Sniper Special Ops (2016)

This was a Seagal flick on Netflix, so when I came back from hiatus I wanted to check it out to get caught up on as many Seagl flicks as I could. I also liked that it was directed by Fred Olen Ray, and features one of our favorites, Tim Abell. In addition to us, this has been covered by our friends Simon at Explosive Action and Mitch at The Video Vacuum, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought. Now, without any further ado...

Sniper: Special Ops is not connected with the Sniper series. In this one, Seagal plays a sniper who, I guess because he's in his mid-60s, spends most of his time sedentary and only moves when he has to. That unfortunately leads to him getting hemmed in by the baddies when a mission goes bad, and Tim Abell wants to go in and save him. He can't right away though, because he needs to go get supplies from a broken down vehicle--the thinking being that Seagal isn't going anywhere anyway, so there's no rush. Things seem off to Abell though. Will he get to the bottom of it before he and his men become collateral damage?

I don't know if I would call this a bait-and-switch, and I'll tell you why: when I see Fred Olen Ray directs and Tim Abell in the cast, I have a hunch who's carrying my movie, and I'm actually good with it. In fact, it allows me to have more fun with the fact that Seagal is spending most of the film sitting while Abell is the one out there taking care of business. Yes, in a just world Abell would be in the foreground of the cover of this with his name across the top, with Seagal sitting in a chair in the background and his name below Abell's, but that's not how it works, and I think Fred Olen Ray knows Abell gets that, and also knows it's up to him to make or break this; and also for a guy like Ray who does films on the quick and dirty, he needs to know he can call on people like Abell to play the part he needs as professionally as possible. This movie's not perfect by any stretch, but at 86 minutes, even the rougher parts move along quickly enough to make it enjoyable.

The IMDb synopsis actually mentions Abell first before Seagal, which I thought was a nice touch. I think the easy thing to do here is say that because Abell served in the military that that explains why he's good in this role--and I may have been guilty of that as well, except we saw him turn in an absolutely chilling performance as the baddie in the Mark Dacascos film Instinct to Kill, so his ability to carry this movie goes beyond his military background. I think the problem for Abell is he doesn't always get parts that have the weight to them that allows him to show what he can do. What's great about this situation is it feels like Fred Olen Ray is thinking, I need to lean on Abell to make this work with the time and budget constraints I'm under, and I think that comes from working with him a lot and knowing what he can do. I still put the Instinct to Kill performance above this one, but it's good to see Abell get the lead in a film, even if he's not on the cover.

And that leads us to our film's one Hall of Famer. If you go to Simon's review on Explosive Action, he actually does a breakdown of Seagal's screentime in the film. It's that scant. Normally I lead with the Hall of Famer, but I felt like Abell deserved the top billing he didn't get on the cover. There are two ways to look at Seagal's character: one, why is he even in this if this is all he's doing? or two, it's kind of a fun novelty that he's playing this small part. I think the funnier one might be Rob Van Dam, because he's also not in this much, but gets second billing, and I wonder how much they thought people might misread the cover and think it means Jean-Claude Van Damme. My understanding is Seagal and Van Damme don't get along, but I don't remember Rob Van Dam and Seagal having any scenes together, so they could have been in the movie together. Maybe that's something we can look forward to, a Seagal-Van Damme team-up where neither has any scenes together. The interesting thing is, his next review puts him in the 30 Club. He'll make a very interesting addition for sure.

One aspect of the film didn't play well with me, and that was at the base when Charlen Amoia, who plays an admiral's daughter trying to get pictures of the fighting, gets manhandled by Abell when he doesn't want her taking pictures. Abell is a very intense guy, and Amoia is very slight, so it made me uncomfortable to see him push her around like that--it was a different story when there was shooting and he had to pull her out of the way to save her. The way they end up growing on each other, it almost felt like Ray threw that in there as a kind of screwball comedy moment, and maybe that was the idea and under a tight shooting schedule they didn't have time to see how it looked after--or if by knowing how it would all turn out, it didn't feel as off-putting while shooting it. Just something that was a little bit off for me.

I wanted to wrap up by talking about Fred Olen Ray. This is his 14th tag here on the site, which puts him behind only Albert Pyun for most tags by a director. That might be a sign of things to come this fall when we talk Hall of Fame inductees, but right now, looking at his current work, it's a lot of TV movies--in fact, I believe this is the only movie that wasn't a TV movie that he's done since 2015. A lot of them are Christmas movies, which in a way makes sense, because the cable networks need tons of those, and who better than someone like Ray who can get it done quick and under budget. It makes sense for Ray too, because he doesn't need to worry about all the special effects he does in a film like this or some of the horror movies. That's not a problem for us though, he still has a ton of stuff in his back DTV catalog that we need to get to, and it could take years to exhaust it with reviews.

But that's for another day, right now we're wrapping this one up. If you're a Seagal fan, this is really for completists only. For a low budget DTV military actioner though, it does the trick, and I think with Tim Abell's performance, we can also enjoy the novelty of Seagal's small role. Right now you can still get it on Netflix, so it's not a bad deal to be able to watch it as part of the service you're already paying for.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0676248  

The Tracker (2019)

This was available to stream on cable when our cable company offered a free Epix preview. You know me, if I can get something without paying extra, I'm all for it. I watched it at that time more for my Dolph list on Letterboxd, but I did get screens so I could do the review as well. If you haven't been checking us out on Letterboxd, do. We have Dolph, Gary Daniels, and PM Entertainment list, plus you can look at our list on Upcoming Reviews and my Watch List to see what we have on tap. Now, without any further ado.

The Tracker has Dolph as a guy who is really good at tracking his prey. When his wife and daughter are killed by guys trying to use them to get him to do a job for him, he's naturally devastated, and naturally wants revenge. Years later he's called out to Italy because a cop there has intel for him. That cop stands him up at a cafe, because he was killed by the other dirty cops at his precinct that want to keep him from letting Dolph in on the truth. Now Dolph has to track down his family's killers, and only has a guy from Rome who was transferred there on assignment to help him.

This is a slow burner, with emphasis on the "slow." The tagline, "revenge never stops," might be true, but it also tends to take its time. I think the problem is, we kind of know who the players are and what they're up to early on, so we're really just waiting to get there, and it's a matter of how much Dolph we'll get in the process. And I don't know that we got enough, and I don't know that there were enough compelling characters outside of Dolph to make it work. We had the detective from Rome, whose wife is expecting, which is a nice compliment, but I think we needed more of him and Dolph together doing stuff to make it work better. On my Dolph list I had it at 59, and while looking back on it now I don't remember it being worse than some of the films I put ahead of it, but I think the lack of action without a plot compelling enough to make up the difference was its ultimate downfall unfortunately.

This is the third of three films Dolph had come out in 2019, the other two being Acceleration and Hard Night Falling. Again, I had this third among those three, and probably for that reason I gave above. There were some nice Dolph scenes in it though which really helped. According to IMDb, Dolph doesn't have anything slated for release in 2020, which would be the first time since 2008 that that happened. I think his mindset was, "Matt's just back from hiatus, he needs to get caught up on all my stuff, so I'll give him a year." While 2020 might have been the year we needed a Dolph film most, if that's his reason, I have to appreciate that.

I loved the shot of Dolph sitting in an Italian outdoor cafe in his coat and scarf. I tend to think of Van Damme as the most European of our action stars, but seeing Dolph like this reminds me how European he is as well, he just plays a lot more Americans because his English is so good. If the movie was going to go in the "less action-more suspense" direction, it needed to be more stylish like this, especially this kind of European stylishness. Sometimes style over substance is all it takes, and with Dolph, you've got plenty of style, just lean on it.

This one was directed by Giorgio Serafini, one of now four collaborations he's done with Dolph. Among those collaborations is Ambushed, one of the most egregious bait-and-switches ever perpetrated on the DTVC, but the thing is, we don't know how much that was Serafini, and how much perhaps it was taken from him and re-edited. The one I have highest out of those collaborations is Puncture Wounds, which is in the high 20s on my Dolph list. I have a sense that when Dolph does these films with Serafini, that he has a lot of input in them, so maybe they really work at the time they're making them, but something ends up happening in post with the finished product.

I couldn't think of a last paragraph, so I left you with another nice Dolph stylish shot for the movie. Going back above with the idea of making this more style over substance, I would just do 90 minutes of Dolph in a scarf and coat sipping espresso and beating people up. Maybe read Joyce by the seashore and then beat people up. Hit on a woman in a record store while thumbing through the jazz section, and then beat people up. Finish it off with a big gun while wearing a coat and scarf and sipping espresso. I'm an idea man, that's why I'm here.

If you don't have this via Epix here in the States, I think you need to pay, and I don't know if this is a pay one. If you can get it as part of your streaming package, that's a better way to go. 2010 Matt would have called this "The Ass-crack-er" and been really proud of myself. 2020 Matt has gotten a little softer and a little less proud of himself.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4142394

Ghost (2020)

The director of this film, Anthony James, reached out to me to see if I'd like to watch and write a review on it. As always, I like the opportunity to help get the word out on an indie movie like this, so I was happy to check it out. Let's see how it went.

Ghost follows Tony Ward, who has just gotten out of prison after ten years. He meets up with his son Connor, who is now a young man living on his own and supporting himself. As he tries to connect with his son, there's an understanding that the past that landed Tony in jail may be catching up with him now that he's out. What that past is, we're not sure. As the day goes on, we see the father and son trying to catch up, but not exactly knowing how to do that given the circumstances of their relationship--and the son also had issues in his own life that he needs to deal with, so these strained interactions with his father aren't helping. The question is, will they get the chance to work all of that out before Tony's past comes knocking.

This was an intense ride. Even when it wasn't supposed to be intense, we could feel the tension lurking in the background so we could never fully relax. There were a lot of long takes as well, which may have been a result of this being shot on an iPhone, but also meant that it was asking a lot of the actors involved, and they all delivered. At the same time, the relationship between Tony and his son Connor felt authentic--as authentic as it could feel when the father has been in prison for 10 years--and that relationship anchored the entire thing to make it all work. I just thought this was good all around.

I was amazed in watching this that it was all shot on an iPhone. When I think of iPhone videos, I think of something handheld that might be bouncing up and down, but this looked like a modern digital movie. We didn't just have still shots either, there were times when the characters were walking and the camera tracked behind them, and you'd never know the difference. I think that's important for people to keep in mind, because the IMDb description mentions that this was shot on an iPhone, and while this was made on a tight budget, it wasn't a home movie, this is a professionally made film that fully looks and feels the part.

As I mentioned above, there were some great long takes in this, the kind of thing that if it were De Niro in a Scorsese film or Fassbender in a McQueen film, we'd be all over how great it is, so the fact that it happens here I think should be equally applauded. There were a few with Tony (played by Anthony Mark Streeter) and Connor (Nathan Hamilton) where I'd watch and think "they haven't cut at all, this conversation is all in one take!" The same way the actors would have to really trust the director's vision when they hear the film is being shot on an iPhone, the director really has to trust his or her actors to be able nail takes like that, and it felt like that symbiosis between director and actors came through in the finished product, which did a lot to make this whole thing work.

The dynamic of the father and son came off really well. In one scene, Tony needs a place to change into the suit he's picked up at a charity shop, and he needs to rely on his son for this, which is the opposite from how it's supposed to work--the parent is supposed to provide the shelter for the child. In other parts, they're almost more like friends than parent and child as they work out the complexities and awkwardness of this unnatural situation they've been placed in by society. The struggle comes through in Connor wanting a father, but also having been used to not having a father for so long. He doesn't want to be told what to do, but he wants someone to take care of him and give him advice. It's something that worked so well that the movie could have just been that, but we have the Chekhov's Gun that was Tony's past looming the entire time that needed dealing with as well.

People hear me complain a lot about how much action a movie has, and may see this and think "why aren't you mad at this movie for not having a lot of action?" I consider action to be a lot of things, whether it's car chases and explosions in an action film, kills in a horror, or jokes in a comedy, the action can take on many forms. The key is, the film can't be spinning its wheels. The thing is, it's harder to pull of in the context of a drama than it is in an action film or a horror film, which is why I get on those films more--like just blow something up! What made this so remarkable, was there was plenty of action, but again, it was done in a the context of a drama, often in long-take scenes. At the same time, there's a sense that all of this has been set on the stove, and someone is turning the heat up slowly until we reach a boiling point, so that when the kettle goes off it's shocking. This had a lot more action in it than an action film that blows up a few cars and then has nothing happen in between.

On that note, that's is a good place to leave this. I believe it's currently available in the UK, and then in the US we should be able to get it on Prime on July 10th. Using your clicks and your streams to boost a film like this in the algorithms is not only a great way to support indie films, but I think you'll really like this as well, so you'll be entertained while you do your good deed.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10244008

A Dangerous Place (1994)

I was looking up Bulletproof Action's Ultimate PM Entertainment Countdown (which features our friend Will at Exploding Helicopter as one of the panel) to see where they had Skyscraper, and I noticed I had seen all of their top ten except for this one. I mentioned that to Ty from Comeuppance Reviews, and he agreed that I needed to see it, so we're making it happen now. In addition to its inclusion on Bulletproof Action's PM list, it also has been reviewed by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, and Karl at Fist of the B-List, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought. Now, without any further ado...

A Dangerous Place is a take on the Karate Kid paradigm, and the twist is murder--and flipping cop cars, since it is PM after all. Ted Jan Roberts is a high school freshman, and when his older brother turns up dead, hanging from his school basketball hoop, Ted Jan doesn't buy the initial verdict that it's suicide, he thinks the bad karate crew his brother ran with, the Scorpions, had something to do with it. So he goes undercover to try and root out the truth. But will he find out before they discover his true motives?

This is definitely up there with some of the most fun PM. I have it tenth on my PM top ten list. First, Ted Jan Roberts is a great protagonist, he takes Macchio and gives him a SoCal feel that really works. Then you have Marshall Teague as the evil sensei of the Scorpions. No, he doesn't tell anyone that he fucked guys like them in prison, nor does he do a dance with a pool cue in a bar, but it's still Teague baddie all the way (spoiler alert: his throat stays intact in the film). Feldman as the head of the Scorpions is total Feldman crossed with Dylan McKay--his character's even named Dylan! In addition to them we have Mako as Roberts's sensei, Erin Gray as his mother, and Dick Van Patten as his principal (more on that later). It's like a PM ensemble cast! On top of all that, DTVC Hall of Famer Art Camacho's fight choreography and the classic PM car chase action sequences set this apart from your standard run of the mill Karate Kid knock-off. A PM Entertainment take on The Karate Kid could go one of two ways, and this one went the right way.

Ted Jan Roberts is only about five months younger than me, and may have even made the cut-off to be in the same class as me if we went to the same high school. It's a reminder I guess of how young I was when I was consuming films from this era. What I think made Roberts's character work here is that he's not bullied at all, he had been taking lessons for a long time before the film starts, and I think that makes a lot of difference in the paradigm--and Roberts had the skills in this to pull this kind of hero who isn't bullied off. This wasn't about Crane Kicks and "wax on, wax off," Roberts is like "I'm a practitioner, this is what I do," and when you combine that with what Art Camacho can do in choreographing fights, we don't care if Roberts is only 14, we're happy to see him get after it.

We last saw Corey Feldman here a little over 8 years ago, in 2012, when I did South Beach Academy as part of the Lost Video Archive's multi-blog James Hong dedication. As someone who's a self-professed Feldman fan, that feels like way too long. In this you can see he was definitely going more Luke Perry than William Zabka, but I don't think he was quite as old as Perry was when he did 90210. It's not a matter of whether or not I buy Feldman as a karate expert high school senior in 1994, it's a matter of whether or not if I buy him as a baddie, and he pulls that off for sure. No one ever questioned Feldman as an actor, and he reminds us of that here.

In the Comeuppance Reviews post on this, they describe Dick Van Patten's part as a "sit-down" role--and if he didn't stand up from his desk as the gentleman he is when Erin Gray walks in, it literally would have been a sit-down role. His character name is simply "Principal," which was either very precipitous that he would then have that occupation, or very lazy writing. Either way, when Van Patten doesn't know how to respond as Ted Jan Roberts, having just seen his dead brother hanging from the basketball hoop in the school gym, is crying in front of him, so he just makes awkward faces, you have to wonder how the Academy gave Martin Landau the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1994. I guess PM didn't screen this one for the voters.

Speaking of PM, part of what makes this so good is the PM Factor. In the opening sequence, Feldman and his Scorpions steal some dirt bikes out of a Buick dealership, and are chased by the cops. Just as I was thinking the chase was becoming excitement by repetition, the two cop cars are flipped over a water barrier. "You're welcome" PM says as I beg their forgiveness for ever doubting them. It's like the PM alchemy of great stunts, great fight choreography by the man, Art Camacho, and then this ensemble cast that they throw at us in waves so we never get bored; when you mix it all together in post you have more PM gold.

And I can't think of a better note to leave this on. As of my writing this, it's available on Prime and Tubi. If you're like I was and haven't seen this yet, do it. It's the fun PM flick you came for.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107696

Eternal Code (2019)

After I reviewed Nemesis V, which starred DTVC favorite Mel Novak, one of the producers of this film, Joe Williamson, came to me to see if I'd review it for the site, because it also has Novak. While the Mel Novak part was important, I think even bigger was getting the word out on another indie flick, so that was why I jumped at the chance. Let's see how it did.

Eternal Code is about a medical science company that develops the technology to download someone's mind into another person's body. It's the key to eternal life, the only catch is, someone has to die in order for it to work. For one member of the board, the sinister Richard Tyson in a great turn as a baddie, he thinks this isn't such a bad deal; for another member of the board, played by Erika Hoveland, she has some issues with a company playing God, and is letting her conscience get in the way. That's when Tyson ramps up the pressure by having her and her husband kidnapped so she'll change her vote. The fly in the ointment of his plan: her daughter escapes, and finds a homeless vet in the park she knows--who has a certain set of skills. Will those skills be enough to take down Tyson?

I'm of split mind on this, because there are two things at play here. First, I really like the overarching message: while we say all life is precious and sacred, some lives are more important than others in our society, and this concept of the rich living forever at the expense of the poor is the logical conclusion of our for-profit healthcare system. This is both a metaphor for our current system, and a commentary, and I really appreciated that. On the other hand, the whole kidnapping intrigue aspect felt like it spiraled out of control a bit at the end. People were being moved around like the MacGuffin in a Marx Bros. comedy. To me it betrayed the message, and bogged the film down, especially considering the film is 105 minutes long, already breaking the 88-minute rule. But I have to applaud the depth of the message and what this was trying to say. It's not easy to pull that off in a film that has limited resources like this one. I just wish they had leaned on that message more and less on the kidnapping parts.

Richard Tyson is a major standout in this as the baddie. I'm going to talk a bit more about that later, but he was bad from the first scene--they didn't even need to tell us he was a baddie, he just exuded it so much. To that end, I think that's another area where the kidnapping didn't need to be as drawn out, because we didn't need it as much to establish him as bad, he was already establishing himself in every scene. We last saw him here in the Seagal flick The Perfect Weapon, but that part wasn't as big as what he had here. He found a role he could sink his teeth into, and went for it, which is always great to see.

The director and writer of this is Harley Wallen, who also stars as one of the kidnappers. I was trying to figure out why I thought he looked familiar, and I saw that he had an uncredited part in Superman V Batman: Dawn of Justice, so that's probably it. According to IMDb he's got a fair amount of films that he's written and directed like this--including three others that were released in 2019 alone! Again, this one didn't fully work for me, but there were things in it that I really liked, so I'll be interested to check out the others to see how they are too. It looks like they're all on Prime, which helps.

There are a lot of messages in this about how we perceive money and power in our society, and while this has the standard "don't judge a book by its cover" with our hero, played by Damien Chinappi, as a homeless vet whom the daughter befriends after she and her friend make him food, and then when she needs to turn to him after her parents are kidnapped, it turns out he has the training to save the day. Beyond that basic message, this goes a step further, as his look is transformed when he's cleaned up and put in a suit. That transformation is as much a part of the message in this film as anything. We see Chinappi's character one way when he has one look, and then the exact same person is perceived differently when his look changes, again getting to this idea that some people are worth more than others in our society based on the rubrics we use to judge them. To that end you may even say that the movie's message is already a metaphor for the Iraq war vet, in the sense that the rich already sacrifice the lives of the poor so they can live longer when they send them to war.

*****SPOILER ALERT*******SPOILER ALERT********SPOILER ALERT***********
I want to discuss the ending here, so if you don't want to know it first, skip to the bottom. As I mentioned above, Richard Tyson was a great baddie, and what do we always want to see happen to a great baddie? That he gets his comeuppance. And in this one, while Hoveland escapes and the baddies seem to be defeated, Tyson is able to get what he wants before that: to have his mind transferred into the body of a healthier person. Perhaps this was setting up for a sequel, but even if it was, I needed some kind of a period in this film first, which involved Tyson not getting away with it. Yes, we know in real life the rich and powerful usually do get away with it, but that's why we come to movies, so we can see them not get away with it.
*****SPOILER ALERT*******SPOILER ALERT********SPOILER ALERT***********

We now return you to your regularly scheduled review, as it's time to wrap this one up. I think the best thing to do is read my review and, knowing my tastes from the other reviews of mine I read, determine if what I said worked and didn't work for me would make it a go for you. Right now you can stream it on Prime, and we know that's always a good way to catch it, as you're only investing time after you spent on the subscription. And thank you again to Joe Williamson for having me look at this! I'm realizing now I forgot to mention Mel Novak, but he's not in it that much, so that's okay.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8655738

Zero Tolerance aka 2 Guns: Zero Tolerance (2015)

I came across this looking up movies on my Roku player, and liked that it had Scott Adkins, DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, and Dustin Nguyen, who I'd seen in a lot of TV roles, but not as many DTV movies. This one was also covered by our friend Mitch at The Video Vacuum, so you can head over there to see what he thought of the film. Also, this is not to be confused with the PM Entertainment flick of the same name that had Robert Patrick in it.

Zero Tolerance was originally a movie called Angel that was recut with additional scenes. It stars Nguyen as a former CIA operative whose former CIA operative buddy, Sahajak Boonthanakit, let's him know when his daughter, Angel, is found dead. Nguyen, in looking for his daughter's killer, discovers she worked as a call girl, so he delves into Thailand's seedy underbelly, killing anyone who gets in his way on his search for the truth. Adkins and Gary Daniels have smaller supporting parts.

I don't know where to go with this one. I'm not saying it was horrible, but I don't know how well it worked either. It's kind of a search for vengeance with a twist, and there are elements of that that really work, especially when he's taking out a bunch of baddies. When he's just shooting guys who are doing nothing beyond sitting at a table in a gentleman's club, it's not so much. That's one issue with the recut nature of the film, while it's done really well so cinematically we don't know it happened, the film feels as if it's of split minds, not sure if it wants to be a tense revenge thriller, or a high octane actioner. Combine that with the idea that it's packaged like the latter only with tons of Scott Adkins, and I think people will come expecting at least Triple Threat, and will be left wanting.

In watching this, I feel like Dustin Nguyen could carry a DTV actioner. The one thing I didn't realize is he's going to be 58 this year. I have this image of him as a pure Gen Xer in 21 Jumpstreet, but he was a bit older than that then, and the fact that he's older may explain why the movie is more Gun Fu than hand to hand martial arts. The thing is, this movie wasn't really a straight ahead actioner, so it's hard to judge Nguyen based off of that. It would be good to see him as a cop on the edge in a Seattle shot in Vancouver, maybe with a partner like Ian Ziering who isn't as crazy but has his back, and a police chief like Pam Grier who tries to rein him in but knows his being on the edge also gets results. I like Dustin Nguyen in that role and think it could work.

Gary Daniels is the film's one Hall of Famer, and this marks his 48th film, putting him that much closer to the vaunted 50 Club; but this is another one out of his 40-plus films that doesn't feature him much. I think we'd hold this kind of thing against him more if he didn't have so many classics, but he does, so seeing him for a small role is more of a novelty when it happens. Just the same, this is another on his tally as he's making his way to being only the second ever person at the DTVC with 50 movies reviewed. He may pass Dolph for most all time, and these kinds of parts will definitely help him get there.

It's a rarity that it takes us this long to get to Scott Adkins in a movie, but like Daniels, he isn't in this much--more than Daniels, but still not the star or co-star the picture on the tin would have you believe. I think with so much great new Adkins out there, no one really has time for an Adkins bait-and-switch, even if this was after the fact in an attempt to save the movie after it didn't do so well. If you're going to have Adkins save your movie, it needs to be 100% Adkins. He needs to be Nguyen's new partner and needs three or four good fight scenes. That didn't really happen here unfortunately, and though what we had of him of his was good, it wasn't satisfying when you're coming into this expecting him to have a bigger role.

For this last paragraph, I wanted to spotlight Sahajak Boonthanakit, who plays Nguyen's partner in this--I know, I just said when Scott Adkins was grafted in to save the film he should have been Nguyen's partner, and now I want to spotlight Boonthanakit--though to be fair, does that cover at the top look like they wanted Boonthanakit as Nguyen's partner either? Anyway, the point is, Boonthanakit is someone we've seen on the DTVC before, in particular as Seagal's bad henchmen in Asian Connection, and I thought he was good here. The problem is, in the attempt to save the film, Adkins and Daniels were grafted in, and then we're like "who is this other guy they're spending so much time on?" Maybe we need to give Boonthanakit his own cop on the edge movie and see how he does with it?

Before I start handing out cop on the edge movies to everyone, it's time I wrapped this up. Don't fall for the old bait and switch like I did. Yes, Adkins is on the cover, yes it lists Gary Daniels in the cast, but ultimately this is a Dustin Nguyen/Sahajak Boonthanakit action thriller that was refurbished from a previous Dustin Nguyen/Sahajak Boonthanakit suspense thriller, and with all the great new Adkins out there, this should be further down your list.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3727690

Sabotage (1996)

I was looking to do more Dacascos--especially a redemption post after Double Dragon--and our friend Ty from Comeuppance Reviews said he was doing a rewatch of this one. It sounded great, and even better, Tubi has it, so I could stream it for free. In addition to Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Mitch at the Video Vacuum has also covered this, so you can look at what they thought as well.

Sabotage has Dacascos as a special forces soldier who almost dies when a hostage extraction goes wrong. It goes wrong because international assassin Tony Todd makes it go wrong. However many years later, Dacascos is doing private security for a senator, and Todd strikes again, but this time, because Dacascos survives, people think he might be in on it, including FBI agent Carrie-Anne Moss. When it seems like her work is being ignored, she starts to think Dacascos is on to something--the problem is, this thing may go all the way to the top! In addition to these players, Graham Greene and John Neville are lurking about, so their involvement spells more trouble too. Can Dacascos and Moss figure it all out?

I really liked this. It could have had more action, and does slow down a bit in the middle, but what it does that I really like, is it leans on its talent to get through those non-action scenes. Tony Todd is a fantastic villain, giving a masterclass on how a role like his should be played. That's huge, because he makes even "villain planning things" scenes work. Graham Greene is another who's great. He takes the usual banal jerky higher-up probably in on the conspiracy guy, and elevates him beyond the material. Finally, Moss and Dacascos have great chemistry, and with these great villains, it's easy to root for them and want to see them succeed. I think I could have used more Dacascos martial arts, but again, that's a qualm that's mitigated by the other factors above.

As I said, I wanted to have a redemption post for Dacascos, and it's interesting when you compare his career with Carrie-Anne Moss, who only a few years after this is in The Matrix. For Dacascos, this is two years after Double Dragon, and one year after Crying Freeman, the first of which looked like it could be a multiple-film franchise and ended up being a dud; and the second of which wasn't released in the US, meaning the bulk of American film audiences didn't get to see what he could do. This isn't to say Dacascos hasn't had a fantastic career, it's just too bad for someone with his skills and screen presence that he didn't get those big screen leading parts that he deserved. The most recent thing I saw him in was Netflix's Wu Assassin TV show, and the two things I took away from it were, one, it needed more Dacascos, especially in fight scenes with Byron Mann; and two, he was referred to as "an old, bald chef." Bald I can't argue with, but old I can't get behind--50 is the new 40. If I'm that young when I'm old, I'll be very lucky.

As good as Dacascos is in this, Tony Todd really makes it. While this kind of villain can often be a lot of fun, Todd takes it to another level completely. It really is a masterclass, and I feel like anyone playing a similar part in future DTV movies should be forced to watch this to see how it's done. I also think of previous films where Todd played a baddie, like The Debt Collector, and can't believe how this Tony Todd wasn't tapped into to enhance those films. This also underscores how important a good baddie is to make a movie like this work. Had Todd mailed it in, or the part been played by someone that didn't do as great a job, Dacascos still would have been good, but I would've been complaining about the lack of action with this paragraph. Instead I'm saying how great it is, and giving another reason why you should see it.

This though brings up a good point, and that is, with these conspiracy movies, it's hard to balance unraveling the conspiracy with good action, and keep the whole thing around 90 minutes. The problem with modern DTV, is if you get a Tony Todd, you may not have him for a lot of shooting days and a lot of locations, so you have to mitigate that by limiting the screentime and focusing on other aspects of the movie--and that's where you need a bunch of good Dacascos fights to make up the difference. Part of me wants to say, "how do we get modern DTV out of the rut it's in?" but how many DTV movies that were made around the same time this one was did I make the same complaints about? It's the age old issue for DTV--you have to cut corners, the question is, are you able to cut the right ones.

For Carrie-Anne Moss, she was making this not knowing that The Matrix was around the corner. I think the outfits she had to wear in this were probably easier to work in, but beyond that, The Matrix was that explosion that sent her career next level. It's crazy now to think that was 20 years ago, and there was a bit of a dip after, but she was still part of one of the most influential action movie phenomenons ever. Like Dacascos, the most recent thing I saw her in was a Netflix show, in her case she played a cut-throat lawyer on the Jessica Jones show, which I abandoned after the second season due to Netflix Fatigue Syndrome, where I can't handle the ten-hour movie format of their series.

Before I change what is an otherwise positive post into a negative rant, it's probably good that I wrap this up. As of the time I'm writing this, you can watch it for free on Tubi, which is a great deal. This is not an all-out actioner, but the great performances get us over the top.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117533