer clear of this. Don't even consider it. The only reason to put yourself through it is if you feel you've committed a grave sin, and are looking for some form of penance. The Weller factor will soften the blow some, but not enough for it not to put a serious scar on your soul. And the worthless plot that goes on forever makes it impossible to screen on a bad movie night, because your friends' ADD will kick in so bad they might actually leave. Good for them.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468536/

The Hard Easy (2005)

I, like most people, rent my movies based on their potential. Who's in it? Who directed it? What did so-and-so say about it? In the case of this film, it seemed to be oozing with potential. Sure, the cover listed a bunch of actors I have no time for like Nick Lachey or David Blahblahblah from Angel; but it also listed two DTVC Hall of Famers in Peter Weller and Gary Busey. Now that's potential.

The Hard Easy is a 90 minute film consisting of 50 minutes of fade-outs. When it's not fading out, the plot involves David Blahblahblah and the guy from ET (who was also in Psycho IV) as two fellas from two totally different situations who need cash bad. The guy from ET has mad gambling debts, so his friend Gary Busey hooks him up with the not-as-cool-as-the-movie-makes-him-out-to-be Bruce Dern, who, with the chick from The Departed, are planning a jewel heist. David Blahblahblah works with Nick Lachey, and his boss Peter Weller has gotten them all in hot water with some junk bonds or whatever. You guessed it: P Dubs has also planned a diamond heist, and it's at the same diamond shop the guy from ET's hitting. They're on a collision course to wackiness.



This film had two things going for it: Busey and Weller. That's it. Whenever the two of them are on screen (and they're never on together, unfortunately), they hoist the film on their shoulders and carry it to a level beyond what the poor film makers could possibly hope to achieve with this complete and utter lack of imagination and creativity they're calling a movie. After Busey and P Dubs, this is simply a low-rent Tarentino knock-off.

And even worse, Busey wasn't in it much. It's one thing to make a movie bad, it's another to go light on the Abuse. If I see the name Gary Busey on the cover, I want it to be as Abusive as possible. Hit me with it, damn it. Haven't these people ever seen Point Break? The worst irony of this movie is that the film makers probably think they're above a classic like Point Break, and they're wrong, so wrong.



Peter Weller is sweet in this, but his character becomes a monster that's just too big for the amateurs who made this sack-of-asscrack to handle. His death is a totally played-up-for-laughs yet very unfunny scene where he loads up his weapons in a stand-off, gets ready to go out guns blazing, and is felled with a single shot in the heart by a police officer. It was a travesty that they'd kill off Weller's character like that, after all he did to elevate their fried shite of a film to something resembling respectability. The best thing these people could've done was see the movie Styx. Those people knew what to do with a too sweet Weller character.

The overuse of the fade out gave me a headache. Nothing spells amateur like not being able to transition from one scene to the next. I'd expect something like that from a horrible Star Trek movie some Finnish kids put up on YouTube that my friends might make me watch; but from film makers that were able to cast Busey and Weller, it's just unacceptable. My friends and I got bored saying "Next week on The Hard Easy" or "When The Hard Easy returns", which is kind of a tradition whenever a film employs a fade-out.



I don't get Bruce Dern in this. He was great in The 'burbs, but here we're supposed to believe he's some kind of criminal mastermind that's hardcore and really cool. He'll kill you if he gets the chance or something. Even worse, we're supposed to buy that he's anywhere near as cool as a Weller, when he's not even in the ballpark. My favorite scene is where Busey's telling the guy from ET about him, and he recalls some heist Dern pulls off dressed in clown clothes. I think the clown part is supposed to be funny and irreverent, but instead it's overused and cliched. The funny thing for me was how Bruce Dern kills his partners in the heist. Who does that? This happens again and again in movies, where the bad guy kills the people he does business with. Why do people keep working with him? And if this film's supposed to be so smart and different, why do they fall back on the same bad movie plot devices?

This is almost worth renting if you're as huge a Petter Weller guy as I am. If you cut out his death scene, it's sweet. On the other hand, you have to sit through another crummy Tarentino knock off that spends as much time as possible telling you how smart it is, when in reality, it's dumber than BloodRayne. If you're not a Weller guy, don't even consider this sack-of-asscrack.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425087/

Poseidon Adventure (2005)

During the DTVC's recent poll, I got some complaints from C. Thomas Howell's people that, while we were featuring films by Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Steven Seagal, we didn't do any of CTH's. They felt this unnecessarily biased the results against their boy. Unfortunately, with the DTVC's unplanned hiatus, we were unable to get this film up, which would've at least been one for him. Unfortunately we can't change the past.

The 2005 version of The Poseidon Adventure is a TV movie romp meant mainly to scare Americans into being jingoistic and xenophobic. The only four non-whites on a cruise liner piloted by Peter Weller have planted bombs on it, one of which detonates, causing the ship to capsize. A few passengers and crew members, led by Adam Baldwin, an officer for Homeland Security, and Rutger Hauer, a nomadic priest, band together to uphold the virtues of God-fearing white America. They succeed in only saving themselves. This also has Steve Guttenberg and Bryan Brown. Oh yeah, and C. Thomas Howell plays a dreamy doctor.



I was disturbed by this movie. A large portion of it was the lack of imagination. You'd get more creativity if you asked a group of 5th graders to write an adventure story about the world's recent struggles against the scourge of terrorism. Why anyone was involved in this project was beyond me.

That includes Rutger Hauer and Peter Weller. Guys, we expect more. Weller is unceremoniously dumped early in when a terrorist shoots him in the back. What a waste. Hauer survives as the priest, but at what cost? Definitely his dignity. At least in Hunt For Eagle One he was visibly phoning it in. Here, he seems to be putting in some effort, and the more effort, the less I respect him.



Guttenberg hurt. He works in Police Academy, or Short Circuit, or even Three Men and a Little Something-or-Other, but here he plays a troubled author who has an affair, but through the tragedy rediscovers his love for his family. Guttenberg doesn't do troubled well at all, considering he was barely that great goofy and irreverent. I liked him best as the cardboard cut-out in El Debarge's "Who is Johnny?" video.

One scene troubled me the most, and when I saw it coming, I told my friends I would hate this movie forever for it. For some God awful reason the film goes from being over, to inventing some convoluted reason why it's not, and makes the survivors traverse some flaming pit. This gives the holier-than-thou writers the chance to kill off it's two remaining "Evil Doers" in a fiery pit of hell. The two Evil Doers: the one terrorist Adam Baldwin didn't kill, and the Jezebel that seduced Guttenberg away from his wife. When the women went, so did the remaining vestiges of this film's credibility.



Finally, I must discuss the C. Thomas Howell factor. There was none. He was barely in the film, and what there was of him, he was presented to us as a dreamy hunk of a doctor. Poll or no poll, I believe poor CTH's bid for a spot in the coveted DTVC Hall of Fame may be held up another year. I feel bad, because if we'd seen Side Out a month ago, and this ten years ago, he'd probably be in. But it's a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately kind of world, and with this film, you ain't done much. See you next October, C. Tommy baby.

I'm not sure what else I can say. Avoid this film at all costs. Maybe, just maybe, use it as a modern day example of the kind of Red Scare films from the Cold War, like Rocket Attack U.S.A. or Red Dawn; and only use it for an example if you're doing a project for a class on film history dealing with the subject of monolithic scare films.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419358/

Styx (2001)

One of the reasons I have become a connoisseur of bad cinema is my constant inability to fall asleep at a decent hour. This is especially true when I'm crashing at another person's place. One time in particular, I was using a friend's couch, and decided to turn his TV on to the digital cable station that plays all 80s music in order to aid my slumber. The last song I remember that night was Styx's : "The Best of Times", and subsequently the song was in my head for two weeks straight. I thought I was over it, until I saw this movie at my local video store. Though I was happy I'd found another DTVC Hall of Famer Peter Weller film, I was dismayed that I would have to endure another week or two of that song in my head.

Styx has nothing to do with the aforementioned band, but rather the river, which I'm assuming the band named themselves after too, at least in some way. Anyway, Peter Weller plays a safe cracker, who with Cocktail and FX's Brian Brown and the guy who played Bobby the Bruce in Braveheart, plans a huge bank heist. It all goes wrong when one of their lesser accomplices is high on coke and botches the plan, leaving Weller and the Braveheart guy narrowly escaping an explosion in the ambulance they drove. Brown, surprising no one, survived as well. Robert the Bruce gets into it big with a loan shark, Eddie Tapioca, and he and Weller have to do one more heist with Brown. There's plenty of double and triple and quadruple crosses, none of which matters. We're watching this for Weller, not the plot.



The Weller is fantastic. This is probably the highest quality Weller that didn't make it's way into mainstream cinema (I consider Buckeroo Bonzai to be mainstream, but maybe I'm wrong). His one liners and facial expressions are so perfect. Every scene he's in is fantastic. I'm not sure how many of the one-liners were his or the product of the script, but I'm certain that either way the delivery was all him. I found myself constantly doing the Tiger Woods "I just hit a birdie putt on the 18th to seal another major" pump fist in response to something Weller did. This was the '68 Bordeaux of bad action performances.

I did a review earlier of a C. Thomas Howell film called War of the Worlds which smashed the myth that Australians just by being in a movie are awesome, because that film's Australian was annoying. Well, this film was definitely not an exception like the Howell movie, because Bryan Brown was the man solely on the merits of his Australianess. In one scene he responds to a Weller query with "absa-fuckin'-lutely". Even better, at the beginning, after they're trying to escape the botched heist, Brown is beating the guy who screwed things up. It's one of the best beatings in a movie ever, especially in the way it seemed Brown would mix in more beatings in the middle of things like taking off his coat or asking how they were going to get away.

These two performances were extremely necessary, because this was a wafer thin plot mining material that's been way over used. You can only double cross characters so much before it's just hack writing. You could see Weller and Brown hoist this fucker onto the roof of a late 50s model Cadillac and carry it from start to finish with impeccable style. Robert the Bruce wasn't bad either.



Robert the Bruce's gambling addiction was probably the only thing handled with style by the writers. First, there was an amazing five-card draw game, which is a rarity in films now after the meteoric rise in popularity of Texas Hold 'Em. After the game, The Bruce was confronted by a loan shark, beautifully named Eddie Tapioca. I get the sense that the immense creativity of the beginning of the film couldn't last to the end, and that's why the writing was so bad the further you got in. But these early gambling scenes were solid.

When you see this film on the rack of your video store, or listed in your program guide, you have to ask yourself one question: how much do I like Peter Weller. For me, the answer's obvious, and if it's obvious for you too, get your hands on this at all costs. Who cares how bad and unoriginal the plot is? This is vintage: Weller, maybe the best of all the films of his I've reviewed on this site.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250756/

Shakedown (1988)

My buddy scooped this at a used video store a few years ago. The moment we saw it, we knew we had an instant classic on our hands. The following weekend I took it with me to Bangor to show my buddies up there, and they were as enamored with it as we were.

Shakedown features DTVC Hall of Famer Peter Weller as a Legal Aid attorney who has a client that's been framed for murder. He has a buddy on the force, played by Sam Elliott, and they surmise that there are some crooked cops doing some crooked things that don't want P Dubs and Elliott snooping around. At the same time, the prosecutor trying Pete's defendant is a former flame, and the two rekindle their romance, despite Weller's pending engagement to another woman. After some crazy action, things get hairy, but finally our heroes are able to prevail. Oh yeah, and there's a tribute to Dr. Strangelove at the very end.

The Dr. Strangelove thing comes when Elliott, trying to keep the cops from escaping, gets on their plane, sits on the wheel before its pulled in, and throws a grenade in it while it's flying. The shot looks just like the end of Strangelove, when the dude is riding the A-bomb. I also think it was an inspiration to Jerry Bruckheimer and the people who make the XXX movies on how absurdly an action movie can blur the line between what's plausible and what's downright ludicrous.

This film features one of the all time greatest movie scenes. Weller, while cheating on his fiancee with his old flame, is debating coming clean. He's fallen for the old flame, and wants to leave his current woman, but can't quite find the words. The old flame tries to brow beat him, and Weller's response is a speech to end all speeches. I won't write down the whole thing, but I'll give you some quotes. "Is this going to be some kind of female territorial doo-wop?" "...because it's kickin' the life outta me, see?" "Why do you think it's some god damned manifest destiny for me to pickin' shit with the chickens the rest of my life?" Not only are these lines too sweet, but they're compounded in their glory by Weller's in ability to properly remember them, and the director's decision, not to reshoot the scene, but to just go with it with all of Weller's mistakes evident. I love it so much.

Another favorite is Weller's cab ride to the court to get a tape to the judge that will exonerate his client. The cops are trying to keep him from doing that, so the cabbie is speeding recklessly down the road. At the courthouse steps, the car gets caught on a crane hook, and the crane lifts it over the blockade of cop cars. Weller's face during this crane ride is priceless. We had to watch it multiple times and play it in slo-mo.

This movie is so worth your time. Don't hesitate if you see it at the store. $5 is a good price, and I'd snatch it up for that. This film should be in everyone's video collection.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096087/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Top of the World (1997)

I don't remember how I first got wind of this gem. It could've been in an IMDb search of Peter Weller. A buddy may have told me. It could've been the Tia Carrere factor. I'm just not sure. What I am sure of is I'm glad I went onto Amazon and snatched this classic up.

Top of the World is a Die Hard ripoff that takes place in a casino and has Peter Weller as the hero. Dennis Hopper owns the casino, with Joe Pantoliano as his right hand man, and Peter Coyote as the mob boss who funds him. Then there's Tia Carrere who plays Weller's ex-wife (Weller was framed and put in jail when he ratted out crooked cops), yet she's dating Hopper. Then Martin Kove and some bad guys come in and take the place over to rob it. That means Cary Tagawa and his swat team storm in to take them. But Hopper won't let them, because he's in on the cash grab. Oh yeah, and David Allen Grier is already at the casino as a cop investigating a suicide, and he's the only one who believes Weller's innocent. Oh, I forgot to mention everyone thinks Weller's in on the robbery.

The star power alone makes this film so memorable. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. How can you go wrong? Who cares if it's Die Hard in a casino? Weller as the top star was perfect. In one scene he's driving around the casino with Carrere in his car. In another, he's riding on the top of an armored van or something. It's vintage Weller.

Hopper is sweet as the casino owner. He and Joey Pants play off each other well. I can't think of a better baddie for a movie like this. He's much better here than in that Costner sack of asscrack Waterworld. I can't for the life of me understand how a Waterworld is greenlighted as a full run picture put in thousands of theaters, and a gem like this can't get a sniff of that kind of run. It's just ridiculous.

It was weird having a Cary Tagawa that wasn't exactly an antagonist. He played this kind of dumb-as-a-fox SWAT team leader that everyone thought they were better than, but who had a firm grasp of the situation. I'd like to see him and Weller work more together, maybe with Dolph thrown in. He also got to work with Tia Carrere again (Showdown in Little Tokyo), only this time he didn't chop any of her friends' heads off.

This film is just pure good old fashion bad action, and it's unabashed in the way it's carried out. As a fan of bad action, I hold a picture like this in the utmost regard. They just don't make 'em like this anymore. 

You should be able to find this in the $5 bin at a place like BestBuy. It's so worth it, you don't even know. I'd skip renting it, in fact, and go straight to owning it, because you'll want to rent it again anyway, and you'll just end up wasting the rental money.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120353/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/