The Base 2: Guilty as Charged aka Guilty as Charged (2000)

Usually, when I do a post, I try not to mention the posts that came directly before it, because on some levels I want each review to stand on its own, especially if someone stumbles upon them later on down the road in the archives. I made an exception here though, because this post is the last one in a week that had some really awesome films: Pink Chiquitas, Dead Man Walking, and Dance of the Dead. Usually, if you can get one movie to be a winner like that, it's a good week, but now we're going into a Friday post of a Mark L. Lester flick looking for a clean sweep. It would be sweet, but we have to remember, no matter what happens, it's already been a banner week.

The Base 2 isn't so much a sequel as it is a similar premise as The Base-- which kind of begs the question, why bother, if you're making the same movie? But I'm digressing. Antonio Sabato Jr. takes over for Mark Dacascos, and he's sent in to infiltrate a special forces unit that is thought to be connected with some missing soldiers that were acquitted of crimes they should've been court-martialed for. Antonio discovers that the unit is kidnapping these men and letting them loose out in the woods, where they track them down, hunt them, and kill them. Now Sabato Jr. needs to gather as much evidence as possible for as long as possible to pad out the middle of the film, and not get caught.



Okay, so 3 out 4 ain't bad, right? This one was pretty sweet for the first 30 minutes, and then grinds to a halt, goes through 40 minutes of slow plodding, only to get us essentially back to where we were at the thirty minute mark. Then we get a superfluous shirtless male bondage scene with Sabato (though I guess not superfluous to people who are into that kind of thing), and once that's over with, we're again back where we were at the 30 minute mark, and are then officially able to get on with and end the movie. See, here's the problem: once the unit takes their first victim out to kill him, and Sabato see this, the forty minutes after where he's gathering evidence is useless to us. There's no mystery, we know who did it, and we know he knows. What the film should've done instead was have Sabato save the guy they wanted to kill-- who was a rapist that got off because his father's a senator-- and play a cat and mouse game in the woods with the unit for those forty minutes, complete with some awesome Mark L. Lester directed action sequences. I mean, we all knew the movie was going to end up there anyway, why waste all that energy on crap that meant nothing, when you could've used it where it counted? Plus, you'd've had the extra layer of the morality play between Sabato saving a rapist vs. not following orders. Unfortunately, they didn't do that, and when you combine that with not enough great action-- though there was some-- and fight scenes that were lacking without Art Camacho's fight choreography from the first one, what you ended up with was a dud.

The only other Antonio Sabato Jr. flick we've done to this point is The Asylum flick, Princess of Mars, which he was really good in. I'd say he was good here too, he just didn't have a whole lot to work with-- based on how he was in Princess of Mars, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I also liked him in The Big Hit, where he had the best pick up line ever: "I want to pour milk on you and make you a part of my complete breakfast."



We got a little James Remar here, playing the Lt. Colonel heading the unit. He's like an everyman's poor man, right? There are any number of bigger names that he can stand in for if you don't have the budget. For instance, Michael Paré. How about a younger version of Lance Henriksen? Maybe a younger Michael Rooker? A modern day James Coburn, perhaps. I kind of see a little Klaus Kinski, and would be curious to see if he could deliver that mania Kinski was so known for. Also, born in Boston-- Beantown baby!

This had Yuji Okumoto as one of the soldiers in the unit, who is, as you know, an Albert Pyun mainstay. As a DTV geek, seeing a Pyun mainstay in a Lester flick is like seeing Chishu Ryu, an Ozu mainstay, in Red Beard, a Kurosawa flick, would be for a Japanese film geek. Too bad we didn't have any Thom Mathews of Tim Thomerson-- and this movie could've used it. We do have our great Mark L. Lester action moments, especially early on, and then it's like someone else takes over directing duties, because this ceases to be an action film entirely. Maybe the fact that it was originally a TV movie made Lester dial down his violence, but I don't know, we saw some ears cut off and a severed head. Anyway, tell me Lester getting his hands on a Deadly Prey style paradigm wouldn't have crushed it. Total waste.



Do you recognize this chick? You sure? Her name's Melissa Lewis, still not ringing any bells? You know why you don't know her? Because she was tagged with the dreaded "And Introducing" in front of her name, the classic career kiss of death in movies like this. The only one I can think of that wasn't a career ender was James Lew in Red Sun Rising, and as we know, that was an "And Introducing" of a very dubious nature. And it seems like it's actresses more than actors too, right? The leading lady has her name couched with the tag "And Introducing", and it's as if she's on the road to great things; unfortunately, those great things end up being marrying a CPA in Van Nuys and having three kids.

The Base 2: Guilty as Charged was only guilty of one thing: suckage (yes, had to squeeze that one in there...). I just don't understand who writes an action movie script and thinks "let's severely limit the possibilities for any action whatsoever for a good 40 minutes in the middle of the film, how's that sound?" It sounds like painfest sauteed in wrong sauce, how's that?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0236013/

Dance of the Dead (2008)

This was the third of three movies featured in September's Netflix Bad Movie Night, which as I've mentioned before, is run by our friends at Mr. Gable's Reality, and Guts and Grog Reviews, Morbidementia. I have to confess, because this was the last one, and it started at midnight here on the East Coast, I kind of fell asleep for a chunk of the middle. I know, I suck, but it was a busy weekend, I got back late from the Sox game the night before, and got up early that morning to watch Arsenal tank... anyway, I did go back and rewatch it, so this isn't a review based on half a movie. Also, our friend Francisco at The Film Connoisseur looked at this one a couple years ago, so you can check that out as well.

Dance of the Dead is about a high school in Georgia readying itself for it's prom. There's a nuclear power plant nearby, and it's doing something weird to some of the corpses in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the sci-fi club, unable to get dates for the prom, go into the cemetery to cause trouble, and they find it, exciting all the zombies to life. Now the whole town is in danger, and it's up to a group of kids, led by Jimmy, the class clown, and his recently estranged girlfriend, Lindsey, to get to the prom and save all their classmates before the zombies get there and feast on them.



I really liked this one. Maybe the best horror flick I've seen in years. It got everything right. Great comedy, dark humor, gore, special effects-- just a great low-budget comedic zombie flick and send-up of teen movies. I liked that it had all the classic types, but instead of exacerbating the types and jamming their elbows into my ribs, constantly saying "see, see, we have a that guy! You know how all these movies have a guy like that!", they dulled that effect a bit, and actually tweaked each one, making them a slightly different take on their prototypes. I also really liked the music in this, including a sweet cover of Pat Benetar's "Shadows of the Night" by the high school garage band. This is horror comedy done right, definitely worth a look.

Of all the characters, I identified most with Jimmy, because, like him, I too was the class clown. Usually, the class clown is played by a Matthew Lillard type, and while he may last 'til the last half hour, he seldom survives, and is definitely never the hero. Kudos to you movie for giving us class clowns some love, we can step up to the plate and save the day when called upon.



Who is this guy? He looks so familiar, but when I looked him up on imdb, I hadn't seen any of the things he was listed in. He played the lead singer of the band, and was pretty cool. Best part: when he sang (or lipsynched, I'm not sure which) the Pat Benetar cover. The whole scene was just really sweet. It was like the horror film take on the romantic teen movie lovers finally have their moment scene, with Jimmy and his girl slow dancing, covered in blood, while zombies are wandering in a trance around them.

As I mentioned above, I liked how all the stereotypes were tweaked. For instance, the geek wasn't a nice, misunderstood guy, he was a bitter, obnoxious tool; and the cheerleader wasn't a vain, shallow pretty girl, she was a down-to-earth go-getter that kicked a lot of ass. And of course, we mentioned the class clown above, and his girlfriend was kind of the Miss Perfect type, which was also not true to form, as she hooked up with another dude, then laced up some combat boots for the final zombie confrontation. It's too easy for a horror comedy to take the stereotypes, exacerbate them, then hit us over the head with how much they're ticking off all the boxes. To keep a level of comedic consistency, while doing something different with the characters we go in expecting, that's true quality.



Finally, I wanted to take a second to discuss Twilight. I know our buddy Mr. Gable looked at the first one, and he took a similar track to the one I'd taken: why are people so angry about these films, when they're made for teen girls? It's like watching Dora, the Explorer and yelling "this show is so dumb! I can't stand this crap! Who cares about that stupid map! What the hell the point of a talking monkey! Who likes this shit!" 5-year-olds, that's who, and as Dora wasn't made with adults in mind, neither was Twilight, so relax, it's not like the film is advocating Holocaust denial or plotting to kill your mother. On the other hand, just because it's not made for us, it doesn't mean we can't have a little fun with it, and that's what Dance of the Dead does, here, where poor Steve becomes a zombie to be with the girl he's pined over all this time. It's kind of like they take the Twilight vampire romance, and move it to it's logical conclusion, using zombies instead.

You can get this on DVD pretty much anywhere, and for right now, it's on Watch Instantly (the quality of Netflix's product is dipping considerably though, so who knows how long it'll stay for). If you're a horror fan, or even if you're not, I think you'll enjoy this. This is the kind of movie that gives me hope that the genre is not totally lost.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0926063/

Dead Man Walking (1988)

When I first envisioned the DTVC, over four years and 725 posts ago, it was this kind of movie I had in mind. A Wings Hauser flick co-starring Brion James and the guy from Re-Animator-- back then, we didn't call him Jeffrey Combs, just "the guy from Re-Animator." At that time, my friends and I were on a big Wings Hauser kick, and we'd find all kinds of flicks of his on VHS and have viewing nights. This, unfortunately, was one we didn't find, and probably never would've found had the DTVC not continued on to where it is now, giving me a reason to track it down more aggressively for a review.

Dead Man Walking takes place 14 years ago, ten years after a plague has struck the planet, forcing the world's powers to take drastic measures, including blocking off entire sections of the country to keep the infected people away from the healthy ones. Among the infected, there's a rare few who have contracted a non-contagious strain that leaves its victims with only a year or two to live. These people are known as Zero Men, and they often behave erratically, like our man Wings, who plays Luger, a dude with a penchant for playing Russian Roulette with a chainsaw. After the Unitas Corporation's CEO is killed and his daughter kidnapped by another Zero Man, Decker (Brion James), the CEO's chauffeur, Jeffrey Combs, recruits Hauser to get her back-- from the infected zone. But what secret is Combs hiding?



This is what you came for. Slightly dystopian, slightly post-apocalyptic, slightly psychotronic, but all Wings and all Brion James. I mean, the Wings factor is immense, robust, dare I say prodigious. It's all the Wings you could want. And Brion James is an equally excellent baddie. Throw in Combs as the shady CEO's chauffeur, and some pretty funny black humor, a la Robocop in the form of news casts scattered throughout the film, and you've got yourself a gem.

For people who love Wings, there are certain things he does that stand out. Like he makes this face with his mouth open that is just quintessential Wings, or has this wide-eyes smile, or sometimes stands a little too close to the people he's talking to, or will deliver his lines in a way that's just a little off from what you'd expect someone to say. All of that Wings-ness is on full display in this film. One of the cooler things about this one was to see him act opposite Jeffrey Combs for a good bit. You'd think the two make no sense together, but they actually work.



Brion James. We've seen him play a great baddie before, but here we get him in dyed bright orange hair. It just makes him that much better a baddie, right? He has this one scene that might be too gross for some of you though, so I figured I'd shoot out a warning. A guy he escapes from prison with threatens him with a knife, so he grabs it by the blade, opening a huge gash on his hand. He then goes over to the girl they kidnapped, and uses his finger to take some of the blood-- the consistency of Smucker's raspberry preserves-- and draw a line on her face, then he does the same to his own. Then he licks some of it off his hand, and, with it still on his tongue, licks the girls lips for a good thirty seconds, before the two start making out. I just want to warn you, because it was pretty graphic.

Talking about Jeffrey Combs on a site like this, especially to the horror fans that follow us, is like a girl posting a pic of Michael Fassbender on her movie Tumblr-- like that's the level of giddiness it engenders. And I ain't mad at you either, because I love Jeffrey Combs too. He's not really as off-the-wall batshit crazy as you're used to in some of his horror roles, but he's still pretty Jeffrey Combs, which is good. Definitely a guy we need to do more of on here-- it is kind of embarrassing that I haven't done Re-Animator yet.



Do any of you remember a show called Out of Control with Dave Coulier? Well, Diz is in this as an emcee at Cafe Death, a place where people with the plague go and watch people die and stuff. It was an idea that they didn't do as much with as they could've-- one of the few disappointments of the film-- but Diz was great, going for an almost Elvira slant, until she sets this dude on fire, then she lets out that trademark scream of hers. The problem was, they made too much out of this one death. It should've been two or three deaths, and really hit home the macabre and disturbing elements of it.

But that's one minor issue with a movie that otherwise works. It's only on used VHS, but you can get it for a good price, so it's worth it. Great Wings, great Brion, great Combs, and a pretty solid low-budget 80s sci-fi flick to boot. It was movies like this that got me to start the DTVC, and it's movies like this that keep me going.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092841/

Pink Chiquitas (1987)

This one was a recommendation from our buddy Tromeric at Guts and Grog Reviews, and it was a definite had me at hello. He hit the wall on the Facebook page with not only a mention of the movie and why he liked it, but he also included the link to the imdb page. It was all right there, too good to ignore. Now, on the other hand, we've had plenty of requests/recommendations in the past that looked as promising, but where I've had to turn around and tell the person that so enthusiastically made the request that it didn't really do anything for me. Would that be the case here?

Pink Chiquitas has Frank Stallone as the son of a famous PI, looking to make a name for himself after his father passes away. He's got a special Pink Chiquita necklace that his father gave him, which crime boss Don Enchilada will stop at nothing to get his hands on. So he hides out in the small town of Beamsville, when a meteor strikes in a secluded wooded area, and not soon after, the town's men and women start acting weird. What could be causing it? And what is the connection between the meteor and Stallone's necklace.



There are two types of movies that start off great: the ones that live up to that start, and the ones that don't. I can safely say this one is in the former category, but it might not be for everyone. This is the kind of movie that you can't fight. If you resist it, you won't enjoy it. If you have trouble with an overacting, not funny, played for laughs sheriff's deputy randomly attacking a mob outside his station with a flamethrower, then I'd stay off this. On the other hand, if you can handle that kind of thing, the really great things about this will fully reward you. Frank Stallone is fantastic, and he really gets what the film makers were going for here, and he carries it off really well. From there, the rest of the movie just works in a 1982 Porky's kind of way, but a good way, with enough original material. I had a few problems with them spending too much time on a few characters I could've cared less about, but in the end, even that kind of thing worked out. I know I say this a lot, but if you're someone who overuses the word "cheesy" to describe low-budget movies, this is probably a bit much for you; but if you can relax and just let this movie happen, it will reward you.

I never thought I'd say this, but Frank Stallone was a revelation. I'm dead serious. He was fantastic. Perfectly comedic, hit all his spots, and as I said above, got exactly what this movie was about, and sold it. Also, he recorded a bunch of songs for the soundtrack. Maybe the best stuff he did in the movie: when he played his character's father in the flashback sequences. Where has this been all my movie watching life? I've been so used to Frank Stallone being on D-grade covers with just his last name to try and dupe me into renting it thinking his brother's the star. Frank Stallone is no Dwayne Swayze, and Pink Chiquitas shows that.



This movie plays on a lot of stereotypes, often in a way that didn't work, but one that did, and which a good chunk of the film was centered around, is the hot librarian. You know what I'm talking about, total prude, hair up, big glasses, long skirt, but has a secret wild side. The librarian here was played by Elizabeth Edwards, and she gave some hints early on that we might see this transformation, but nothing can prepare us for how well it's done. Totally 80s, with some well-teased hair and loads of make-up; but she's also rocking this red leather bikini-type thing. Man, I love the hot librarian fantasy, and this movie does it right.

Former Catwoman Eartha Kitt was the voice of the meteor. As many of you probably know, the 1960s Batman show is one of my all time favorites, and I was trying to think of who we'd seen from it in previous DTVC posts (not counting the post we did on the movie, of course). I know we had Frank Gorshin in Bloodmoon, Burt Ward was in the Miles O'Keeffe flick Moving Targets. Then we had Roddy McDowall in Double Trouble. I thought we'd had an Adam West flick on here, but it looks like I was thinking of New Age, the Peter Weller flick I looked at for my other Tumblr. I should probably create a tag for old Batman stars to make this kind of thing easier.



I know I brought this up in the fourth paragraph, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it again before we wrapped this up: Frank Stallone was fantastic. I'm not sure what I expected from him, but this wasn't it. Seriously, how did he have a movie like this on his resume and not have gotten more work? Is it really the whole "your Sly's brother?" Who knows? Maybe he can't do the serious stuff like his brother can, and maybe he can't do the action hero stuff like his brother can, but if you've seen Stop or My Mom Will Shoot, you know Frank is the one who has the comedy thing down. Don't let any preconceived notions on Frank Stallone color your opinion of him or this film going in.

I figured for sure this was only on VHS, and I was lucky enough to track down a copy; but it turns out it's not only on DVD, but Netflix even has it. Do it either way, VHS or DVD, but do it, you won't be sorry. Sometimes there's some bad slapstick that may test your sensibilities, but as I said above, if you don't fight it and just let yourself enjoy this movie, it will reward you. Thanks again to Tromeric at Guts and Grog Reviews for the recommendation.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093741/

Instinct to Kill (2001)

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but I liked that it had Mark Dacascos, and I liked that he was reunited with Kadeem Hardison, whom he was great with in Drive. If this ends up being half the movie Drive was, we'll be in pretty good shape.

Instinct to Kill has Tim Abell as a psychopathic police detective, who splits time away from the force between being a serial killer and an abusive husband. It's his battered wife that finds out about the serial killing and turns him in, and when he escapes from prison, he wants revenge on her. She decides she's had it with being a victim, so she goes to Dacascos to learn to defend herself. Problem: she's not through with the training before Abell comes after her. Now Dacascos and her and Abell's old police partner, Kadeem Hardison, need to work together to take him down.



This one wasn't bad. It was mostly carried by Tim Abell, who was an exceptional baddie, but from there, Dacascos was great as the hero, and Melissa Crider solid as the woman fighting back. It had a few good fight scenes too, especially a couple between Dacascos and Abell. The problem was that I think it initially was supposed to be more about Crider taking down Abell-- hence the original title of The Perfect Husband-- and that left us with some inconsistencies, as Dacascos felt shoe-horned in in parts, or his role felt beefed up as opposed to naturally centered on him. That's a difficult thing to mitigate, because Dacascos is so good, it would be hard not to have him and Abell go at it. Overall, not bad though.

Let's start with Dacascos. This is not the kind of role where he's going to get a ton of fight scenes, meaning it's not in the ballpark of something like Drive, but he's still pretty solid. His fight scenes were choreographed by James Lew, and I think Lew wanted to go with more realism and less flash, which worked within the framework of the film, but left something to be desired as an action fan. The other thing that worked against him, was the wife's revenge/redemption aspect, because that undermined him as the hero. He had to be defeated by Abell so she could finally deliver the final shot and confront her demons.



As I said above, Tim Abell was absolutely chilling as the baddie. Every time he was in a scene, there was a sense bad things were going to happen-- and when I say bad, I mean evil. Think along the lines of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. That really made this movie for me. Everything centered on how horrible he was, and how badly people needed to stop him. He's been a baddie in films we've seen before at the DTVC, including Storm Trooper where he also played an abusive husband (though nowhere near what he was here), and The Base, where he was also a baddie opposite Dacascos. It's this role, though, that earns him his DTVC tag. Great stuff.

This was executively produced by Mark L. Lester. Yes, that Mark L. Lester. This did not feel like a Mark L. Lester film though, except for one scene where Abell disguises himself as an old lady pushing a stroller, which he rolls into the back of an unmarked police car with two detectives inside staking out his old house. The cops look at him, not knowing what to think, then they see the bomb in the stroller, but it's too late, the whole thing blows up. There's also a pretty big shoot out in a hospital that was Lester-ish. But, alas, he was only the executive producer, so this was not as awesome as Showdown in Little Tokyo, et al.



Abell's character was something of a master of disguise, though it seemed like he always looked kind of like himself-- it was like people who worked with Clark Kent not knowing he's Superman because he's wearing glasses. Anyway, in this one scene, it looks like he's disguised as Chris Meloni. My favorite Chris Meloni role is as the cook in Wet Hot American Summer. I think a lot of people are used to seeing him as Stabler in Law and Order: SVU, but he's one of the better comedic actors working today, and hopefully we'll see more of that now that he's left that show.

I give this a somewhat cautious recommendation, just because, while it has some action, action isn't the main focus. Dacascos is good, and Abell is even better, so there's something there to hang your hat on. Still, this isn't the exceptional action flick we're looking for from Dacascos, especially with Drive on his resume.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291265/

Dark Secrets aka Cold Earth (2008)

This is one of those ones that I figured would be painful, but I knew I had to do it because it featured DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels. Plus, it was on Watch Instantly, which made it very accessible. We'll see what happens, and if the movie's a stinker, we'll see if I can do my job as a reviewer and make this post entertaining.

Dark Secrets takes place in England, where Gary Daniels and his wife live, him a race car driver, her an actress. Their daughter is kidnapped, and the detective assigned to the case thinks it's the same guy who killed a little girl before-- a case that still haunts the detective, literally, as in the form of a ghost. Now the question is, can she make herself useful and help the detective solve the case.



Okay, so obviously this isn't your classic Gary Daniels DTV actioner. With that said, I'm going to try and critique on what it was, which was essentially a Lifetime movie with more obscene language. It even had the beats of a Lifetime movie, with fade-outs at moments that would've been commercial breaks on TV. I guess as far as that goes, it's a matter of whether or not the psychic/supernatural aspect is too much for you. I gotta say, it kind of was for me. As a movie, it had it's issues, including some awkward transitions, and a hero that wasn't always easy to root for-- beating a handcuffed prisoner for information isn't very heroic. Overall, while this isn't really a DTVC kind of movie, I think you could see a lot worse if this pops up on the Lifetime Movie Network.

Gary Daniels does not have a large part in this, and does pretty much no martial arts, having only one scene where he fights, and in that, you can see that he wants to get after it, but can't because it's not in his character. I also liked that he really went for the London Cockney accent, including tons of foul language. We seldom see Daniels like that, so it was refreshing. Kind of a novelty, like Kiss of the Vampire was, but nothing more.



I chose this image here because I wanted to make a statement. I'm sure a lot of my readers are like a lot of my friends: settled down, maybe even with children. Those friends look at me and sometimes are like "why are you still single?" and other times are like "man, you got a good thing going there, I'm jealous." You wanna know why I'm still single, that's it, right there. Picking out lamps. I can't think of anything more soul crushing. I helped three friends and their families move over the past month. U-Haul load after U-Haul load of years of accumulated trips to Home Depot and Target and IKEA to get one thing, or three things, or four. One friend, who I helped move four full U-Haul trips, had the audacity to buy a new recliner with his wife a week later, after he was complaining to me about how much crap they had. It's like once you settle down and get married and have kids, that's it, all you do after that is buy crap like lamps. Casual relationships do not involve buying furniture, that's why I'm still single.

How do you know a movie is low-budget? When they use Comic Sans font for the end credits. I think when LeBron left Cleveland, and because of the way he did it, everyone was on Cavs owner Dan Gilbert's side... until he decided to post his rebuttal rant in Comic Sans, then we were like, dude, get over it. Comic Sans is the Fanny Pack of fonts.



Gotta throw in the pic of the kid rocking the Arsenal jersey. I know, the Gunners don't look good early this year, and they're in danger of failing to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since the late 90s, but they're still my team, and I gotta rep 'em when I see someone in their gear in a movie I'm reviewing. If you're curious, this is the red currant jersey they wore for only one season, '05-06, to commemorate their last season in their then stadium, Highbury, before moving to their current digs at the Emirates; the rest of the time their colors are red and white with blue trim. I still have my JVC one from the late 90s.

The fact that I used the last three paragraphs to talk about couples buying lots of furniture, Comic Sans font, and the Arsenal football club, must tell you something about this. Nothing more than a Lifetime flick with loads of foul language and no Meredith Baxter-Birney or Joanna Kerns. For Daniels completists only.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0915454/

Split Second (1992)

This film was brought to my radar through a Tumblr site, Rise. Really cool stuff there, especially some great pics from 80s flicks and TV shows. They posted a covershot from Split Second (not the one I used here), and I thought it was pretty sweet and reblogged it. I also realized that A) I needed to get some more Rutger Hauer up here, and B) I'd never seen this one before. So I put some work in and found out a buddy that's a pretty huge Rutger Hauer fan had it, so here we are.

Split Second takes place 3 years ago, when London is partially flooded due to Global Warming induced rains. Insert Hauer as a police detective who doesn't follow the rules, is reckless and dangerous, and has discovered a serial killer that he thought was gone is back and viciously killing people. But what is this thing? Is it even human? And does he have the firepower to stop it?



This one falls short for me. Liked the premise and loved Hauer. It felt like it would've made a great 90s syndicated TV show, with Hauer as the lead reoccurring character, and this would've been a sweet one episode in said TV show. It just didn't quite have enough material for 90 minutes worth of movie. The first 40 minutes were pretty lackluster, then it picks up with the introduction of Kim Cattrall's character, and more consistent danger from the baddie that gives Hauer more than just mean-mugging and great one-liners to do. Then we get an extended ending which we needed to transition to quicker, something that I might have forgiven more had we not had a stagnant first 40 minutes or so, because it was good once we got there, but I'd already had enough "let's get on with it"s. This definitely had its moments, but overall was a miss.

I will say one thing for it though, this is some fantastic Rutger Hauer. This is certainly no Hauer bait-and-switch, this is the kind of too sweet Hauer that makes me fall for the bait-and-switch, the kind of Hauer that got him in the Hall of Fame in the first place. Everything is awesome, from the leather duster, the shades, the cigar and cigarette smoking, and the sweet one-liners. His character was a bit of a dick though, which was a bit of a drawback, but they made up for it by giving him a huge gun. Too bad even his awesomeness couldn't carry this film through its dead spots.



This is some interesting Kim Cattrall. First off, she's something of a main character, but doesn't appear until around the 40 minute mark. Second, her hair is kind of weird, like a bob, but with the area right next to the ear shaved. What, is that supposed to be futuristic? Also, she has a shower scene, and boobs are shown. I know some people watch these movies for things like that, so yes, Kim Cattrall nude scene in Split Second. (And no, I didn't post any pics of it.)

The late Pete Postletwaite has a small part in this as the jerk fellow officer that's always giving Hauer a hard time. You can see from that image how far that gets him. In 1992, he made appearances in three TV shows, and four movies, including this one, Alien³, and Last of the Mohicans. I've always loved Pete Postletwaite, and he will be missed. Here's to you Pete, you were one of the good ones.



I don't want to give too much of this movie away, but let's just say it [cough cough] emulates [cough cough] a few sci-fi classics that came before it. I don't have a problem with that at all. As long as there's stuff happening, a rip-off can be a lot of fun. With this one, it's almost as if the rip-off is an afterthought though, like they were writing a classic serial killer suspense thriller, and then couldn't figure out how to end it, and came up with all this madness. Problem is, the serial killer suspense thriller stuff was too boring, so by the time we got to the fun rip-off, I was too bored. On the other hand, I can see how many people would go into this, be bored by the beginning, then have so much fun with the end, that they forget the horrible beginning. I know this feeling. When I saw Iggy Pop in concert, he was so good, I literally forgot about the horrible opening act. I mean that too, a buddy I saw the show with brought up the opening act, and I was like "what opening act?"

According to Amazon, there actually is a region 1 DVD of this, and it'll run you about $125 used. I'm not kidding. Obviously, that's not what you want, and on VHS you can get it used for much cheaper, under $5. If you see it for a couple bucks, it's worth it for the great Rutger Hauer, but otherwise, it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105459/