Gymkata (1985)

Well, this is it, the 200th post on the DTVC Connoisseur. For milestone posts, like 100 and 150, I usually reserve them for Dolph Lundgren movies. I was going to do the same for this one, until a fellow bad movie fan, and owner of the site Movies in the Attic (there's a link to it in my "Other Great Bad Movie Sites" section), asked me why I haven't reviewed Gymkata. It was a great point, and I couldn't really give him a good answer. It's a classic, and one I've seen multiple times, but for some reason I never considered it for the site. I guess it just slipped my mind. Well, here it is, the DTVC's 200th post.

Gymkata stars gymnastics great Kurt Thomas (not the journeyman power forward) as a gymnastics champ recruited by the US government to be trained so he can compete in a centuries old ritual called The Game in a small khanate called Parmistan. The Game involves the entrant running through an obstacle course while Richard Norton and a bunch of faceless foot soldiers try to kill him or her. If someone wins, he or she gets one wish granted. The US want Thomas to enter so he can win the wish and have the US set up a Star Wars command post there. Things get complicated when the khan's daughter comes to the US to help Thomas train and they fall in love. The khan had planned on her marrying Norton, and Norton's not pleased. He's got a coup planned for after the game too. Thomas will have to use all of his martial arts and gymnastics prowess if he wants to get out of this alive, let alone get the girl.



I don't need to tell you how awesome this is. It wouldn't be post 200 if it wasn't. If you're a MSTie, you're probably familiar with Gymkata, because Joel, Mike, or the 'bots will shout out the title whenever people in the movie they're watching engage in fisticuffs. The movie lives up to their constant usage, as it's that silly. Probably the funniest is the seemingly random placement of gymnastics equipment so Thomas can utilize it to dispatch of his foes. In one scene he finds a bar spanning two buildings in an alley. Hilarity ensues as he spins a few times, then somehow kicks the guys chasing him while rotating on the bar vertically. Later, while fighting his way through a town used as an insane asylum, he finds a concrete pillar with two metal handles on the top, making a perfect pommel horse. He does flair after flair, kicking nutcase after nutcase that charges him. Love it.

There's more to it than the silly marriage of martial arts and gymnastics. The khan is some goofy old man. I looked him up on imdb, and one of his recent credits came on an episode of Even Stevens, where he played "Old Guy #2". Awesome. He was also a former wrestler and body builder, and I mean former, considering he's 86 years old now. If you were going to remake Gymkata now, you'd probably cast Jerry Stiller in the role of the khan. When I think of a khan ruling a small kingdom in Central Asia, I think of Jerry Stiller. I'm serious, I do.



American Kickboxer's John Barrett is in this as Gomez, another competitor, and pal of Thomas. The idea is that a lot of countries want the Parmistan land to start a Star Wars base, and they have people like Gomez trying to beat Thomas. Thing is: Gomez sounds American too. Is he from Canada? They don't say, but the idea of Canada wanting to beat us for a chance to start a Star Wars base is beyond ludicrous, it's fantastic. Why not, right? Also, Barrett is much more likable as Gomez than he is as BJ Quinn in American Kickboxer 1, for what it's worth.

Kurt Thomas was one of the greatest figures in Gymnastics history, but due to Carter's boycott of the 1980 Olympics, he missed his shot at a gold medal. I understand why he made the boycott decision, though, despite how it cut Olympic dreams like Thomas' short. The USSR was so prosperous in 1980, especially with all the cash it was dumping into war in Afghanistan, that if American Olympic athletes went over there, they'd be too tempted to defect, like Cuban ones do here. He was just trying to save our athletes so we'd have them for future games. Thomas' loss is our gain, with this one attempt into the foray of bad action films. Gymkata may be one of the best things to come out of The Cold War.



Richard Norton is too sweet for words, and he's great here as the lead baddie. This is only the second film of his reviewed on the DTVC, but fans of bad movies, especially action and martial arts, are very familiar with his work. As I review more Cynthia Rothrock films, Norton's sure to get more run as well, considering he's done about ten movies with her. At 58, it'll be interesting to see how many films he does in the future, but in 1985, he was 35, and right in his prime. Even though he's a baddie, this is easily one of his best roles. The only drawback was how little he's in it. Also of note: he trained Thomas for his fight scenes. I wonder how that felt when he had to have Thomas beat him for the final fight.

If you've never seen Gymkata, and you consider yourself a bad movie honk, what are you waiting for? This is required viewing. Throw it on the top of your Netflix queue immediately. I'd only buy it if you have a bad movie collection, and in that case, it should be one of your staples. Gymkata is a classic, and if you're just starting out in the world of bad movies, I couldn't think of a better starting place. It's just too many kinds of awesome.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089243/

The Rage (1997)

I first came across this film when I was looking for more Gary Busey on Netflix. When the cast list had Lorenzo Lamas and Roy Scheider on it as well, I had to check it out. Busey and Lamas were great together back in Latin Dragon, and throwing a Scheider in the mix never hurts.

The Rage has Lamas as an FBI agent tracking a serial killer played by Busey. Busey actually heads a band of serial killers, and they're killing a lot of people. Scheider is Lamas' boss, but after a botched raid on a cult compound a la Waco, Lamas has leverage over Scheider, which Scheider doesn't like. So Scheider calls in a female profiler to give Lamas a hard time, and of course, as they're working the case, they fall in love. As they get closer to catching the Buse-inator, Scheider always jumps in with his red tape and stops them. David Carradine guest stars.



This was good, but I'm not really sure how good and why. It definitely wasn't anything to take seriously, by any means. It was a big old pile of suck, but a funny one. Busey was pretty scary as the killer, but that's to be expected. Scheider is decent as the heel, but that's to be expected too. And Lamas was... well, Lamas, and I guess we had to expect that as well. The movie starts first with Busey and his girlfriend killing some poor family camping by the road. Then Lamas stakes out a guy he thinks is the killer, and chases him all through town, crashing into a sporting event and flying through the bleachers. The movie just gets sillier from there, culminating with a flaming Busey being expelled from an exploding boat.

Lamas was great here. My favorite scene was probably when he was on the verge of tears talking about how horrible the FBI had become: "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity... those words used to mean something!" That's just too awesome. He seems to have a way of taking these horrible scripts and making them still horrible, but cool, because they have Lorenzo Lamas in them. I wonder if he talks to his agent and the guy or gal's like: "Yeah, I just got a bunch of scripts here where you play good cop, and everyone is making your job really hard because of that." and Lamas is like "How much? Yeah, why not, I got some time off from Bold."



This movie was pretty Abusive. He wasn't in it enough for me, but when he was in it, he was great. In one scene, he tells a guy working under him: "I'm gonna put my foot so far up your ass, you're gonna taste my toes! Would you like that? Do you wanna TASTE!" It was so awesome. He had to have ad libbed that part about the wanting a TASTE, because I couldn't see anyone actually writing that. It was so Abusive, which made it all the more amazing. I must admit the DTVC has been rather bereft of Busey for the most part. This is only his sixth film, which will put him one behind a non Hall of Famer in Daniel Bernhardt. I admit, with the massive catalog of Buse-age out there, this is a travesty, and we here at the DTVC are looking to rectify this situation immediately.

The late Roy Scheider pops up in here as kind of a second baddie working against Lamas, but not with Busey. This is his third film on the DTVC, and in each of his roles, he's been a totally different character. In Peacekeeper, the Dolph great with Montel Williams, He was the president. In Dracula III, he plays a blind cardinal telling Jason Scott Lee he's fired. Here he's an FBI higher-up with no morals and a vendetta against Lamas. I'm not saying I didn't like him, but I would've preferred his role to have been played by Stephen J. Cannell, Donald "Dutch" Dixon from Renegade.



David Carradine is in this for like five minutes. He plays a Vietnam vet housed in the same mental ward that Busey and his boys were before they escaped and started killing people. This celebrity cameo was about as superfluous as one you might find in a Hip Hop video. I couldn't figure out why he was there. Did he owe a favor to the director? Did he lose a bet and this was the payment? Was he in town shooting Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and someone asked if he had a moment? I don't know, I just gotta believe Carradine's got better things to do with his time, but who am I?

If you're a Busey or a Lamas fan, you should give this a shot. If you're not a Busey or a Lamas fan, I'd say give it a shot too, but I you may not like it as much. This is a pretty bad yet silly film, and with the inclusion of two DTVC Hall of Famers, it should have enough material for a bad movie night. I'd throw it on your Netflix queue, or rent it on a special night at your local video store, like get one get one half off.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117433/

Nightmare at Noon (1988)

After having seen Mutant, I had a craving for more Wings Hauser in a zombie film, and fortunately, I was in luck with this movie. Considering it also had Brion James, this had all the makings of being superior to Mutant, and I looked on it with much anticipation.

Nightmare at Noon has Wings as an entertainment lawyer taking a vacation with his wife in their Cadillac RV. They pick up hitchhiker Bo Hopkins, and head into a sleepy little town for some food. Unbeknownst to them, an albino Brion James has earmarked this town for an experiment where the drinking water is contaminated, turning the town into homicidal zombies. They try to escape, but Brion has also set up some device that turns off people's cars if they drive by it. Now they team up with George Kennedy, the town's sheriff, and his daughter, to get to the bottom of this and eventually take Brion down.



This was a pretty solid film. The zombies were kind of weak, and they didn't eat people, they tried to kill them by conventional means, like with guns and whatnot. There were plenty of ludicrous explosions: one had a dirt bike jump a van or something and explode into flames; another had Kennedy getting set on fire and jumping into a van that worked as Brion's command post, causing it to explode; and at the end there's a helicopter chase thrown in for the sole purpose of blowing one of them up. It also wanted to give this Western element, from the showdowns in the abandoned town squares, to the actual showing of High Noon at a local drive-in where our heroes confronted Brion and his men. Whatever it was, Nightmare at Noon is just a ridiculous pile of silliness that gave me and my friends tons of enjoyment.

Wings was good in this. He always had his mouth open, even when he wasn't speaking. I don't know what that was. I couldn't tell if he thought it was a cool acting effect, or if that's what he does in real life. I've seen a bunch of his films, and I can't remember if he did that in all of them. I'll be looking for it now. I'm debating going back and watching all his other ones just to see if he never closes his mouth. Has anyone else ever noticed this?



Bo Hopkins tries to throw us a curve here with his classic type-cast as a sheriff. We think, because he's a hitchhiker, there's no way he could be a sheriff too, but we're wrong. He was a sheriff before he ran off to chase a dude who raped a girl or something and was let off due to a technicality. After George Kennedy dies, Bo slips into his most comfortable role, and takes over as this town's sheriff. How did this guy get into doing sheriffs? It seems like that's all he does. Even when he's not doing them, he is.

Brion. Brion, Brion, Brion. Let me count the ways. Does it get any more amazing? This is the second film I've seen him in as an albino (the first: Virtual Assassin aka Cyberjack, with DTVC Hall of Famer Michael Dudikoff), and I must say, it never gets old. Brion never gets old. It's a shame he passed in 1999, because he still had so much more to give us. How many more albinos could he have played? We'll never know.



I dug George Kennedy in this film. I'll always remember him fondly for those Breath Assure commercials. Is that stuff still around? There was an MTV Music Awards about ten years ago where Jim Carey thought he'd be funny and say about not kissing Will Smith: "One word, two syllables: Breath Assure." I was with a bunch of people, and I only knew a few of them, and when I said: "Breath Assure is two words, three syllables, you moron!" no one laughed, and some of them looked at me funny. I learned a valuable lesson that day: no one likes a Grammar Hammer. Anyway, I digress.

Yeah, this is a good deal. The copy I got from Netflix was listed as the "2003 version". I'm serious. I'm not sure who the pretentious bastard was that decided a crummy zombie film from the late eighties needed to be updated, but it happened. I've never seen the older version, so I can't say which is better. Hopefully they're both hot. This is a fun romp and worth the cash. Give it a spin.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100261/

The Piano Player aka The Target (2002)

I can't remember where I first heard about this film. It may have been through a Netflix search, or looking over Christopher Lambert's bio on imdb, or a friend having seen it before. Anyway, I saw it with some friends recently. It made an interesting double feature paired with Wings Hauser and Brion James in Nightmare at Noon.

The Target takes place in South Africa and is about a money launderer played by Dennis Hopper who decides to testify against a bad ass killer crime boss, and needs protection. So he hires hit man Christopher Lambert. Not a bad choice. The two escape the city with Hopper's daughter, leading to a 45 minute interlude filled with Hopper doing tribal dances, fishing with Lambert, and telling goats he wants to drink their urine for its psychedelic properties. After the interlude Lambert has a showdown with the baddie, only to be hit in the head with a rock and find himself chained to a tree and about to be set on fire above a pyre of burning dolls and stuffed animals. Surprising no one, Hopper saves him, then confesses that as a young gangster he killed Lambert's parents.



What? Can someone tell me what's going on here? Even Netflix had no idea. Their synopsis read that Lambert and Hopper were adversaries. That definitely wasn't the case. Hopper was almost Lambert's surrogate dad. It started off all right, but the extended interlude was ridiculous. No action, just a series of things that, I can only assume, were dream situations the director wanted to put Dennis Hopper and Christopher Lambert in. How else do you explain Hopper telling a goat he wants to drink its urine for the psychedelic properties? Or the tribal dance? Or the paternal scene of Hopper showing Lambert how to fish? It was just randomly inserted into the film, and though funny, also dragged on and frustrated me.

Even though Lambert gets top billing, this is more of a Hopper vehicle. Lambert's felled right before the interlude with a serious bullet wound, and is out of action for a chunk of it. Some of the scenes of him dispatching goons and driving recklessly were cool. Probably the best was just watching him try to make sense of Hopper. They'd never worked together before, and haven't since. His reaction to Hopper asking the goat if he can drink its urine for the psychedelic properties seems genuine. Looking on imdb, Lambert hasn't done any big action roles since Day of Wrath. He's done a couple things in Europe and had a small role in the indie hit Southland Tales. Come on Lamby baby, give us another bad actioner!



Hopper was too sweet for words here. First off, he wears this obnoxious wig for a good portion of the film. He matches the wig by applying Grecian Formula to his beard. For some reason, when he loses the wig, the Grecian Formula wears off. If I were them, I'd sue the makers of this film for saying their product sucked. Anyway, beyond the look, he has another scene where he gets drunk and has Lambert drive him and two hookers out to his wife's grave. He's like stumbling over the headstone introducing them to her. Then he throws up in Lambert's car, finds out his daughter was kidnapped, and sobers up. Then you've got the tribal dancing, the fishing with Lambert, and, of course, the asking a goat if he could drink its urine for the psychedelic properties. That's gotta be one of the greatest things I've ever seen done in a movie. Who thinks of that? Whoever it is, I've got to shake their hand, because that's awesome.

Hopper's daughter is played by the chick from Troy and National Treasure. She's hot, German, and stars in bad movies so her English isn't an issue. She's barely listed on the imdb cast, and I almost forgot to mention her in the post. How she went from barely credited in this to a major role in Troy is anyone's guess. Or, it might just stem from the fact that she's extremely hot. Out of the four movies, Troy, this, and the two National Treasures, I'd say Troy is number one, then this, then the two Cage pain rides.



Out of all the weird things in this film, including the part where Hopper asks a goat if he can drink its urine for the psychedelic properties, one scene stood out in my mind. The daughter's girlfriend is captured by the baddies and beaten to death. The video is sent to Hopper to scare him. In the video, the captors force the guy to eat spaghetti with chop sticks. What? Then the video ends and Hopper's like "What, they make a guy eat some spaghetti then beat him to death. What's this go to do with me?" Then they tell him it's the boyfriend, and he looks distraught. Made no sense at all.

Is it worth it to rent this just to see Hopper ask a goat if he can drink its urine for the psychedelic properties? I don't know, you tell me. I got it on Netflix. You may see it as either The Piano Player or The Target, but on Netflix it's definitely listed as the latter. I can say this about it, though: other than Hopper asking a goat if he can drink its urine for the psychedelic properties, the bulk of this is a snooze fest.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293509/

Dead On: Relentless II aka Relentless II: Dead On (1992)

I found this little gem doing a search of Miles O'Keefe on Netflix. Some friends and I watched it while waiting for some other friends to get out of work so we could get dinner together. There aren't many better ways to pass the time than catching a Miles O'Keefe flick, that's what I always say.

Relentless II: Dead On picks up where part one left off-- at least I have to take part two's word for it, because I never saw part one, and all I know of it I saw in flashbacks they showed me in part two. Anyway, this detective played by an Italian That Guy is having a bad time at work and in his marriage. That's when serial killer Miles O'Keefe shows up and starts offing people. Now he's in it. Then this federal agent who looks like any number of other actors depending on the angle we see him at is getting in the Italian guy's way. There's more to this serial killer and his victims than meets the eye, and it's up to the Italian guy to do what he does... or else! (Don't know why the exclamation point.)



This was a pretty poor movie, as you can imagine from the plot synopsis above. Just the same, as a bad movie, there was plenty to make fun of in it. Right off the bat, Miles O'Keefe lures his first victim, the guy who played La Flors in Mallrats, into a garage, where he tries to strangle him with a large chain. The struggle that ensued was hilarious. Then there's the detectives boss, who for some reason is always working out when the detective goes to talk with him. He'll see him at the gym, at the track, in the pool. Not only that, but the boss is played by Capt. Dale Dye, senior military adviser on Saving Private Ryan et al. Maybe the best came when Miles disguised himself as a cleaning lady to escape the cops after killing some dudes who accosted him at his apartment.

Speaking of Miles, this was a pretty solid performance. He has some great scenes as a killer, and even better ones sitting in an ice cold bath having flashbacks about his killing. For a brief moment, he channels his inner Van Damme, showing off his bare buttcheeks. My friend's wife wasn't as enamored with that as we'd have thought. The biggest disappointment in his performance wasn't really his fault: he doesn't speak at all until the very end, and then he speaks with a horrible Russian accent. One of Miles' great charms is his great Tennessee spiced Southern drawl. Why not give us that? I know he's supposed to be Russian, but was the movie that good that another drop in continuity would've mattered that much? Someone dropped the ball there.



Leo Rossi is the Italian That Guy who plays the cop. His imdb picture is a bit deceptive, but like every other That Guy, the moment you see him in anything, you'll know who he is. Throughout the film I'd had this feeling he'd played Corey Haim's dad in something, and found out it was in Fast Getaway. Duh! Of course! Then the question came: how did that film not turn up on my Netflix searches of both Corey Haim and Cynthia Rothrock? It's not out on DVD! Can you believe that? They just put out a two-disc special edition of that Jessica Alba stinker The Eye, but they can't put a classic like Fast Getaway out? Why not package it with part two and sell the pair for $10? Maybe put it in a Corey Haim boxed set?

Ray Sharkey is the actor who looks like myriad other actors depending on the angle you see him at. We had Paul Riser, Robert Downey Jr., Jon Stewart, and Scott Baio, just to name four. People like this make watching bad movies even better, because we don't need to think as hard to come up with jokes: we can just reference various movies the people they look like have been in. Sadly, Sharkey died in 1993 from AIDS, which he probably contracted through a dirty needle, considering he had a bad heroin and coke addiction. His imdb bio lists a bunch of episodes of TV cop shows that I must've seen, but I don't remember him in any of them. I must've thought he was someone else.



Meg Foster plays the Italian That Guy's estranged wife. She's always struck me as the Poor Man's Kirstie Alley. In the Piper hit Immortal Combat she played the head of a corporation that made guys immortal. She was seducing them first, before someone else killed them. You probably remember her as the evil queen in Masters of the Universe, a Dolph Lundgren classic. She's also worked with Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Wings Hauser, Gary Busey, and Peter Weller (Future Kick, The Wind, Carny, and Leviathan, respectively). I haven't checked, but that might be a record for co-starring with DTVC Hall of Famers. That's probably a better thing to hang one's hat on than being the Poor Man's Kirstie Alley.

This was plenty fun to make fun of, but I'm not sure that alone is worth spending money on it for. If you've got Netflix, and you're a big Miles O'Keefe fan like I am, throw it on your queue. If not, you may want to pass. I'd grab it if you see it in a $.99 bargain bin, but I wouldn't pay much more for it than that, unless, again, you dig Miles. We'll call it the Miles Exception.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101672/

American Kickboxer 2 (1993)

I first saw this film way back, probably not long after it came out. I remembered it as good, but nothing really special. Recently, though, it was brought to my attention by a fellow bad movie fan (his site, Movies in the Attic, is listed on the links portion titled "Other Great Bad Movie Sites") that I needed to put a review for this gem on the blog as soon as possible. I decided to pop it on my Netflix queue and give it another whirl.

American Kickboxer 2 doesn't pick up where 1 left off-- in fact it has nothing to do with 1. It's about a woman who has her daughter kidnapped and her husband, played by the cop who wanted to eat instead of help Jerry cross the street when Crazy Joe Davola was outside, is not the kind of man to go out and get her back. For that she calls in the two men that might be the child's real father: a cop with a shitty disposition, and the all too awesome Evan Lurie. At first they don't get along, which makes sense because the cop's an asshole and Lurie shouldn't have to put up with that; but later they form a bond forged in all the fights they have in bringing their daughter home.



This movie's straight up awesome. Where the first one's a sports movie, this one's a total actioner. The plot's simple, and what twist there was, we not only knew it was coming, but were stoked it in no way hindered the great fight scenes. Another improvement over the original was in those fight scenes: the fight choreography far surpassed the silly bouts in the ring in part 1. There's very little substitution for quality martial arts. This is an all around solid film.

Evan Lurie is the man. He's one of my new favorite action stars, even though he's been in very little and it's all pretty obscure. He sports this power mane of a mullet that is so sweet Andre Agassi would have to give it a thumbs up. You can tell Lurie understands the power of his hair, because he only ties it back in a ponytail when he has to fight, knowing that in tying it back it's as if he's caging a beautiful White Bengal Tiger. As an actor he does a great job speaking in a monotone voice, tossing in the occasional sarcastic remark, and making sure to show off his too-sweet pectorals when the time calls for it. How this guy hasn't had more and bigger roles is beyond me.



On the other hand, his partner in this, played by Dale Cook, is an ass. For some reason he, instead of Lurie, is on the cover. I'm not saying Dale Cook himself is an asshole, I'm saying the character he was portraying was. He constantly made life difficult for Lurie by getting into fights at the wrong times and having no control over his temper. At the end he became somewhat redeemable, but only because Lurie gave him his stamp of approval, and for me if he's cool enough for Lurie, then begrudgingly, he's cool enough for me.

The head baddie is played by That Guy Ted Markland. I don't remember him in anything, but see that he's guest starred in tons of shows I've watched before, so I probably recognize him from those. Then, the mother of the daughter who's kidnapped's husband is played by the That Guy from the Seinfeld episode where Newman needs Kramer to go to court to get him out of a ticket. The guy plays the cop that Seinfeld asks at Monk's diner to help him cross the road so Crazy Joe Davola won't kill him. That guy's dead now, having suffered a heart attack in 2001.



The fight choreography is stellar in this, as I mentioned above. There isn't a lot of guys putting their arms up waiting for the other guys to hit into their blocks. The scenes between Lurie and Cook might be the best ones, which makes sense, considering they're the two most seasoned fighters starring in the film. I make a big deal about the choreography, because many films from this time period mail this aspect of the movie in, especially if the film's set for a DTV release.

I feel like if I go into too much depth about such an amazing piece of cinema, I may ruin some of the awesome factor for anyone who hasn't seen it before. Go out and rent this, or bump it to the top of your Netflix queue, and prepare to be wowed. You won't be disappointed.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164336/

American Kickboxer aka American Kickboxer 1 (1991)

When I was younger, it never crossed my mind as silly that a movie would be called "Anything: Part 1". All movies are technically a part one. It takes a sequel to make that official, but usually it's up to said sequel to distinguish itself from its predecessor with a "part 2". Anyway, this movie actually is packaged as American Kickboxer 1, but since imdb listed it simply as American Kickboxer, I felt both titles would be apt to head the blog entry.

American Kickboxer 1 is about the middleweight kickboxing champ, BJ Quinn. He's a mess, and wins a title fight under dubious circumstances. At the same time this young dandy of a Frenchman is climbing the ranks and wants a title shot. They both attend a party, and fisticuffs ensue. A drunk Quinn decks an innocent bystander trying to break up the fight, killing him. He luckily only gets twelve months in jail, cut to ten with good behavior, and he leaves prison to enter a world dominated by the French dandy. His life spirals out of control, until he gets it together after getting his ass kicked by the Frenchman at another party. With the help of a former rival, he gets back on his feet and bests the Frenchman in the ring.



I must stress before I go further that this is not an action film. It's a sports film, closer to Rocky, than it is to Kickboxer. Our hero never ends up fighting his way out of an alley, or escaping baddies in a car chase. This is about a gifted athlete who loses his confidence and tries to regain it. There were some cool allusions to Raging Bull, which I think is the best sports movie (after Pentathlon, of course!), but for the most part this was a poor Rocky retread of a plot.

The protagonist, BJ Quinn, was not at all likable. I'm not the only one who's said that, as a dude on imdb echoed that sentiment. He killed a man with his fists, which, considering he's a trained kickboxer, make that assault with a deadly weapon. He may not have intended to kill him, but involuntary manslaughter doesn't sound like too far fetched a charge. He should've done a few years at least, and he was upset he got twelve years. I think the writers wanted it to be like the French dandy had a hand in his conviction, because he lied in court, but it didn't come across that way. Quinn was guilty whether the Frenchman lied or not. They should've devised a way to have Quinn attacking the dandy and accidentally killing the guy: something that would've actually been the dandy's fault.



The dandy was awesome. I've talked about the Destro Effect in earlier posts, which stems from my childhood when I always thought COBRA was way cooler than GI JOE, and I wanted them to win, even though they never would. A scriptwriter needs to develop baddies in such a way that we never root for them. Because he failed, the director tried things like putting him in weird outfits, which worked somewhat, but not enough. My favorite scene with the dandy came when he entered the room and headbutted a gym locker shut. Awesome. I call him a dandy based on his fighting attire of spandex, a Speedo over that, and a tassel skirt over that. He was a dandy, but he was cool.

There was a guy in this named Ted le Plat, who played a bad sportswriter, and this guy looked almost identical to Owen Wilson. It was so uncanny I had to look him up on imdb. Strangely enough, he stopped making movies right around the time Bottle Rocket came out, which was Owen Wilson's first film role. Coincidence? Probably...

One of the greatest joys of being alive is The Mullet. It is a thing of pure beauty. And this film is chock full of them. You've got the I Just Got a Job as a Roadie for Styx This Summer Poodle Cut with matching mustache. Then there's the Southeast Asian Spiked Ape Drape (though honestly, it was a kind of weak representation: I'd give it a 5.9 in Mulletude). And most prevalent is the Total Business in Front Party in Back Beaver Pelt, again, in most cases, with matching mustache. I'd recommend this film on Mullet Watching alone.



The music in this great too. I think I mentioned in the Rage and Honor post that I love the synthesizer, and this film gives me that. Also, it has two great songs: there's a Monster Ballad that plays in the background of a flashback montage; then there's an original hit from some Journey cover band. With all the crap movies in theaters today giving me tons of overdone pretentious string orchestra stuff, it's nice to know I can go to the well with something like American Kickboxer 1. There's a Sam Adams commercial where a guy says "Drink that and know that's what beer's supposed to taste like." Well I say watch American Kickboxer 1 and know that's what movies are supposed to sound like.

If you haven't seen this, you need to. This is the kind of film that got us bad movie honks into pouring through bargain bins at local video stores and looking up names like Joe Estevez on imdb. Again, I must reiterate that this is not an action film. Just the same, it's tons of fun, and well worth a night in with a bunch of friends.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101325/