Hunt to Kill (2010)

I write this blog for two types of readers: one, the people who follow on a regular basis and have been rockin' with me for a while now (and thank you to all of you), and then there's the cats who stumble upon us either through a search or another link on a site like imdb. For the former, you're reading this knowing without me telling you that I reviewed The Expendables the day before, and also already know that Hunt to Kill had a hard act to follow, and it's for you that I make the disclaimer that I accounted for that fact in how I dealt with this film, so don't think what you're about to read is influenced in any way by an Expendables review writing hangover. For the latter, first, however you got here, welcome, and thank you for checking us out, and second, again, the negative review you're about to read has nothing to do with how utterly awesome The Expendables was.

Hunt to Kill is a ABC Family Channel movie about a border patrol agent, Stone Cold Steve Austin, who relocates to the border in Montana after his partner, Eric Roberts, is killed in a meth lab raid on the US southern border. He wants to reconnect with his daughter, but she rejects these rural surroundings, wanting to return to the city. Luckily for them, Gil Bellows and his gang stroll into town and take them both hostage so Austin can guide them through the wilderness to track down a buddy in a bank heist who made off with the loot on them, and this allows Austin and his daughter a ready made bonding opportunity. After they get the loot, this ABC Family Original takes a left turn, as Austin survives multiple gun shot wounds, a 30 foot drop onto a ledge that suddenly turns into water, then stumbles across a bag hanging from a tree which contains an expensive crossbow. Austin takes them out ninja-style, and he and his daughter walk off into the sunset.



I have trouble believing this was a serious film. Forget the "country boy will survive/those city folk don't have any real values" message-- I'll get to what I thought of that later-- the movie itself was a mess. First it's an action movie with an enormous explosion, which kills off Eric Roberts. Then it devolves into ABC Family territory, and I'm wondering what Austin is doing here at all. Then it becomes Rambo, and at this point, I'm literally laughing out loud at how silly it all is. I mean, we have Austin stalking his prey like a ninja, appearing in one place, then disappearing when the camera moves back there; or even funnier, popping up from under some bushes after the other characters leave a scene. I thought he might be acting out the end of Macbeth. It was just so goofy. To quote John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!" Of the three Austin films I've looked at here, this was by far the worst and the most sautéed in wrong sauce.

There was a major bright spot though: Austin's fight scene with Gary Daniels. It was amazing. It was better than any fight in his previous films. I've been waiting for that kind of sustained awesome in my Stone Cold Steve Austin films, and, for me at least, it has yet to happen. Stallone used him perfectly in The Expendables, but I think it's equally possible to use him as well as the hero, not just the heel. The guy revolutionized professional wrestling, completely blurred the lines between heel and hero; but he was also electric in the ring. I just want a movie to capture that electricity. I don't want a good ol' boy country boy can survive Stone Cold. I don't want a confused amnesiac Stone Cold. I don't want an introspective ex-con Stone Cold. I want a badass driving through shit in a sick Harley, beating the crap out of multiple dudes, having beers thrown to him from off-screen, and giving the finger to all the extras watching him. How difficult is that? Fuck, remake Stone Cold for Christ's sake. How awesome would that be?



As we mentioned above, our one Hall of Famer is Mr. Gary Daniels. I watched the behind the scenes featurette that came with the DVD, and found out one, that Daniels choreographed that too sweet fighting scene between he and Austin; but two, he was only in the film as a favor to Austin, whom he befriended on The Expendables set. That's why it's always good to get that perspective if I can, even if most of those featurettes are about the actors and director trying to sell us on the movie. (The best in this one was Gil Bellows telling us how his baddie character was "totally unpredictable, you never know what he'll do next", when if anyone has ever seen one action film, they could have foreseen everything he did before he did it.). I should probably review a Daniels feature soon, just because it's been a while.

Back to the country living vs. city folk aspect of the film. As someone who grew up in small town Maine, but a small town Maine that is only an hour from Boston-- and southern coastal Maine tends to be more cosmopolitan than the inner more rural areas-- I have an appreciation for both sides of this coin, and the live and let live mentality. But there were a lot of messages that were pretty backward and ignorant. You have the one black character as a degenerate who couldn't wait to get his hands on Austin's daughter so he could rape her, the classic rural white fear of African American males wanting all their white women. There's also the city folk having no real values, nothing they believe in, except backstabbing and an honor-less devotion to money. Then you have the daughter wanting the city, and learning her dad is right about how great it is away from all that. It's all ridiculous, but if you want to believe the country is split like that, and that all those stereotypes about people in the city or suburbs are true, then I've got a message for you: we're coming for your women. That's right, your wives, daughters, sisters, cousins, we're coming for them. We've got a pair of True Religion jeans, a closet full of Manolo Blahniks, and a Juicy Couture T with a slit cut down the front from the collar to the cleavage so they can show off those fake boobs we gave them, on top of the collagen we pumped into their lips, and the Botox we injected into their foreheads. You think Paris Hilton is scary? Wait till your daughter comes back from New York with bleach blond hair, an outfit that costs more than your entire gun collection, and a boyfriend with so many ethnic backgrounds you won't be able to guess what he is. You can't stop the inevitable. Oh yeah, and I think Jimmie Johnson just won his fifth championship-- that's right, we don't even like NASCAR, we're just good at it!



Okay, enough of that-- my Northeast Elitism reared it's ugly head I think-- Mr. Kenner mentioned that maybe I should put Eric Roberts in my Hall of Fame. Maybe I should. I wasn't able to tag him in The Expendables, because I went over my tag limit. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Anyway, we'll see about the Roberts thing, but as I write this, we're a year out from the next induction ceremony (held at the local Holiday Inn every October!), so a lot can happen between now and then.

I forgot to mention earlier that, according to the film's own plot, none of this should have happened. During the bank heist scene, we see one of the gang back at the base, using all this sophisticated technology to track them, mimic the voice of police dispatchers, and tell them where the cops are. You're going to tell me that a guy with that technical know-how wouldn't go online and read up on what the wilderness in that area was like? Or that they wouldn't by a guide in one of the local shops? Really, they needed to take Austin and his daughter hostage? If a film's own plot suggests that it's own events shouldn't have happened, is the film worth seeing? What do you think?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1563719/

The Expendables (2010)

Had this film come out before we started the DTVC in May of 2007, it would have been saved for a milestone post, like 100 or 500 or something. Because it's a new release on DVD, I wanted to get the review in on the day it was out-- especially since we're far off from the next milestone number-- so even though this is post number 558, we're going to treat it like a milestone post, suspending our usual 8 paragraph 3 image format for a 10 paragraph 4 image special edition. Luckily, I don't sell issues of this like comic books, because you'd be paying ten bucks for the reverse hologram cover-- or not, and I'd be stuck with a stack of them collecting dust and not going up in value.

The Expendables stars Sly Stallone as the leader of the eponymous mercenary group, experts at taking care of business and selling their talents to the highest bidder. When Bruce Willis comes knocking, wanting a crew to go into a Latin American island to take out the general in control there, Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks the idea is madness, so his merc group won't take the job. Sly likes the idea of the $5 mill Willis is willing to pay them, so he agrees. On a reconnaissance mission, he and Jason Statham realize things are pretty rough, that there's not just a general, but an evil Eric Roberts and a lot of soldiers, so they initially decide they want no part. Then Stallone thinks about the girl they left behind, who wanted to stay and fight for her people, and he decides he wants to stand for something too, and go back in there. His crew agrees, leading to one of the greatest finales in action movie history.



I considered using a metaphor to describe this, like how I said Righteous Kill was like the old timers game with Pacino and De Niro, I was thinking maybe The Expendables was the fantasy camp. But then I realized that that would be selling this film short. Selling short a film that punches you in the face with awesomeness. Selling short Sly Stallone, who said "hey, the shit we did back in the 80s and 90s, a lot of people really liked that shit. Fuck Matt Damon and Toby McGuire, let's get some motherfuckers that people really want to see kicking ass, and let's show them kicking ass!" He took the great films we love from the 80s and 90s, and he made one that was faster, louder, and more powerful, yet without losing what made those movies so awesome. This was Commando on steroids-- or HGH-- and a middle finger to everyone who thumbed their nose at the shit we grew up with.

We spend so much time on here ruing newer films for not getting it. Not getting what we want as an audience. Look at Jean-Claude Van Damme, who brags in JCVD about how he turned down a role in The Expendables because he didn't like what Stallone was offering him. Are you kidding? Your fans wanted your ass in this, kicking ass with all the rest of these bad asses. We don't care about what kind of role you get, or about how much Stallone didn't stroke your ego, we want to see you in this enormous pile of awesomeness. Stallone has come through, and he got everyone on board to understand his vision. He made this movie as much for us as he did for them, and I'm stoked about that. Thank you, we all appreciate it.



As always, we need to look at the Hall of Famers, and out of all the names, we only have two: Dolph Lundgren and Gary Daniels. Lundgren, as he does in almost every big screen film, plays something of a baddie. He actually hits Gary Daniels in one scene, reminding us of what we didn't get in Retrograde. The best part was his fight with Jet Li, because he was able to let rip with his Olympic-class martial arts talent, probably one of the best scenes we've ever seen him in. Do you see him telling us, his fans "I didn't do the film because I didn't like the role Sly had for me"? Hell no! He delivers. Gary Daniels is interesting, because we'd been doing some of his early roles here recently, and this was reminiscent of those. Very small part as Eric Roberts' hachetman-- second in command to Stone Cold Steve Austin-- but yet, he also has a great fight, with Jet Li and Jason Statham at the same time.

I commonly have a gripe with a movie, especially an action movie, that suspends the action in order to get melodramatic on us, so you're probably wondering what I thought of Mickey Rourke's tear-filled tale of an incident in Bosnia he witnessed. That's one of the benefits to having such a large and diverse cast, you get guys like Mickey Rourke, who was an amazing Sean Penn performance in Milk away from a best actor Oscar. Mickey Rourke can make a scene like that compelling, and more importantly, make it work. Not every movie has the advantage of such a deep cast, which is why I'm often annoyed when they try to do what Mickey Rourke did here, because it seldom comes off.



If I have any complaint with The Expendables-- and can I really have any complaint?-- it's that we don't have more Charisma Carpenter. Isn't any movie better for having more Charisma Carpenter? Exactly, she's awesome. She turned forty a few months ago, which is just crazy to me, because she doesn't look nearly that old. She plays Statham's ex-girlfriend, and when he finds out her new boyfriend hit her, he goes down to where the guy is playing basketball, and destroys him and all his buddies. Amazing scene, and one I think all these TapOut/punchfighting movie makers should look at that for how to make their fight scenes in their films. Anyway, I'm getting off track, this paragraph was meant to be about how much I like Charisma Carpenter. Hopefully, if Stallone makes a sequel to this, he'll put more of her in it.

Speaking of the abusive boyfriend, this movie adds an element that not every action films includes, and that's a strong statement about violence against women. In every case that a male character does something to physically attack a female character, that character is dealt with harshly, which is as it should be. People always focus on the violence in a film like this as a bad example for kids, but it's so extreme and so (almost) cartoonish to be taken seriously. On the other hand, how many action films or old gangster and Film Noir pictures show women being dominated or treated violently, without immediately denouncing such behavior. This movie does that, and does it in a very powerful way. Kudos for that.



On top of the great action, all of the characters were in other great scenes where there was no action at all. All of this could have easily been about them, they could have used those scenes to revel in each other's stardom, but they didn't. They made those scenes about us, their fans, and as such, they were tons of fun to watch. It just gets back to what made this movie so great, that Stallone understood what he was doing and what we wanted, and he made it all happen.

Plain and simple, The Expendables delivered on what it promised. If you saw it in the theater, see it again. Put it on your Christmas list, or run out to the store to buy it because you can't wait. I'm curious to check it out on my buddy's Blu-ray player myself. This was the movie we were hoping for, and seldom do any films ever give us what we're hoping for.

(As an aside, for the first time ever I got an error message for having too many tags. I didn't even know there was a limit!)

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/

Cyber-Tracker 2 (1995)

It was about a year-and-a-half ago that I reviewed CyberTracker, which I just found out, upon looking it up on imdb, that I had misspelled at the time (I had a space between "Cyber" and "tracker"). Anyway, for this go around, I went online for an image of the cover, as I always do, and whose should I come across, but our own Mr. Kenner's over at Movies in the Attic. He hit both films at the same time, which you can check out on his site. Hopefully you're not upset that I hotlinked your image. I can make it up to you if you need me to. Also, I should point out, I think he either saw a different movie, or was filling out his Christmas cards when he watched it, because his synopsis and the one I'm about to give are pretty different.

Cyber-Tracker 2 not only picks up a hyphen, but picks up a few years or so after part 1 left off. Don "The Dragon" Wilson is working as a CIA agent, undercover breaking up heavy-duty counterfeiting rings (that's really all the secret service do that's anything like police work), while his wife, Stacie Foster, the reporter/anti-CyberTracker activist from the first film, goes back to her life as just the former without the latter. Anyway, Donny's watching for her on TV, and sees her shoot and kill the governor. Turns out it wasn't her, but a new kind of CyberTracker made to look like her by sword fighter Anthony De Longis' company. He was hired by the lieutenant governor to commit the assassination, and now all he has to do is kill Foster before anyone finds out, and the public will think it's the terrorists from part 1 again. She escapes before they can get her, and now it's on. Donny's on a fight to clear her name and bring the baddies to justice, while his double wants to scowl and kill people-- with both sporting a well-feathered mullet.



This is a tough call for me, because it's not very good, but it's not atrocious either. It has plenty of sick explosions, the gunfights are more excitement by repetition than excitement, and there isn't much in the way of solid Don "The Dragon" fight scenes. On the other hand, we've seen a lot worse, it is only 87 minutes long, and we're talking about PM Entertainment here-- it's not supposed to be the Criterion Collection. If you go in with low expectations, and just want a dumb bad actioner with a name you know like Wilson's, it's not a complete waste of time.

As we continue on our Don "The Dragon" Wilson completion project, we find ourselves on his 18th film, which ties him with Gary Daniels and Jean-Claude Van Damme for fifth all time (you'll notice Van Damme has 19 tags, and that's because he has the Van Damme Film Fest post), behind Dolph, Lorenzo Lamas, Michael Dudikoff, and Steven Seagal. There are two things to note about that. First, with 12 DTV films left, he doesn't have enough to catch Dolph, and based only on current filmographies, Dudikoff, Daniels, and Lamas will blow by him. And Second, at my current pace of one Wilson film every two weeks, it will be six months before we're done with this, which means I need to speed things up some. I don't know if I can, though, because there's a point where people have had too much Don "The Dragon" Wilson, and I need to stay within that saturation point. We'll just keep plugging along and see what happens.



I was kind of disappointed that Anthony De Longis didn't get an opportunity to showcase his sword fighting skills, but he was, as always, an excellent baddie. Amazing last line too, "bloody hell", after being fatally shot in the chest. You may have remembered that he was such a great baddie, Highlander: The Series cast him twice to play two separate characters, three seasons apart. It kind of surprised me, seeing him here, that we don't see him more often, especially as the head baddie, because he is so good, plus he offers a great number of martial arts skills. I should point out, though, in trying to pronounce Zurich the German way, he pronounced it incorrectly. The way he said it would have been spelled like "surig", with the "-ig" on the end sounding like "ish". What he needed was the German "z". which is pronounced "tseh" (think of the "z" in "Nazi"; their "s" is what sounds like our "z")' followed by more umlaut on his "u", which makes it sound like someone trying to say "eee" with their lips pursed to say "ooh"; and then finished with an "r" into something like an "eesh" sound. Of course, there might be a Swiss German way of saying it that he was closer too, which would mean I'm all off.

I didn't catch when in the future this is supposed to take place, but I think we may have already gone past it, so it's always good to see how we did compared to what they thought we'd do. First, our TVs and cell phones are much better-- well, not my cell phone, because people looked like they were using Razrs, and my phone is a generation behind that. TV technology is way behind, though, because not only do they have tubes in this, but they don't even have DVRs or DVDs. Second, we're still getting around to interactive virtual maids, so Cyber-Tracker 2 got us there. Of course third, the human looking robots and the ability to make their faces look like anyone, we may never get there on that one. Finally, they totally missed potential changes to Pizza Hut's box design, not even making an attempt to guess what they'd look like in the future. What a waste that was.



This guy above is from General Hospital-- at least he was at the time he made Cyber-Tracker 2. How do I know that? My neighbor used to watch it back when I was in 8th grade/high school (I don't think she does anymore). How do I know she watched it? I have two younger siblings, and my parents decided they'd rather have her watch them after school before they got home instead of me; and before I'd leave to go do whatever with my friends, she'd have General Hospital on in the living room. Why did my parents decide that? Because I shattered their trust one afternoon when they were out and I had the house to myself, and in the process of making Ramen noodles, spilled some of them into the burner, starting a small fire. It was so small my buddy actually put it out with a whiffle ball bat, but the smell gave me away when they got home, and they decided to err on the side of caution. So, as a result of a minute Ramen noodle fire, I now recognize people who starred on General Hospital between 1992-95.

That was probably more than you needed to know, so I'll wrap it up here. I'm going to go back to my early days for a recommendation I haven't given in a while: if you see it on TV at 3AM, and you're procrastinating while trying to write a paper, this is a great option. Beyond that I don't know. Spending more than a couple bucks, even if you're a PM Entertainment collector, could be more than what's worth it, so I'd be careful-- make sure it's two bucks you won't feel bad you didn't spend at Taco Bell.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112762/

Martial Law II: Undercover (1992)

A while back, I mentioned something to Kenner at Movies in the Attic about a potential Top 10 DTV Movies of the 90s post, which would definitely be a large undertaking, considering what a huge decade for DTV the 90s was. Anyway, I gave him something of a preliminary proposal of what I was thinking about, and he gave me a counter proposal, so-to-speak, of the films that he thought I missed, and Martial Law II was one of those films. I vaguely remembered it, and my vague memories tell me that all of these 1990s DTV actioners are awesome, so I didn't think much of it, but knew it was worth going over again if Kenner felt it deserved a mention like that. Anyway, I thought it would be necessary to do Martial Law before I reviewed its sequel, which I did a few weeks ago, and now, here we are with this one.

Martial Law II is something of a sequel, only instead of Chad McQueen, we have a too sweet Jeff Wincott and an equally awesome DTVC Hall of Famer Cynthia Rothrock. When Wincott's buddy dies of an apparent drunk driving accident, Wincott is suspicious, and his suspicions land him at a night club run by one of the greatest heels of all time, John Sears from 90210, making the step up to full-on baddie. They don't like Wincott snooping around and asking questions, and Sears' hatchetman, DTVC fave Evan Lurie, has it out with him, blowing Wincott's cover. That's why he has Rothrock, a kickass cop with a background in tending bar, infiltrate Sears' club and see what's up. At the same time, Wincott snoops at his police precinct, thinking some of his fellow cops are dirty, including his chief, Billy Drago. Can Wincott and Rothrock kick enough ass to prevail and get their dead buddy justice?



Not only can they, but they can do it with ten kinds of awesome on top. This is just non-stop sweetness. This is what I'm talking about right here. Every fight was great, every actor turned in great performances, nothing was wasted, nothing was left on the table, and I left totally fulfilled. Wincott kills it, Rothrock is solid, you gotta love John Sears and Evan Lurie as your baddies, plus you have Billy Drago as a cleancut police chief, meaning his creepiness is a little more subtle; and Sherrie Rose, Leo Lee, and James Lew all play members of Sears' gang. As far as what made it awesome, I don't know where to begin. Each fight scene built on the one before it. They became progressively better. Plot exposition, when it was there, was short, well performed, and bled seamlessly into the action. There were other things I loved too, like the smooth jazz in the montages and other bumpers, some of which featured pretty rockin' sax solos; and perhaps one of the best uses of a shotgun ever in the denouement. This is as good as it gets.

We start where we always start, with the film's Hall of Famer(s), and for Martial Law II, that would be Cynthia Rothrock. You'd think with her being the one holdover from the original, she'd be the lead this time, but the film actually does work better with Wincott in that role, so I'm fine with it. They do do a better job giving her more and nicer looking fight scenes, so I liked that. Whereas in part one she was more like Chad McQueen's moral support, here she was a very capable and contributing partner, and provided the sensibility and levelheadedness in contrast to Wincott's fire and brash demeanor. I'm not sure where we'll go next with her, because we have so many options, being not even halfway through her 40+ film DTV oeuvre, but for right now, we'll bask in her awesomeness in Martial Law II.



Now for Mr. Wincott. Everything you love about him is in full effect here, from the mean mug and the Bogie-esque snarl, to the Toronto/New York accent, to the great one-liners that are more sick attitude than toolishly clever, to the most important aspect, the great fighting. I mean, when you see the name "Jeff Wincott" in the opening credits, or on the box, this is what you're looking for, and when a film can deliver on it's top billed star like that, it just makes the whole movie watching experience so worth it. On a side note, I know I'm the Direct to Video connoisseur, but Mr. Wincott is currently in theaters in the new Denzel film, Unstoppable. Haven't seen it, so I don't know how big of a part he has.

We all love Evan Lurie here at the DTVC, and I was glad that he had a pretty sizable role. You just never know with him, because some film makers don't understand the awesomeness they have at their disposal when they cast him. We know, of course. Ever since I saw him in American Kickboxer 2, I've been hooked, and though he's never matched that stunning performance, in Martial Law II, at least he's solid. There's one Lurie film I've been trying to get for a while, called Guns and Lipstick, which also has DTVC Hall of Famer Wings Hauser, and another DTVC fave Joe Estevez. I found a copy of it at the local record store-- for $8 used! Are you serious? Amazon has it for $5, but when you throw in shipping, that ends up being $8 too. It's a shame.



Okay, if you haven't guessed it, I'm a big Beverly Hills 90210 dude. I don't know why, but I've always gotten a kick out of it. Anyway, the major heel of the early college years, Keg House Frat leader John Sears, played by Paul Johansson, is the main baddie in Martial Law II. I was visiting a friend about a year ago, and she was watching One Tree Hill, and I saw him on there too, and was pretty excited. She told me he killed his brother or something. Once a heel, always a heel. In Martial Law, he moves up the ladder this one time to head baddie, and he does a great job. I guess if you're so good at playing the heel, it's probably not hard to turn the volume up a little more, right? It was cool though for me, to be able to meld my 90210 fandom and my DTV action fandom.

I think outside the US, this was released on DVD, but here I'm pretty sure it's strictly VHS. I'd go VHS if I were you anyway, simply for the nostalgia factor. I should point out, though, this isn't just a fun time, it's a total kickass time, and if you're not ready for this much awesome, you may want to pass and watch something more pedestrian-- say a crummy TapOut film. Otherwise, this what you came here for, get after it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104823/

Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010)

I went back to the archive, to over two years ago, to read my review of Lost Boys: The Tribe. I liked it, but not too much, and I was stuck with a feeling of "why was this made?", similar to the feeling I had after seeing Star Wars Episode I. Anyway, I had forgotten all about that review when I saw Lost Boys: The Thirst pop up on my Netflix queue, and was just excited to see what Feldman had in store for us this time.

Lost boys: The Thirst had Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog, living in a trailer that's being foreclosed on, and he needs some cash. When a hot stranger with a British accent comes to him hoping she can save her brother from vampires, at first he declines, but then he thinks about it, and decides it might be worth a go. Word on the street is, he can get a shot at the head vampire, the Alpha, the oldest of all time. He wants his brother Alan's help, but Alan's a vampire, so he can't count on that. He turns to a coquettish comic book store owner who has a thing for him instead. Can they take down this ultimate baddie?



Wow, this was the bomb. Totally got it right. As good as we can expect. Tongue-in-cheek in the right parts, bloody in the right parts, and awesomely Feldman in the right parts. This just got it, and because it got it, I loved it. There were great jokes about the Twilight series, reality TV, bloggers, and comic book buyers. The story and acting did a great service to the original, and I think fans of the original will like this one much more than Lost Boys: The Tribe. It also hits a perfect 81 minutes long. This was just a lot of fun, what you're looking for from a DTV Lost Boys movie.

This is one of those hybrid action/horror/comedy films, so I'm not sure I can classify it as strictly horror for the sake of this paragraph, but I'll try anyway. When I first started this site, I was drawing from a much larger scope of films than simply 1980s-90s bad action. My friends and I growing up loved all genres of low-budget DTV movies, from Sci-Fi like Cyberjack, to action like Showdown in Little Tokyo, to comedy like Ski School, to horror like Bad Taste and Street Trash. In fact, the horror was perhaps a bigger part of the picture than action films were. What happened along the way, though, as the blog grew in popularity, a lot of the energy in the comment threads came for the action films, and it was on the basis of that momentum that I started picking movies. Particularly big are those comments I get where someone comes in and is like "I loved this or that part, this is one of my all time faves, I love this or that actor", which is great, and I just don't get those in the horror films. I do know that I have a lot of horror followers, only they're not as vocal, and that's fine; it's just hard to ignore that energy, and because it mostly comes from the action films, that's why a huge percentage of my reviews are of action movies.



Corey Feldman really brings it here. He doesn't take himself too seriously, but he knows when to be funny, and when to play it straight and let the atmosphere do the humor for him. This is a huge change from his early days in comedic films like Busted and National Lampoon's Last Resort. There's still a lot he did in the 90s that I could go to for future posts, but I'm not sure how much I should, considering the odds are good it won't be as good as this. I think we're all rooting for Feldman and dig that he's made good now, and I can't wait to see what's next.

This film introduces an interesting dichotomy between two types of woman: the absolute hottie that's probably unattainable, and when she comes calling, a guy like Edgar Frog should be suspicious; and the cute comic book chick, who may not be as gorgeous as the hottie, but doesn't do so bad in the looks department herself, and also happens to know tons about comic books and other nerdy stuff. The idea, of course, is that the hottie is dangerous, while the cute comic book chick is innocuous, and the safer bet. This film follows that logic up until the end, when they show that even the comic book chick has an edge-- that she may not be that innocuous after all. I like that, when DTV movies do a decent job depicting their female characters in more rounded ways. It's an easy way to add depth that takes very little time, yet is seldom done.



Finally, we all watch this film with a heavy heart, knowing Corey Haim no longer with us. He actually turned down a role in this with a plan to appear in a fourth installment. We see him in flashback shots from the very first film, and it's eerie to think Feldman as Edgar Frog is mourning the loss of his friend, when soon after the real Feldman would be mourning the loss of his real friend. This film, for as much fun as it is, does bring home the fact that Haim didn't make it with us, and didn't get to enjoy this too.

This is an excellent movie. I'm upset that I had to wait over a month for Netflix to get it, but they have it now, so if you have Netflix, have at it. It's been since Titanic II that I've seen a new movie that got it as much as this one did, and I'm glad I had an opportunity to review it and tell everyone about it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1400526/

The Killing Machine (2010)

This was something of a long time coming. As far as I knew, it wasn't out here in the States, because Netflix had it buried in my "saved" queue. Then Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic commented that we had "slowed down" here at the DTVC, because we hadn't gotten to the new Dolph film, and I found out then that Amazon had it, but I didn't have the money to buy it. He said it was on RedBox, but their website didn't list it, and the one nearest me didn't have it. Anyway, a few weeks ago its status changed to "Available November 16, 2010", which is different from the usual "Released" on such and such date. (Hunt to Kill had a similar status). I guess we're saying better late than never, but it did suck that I had to wait because Netflix didn't have it the moment it came out for whatever reason.

The Killing Machine has the DTVC's greatest Hall of Famer, Dolph Lundgren, as Icarus, a former KGB hitman that comes to America for a new start, gets a wife and daughter, then finds out the Russian mob finds out who he is, and they make him do some hit jobs for them. This causes a strain on his marriage, so he shacks up with a total hottie. One thing leads to another-- as they always do when one is a hitman for the mob-- Dolph ends up on the mob's bad side, and needs to protect his family from their wrath.



Man, as much as it pains me to say this, The Killing Machine didn't work for me. It had plenty of great points. Dolph turns in one of his best performances, I loved the Noir-ish feel of it, there were some other great characters, loved Bo Svenson, and the action, when it was there (and we could see it) was pretty stellar. The whole thing with the family, though, didn't fit. It felt like a Lifetime movie was crammed into a Le Samourai French Noir thriller/action flick. In the making of featurette, Dolph said he was intrigued by the idea of an assassin who is also a family man, and his attempt to marry the two lives. I like that he tried it, but in the end, I would've been better with his character having no family, a solitary assassin who runs afoul of his masters.

Dolph said in that same featurette that he wanted to go for a Noir theme, but then wanted to advance the genre somehow. I saw Noir in the storytelling, but not in the directing. Overly rapid jumpcuts, though not as bad as in some of those UFC actioners, was bad enough, but then the LSD cam with the trails on the screen, or the scratched DVD cam where the picture moved in fits and starts, was as far from Noir as I can imagine. When I think Noir, I think of long takes, wide takes, close takes, frames with curious or ironic elements combined. When I think of what Dolph said he was going for, I think of a Steven Seagal flick, The Foreigner, which really married Film Noir and DTV action perfectly. Plus you also had the Lifetime movie aspect with his wife and daughter. The wife was a great actress, but when I think Noir, I think Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep, Rita Hayworth in Gilda, or Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. I'm not saying the actress who played Dolph's wife wasn't capable of that kind of role, I'm saying her role as written was too Lifetime movie to fit a Noir-ish theme.



Anyone who watches the NBA knows what I mean when I say the "Star Rule". In short, it means that star players get preferential treatment from the refs. It was originally known as the Jordan Rules. It definitely could be inferred that Dolph benefits from these star rules here at the DTVC, because I forgive things-- like the constant jumpcuts-- that I'd kill other films for. Let's understand this, Dolph is the Babe Ruth of DTV action. Without him there'd be no Direct to Video Connoisseur. Just his presence on-screen is awesome enough to make up for any poorly lit jumpcut laden action scene that I can't make heads or tails of. That being said, at the beginning and very end (actually the same scene shown twice), we get some amazing vintage Dolph action out of him, as he takes out Bo Svenson's thugs. And I admit freely that he turns in an excellent acting performance, to the point that even in the Lifetime movie scenes, I wasn't thinking about how little action there was, I was actually digging it. Still, I'd rather see him as the stoic Noir-ish assassin-- he looks great in a tailored suit-- than I would the Lifetime movie leading man.

Dolph gets a little introspective on us in The Killing Machine, at least it seems so. He sits with his character's daughter, who tells him how he's never around and how she wishes he didn't always have to go away for work. I think this is Dolph working out on-screen what it's been like to miss his family as he goes off to make these films, and maybe he's even sending a message to us fans that there is a human Dolph Lundgren who doesn't take out five guys at once and come out of ten-on-one gun fights with only a wound to his left shoulder. Usually, I'd dump on a film that cut out a potential action scene for something like this, but as I've said above, Dolph has earned this credit with us as an audience with all the great work he's done in the past, so I'm okay with it-- in fact, I liked it.



Finally, Samantha Ferris played a great character, among many great characters in this film. She was a woman who commandeered some very masculine traits-- and even rocked suits-- but also really retained her femininity in the process. In the featurette, we found out her character was originally supposed to be a man, and some of that is retained in the dialog. But to say she was androgynous, or a butch lesbian, wouldn't really capture what she brought to the table. Unlike the character of Dolph's wife, that didn't fit the Noir aesthetic, this character not only embodied it, but she advanced it in exactly the way Dolph said he wanted to with the whole film.

So I don't know what to tell you. It's not horrible, it just suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Dolph's Film Noir mixed with Lifetime movie goes together like chocolate and Doritos: they're both good, but together they don't work as well. Also, I should point out, this is a pretty macabre Dolph. Early on, we see a guy get fish hooked pretty brutally, with his tongue hanging halfway down his face. It was a little ridiculous. Some of the other stuff was better, like when he sends a dude eye-first into the bar holding his weights on his bench press, but expect a a little more gore than you're used to with Dolph, maybe along the lines of Missionary Man. Anyway, I guess my final analysis is fun, but not that fun.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1261862/

Locked Down (2010)

This film fell to me after a few above it on my Netflix queue weren't available. I was skeptical, because my previous experience with UFC movies hasn't been great; but Vinnie Jones and Bai Ling (Ling Bai?) gave me some hope. Let's see if I was right.

Locked Down is half Death Warrant half Undisputed II, as Tony Schiena plays our framed cop hero sent to prison and forced to fight in a prison fighting circuit run by a crime lord he put away a while back, played by Vinnie Jones. After your classic prison film cliche scenarios are out of the way-- from the chief guard beating our hero with a billy club, to the old prisoner that our hero is lucky enough to have as his cell mate that shows him the ropes (and suddenly becomes his trainer), to the near shanking in the laundry room-- we get our final showdown between Schiena and his man, while an internal affairs hottie investigates his case so she can clear his name. That's pretty much it.



A big warning here to anyone with epilepsy. I'm not being facetious, this is a legitimate concern. There are so many half-a-second jumpcuts that it could cause a serious issue. I grew up with a girl who had epilepsy, and she said she wasn't supposed to play the Nintendo because it might induce an epileptic fit. Well, if the Nintendo could do it, this film could really do it. Also, if you're prone to seasickness, you might have trouble with this film too, because in the few spots we get a shot for more than a half-a-second, the camera is moving all over the place. I could go on about the non sequitur theater in the dialog, or the fight scenes that were good but not that good, or the fact that Bai Ling was almost wasted, and Vinnie Jones didn't have as much license to be cool either, but none of that matters as much because I just couldn't see anything! All right, maybe it matters, because this was your new classic get a bunch of buff tatted dudes in a room, slow down the footage for a second, crank up a Disturbed derivative song, then just watch the tatted dudes punch each other in 80 cuts; but I think this was even worse than that.

Igniame if tihs psot was wtitern eleirtny lkie tihs? How mcuh wluod taht scuk? Taht's waht it's lkie wnithcag tihs mvioe. If my bolg lkoeod lkie tihs, no one wloud raed it. It's fnitsrrutag, huh? The wlohe pniot of wniacthg a mvoie is to see it, rhgit?

I'll stop that, but you get the point. I listened to some of the commentary, and I got the sense that there was a genuine effort here to deliver a decent product, that they didn't think the audience was stupid, that they weren't using this constant cutting to prevent us from seeing their shortcomings as directors or fight choreographers, which makes the end result perhaps more puzzling. In another element they had in the fights, our view would be obstructed by other spectators, which I guess was meant to give us more of a feel of immediacy. In the commentary, they rued the fact that they couldn't find more extras for those scenes. Are you kidding? The whole reason we watch a movie, especially at home, is so we have an unobstructed view. I'm not watching Locked Down to see pieces of a fight around the head of some dude in front of me, and you're saying you wanted more heads in my way? Come on man. And at another point, they talked about the two tatted bad asses they had for a fight, and how cool that was. Sure, it would've been, if all the fights weren't two tatted bad asses, or if we had even been able to see it! If we had more traditional martial arts one-on-one battles-- that we could actually see too-- this change of pace with two huge tatted beasts would have been great. By that point though, we'd seen too much of it, and it came off as old hat.



Films like this are notorious for non sequitur theater. Between the scripts that are rushed to completion, the dialog that ends up looking better on a quick read-through than it does when acted out, the actors that don't exactly have the pedigree to understand when this stuff sounds silly or doesn't fit and try to act through it anyway, to the quick shooting schedules that mandate keeping takes that really don't work just to make sure they had something. I get all of that, and so when some non sequitur theater rears its ugly head, I try not to be too harsh on it... but (there's always a but, huh?), there was one scene we were put through at the very beginning that was too much. Our hero has sex with his girl after a long time away undercover. The sex seems great, but after, she, apropos of nothing, turns on him and says he's never around and he doesn't care about her. Schiena, instead of saying "um, honey, did you take your medication?", he's like "what do you want me to do, it's my job..." and the whole thing becomes weirder and weirder as the acting and dialog becomes worse and worse. The thing is, none of it was necessary. He had no other love interest until the very last scene, so it's not like they needed to get her out of the way; plus, they had no need for the internal affairs character anyway, so she could have played his girlfriend from the start. Why did he need to be framed at all, if he's already an undercover cop, why not just send him in to take down the fighting ring? That one little wrinkle, that he was framed instead of sent in, was not enough to keep it from being a Death Warrant rip-off, so why not go all the way? The thing is, all of these issues would be forgivable if we just had some great action that we could actually see.

The music isn't bad, but I think maybe it's used too often as a crutch, and the director himself admits that he wanted the music to get the film through certain scenes. That's not the way to think about music in movies, though. You want there to be some conflict, that the two are bringing something that the other isn't to the table, in order to create one whole experience. What we got here, because the music was filling in too many gaps in the movie, was a series of glorified music videos. Imagine if Vinnie Jones smashing a guy's head in the car door in Snatch was done in the style of this film: Jones would toss the guy into the open car in slow motion, at the same time, we'd hear a driving guitar rift, followed by a rest, like da-duh, rest, da-duh, rest, da-duh; then Jones goes to the car door, the high-hat kicks in, and we see the top half of the door's window, moving to shut; then some guy kicks in with a noise like "bro!", and the music begins in earnest. From there, we're getting bombarded by images of Jones' face, the bottom half of the body hanging out of the car quivering with each impact, the hood of the car with blood splashing in it, a shaking air freshener (probably something ironic) hanging from the rear view mirror-- all in quick succession, all to a driving Disturbed derivative. I get that you want to showcase these bands and get them some exposure, but either you're making a movie, or you're making a music showcase, and if it's the latter just let us know, and we'll go somewhere else for our action movie.



I love Vinnie Jones and Bai Ling. I also loved a lot of the UFC fighters in this, and Tony Schiena was kind of cool too. The thing is, none of the people on the cover, Vinnie Jones, Bai Ling, Rashad Evans, or Kimobo Slice, are in the film much at all. I get the thinking behind why Tony Schiena isn't on the cover, because he's not as well known, but why not make him known? At least put him on the cover with these guys. And as far as Bai Ling, she was a prison guard, and only had one hot scene with Vinnie Jones, and that was it. Anyone who saw Crank: High Voltage, knows how great Ling can be, and for this film not to even try beyond that one scene was a real disappointment. Jones was a little better, but it was really more the idea of Jones we were seeing, as opposed to him being Jones, if that makes sense? We accepted him as his character in the film, because of all we'd seen him in. Essentially, after Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, movies like this cast Jones knowing they don't need to build his character much-- he's like ready made Contadina crushed tomatoes, the question is, can you add the right ingredients and cook the dish properly to make the most of those crushed tomatoes?

And the answer is no, a resounding no. But that's not to say the film makers didn't have good intentions, or that they can't bring it the next time around. I think we'd all agree, no matter how postmodern our philosophies, that the one trait every movie needs to have, whether it's Ran, Koyaanisqatsi, Pulp Fiction, or One Man Force, is it needs to be visible. We need to be able to see it. I think that's kind of a big deal, and that's where this movie missed the mark. Hopefully next time around, they'll rectify that, and we'll be able to (literally) see what they can do.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1597033/