Flight of Fury (2007)

I put this on my Netflix queue simply because it's a Seagal DTV flick I haven't seen yet. Is there a better reason to watch a movie? Maybe if it's a Dolph Lundgren film I haven't seen yet. Yeah, that's a better reason, but the only better reason.

Flight of Fury is about a B-2 bomber equipped with the "next generation of stealth", meaning it can cloak itself like a Romulan spaceship. Some dude named Ratcher takes it on a test flight, and runs off with it, putting it in the capable hands of a terrorist group in Afghanistan. The Air Force only has one man with the pilot know-how and hand-to-hand combat skills to get in there and steal the ship back. Unfortunately that man, played by Steven Seagal, is kind of pissed because the US government tried to erase his memory (?). After thirty seconds of thinking about it, he agrees to save the day. Good for him.



This movie was decent, but could've been way better. The idea of Seagal being an ace pilot and martial arts expert sounds great on paper, but in the execution, not so much. Seeing him in the pilot's chair instead of kicking people's asses with his hands and feet felt like a waste of Seagal. Even worse, Seagal disappears from the movie for like 20 or 30 minutes. That's a big deal when he's on the cover! At no point should me or my friends be able to joke "hey, isn't Seagal supposed to be in this movie?", and we were with this one.

There were some fun parts, and plenty to make fun of, as the synopsis implies. One thing I loved was the excessive and silly use of military lingo. There's a part where this Air Force general is asking the Navy for air support, and the guy he's talking to on the phone is telling him what an imposition that is. "You'll owe me two bottles of scotch for this, single malt." to which the general replies "If you do this for me, I'll send you a whole case." Can you guess what the Navy guy said? "Copy." Copy? Do military guys have conversations like that all the time? Like at a poker game: "The bets to you at $20. You in?" "Roger that."



This was poor in the Seagal department due to its scant nature, but when he was in it, he was pretty good. I think with each film of his I see, I bump him up another notch on my all time favorite actors list. He and I are both Aries, too. I'm not sure if that means we have a lot in common, because I know a lot of other Aries, and they all seem to be different people. Also, has anyone ever read the description of what an Aries personality is supposed to be? It makes them sound like an asshole, and I hope I'm not like that!

There were two bad guys in this: the main terrorist, and then the pilot who steals the B-2 equipped with the "next generation of stealth". They turn on each other later on, which brings up two issues for me, one bigger than the other. The first, and bigger one, is if the pilot kills the terrorist, doesn't the US owe him a debt of gratitude? Is he not in some ways the hero? Maybe his motives weren't the purest, but isn't the end result the same? This plot twist left things too gray for me, and I need black and white in a bad action film. Seagal should kill all baddies. My second issue is more just nitpicking on my part: the pilot paints himself as a dude who's only in it for the money, and I get that. Then, suddenly, he's trying to down Seagal and set off some biological weapon. Why would he give up a perfect escape opportunity to chase down Seagal? Now I know I'm talking about DTV Seagal here, and continuity is usually not its strong suit, so I guess I should back off. Like I said, it was only a small issue.



This isn't too bad, but it's not great either. The only reason to get it is Seagal, and since he spends part of the film in the cockpit, and part of it MIA, I'd only bother with this if you've seen some of his others first. For the ones to see, check out my past reviews on Seagal's movies. This is funny enough for you and your friends to have plenty to make fun of, so if you're looking for a bad movie night pick, you could do a lot worse. Just remember my warning about the lower Seagal factor.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783518/

One Tough Bastard aka One Man's Justice (1995)

I first discovered this film through my friends at Bruce's Angels, a fan site dedicated actor Bruce Payne which I have a link to in the section Other Great Sites. The first thing that drew me to it was his too sweet mullet. The second thing was Brian Bosworth and MC Hammer. Then I saw it had one of my favorite character actors, Jeff Kober. I just didn't see how this could go wrong.

One Man's Justice is about a drill sergeant played by Brian Bosworth who has his ex-wife and child killed in a botched deal for stolen military goods by Jeff Kober. Kober is let out of jail by crooked FBI agent Bruce Payne so he can complete the deal for the goods so they can be sold to drug lord MC Hammer (just Hammer at this point in his career). Bosworth is none too pleased about this situation, and he goes down to LA where all this is happening to deliver his own brand of country justice.



This had so much potential. The star power alone should've been enough. But a slow moving plot with limited and stupid action killed any chance this had of being great. I knew I was in trouble when I was watching it with one of my roommates, and I hit the display button, and saw I was only ten minutes in. We were both shocked, thinking we'd endured much more than that. The only action we got for most of the movie came in the form of people buying stolen this or that from other people, then killing them after the deal was done. This is a group of actors we may never see put together again, and the result was a disappointing mess.

I'm sure the ladies at Bruce's Angels will agree that it was an egregious error, yet again, to have Mr. Payne speak with an American accent. Sure, the Ape Drape and Adam Curry hosting the MTV Top Twenty Countdown circa 1991 look was awesome, but it can't overcome the lack of his native accent-- if anything, it makes it worse, because we see how much better he would've been. This is a mistake that was perpetrated in Sweepers to a similar dissatisfaction. Here, it was worse, because his character was pretty sarcastic, and we all know sarcasm sounds better when it comes from the Brits.



Brian Bosworth: not sure where I stand. My best recollection of him came during his playing days as a Seattle Seahawk, when he was run over by Bo Jackson. I have a lot of memories of Bo Jackson doing things, like hitting a homerun one-handed while trying to ask the umpire for time. I think that's a metaphor for Bosworth's performance here: I found myself thinking of other things. It was good, but I've seen it before and better done by people like Bronson. With a huge plate full of other action stars I want to see and want to review here at the DTVC, it'll be hard for The Boz to get another shot anytime soon.

Gotta love Jeff Kober. Great character actor that in my mind has been elevated beyond the level of just a That Guy. I believe the only other film we have here of his is Desert Heat, which he did with Van Damme, and another great character actor, Danny Trejo. Here he plays a slightly higher than small time thug who tries to ingratiate himself to Hammer as a service to Payne. He also kills Bosworth's family. What I liked about this role was the volume of him in it. I'm used to seeing him for a few minutes of screen time, and here we had him for the duration.



Speaking of That Guys, this film had a slew of them. Let's start with M.C. Gainey, a big fella, who I know best from two things: Sideways, when he chases Paul Giamatti out of his house naked; and when he played himself on Cheap Seats, advertising a fake energy bar that keeps character actors fat. Then there's Asian That Guy Leo Lee, who's been in a bunch of things as whatever baddie's henchman. Probably the best paid of the film's That Guys is Neal McDonough, a Boston man whose most recent credits include Minority Report, the new Walking Tall, and 88 Minutes. He's maybe in the movie for five minutes.

All in all, not a great time. The addition of Hammer does pretty much nothing, because he's just an angry drug lord the whole time, which is just as boring as the rest of the film. It's just a shame, that's all. To have a collection of talent like that, and waste it with a bad plot and making Payne speak with an American accent? Someone should've gotten a hold of this train before it ran off the tracks, and added superfluous explosions, more mullets, and some better martial arts. But they didn't, so you should avoid this one.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113999/

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/

Zero Tolerance (1993)

I don't really know how this ended up on my Netflix queue. Maybe I put something else on it that had either Miles O'Keefe or Robert Patrick, and they suggested it, and I thought it sounded good, so I just added it too. Suggestive selling really doesn't work with things like socks or warranties for Walkmans at BestBuy, but in terms of bad movies, they can just put anything on there and I'm like "He's in it? Sure, bump it to the top of my queue."

Zero Tolerance has Robert Patrick as an FBI agent sent to Mexico with two partners to pick up some baddie. They're ambushed on the way back, and only Patrick survives. Then the baddie hold his family hostage so Patrick will help him smuggle drugs from Mexico to Las Vegas. The family's killed, and Patrick's out for revenge. The baddie is one of five baddies who run a drug syndicate called The White Hand, and Patrick guns them down one-by-one. This movie also has Miles O'keefe as a drug kingpin with a heart.



Not bad. Not bad at all. The plot was simple, there were plenty of explosions, the music was great, loads of stuntmen with ponytails and blazers toting machine guns getting blown away, and though sometimes the action was tedious and repetitive, it was more than adequate. This is definitely a "you get what you pay for" kind of deal, considering it's a 1994 revenge action film starring Robert Patrick and Miles O'Keefe, but on the other hand, it doesn't try to be what it's not, and that's refreshing. I had some problem with the scenes of the wife being beaten to death by the baddie's goons, because they were a bit gratuitous (her head getting smashed with a dinner plate might have been funnier under different circumstances), but they didn't go too far and show the kids being killed, which I appreciated.

Miles O'Keefe isn't in this too much, but when he's there, he makes his money. The Southern accent is great. So is the long mane of hair. When he cringes as two of his fellow baddies gun down a henchman for not doing a good job killing Patrick, it was pure beauty. I was hoping he'd have more scenes with Patrick, but that didn't happen. In fact, I don't think he had any. It was like Godfather 2, where you had two greats in one film, but they were never on the screen at the same time. Maybe my one complaint.



Robert Patrick is almost as good in this as he is in Terminator 2. That's right, I said it. Okay, he's obviously not quite there, but he's really close to the ballpark, which I still think is a pretty bold statement. Other than Miles, I was totally rooting for him to take out each baddie. He plants one between the eyes of Mick Fleetwood, the head bad guy, to start his killing spree, and it's so awesome I had to watch it twice. Unlike his role in From Dusk 'Till Dawn 2, which was played a little tongue-and-cheek, here he's totally serious and I think that suits him better.

I saw this the same night I saw Pineapple Express, and I bring that up because of a discussion my roommate and I had about it. Pineapple Express devolves into this mess of an identity crisis where Seth Rogen and his fellow scriptwriter find themselves trapped in the action genre, and they're a total fish out of water. They do funny really well, and I was enjoying it up until that point. But in the action stuff I think they just didn't know how funny they wanted to be, how to be funny when doing bad action, and when was a good point to cut things off. It just didn't work for me, and I found myself screaming inside for the movie to end. My roommate thought the action stuff was great, and made a joke about the kind of crap I watch. I think Zero Tolerance drives home why she's wrong. First off, why do I want someone else making a movie making fun of bad action, when me and my friends can do it ourselves. Also, if I'm going into a movie looking for comedy, and the comedy's going well, why take a bad left turn and try doing tongue-and-cheek bad action? Having ten scenes of people pointing guns at people and someone else coming in out of nowhere to save someone isn't any easier to take when the people making it are doing it for a joke. In fact, it makes it worse. And Pineapple Express doesn't have Miles O'Keefe or Robert Patrick.



But anyway, that was some major digression. You want to know about Zero Tolerance, and that's what I'm here to tell you. If you can get it for a buck or two, it's really not that bad. If it's on TV after midnight, there's probably a lot worse you could be watching. I wouldn't spend crazy amounts of money on it, or make it the focal point of a bad movie night, but it's not some atrocious pain ride either.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111825/

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)

I tried to watch this when it first came out, and didn't make it past the first nine minutes. I mean that, I turned it off and called it quits because it seemed so bad. Now that I have The Direct to Video Connoisseur, I feel I have a responsibility to treat these movies a little more seriously, and at least give them the decency of a full viewing. The question is do they deserve that?

Starship Troopers 2 is a DTV sequel to the Paul Verhoeven-- should I say classic?-- film, directed by Oscar winning visual effects guru Phil Tippett. In this one, a group of soldiers are pinned down in a base, and Richard Burgi saves them after he's released from his jail cell in the incinerator for killing his colonel. As they wait for transport to save them, a general shows up with three people he found out in the desert. Little does he know these people are going to turn this film from Starship Troopers into the Kurt Russell film The Thing.



The first nine minutes were right. This hurt. For like the first hour, the film is just a series of things going wrong for the heroes, and someone fixing the problems, and the general saying "we owe that man our sincerest gratitude", and people clapping. Then in the last hour the film loses it's identity, and it becomes a bad horror film, and instead of being scary or funny, it just seems like it's gross for no reason. I guess it didn't matter how poorly made this film was, because people like me were going to rent it regardless just because it was the sequel to Starship Troopers.

The hero was played by Richard Burgi, who you may remember from the syndicated series The Sentinel, or his more popular stints on shows like Desperate Housewives. He's actually not bad in this, but it's not like he has a lot of room to be. Just be the brooding hero, how hard is that for a beefy dude with salt-n-pepper hair? I think I'll always like him best on One West Waikiki with Cheryl Ladd. He was great as her off beat yet serious sidekick.



Phil Tippett directed this, and you can see that he's not a great director: it looked like the film was shot on a studio lot, as opposed to some planet far away. When the psychic characters have visions, they look like a NIN video. This whole thing felt like a Colombo episode where he had to investigate a guy who made bad Sci-Fi movies for a murder, and we were watching the movie being shot from behind the scenes.

The General was played by Ed Lauter. Name not familiar? It wasn't to me either, until I looked this up on imdb. Ed Lauter is one of the most prolific That Guys in history. You name it, he's guest starred. BJ and the Bear, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Father Dowling Mysteries, The A-Team, Magnum PI, Simon and Simon-- if it was on TV, he's done it. In the That Guy Pantheon, he owns a vaunted perch.



Sue Ellen Mischke from Seinfeld is in this. You must remember her as the woman who wore only a bra down the street. When watching this movie with other people, I mentioned that, and they said "that's where she's from? I knew she was from somewhere." She's never dressed like that here, and in fact is very manish. Another interesting fact: she was in the first Starship Troopers, but played a different character.

This is a no-go for me. Bad sci-fi that turns into even worse horror, that isn't funny in either case, and just plain boring. If you want to watch a better version of this, try the first one, followed by The Thing: a great double feature of two classics, and though more expensive, much less painful than this sack-of-asscrack.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367093/

Nirvana (1997)

The only reason to check this out was Lambert on the cover. They gotta know when they sign a dude like him on that people like me will give anything a shot if it has him in it. If Bridget Jones' Diary 3 has Lambert in it, I may queue up to the theater to watch it. All right, I'd wait for it to come out on video. Okay, I'd fast forward until the scenes with Lambert showed up. But I'd still get it!

Nirvana takes place in the future, where Lambert is a genius computer programmer whose wife left him. Anyway, he designs this game where the lead character is sentient, and pleads with Lambert to delete him so he doesn't have to continue his false existence. Lambert just can't do that, though. He has to hack into the company he works for's whatever and delete it there, before it's duplicated a million times. The ensuing adventure is the most forced action plot ever.



I fell asleep during this and had to rewind it. It was pretty boring. There was no plot to speak of. The concept could be a great short story or something, but shoving an action plot between the beginning and end didn't work, and with nothing really cool happening from that action, it was pretty much just Lambert counting sheep for me from my TV. But it worked for the film makers, because his being on the cover made me rent it.

This was a pretty random Lambert role. Computer programmer? Yet who can still handle himself in a fight? Really? Actually, I think that's pretty funny and one of the better aspects of the film, so I can't get on it too much. Lambert is one of the more fascinating members of the DTVC Hall of Fame. He's probably as big a star as the trio of Dolph, Van Damme, and Seagal, but not quite. Yet he's not as far down the totem pole as say a D "The D" Dubs, or Wings Hauser. By the same token, he's not the icon a Peter Weller or Rutger Hauer is. He stands alone, Christopher Lambert (pronounced "LAM-bear".)



This film is Italian, so pretty much everyone is dubbed. Lambert, as I recall, is dubbed by himself. The others don't always fit, and it's like watching Iron Chef, only with Italian people. I wonder if Fellini ever considered using Lambert? Or Antonioni? Too bad Lambert was so young in the 50s, because he'd have been great in a Neorealist film about an Italian family struggling to survive the mean streets of Rome. Maybe someone should try to make that now. Or just Lucas him into Umberto D.

The music was interesting in this. It was pretty solid quality for a film of this caliber. That actually works against it, unfortunately. Bad synthesizer or electric guitar would have added a level of silliness this bad boy needed. Mullets would've helped too. You can never go wrong with mullets. And Lambert... well they had Lambert, so they just needed the bad music and mullets.



One cool aspect of the movie was how the film took place in a city where three major Asian ethnicities: Arabs, Indians, and the Chinese, are represented by their own section. It's kind of a throwback to old Film Noir, where Asian communities represented mystery and seduction and danger, and the tension was palpable as our hero tried to negotiate the environment. The problem is, this wasn't good Film Noir, it was crummy DTV schlock from Italy that I only rented because it had Lambert in it.

Don't believe the hype. Don't let the Lambert on the cover fool you. This isn't good. See every other Lambert movie first. If you have your choice between this and Highlander 2, and you've already seen Highlander 2, still watch this second, when everyone's ready to go to bed. It's a real snoozefest.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119794/

Whacked! (2002)

I have no idea where I first got wind of this. It's almost like it appeared out of no where. One day I was looking for something to watch, and there it was. I'm not sure why I watched it, or why I kept watching it after it started hurting. Maybe I knew I'd write a blog about this kind of thing someday.

Whacked! is about two adopted brothers: one a CIA agent, the other a mafia hit man. They come together when Judge Reinhold discovered some dude's been stealing money, and he fears for his life, so he goes to the CIA agent for help. When the brother shows up to kill him, all kinds of wackiness ensues. Carmen Electra is like their adopted sister too.



This is so bad. I don't even know how to describe how bad. Really bad. So bad I went to the doctor, and guess what he told me, guess what he told me? He said girl you better try and have fun no matter what you do. But he's a fool. And this sucks. Boring as hell. And the tediousness is exacerbated by these annoying flashbacks. During the film, the two main characters would be talking, and then there'd be this forced piece of dialog that would say something along the lines of "Just like that time at so-and-so's", and instead of trusting us to take their word for it that what they were discussing happened, we're saddled with a ten-minute pain interlude. How movies like this are made is one question, but why people like me subject myself to them is another entirely.

Patrick Muldoon plays the CIA agent brother. You may remember him as either the stalker dude from Melrose, or the dude who got the crap beaten out of him by Richard Norton in Rage and Honor 2. Nothing happens in this film that is anywhere near as cool as Norton telling him to keep his hands up while punching him repeatedly on top of that crane thing. It brings up an interesting question: how would you feel if your crowning cinematic achievement was getting the snot beat out of you at the end of a film you were a baddie in? Since I don't have a crowning cinematic achievement, I'd have to say I'd be delighted.



The mafia hit man brother is played by some beefy, Play-Doh-y faced dude. I was going to crack on him unmercifully here in this space, until I read his bio on imdb, and found out he's lost both parents, a brother, and a sister. That's rough. He also doesn't look as beefy or Play-Doh-y in his picture there. Just the same, in Whacked!, he looks like a Muppet or something. I just can't figure it out. It was kind of disturbing.

But no where near as disturbing as Judge Reinhold was in this. He had this gross ponytail, and he hooks up with this really hot chick, and when he does, we get to see his pasty white body in a pair of tighty-whities. Eww. The scene where the chick's eyeball is cut off as it hangs from her face in Hostel thinks that's disgusting. You're going to give this an R rating, but Bad Lieutenant an NC-17? Where's the logic in that?



I'm not really sure what Carmen Electra was doing in this. I'm probably less sure what she was doing in this, then the ten seconds she was in Max Havoc. Now she's doing films like Meet the Spartans, which I didn't think was that bad. Hopefully there will be enough movies out there to make fun of that the people who make those other kinds of movie will keep her employed so she'll never have to do a movie like this again. We at the DTVC are pullin' for you Carmen.

Like the plague. That's how you want to avoid this. Like it might kill one-third of Europe. It'll at least hurt enough. I just don't know how something this void of redeemable qualities is ever made. And I love really bad films, don't get me wrong. This just had too much blah and not enough fun.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289616/