Time Runner (1993)

This film seems to pop up from time to time on Sci-Fi at 3AM. I saw it a while ago at that time, and it's been on twice since in that same slot. I would imagine a cheesy sci-fi movie with Mark Hamill would do best at that time when World of Warcrafters are burning the midnight oil and need a little background noise. Or, when morons like me scan my program guide for potential horrible movies.

Time Runner starts in 2022, when aliens are invading the Earth, and things look grim. Mark Hamill goes back in time thirty years to find then senator Brion James to stop him from killing funding for a space station that would've prevented the alien ships from attacking. In 30 years, Brion is "World President". Anyway, he meets Rae Dawn Chong, who just happens to be a rogue alien of the same ilk that plans the invasion. Surprising no one, Brion actually is an alien too, and he gets elected for the sole purpose of stopping the space station so his alien boys can invade. Now the question is can Marky Mark and his funky bunch get to the church on time and stop ol' Brion so he doesn't do bad things thirty years later?



This movie is right where it belongs at 3AM. It made zero sense. Hamill lands thirty years in the past, and he suddenly gets these visions of the future. Then, for the convenience of the plot, Rae Dawn can see them too if she touches him. Also, there was nothing particularly alienly about the aliens. It wasn't like they pretended to be humans but looked like aliens with the disguise off. As far as I could tell, they were humans. The only thing that made them less human was they displayed no emotion; but Brion, running for public office, was an exception to that rule. He was very charismatic. I would say, though, that this is a pretty solid cheesy film, and the addition of Mark Hamill makes it pretty fun to watch.

Mark Hamill. What else can you say? The entire movie he seemed to speak in that voice that said: "But I wanna go to Tashi (sp?) station and get some power converters!" It amazes me that the kid who played the young Darth Vader in the new ones hasn't been relegated to the same bad movie fate, because he sucks even more than Hamill. Hamill's at least silly. That other kid was a sulking moron. If Lucas didn't take his new bad Star Wars movies so seriously, he should've just cast Hamill as the young Vader. I like that better.



The late Brion James is so amazing as the World President. I never thought anyone could be cooler than the Jerry Spring pres in Defender with Dolph Lundgren. Even if he is a sinister alien masquerading as a politician, I'd still vote for him. As in many films that feature Brion James, though, he's not in this too much. That's too bad, because he really outdoes himself in this role as a man running for, and eventually winning, public office.

Rae Dawn Chong is in this, and she doesn't sport her classic poofy hair. Instead she has a kind of bob cut that just goes past her ears. On the one hand, it looks better, but on the other, it doesn't feel like it's Rae Dawn Chong. People watching this will be like: "That's not the same chick from Commando!" Or Soul Man. Cut it out with the Saleisha from America's Top Model hair-do, Rae Dawn, we expect it big and poofy. (I have a roommate that watches that show, honest!)



In order to amp up the geek factor here, I'm going to mention some Highlander: The Series connections this film has. Rae Dawn Chong, you may remember, played a young immortal who was a savant musician. Brion, of course, played the ogre-ish fur trapper who made good a century later after a local school teacher in the 1800's taught him to read. Also, Gordon Tipple, who plays the local airplane mechanic that helps Hamill and Chong get to James was the hangman in the episode where the businessman blackmails Duncan. It's not like it's all that uncommon to see people who guest starred on Highlander: The Series in one movie, considering how many people were on that show at one time or another; but I just thought it would be cool to add to the Star Wars mentions. Unfortunately, no one in this that I could tell had an appearence on Star Trek, otherwise I could really put this blog into geek overdrive.

This movie is good for the insomniac or person up late writing a paper or something. There's much worse to watch at 3AM in the morning. I'd also go as far as saying give this a look if you see it at the local video store. It's pretty funny in its cheese, and you can't go wrong with Mark Hamill and Brion James.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108342/

Whatever It Takes (1999)

I learned about this film from a trailer I saw with Gangland. I believe the connection to the two films is producer David DeFalco. In Gangland he played the cut yet weird looking bad guy with the greasy ponytail. He casts himself in a smaller role in this as a biker tough, and he's a bit buffer than he was in the other film. What's odd is how he's wearing a whisper thin tank top, because in Gangland he wore no shirt, yet had a poorer physique. Who knows what goes through the minds of bad action movie producers that cast themselves in their own films?

Whatever It Takes is about two undercover cops, Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Andrew Dice Clay, who are sent by the DEA to investigate Fred Williamson and his trafficking in a designer steroid. As the case unfolds, Wilson falls in love with a really hot personal trainer in one of Williamson's gyms. Wilson now must mitigate his desire to put Williamson behind bars, with his desires of a more carnal nature.



It's crazy how ahead of it's time this film was. DeFalco must've known something, being the buff guy that he is, about designer steroids and high profile athletes' use of them. Of course, Fred Williamson is way cooler than Victor Conte and his BALCO people, unless Conte was whacking people in his private nightclub and we just didn't know about it. On the other hand, Williamson's steroid didn't have a name, which made it less cool than BALCO's The Cream and The Clear. For a really bad action movie (and this is bottom of the barrel kind of stuff), it's weird to see it out in front on something like this.

This was a rather poor outing martial arts wise for D "The D" Dubs. His moves seemed really telegraphed and not choreographed well. I'm not sure if he mailed this in, or was feeling a little under the weather, but it was obvious, and the film lacked some for it. There was this two second delay between when a guy left himself open for an attack, and when Donny hit him. Knowing what a top notch martial artist Wilson is made this even more disappointing.

Andrew Dice Clay was interesting. He went on a few trademark Diceman riffs, which brought me back to a simpler time when my friends and I were in grade school repeating his nursery rhymes at recess. When he tried to be serious, like when he discussed an on the job tragedy with Wilson, he fell flat, and it seemed way too contrived. When he was funny, though, his pairing with Wilson made for a very interesting buddy picture. DeFalco should work his magic and pair these two together again.



I can't say enough about Fred "The Hammer" Williamson. As a baddie or a hero, he brings it every time. He was absolutely amazing in this as the drug lord. He had a love affair with the chick from Cleopatra 2525 that wasn't Cleopatra or the chick that went on and did Firefly. She got naked in front of him in his bedroom, and he asked her if her high heels were uncomfortable. She answered in the affirmative, and his reply was: "then leave them on... then you'll have to work that much harder to forget how much they hurt." That's 40 to 50 times cooler than anything Van Damme's done in any movie with any chick. Van Damme wishes he was as cool as Williamson.

SPOILER ALERT
Wilson's love interest in this was really hot. In order to gain her affections, he goes to the gym she volunteers at, and loses on purpose in basketball to her little brother. Anyway, so their love affair ensues, he gets some, naturally, and then all hell breaks loose. Williamson gets wind from the chick he's doing that Wilson'll be divulging some secrets to his woman, and this leads The Hammer to get proactive on Donny's ass. What he does shocked the hell out of me, though. After a night of love making, Wilson's woman takes his car to the store to buy milk or whatever. Unfortunately the car's rigged with a bomb, and she blows up. It was so sudden, my mouth fell open. I felt like I needed to mention it in the blog, but I felt like if someone read this and it ruined the surprise I had, I'd feel bad. I've always felt the classic damsel-in-distress situation where the hero's love interest is kidnapped by the baddies is a little cliched; but now, seeing the alternative, I'd say go back to the perfunctory kidnapping.



One other thing got me in this. Williamson employed some white Italian guy that was supposed to be his nephew. Whenever he did something wrong, Williamson would cut off a small appendage, like a pinky finger. It was supposed to be funny, but it was just gross to me. Who comes up with shit like this? I'm blaming you, DeFalco.

I think this film might be too much for a lot of people. You have to be a real bad movie honk to get any kind of enjoyment out of it. I'm that guy, so this hit the spot for me. Also, I dug the sports implications, and I know not everyone out there's a huge sports fan like me. I'd say only rent it if it's a rent on get one free kind of deal. Otherwise, proceed with caution.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161084/

Star Knight (1985)

In the endless search for more Klaus Kinski films, I found this bad boy. Also listed among the stars is Scorsese and Tarantino mainstay Harvey Keitel. Kinski paired with Winston The Wolf? This had greatness written all over it, and I didn't hesitate to pull the trigger when I saw it on Amazon.

Star Knight is a Spanish sci-fi/fantasy film involving an alien visiting a medieval Spanish manor. The lord's daughter finds the ship while swimming naked one night, and falls in love with the one alien aboard, a man who looks like the lead singer of any 80s New Wave band. Kinski plays a mystic employed by the lord from time to time to help him out, and he talks to the daughter upon her return. While everyone in town believes the ship is a dragon, and the alien a warrior of evil riding it, Kinski and the daughter know better. Enter Keitel as a swordsman looking to become a knight and also looking to marry the lord's daughter. He promises to slay the dragon and kill the alien controlling it. He and the local priest give it a go, and hilarity ensues. They take the ship from the alien, and accidentally fly it into space, while the alien stays home and marries the lord's daughter.



This movie is remarkably horrible. This was like MST3K bad. Think Deathstalkers and the Warriors From Hell, only add in Keitel and Kinski, which makes it all the better. This passed the true test of a great bad movie, when it entertained people who usually don't like to watch the crap that I do. There was just no way you couldn't find this funny.

Kinski was Kinski in this. He's in it slightly more than in The Creature, so I'd say it's worth a look if you're a fan of his. He lives up to his standing as a card carrying DTVC Hall of Famer, especially in the way he wears his ridiculous outfits. We spent the movie trying to guess how much he made, what demands he had for the production, and how he might have gotten along with Keitel. His name was top billing, so I have to assume that that was a stipulation on his participation. I must say, he's pretty tame in this, though. No Cobra Verde style freak outs, so in that sense, it was a little disappointing. Overall, a Kinski-esque effort.



Keitel was a whole other story. Anyone who's ever seen Last Temptation of Christ remembers his role as Judas, where he kept his New York accent. In that role, it just seemed to work, and it was one of the more inspired decisions Scorsese made in making that movie, at least for me. In this, he also retains the New York accent, but speaks in this Shakespearian tongue that sounds hilarious. Everytime he had a line, he elicited laughs. "Thow haath fohrsaken me!"

Being a Spanish movie, the Spanish director and Spanish writer included an ode Spain's greatest literary figure, Cervantes, with a Don Quixote like character called the Green Knight. I think we were supposed to juxtapose his genuine chivalry with Keitel's self-interested brand. I dug it. It was especially cool when the alien donned his gear to fight Keitel at the end. The whole thing was a touch of class in a movie that desperately needed it and more.



The inside of the alien's ship looked like something out of The Dark Crystal or Krull, both movies I'd think a film maker wouldn't want to have his film in the same sentence as, or even worse, be accused of ripping off. From the outside, the ship reminded me of Close Encounters. I was worried Richard Dreyfuss might show up, and was thankfully spared that pain. Finally, when the ship left the Earth's atmosphere, for some reason it turned into an animated cat toy, you know the ones with the bell inside the wire cage ball. I know it's 1985, and technology wasn't the best, but someone had to think that looked worse than just continuing to use the toy model of the ship that we saw on Earth. I'm not complaining, because it was just another thing for us to find funny, just curious how that decision was made.

This movie is probably too poorly made to be worth buying for more than a buck or two. If you see it to rent, snatch it up immediately, because it's perfect for a bad movie night. It's the kind of thing MST3K would've made a great episode with, and now you and your friends have the opportunity to see what you can do with it. My friends and I are big Kinski fans, and on that score, I'd recommend seeing too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088870/

Ticker (2001)

This movie had Must Get written all over it: directed by Albert Pyun, starring Steven Seagal and Tom Sizemore, and Dennis Hopper listed as the bad guy. Considering Seagal and Pyun were both inducted into the DTVC Hall of Fame at the same time, I thought it would be sweet to review a film that had both of them. This is a dream bad movie lover pairing.

Ticker has Sizemore as a cop who, with his partner, rapper Nas, stumble upon Dennis Hopper, Jaime Pressley, and two Pyun mainstays, unloading some explosives. Nas bites it, and Sizemore's out for revenge. He calls on Seagal, who runs the bomb squad, to get help in tracking Hopper and his boys. At the same time, Pressley's in the can after the Nas killing, and Hopper wants her out, and he'll blow up a lot of stuff until the cops release her. Can Seagal and Sizemore track Hopper down before it's too late?

This movie was off the chain. The sheer volume of recognizable actors alone made it a hit for me. The action was mediocre, with Seagal barely flexing his martial arts muscles, and the explosions being a tad on the silly side. There's a scene where Hopper and Pressley are riding in a car, and out the window we can see a horribly obvious green screen effect. I think Pyun spent all his money on the cast, and I'm okay with that. The more great actors the better, as I always say.



The list of stars is pretty long. You got the obvious Seagal, Sizemore, and Hopper. Then Pressley, Nas, TLC's Chilli, and the guy who played Waingro in Heat. There's also the guy who played MC Hammer in his VH-1 bio-pic, the FBI guy from Navy NCIS, and the bad guy from The Mask, Peter Greene. That doesn't even count the Pyun mainstays like Norbert Weisser (the android who gets his head knocked around in Omega Doom), Michael Halsey (the hero, so-to-speak, in Mean Guns), and cameos by Ice-T and Vincent Klyn (the latter uncredited, though he was listed as an associate producer). I'm sure a more discerning viewer may be able to pick up on a few I missed.

Seagal was pretty good as a co-main character with Sizemore. They never explain why he knows martial arts as a bomb specialist, we just see him at the end of the film dispatching baddies. I think that's better than making up some ludicrous explanation and wasting our time like some movies do, when I'm sure most viewers are cool with Seagal using martial arts, even if it may not fit his character. In one scene, when he's defusing a bomb, he wears these sweet grandfather glasses. It was like he got them off the rack at a drug store. He looked like my dad trying to read a phone book more than an action hero racing against the clock to prevent a deadly catastrophe. At the end of the movie, Sizemore needs him to talk him through another bomb defusal, and Seagal spends about 75% of the countdown giving Sizemore a life lesson on dealing with stress. We were all like: "Jesus, just tell him how to stop the bomb!"



I didn't know what to make of Sizemore in this. His acting skills are head and shoulders above everyone else, including Hopper. It was like watching David Beckham play soccer on the same pitch as MLS players: the difference in talent was that palpable. I liked seeing him on the screen at the same time as Seagal, because Seagal seemed to understand just how good Sizemore is, and as opposed to the other actors, he didn't try to act at his level, andlook dumb in the process. Together they made the kind of buddy picture Rush Hour thinks it has, and it'd be cool if Pyun could maybe bring them together for another go 'round.

Dennis Hopper is ridiculous in this. For a chunk of the film he sports a bad Irish accent. I'm not sure if his character was faking it, or was supposed to have it, but it was silly all the same. There were times when he lost it, which left us even more perplexed. It was never clear if his dropping the accent was his character affecting an American one, or his character speaking in his real voice, or Hopper just being lazy. It may have been all of the above. Just the same, we got what we'd expect from Hopper playing a baddie: he definitely didn't mail it in. Like Sizemore, his struggles off the set have hurt his career, but been a bonus for us bad movie honks, because we get to see him in films like this.



There was one lapse in continuity in this movie that made zero sense to me. It took place in San Francisco, and Pyun made that very clear, yet all the cars had Illinois plates. I'm not sure I got why they did that. There was nothing San Fran specific that couldn't have been shifted to make the film take place in Chicago. I just can't figure out why the film went on with that glaring mistake in it.

One final note about Ticker. In the beginning, Pyun splices in some scenes from Dolph Lundgren's Sweepers. It was very Agent Red of them. I noticed that the hostage scene looked very similar to the one in Sweepers where they first find the stealth mine. My suspicions were confirmed after a quick check of the film on imdb. These are the kind of film making techniques that make me a proud fan of bad movies. Do they teach taking entire scenes from other movies in film school? Is there a class called FILM 405: The Art of Using Other People's Movies?

If the preceding wasn't enough of a give away, I think this film's fantastic. It's well worth the money spent on a rental. I would totally center a bad movie night around it, it'll definitely deliver. This may be Seagal's best DTV work, and I think that's saying a lot considering some of the gems out there.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196158/

Sweepers (1998)

I bought this in a two-pack with The Peacekeeper. Together they cost a total of $10, and as far as I can tell, The Peacekeeper alone was worth more than that just for the part where they spell the country Chile Chili. That meant I was playing with the house's money with this bad boy.

Sweepers is about a land mine clearing specialist played by Dolph Lundgren, who crawls into a bottle of bad liquor after he sees his son die in Angola during a UNITA raid on his mine clearing efforts. In the meantime, a new stealth mine is found in the US, and it turns out it's being tested in the rebel warfare in Angola. The mine's creator is sent to Angola to find it, and she needs Dolph's help in dealing with it. Enter Bruce Payne as Dolph's old buddy and a doctor in a clinic helping Angola's sick. It doesn't take long before Bruce Payne becomes Bruce Payne, and shows his true colors as a bad guy. Luckily Dolph stops him, saves the girl (the mine's creator), and gets the mine off the streets.

This movie was intended to heighten awareness about the problem of land mines throughout the world. It's a noble notion, but unfortunately the film's kind of boring and not too good. On the other hand, I prefer the message that land mines are a global humanitarian crisis that needs attention, more than the conservative fear mongering I get from a Hunt for Eagle One or Second in Command.



The Dolph in this is all right. In one scene, he's fighting a couple guys in a ring situated in a bar. This is where the mine's creator and Dolph's eventual love interest first sees him. For some reason his hands are tied in front of him. I can't for the life of me figure out why any of it was in the film. There's definitely much better Dolph out there, but this isn't bad if you want something you haven't seen before or want something different.

Overall the action lags. There're long periods of inactivity, and where there is something, it's not always that exciting. For a film about land mines, the explosions are a tad on the perfunctory side. Also, the bad guys are weak, especially this South African dude with a big beard who's supposed to be menacing, but just looks like a reject from The Red Green Show.

It takes over an hour before we find out Bruce Payne is a bad guy. I think that's a record for a Bruce Payne film. Anyone who's seen any amount of bad movies would know the moment he or she sees Bruce Payne's name on the box that he'll be a baddie eventually, so I thought it was interesting that this film kept up with the charade for so long. Another issue with their use of Bruce Payne was his bad Brooklyn accent. Why did they need this? As a character, no one would've had any issue with him using his own voice. The movie took place in Angola, so a doctor working in a clinic could as easily have been from England as he could've been from NYC. Maybe they intended to have the character be from Brooklyn, hired Bruce Payne, then didn't have the heart to tell him how ridiculous the accent sounded. Either way, it tarnished some of the Payne factor for me.



The doctor angle of Bruce Payne's character troubled me too. I understand that it was kind of a conflict of interests that he was trafficking land mines while running a clinic, but at the same time, he was still saving lives, and doing it for no money. What kind of a front is that for a land mine trafficking operation? Working in a free clinic in Africa must be very stressful and involving. Where did he find the time to mastermind this scheme while treating women and children for malaria and AIDS?

One of the better lines in the film came when the land mine's creator went to Dolph for help, and he was less than willing. She asked him: "Have you always been this much of an asshole, or did you take lessons?" My buddy once asked his dad a similar question, only instead of "lessons", he said "night courses". It's a subtle difference, but I like the latter version better. If one takes "lessons", the idea is that he or she is adding a hobby or something: swimming lessons, karate lessons, tuba lessons. On the other hand, "night courses" implies an attempt to make a better life, or a career change: night courses to be a paralegal, or to get that masters in teaching. It's like the person is aspiring to be an asshole.



The woman in this is hot in a different way from other bad action movie vixens. She's like the attractive bohemian woman behind the counter at the local organic food store, who's like way out of my league, and a little old for me. I can see her in like a cheap yet sophisticated tank top with some kind of Indian inspired long peasant skirt. I'd know going in I had no chance with her, but still would want to impress her with my purchases, and be totally tongue tied when she'd mention her husband liked the same kind of tea that I bought, and I'd say something moronic like "Yeah, it's really GREAT," then be kicking myself about it later. I'm not sure how that works in a movie like this. I can't see the burly South African guy and Bruce Payne having her tied to a pipe like she was in this, grilling her about the items in her market. "I thought you said this tea was Fair Trade!" "Go to hell!" Slap!

If you're looking for good Dolph, you may like this. There are probably like ten or fifteen you'll want to watch first, so I'd say only watch this if you're a long time Dolph fan, which would probably mean that you've already heard of this and don't need my review to tell what it's like. I'm not sure I'd have this at a gathering of a bunch of people for a bad movie night, because it is kind of boring. Maybe screen it first to see what your friends'll think.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120851/

Druids aka Vercingetorix (2001)

I'd heard big things about this movie for a while before I actually watched it. It was supposed to be absolutely hilarious. How could it not be: Lambert in a movie about Druids with hair like that? This one had to be a lock.

Druids is actually called Vercingetorix, and is a bio-pic about the famous leader of Gaul who fought Julius Caesar. Lambert plays the eponymous hero, a great German actor plays Caesar, and Ingmar Bergman mainstay Max von Sydow plays an actual Druid. The movie starts with Lambert as a young boy seeing his father murdered as clansmen looked to consolidate power. He returns later to take the throne of power that was rightfully his. He first leads his men in battle with the Romans, only to learn this isn't the way to do it. He does his best to fight off Caesar, but we learn it's the people under him that make mistakes that lead to his downfall and the eventual Roman victory.



This actually isn't that bad as a bio-pic. Maybe it's not the most accurate historically, but as a movie it's better than a lot of Lambert's other films. I went into it thinking I was getting a silly medieval tale with witches and magic and whatnot. I'm not sure if the distributors here in the US were afraid of marketing a film about Vercingetorix with Lambert as the lead role, so they overhauled the title and targeted the Dungeons and Dragons demographic, but it was a bad move, and more so, and insult to the intellect of us bad movie watchers. Okay, maybe not so much the second part.



Lambert's not bad in this. A friend of mine who's a history buff hated his hair, but I'm not so sure that's that big of a deal. He was better in this as the hero of Gaul than he was as a Eurotrash Beowulf. I think the thing to do now would be to cast him as Franklin Pierce in a film about the life of the Doughface fourteenth president. I bet he could pull it off. I'm not saying he's a Southern sympathizer, I'm just saying he'd make a good Franklin Pierce.

The guy who played Julius Caesar was the man. I don't think I've ever seen a better one. His name's Klaus Maria Brandauer. It's rare to find a gem like that when looking for a bad Lambert movie. As far as I can tell from his imdb bio, he mostly works in Germany. I think that's good, because he'd probably be pigeonholed as a bad guy in horrible Nicolas Cage films if he hung out in Hollywood too much. Germans are just too easy to use as evil masterminds.



Max von Sydow's in this in a few scenes. I was looking through the other films I've reviewed on here, and I believe he may have the most quality resume. His work with Bergman alone speaks for itself. It's amazing that a man who's done The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, and Through a Glass Darkly, just to name three, has also done Judge Dredd and Rush Hour 3. According to imdb, he did a film that hasn't made it to the US yet called Final Inquiry, and it has fellow stellar Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren in it too. Word on the street is it'll be released in the US in February of 2008. The DTVC will keep you posted.

I don't know what to do about recommending this. If you and your friends can make fun of anything, give it a shot. Otherwise, if you're looking for something bad to laugh at, this isn't it. The US or Canadian distributors falsely packaged this not-so-bad bio-pic as a cheesy medieval tale of magic and sorcery. Just remember when you rent it that it's not about Druids, but Vercingetorix, and it's a pretty good movie.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199481/

The Hard Corps (2006)

I saw this in the video store and rented it solely for the Van Damme factor. Well, that and Vivica A. Fox was in it, and I was kind of surprised to see she'd fallen on such bad times. I mean, they usually just get random hot chicks with no acting portfolio to play Van Damme's love interest, how did they pull off Vivica A. Fox, right?

The Hard Corps is about some former boxer who's trying to fix his community with expensive housing developments. He's gotten on a gangstah rap record mogul's bad side, and when the dude gets out of jail, he puts a hit on the boxer. Vivica A. Fox is the boxer's sister, and she figures their regular security detail ain't enough. They call in some guy who's friends with Van Damme. Van Damme is an Iraq War vet with some post-traumatic stress issues. All that really means is he has flash backs whenever it's convenient to the plot. Anyway, Van Damme protects the boxer, kills the rap mogul, and makes out with Vivica A. Fox. Good Deal.



This movie is really rough. There isn't anything memorable about it. I think there may be some kind of message about hip hop being bad for the black community, or about the way some African Americans give back when they become successful, while others are a cancer. If there was, the film didn't do a great job conveying it, and it smacked to me as more of a white Republican treatise on good versus bad "Negroes" in American society. It was hard to watch either way.

The Van Damm-age is pretty lame too. He flexes his martial arts here and there, but it's weak. He has it out with the boxer, and I was expecting a solid fight, a la Kiss of the Dragon with Jet Li, but instead I got a bad imitation of the Piper fight scene in They Live with his buddy when he's trying to get him to put on the glasses-- only the Van Damm one was without the humor. This isn't as bad as or In Hell or Second in Command, but it's not anywhere near the kind of fun bad action Derailed or The Order was. I hope Van Damme picks it up and does a few solid Die Hard rip-offs instead of these boring, low-on-action, movies-with-a-bad-message. They just don't work, and I think they alienate his target audience: us bad movie honks.



Vivica A. Fox is hot in this, naturally. She's over forty, and not much younger than Van Damme, which is even more impressive. As an actress, she does a poor job breathing life into this atrocious script, but she really nails it in pretending to be attracted to Van Damme. Either that, or she actually digs him, which I think is a stretch. The make out scene at the very end was tough to watch. You could tell Van Damme was really looking forward to it. There's a sense whenever he hooks up with hot chicks like that in his movies that he's giving us this "What do you think of that guys? Don't you wish you were me? I'm awesome." He needs to realize that none of us wish we were ridiculous.

There was a guy who played Van Damme's old buddy that was played by a poor man's Daniel Bernhardt. I thought this was the best. I did the math out: if Van Damme is now the poor man's Van Damme, that makes Daniel Bernhardt the guy who collects bottles from trash cans man's Van Damme. Now, with the poor man's Bernhardt, we have the Depression era hobo spitting the grounds out of his coffee and hopping trains man's Van Damme. And he's in the same movie as Van Damme, which had to be interesting for him. The obvious question is why not get Bernhardt himself and skip a step. I think it has to do with the Timecop phenomenon. If an actor and the poor man's version of him inhabit the same space, it could be bad.



This movie's boring as all get-out. It's not worth renting or buying or spending any money on whatsoever. Maybe if it's on USA or something, watch it passively while doing something else, but even then I'd have to say it's a no go.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462329/