Mercenaries (2014)

Back when I did the podcast with Jamie, we covered this in an episode, and neither of us were big fans. Just the same, it's a Rothrock movie, and eventually I'm going to get all of them reviewed, so I figured why not give this one another try and see what happens. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance Reviews and The Video Vacuum have covered this as well, so you can see what they had to say.

Mercenaries looks like a female cast version of The Expendables, but is rather a remake of Mankillers, an AIP flick that was a female cast version of The Dirty Dozen. When Brigitte Nielsen kidnaps the president's daughter while she's on a philanthropic mission in an old Soviet Republic, Cynthia Rothrock needs to get a team to rescue her. The problem is, Nielsen doesn't trust any men (except her right-hand man Tim Abell? And most of her crew?), so it needs to be a team of women, but there aren't any women who are trained enough in the service, so they need to get them out of prison. The team, led by Zoe Bell, goes in to get her out. But will they be able to make it out alive?

I think the issue we had with this was it was a bit all over the place. Like why did it need to be a Dirty Dozen paradigm? Why wasn't Rothrock in it more? You have Abell as a great henchman to Nielsen's head baddie, but the movie couldn't tell if he was a comic baddie, or a vicious baddie, so one moment he's chewing scenery like the best Die Hard villain, and the next he's slitting a girl's throat--and the thing with Abell is he can do both equally well, which made the unevenness even more pronounced. The general idea of this is a great one, and I applaud them for that. I also really liked the cast they had. I think the overall execution though in how it was written and carried out did it all a disservice, which was unfortunate.

As always, we start with our Hall of Famer, and that's Rothrock. It's funny, because I think she plays the part she does in a sense to, not pass the torch, but almost more like opening the gates to let the stars in, in particular Zoe Bell, Kristanna Loken (still tagged as "Painkiller Jane" here on the site) and Mei-Lin Fong. What we see here though with Rothrock, is one, how the right project really matters. She needed the China O'Brien and Rage and Honor films, plus the great Godfrey Ho flicks she did, that really showcased her talents; but two, I think her time in Hong Kong sharpened her skills to be able to kill it on screen in a way few stars, man or woman, have ever done. I think the idea that there's ever going to be a "next Rothrock" is a fallacy, because Rothrock was a unique singular talent who brought it on a level we've seldom seen in the action world, and with that in mind, I can't say she's passing the torch in this film, because no one can fully take over that legacy.

All that being said, I liked Zoe Bell in this, and I feel like she's someone we could latch onto when we think of who out there will be part of the next wave of action stars. We should be able to put her with a Scott Adkins, and while she may not do the martial arts the way he does, her stunt work and overall badass action qualities give us that "it" factor we want in someone to lead an action film. Just the same, while I'm championing her here in this paragraph, she's been in two previous films we reviewed here on the site, Bitch Slap and Game of Death, and I gave her zero mentions in those write-ups. That's something I need to change going forward for sure; but can you imagine a Debt Collectors type film with her and Gina Carano in the leads instead of Adkins and Mandylor? How amazing would that be?

If you see this on Tubi right now, the cover features Vivica A. Fox. On Letterboxd, the cover features Kristanna Loken--which is what it looked like when I watched it for the podcast five years ago. When we did the pod, Jamie and I wondered what the story was with Fox's character. She didn't seem to fit, the part wasn't working for her, and we wondered where Fox's career was headed from there. If you look at the five years since, she's really made a name for herself in the David DeCoteau "Wrong" movies, not to mention she became the first black woman to play the president in a live action movie. I still think having her front and center on the cover does Bell a disservice, but it shows how far she's come in those five years that anyone selling the movie will think she's the one to sell it on.

Finally, Brigitte Nielsen plays the baddie in this, and I really enjoyed it. I think, like Abell, the character was written a little unevenly, but when she was supposed to be a fun, over the top (Stallone pun intended) baddie she played it as well as you'd want in a film like this. This isn't the first time she's played a great baddie either, she was great in Martial Law III too. In a way, I think Nielsen more than anyone shows us what this could have been if it were on a bigger budget and a bigger time scale than if it were an Asylum rush job. This is a good point here to mention as well that this was directed by Christopher Ray, Fred Olen Ray's son, and like his dad, he can get a movie in on time and under budget and make it look good despite the constraints involved, which makes me wonder what he could have done with this if he had more time and more money, and with this cast. Maybe we get something that rivals The Expendables.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. I think similar to when I watched this for the pod with Jamie, I was rooting for this to be great, but ultimately you end up with Mankillers with a better cast but not as much fun. As the French say, c'est dommage.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3598222

Game of Death (2010)

I've been waiting for this one to come out for a while now. Wesley Snipes and DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, plus Robert Davi and Ernie Hudson? Sounds great to me. I knew, though, that I couldn't get my hopes up too high, because we've seen how these things that sound so great to start with, can be total duds. Let's cross our fingers.

Game of Death has Wesley Snipes as a CIA Agent sent to infiltrate Robert Davi's mercenary organization and, after getting as much incriminating evidence as possible, assassinate him. Fast forward six months, and Snipes is knee deep, driving Davi to a meeting with an unscrupulous businessman who's about to give Davi $100 million in order to bump off some dictator in Africa who's not playing ball. Gary Daniels and company are a part of Snipes's team, and they've decided they don't get paid enough to be CIA agents, so they want Davi's cash. That's when things go crazy, and Davi has a heart attack to boot. Snipes's goal is easy: take Daniels and the rest of his old team down.



Man, this is a tough one. Had some great action, and Simon Rhee choreographed some of the best fight scenes we've seen in recent DTV films; but there were those MTV film effects-- though not too many near the end, there were there quite a bit before that, and they were tawdry and unnecessary, as always-- and then there was an element of the plot that I couldn't get past. Daniels's character has a chance to kill Snipes about midway through. He's knocked out on the floor in front of him, but Daniels passes it up. It was pure plot convenience theater, writing oneself into a corner with nothing beyond the magic wand to escape it, and woosh, with one wave of the magic wand, Daniels magically decides he won't kill Snipes, his most dangerous adversary and the only one who could bring down his plan, but he'll kill everyone else he sees, because he's the kind of guy that doesn't like to leave loose ends. The great action and fight scenes save this somewhat, but not quite enough for a full-out, knock your socks off recommendation.

One thing we've brought up before is how lately Daniels has been taking lesser roles in films with bigger names in them, and when I saw that he was second to last listed in the opening credits, I was nervous. Fear not, he's the main baddie, and as such, gets plenty of screen time, and a great fight scene at the end with Snipes. According to imdb, he also did a film in 2010 called The Lazarus Papers, and he's second billed on that, after DTVC favorite Danny Trejo, so whenever that comes out, that should have a good deal of Daniels in it too. The guy is definitely keeping himself busy.



This is the first Wesley Snipes DTV film to come out in a while, the previous one being Art of War II: Betrayal, and in between he did the major Hollywood film Brooklyn's Finest. One thing I liked about this one, was fight choreographer Simon Rhee really let Snipes do his thing, and director Giorgio Serafini didn't fast edit it to death. (I did have some issues with the camera angles in the final fight between Snipes and Daniels, though, but I'm digressing...) A lot of the Snipes DTV efforts ignore or barely utilize that element in his arsenal, his martial arts skills, so that's one bonus in Game of Death. Next up is probably Gallowwalker, whenever that finally comes out, but I guess for right now, we should be happy that this one made it, and it was half-way decent.

Ho-Sung Pak has a small part in this. Is that name familiar? Did you ever play Mortal Kombat? Liu Kang baby. He also played Shang Tsung in part 1. I don't mean in the movies, I mean he was the guy they motion captured for the video games. I think we've discussed on here before that I love Mortal Kombat, at least as far as Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. I wonder if some of the other characters have made it in anything. Looks like they were in a film Pak made called Book of Swords, and then one called Press Start that didn't have Pak, but the Pesina brothers. None of them have had the career Pak has had, though, including one I've been meaning to get to, called Fist of the Warrior, which has some other big names, including one of my faves, Michael Dorn.



This film was not only shot on location in Detroit, but actually takes place there, which I think was a cool decision. In the featurette, the actors and crew talked about how it was like one big studio lot, with all the abandoned buildings, and even entire abandoned blocks. The economic downturn in this country has hit that area hardest, and if more films can be shot there, and the area businesses can provide services for these productions, and generate more revenue, that's a positive, and hopefully more films will be shot there, instead of places like Romania and Bulgaria-- we're looking at you Steven Seagal, Michigan native. Hey, if Snipes can do it, so can you. You and another Michigan native, Michael Moore, should get together and collaborate on something, like maybe you ride around and beat the crap out of health insurance company CEOs and various white collar criminals. I like it.

This is worth a rental from Netflix, but I'd wait to watch it before you consider buying it. Daniels and Snipes are good, but it does have its flat spots, it does have it's bad music video moments, and there's a rough moment of plot convenience theater, so it's a bit of a mixed bag that might work for some, and not for others. At least it's got plenty of Daniels in it, so that's a plus over his recent work.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446072/

Bitch Slap (2009)

This was a very eagerly anticipated film, and then that anticipation waned quite a bit as the film took longer and longer to be released. While I was visiting my buddy in Mass last week, he insisted on buying it, us both being huge Michael Hurst guys from his time on Hercules. We figured there was no way this could fail.

Bitch Slap is a big ol' mess of a collection of scenes acted out in front of a green screen that some how lead back to these three women out in the desert digging for something buried out there. Oh, and a bunch of Hercules and Xena alums have cameos.



It's interesting that things worked out in such a way that I was able to watch Black Dynamite and Bitch Slap within days of each other, because both films were trying to pay homage to/poke fun at older exploitation genres, and one worked better than I could've imagined, and another fell flat. Anyone who's been rockin' with us for a little while knows which one worked, and it wasn't Bitch Slap. In every case where Black Dynamite knew when to pull back, or not go too far, Bitch Slap overdid it; and in converse, every time Black Dynamite went for it and got as ridiculous as possible and it worked, Bitch Slap just came off as trying too hard to overdo it, or even worse, settling for overdoing it when trying for a modicum of quality was too hard. It was just a mess.

And that was too bad, because like Black Dynamite, they had the talent in the form of Hurst, Sorbo, Lawless, and Renee O'Connor to make this work-- and we'd seen this form of humor done so well in Hercules on numerous occasions. One major difference between Black Dynamite and Bitch Slap though, was the lead stars in the former, like Michael Jai White and Salli Richardson-Whitfield, were great actors/actresses; while the three women in the leads in the latter left a lot to be desired. Now I get that in the 50s and 60s women in the films they were paying homage too weren't great actresses either, but to make the movie in 2009 that pays homage to the 50s and 60s, you need talent to pull it off, otherwise you get another bad movie with none of the charm of those older ones. Believe me, I've seen my share of both 70s blaxpolitation and 50s and 60s exploitation films, and I get what both groups were going for in making their respective films, and one worked and the other didn't.



One of the biggest issues was the technique they used in telling the story, where the film starts near the end, then whenever there's a plot point, we're taken to however long in the past to explain it, then jumped back into the present. Ever since Pulp Fiction came out, we've been inundated with people trying to find new ways to arrange the way the story is told to us, and very few of them do more than become increasingly tedious and annoying as the film goes on. The thing with Pulp Fiction was, Tarentino didn't rearrange the whole story, he took one part from near the beginning, and moved it to the end; and he didn't do it to be clever or just for the sake of doing it, he did it because it worked, because it enhanced what was an already great story.

That was one of the biggest problems this film had: it couldn't get out from under Tarentino's shadow-- and I'm not necessarily sure it wanted to. Again, going back to Black Dynamite, they created something that was sui generis, as opposed to something that came off as derivative. Maybe Bitch Slap wasn't supposed to be a Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction rehash, but it sure seemed like that. And as far as hot chicks making out or whatever, this is 2010, I can see that kind of action on an episode of Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I'm not saying don't include it in the film, I'm just saying don't hang your hat on it, give us some quality in and around it too.



Before I wrap it up, I must mention the whole reason my buddy and I got this: Michael Hurst. What a crock: he's in maybe just shy of half of it; and what he's in is good, but the material is nowhere near as great as what he had on Hercules, and try as much as he could, he couldn't save it. The thing that sucks is, as much as I didn't like this film, and as much as my buddy who bought it didn't either, we both felt impelled to support it because we want more film makers to cast Hurst. It's not his fault this is bad-- in fact, it would've been better with more Hurst in it-- so don't blame him all you film makers out there.

This was a total disappointment to me, especially after waiting so long for it. At the very least, rent it before you buy it. It might be a personal issue I had (and my buddy and his wife too) with it, but even so, rent it anyway before you commit the $15 to $20, that way if I am right and you agree with me, it didn't cost you much.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212974/