For the longest time I actively avoided MMA-themed action movies, especially the direct-to-video features that began coming out in the 2000s. Overall, I wasn’t wrong to do so, and Circle of Pain is an example why. While rising above the sheer unpleasantness of Never Surrender (2009) – the crown jewel of terrible cage fighting movies – this particular flick is heavily flawed from surface to core and ticks off a lot of personal peeves. Poor writing and bad fight scenes ahead.
The story: An ex-fighter (Tony Schiena) is strong-armed into a high stakes match with a cold-hearted champion (Heath Herring) by a greedy promoter (Bai Ling).
I watched the movie twice in one day, the second time with the commentary track, and this definitely made me appreciate it more. The film was shot in 12 days and the studio meddled with the script, so I’m more forgiving of its more obvious limitations – the small scale and rushed feel. Director Daniel Zirilli shows that he can do a lot with a little, so I’m interested to see what he’d do with more resources and less interference.
…Kinda. Even with regard to its disadvantages, the production doesn’t carry a lot of promise. Foremost, it doesn’t do much with its cast. Aside from the fact that it oversells three of the four stars on its cover (Kimbo Slice, Frank Mir, and Roger Huerta have a combined total of six scenes), the only performer coming out of it relatively well is Heath Herring, who knows how to play an asshole villain. Tony Schiena has some moves and charisma, but he comes across as a blockhead and isn’t particularly likable. Bai Ling will get her own paragraph in a moment. TV’s Louis Herthum is sort of a poor man’s Geoffrey Lewis as the lead’s tough old trainer. And then there’s Dean Cain, playing Schiena’s wheelchair-riding sidekick and no doubt handling the role even better than a genuine disabled actor could… Yeah, right! (It’s not a great role, though: he spends the film living vicariously through the protagonist, and the writers never realize that this isn’t a particularly positive trait.)
The film’s most exploitative feature isn’t violence but sex and nudity. There’s the expected breast shots, and they’re followed up by two or three scenes that are straight up softcore porn. This is strikingly at odds with the rest of the movie’s tone, and for good reason. Zirilli candidly admits that these parts were demanded by producers and that he doesn’t like them, saying that he’d probably prefer the TV version of the film. My biggest gripe on the matter is how it affects Bai Ling, who plays the only substantive female role in the picture. Ling’s part was rewritten from a male role, and the imposed changes seem to mainly be sexing her up ridiculously. (I just can’t see her male counterpart screwing Heath Herring in the gym.) The character’s overt sexuality symbolizes her power, but it’s also meant to demean her, especially when she’s rebuffed. It’s a messy, ungainly dynamic that’s only here because a woman is playing the role. For an infinitely less sexual take on a woman playing a villainous promoter, check out the English language Hong Kong flick Extreme Challenge (2001).
The fight scenes could be better. For some reason, MMA-themed action always looks better in theatrical features than on video, and the same is true here. The fights are kept down-to-earth and realistic out of necessity, but even though they improve throughout the picture, they’re just not very fun. Tony Schiena is a legitimate karate champion, and when he shows off some powerful-looking forms, I couldn’t help but wish he were in a Bloodsport sequel instead of this muddy schlock. The pro fighters do well enough, but having seen Roger Huerta fight in Tekken (2010), I was disappointed that he didn’t get a proper brawl. (He’s Herring’s trainer.)
Again, you can do worse than Circle of Pain in the MMA video genre, but why even go there? It’s bearable if you go in with low expectations and enjoy seat-of-the-pants filmmaking, but c’mon – that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to watch your favorite pro fighters headline a killer action movie, and that’s just not what happens. Leave it be.
Written by Bobby Mort (Scorched Earth), Daniel Zirilli (story), Sean Patrick O’Reilly (story)
Starring Tony Schiena (Locked Down), Bai Ling (Game of Assassins), Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), Heath Herring (Chavez: Cage of Glory)
Cool costars: Louis Herthum (Westworld) as the trainer. The list of supporting fighters include Kimbo Slice (Blood and Bone), Frank Mir (Hell’s Chain), Roger Huerta (Tekken), Yves Edwards (Beatdown), Miguel Torres, Conner Brantley, and Carlo Prater.
Content warning: Sexual harassment, sexist & ableist dialogue, violence against the disabled
Title refers to: Literally, the caged ring which the fighters compete it…even though it’s not actually circular. Figuratively, it may refer to the destructive cycle of doubt and guilt that the protagonist deals with after paralyzing his best friend.
Cover accuracy: Slice, Mir, Huerta, and Herring certainly do appear in the movie, but their billing and promotion come at the expense of the actual leads. Also putting Slice ahead of Herring – both in billing and in placement – is a hard faux pas. The Tapout logo is better-placed, though, as it’s featured very prominently throughout.
Copyright Grindstone Entertainment Group / Lionsgate Home Entertainment
It’s a shame that
the phenomenon of supergroup casting has grown old long before all of
its possibilities have been exhausted. The sad reality of filmmakers
regularly not making the most of all the names they can get under one
title is evident in Mark Dacascos’ freshman effort as a director,
which further depresses me by not making a strong case for
yesterday’s action heroes becoming filmmakers. Possibly the
greatest coming together of stars since the original Expendables films, Showdown in Manila nevertheless
feels like a forgettable
action-thriller featuring a bunch of nobodies.
The
story: Private investigators Nick Peyton (Alexander Nevsky) and
Charlie Benz (Casper Van Dien) track an assassination to an
international terrorist group. Eventually, they call in some comrades
to help capture its deadly leader (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).
How
good the
movie is depends largely on
how well its big-name stars are utilized. Here’s my take on ‘em:
Alexander
Nevsky – This
huge bodybuilder seems to be more of a star in Russia than North
America,
and thus I question having
him lead
a movie filled
with more recognizable action guys.
Judged on his merits, he’s not terrible
–
he makes more of his physical
size
than Dolph Lundgren and does well enough in
action scenes –
but
he’s in
desperate
need of charisma. For all his good looks, Nevsky remains a virtual
stranger to me even after the credits
rolled.
I
wouldn’t mind seeing him improve, but I don’t predict many U.S.
producers will line
up to put him in another starring role.
Casper
Van Dien –
As probably the cheapest ex-
A-lister on the market right now, it doesn’t
surprise me
that
ol’ Casper’s present,
but it
sure irritates
me.
He’s
playing yet another womanizing jerk, albeit with more chagrin and
humility
than expected.
It
breaks my heart to admit it,
but
he’s
actually one of the best things about th4
film. He’s not the only cast member with genuine charisma and
acting ability, but he is
the one with the most scenes. For
better or worse, he keeps the film from sinking until the other big
names show up.
Cary-Hiroyuki
Tagawa – One
of the genre’s quintessential villain actors is well-placed
as the
bad guy, but he’s the first cast
member whose
presence is over-hyped. The number of scenes he’s in can be counted
on one hand, and while you can count on his considerable screen
presence whenever he’s on camera, he barely gets in on any of the
action. Also, for what could’ve
been a monumental B-movie, his character’s pretty weak and
comes to kind of a disappointing end.
Tia
Carrere – As
Carrere hasn’t
had much to do as an action hero since Relic
Hunter,
I
wasn’t expecting much of her and thus was delighted when she
briefly partakes in a quick fight scene! Honestly, though, there’s
no reason to get excited. Despite
being an important character, she
largely drops out of the film after the early scenes and is wasted as
a draw.
Mark
Dacascos –
Already
taking on the role of
director, it may have been wiser
for Mark to remain behind the camera entirely
and
not tease us with an early appearance. He has a single scene, and
while he manages to fit a brawl
in there, I
can’t help but miss him throughout the remaining runtime. His
character is the linchpin of the story but I would’ve preferred a
lesser-known actor in the role, as I wouldn’t have spent the rest
of the movie thinking about how much better it would
be if he were
still in it.
Matthias
Hues –
Hues
plays pretty much the same blonde enforcer he
always
has
but with a lot less screen time. Ironically, he has more lines in his
handful of scenes than he’s had in entire
vehicles.
He’s also in
the
only
dream match-up this film offers,
as he engages Casper Van Dien in a short and one-sided fistfight.
Afterwards,
Nevsky
takes him out with one punch.
Don
Wilson, Cythnia Rothrock, and Olivier Gruner –
I list these three as a unit because they arrive and leave the film
at the same time and share the same scenes. They comprise the group
that Nevsky calls in to storm Tagawa’s base (along with Dmitriy
Dyuzhev, an
acclaimed Russian actor who’s nevertheless unknown in the west) and
bring with them the majority of the action content. It’s what I’ve
come for, but the characters
feel tacked-on, as
though
they’re
indulging
a last-minute favor from Dacascos to appear in his movie. While
their segments remain the best in the picture, they
aren’t in
top form:
Gruner’s acting is somehow worse than usual, and weapons
specialist
Cynthia Rothrock inexplicably
looks like a complete amateur when handling a pair of batons.
With the utilization of this ultimate gathering of B-movie dragons
falling way short of hopes, do any other parts of the movie stack up?
Well, I’ve seen worse first-time directors than Dacascos, who
proves he can at least craft a professional-looking feature. The
problem is that his run-of-the-mill style works against a picture
whose adrenaline spikes never reach higher than “meh.” I would’ve
been more entertained by a big disasterpiece with an unpredictable
storyline and actors imploding under crazy direction. As is, Showdown
in Manila and its paint-by-the-numbers plot have nothing wrong
with them other than the disappointment they generate. I’d rather
have seen director Dacascos drop all his plates in spectacular
fashion than realize that, even with all he had going for him, the
best he could do was something I’ll have forgotten about in a week.
With literally nothing going for it other than the opportunity of
seeing some of its stars in the same action scene, I can’t
recommend this film with any kind of enthusiasm. As always, fans of
the stars might want to pick it up to complete their libraries, but
everyone else can treat it mildly.
Showdown in
Manila
(2016) Directed
by
Mark Dacascos Written
by
Craig Hamann (Boogie
Boy),
Alexander Nevsky (story), Mark Dacascos (story) Starring
Alexander Nevsky (Moscow
Heat),
Casper Van Dien (Starship
Troopers),
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal
Kombat),
Tia Carrere Cool
costars:
Mark Dacascos, Matthias Hues (No
Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder),
Don Wilson (Bloodfist
series), Cynthia Rothrock (China
O’Brien series),
Olivier Gruner (Angel
Town),
Dmitriy Dyuzhev (The
Island).
World champion martial artist Emanuel Bettencourt (Kebab
Connection)
plays one of the lead villain’s bodyguards, as does Filipino action
star and Olympic taekwondoka Monsour Del Rosario (Bloodfist
II).
There’s
also a surprising amount of critically-acclaimed
Filipino stars in various supporting roles, including Iza Calzado
(Bliss),
Mon Confiado (Heneral
Luna),
and Jake Macapagal (Metro
Manila). Content
warning:
Human trafficking, violence towards women Copyright
Hollywood Storm / ITN Distribution
Wesley Snipes
vehicles have become a rarity, but I hadn’t realized that we’ve
reached the point where even movies advertised as such aren’t
actually so. This is the case with Armed Response,
which is more of an
ensemble effort that
doesn’t even feature Wesley as its top guy. The movie’s
advertising is all about subverting expectations like
that, as
it presents the picture as an action flick despite
being a horror movie.
Its
poor reception
makes me think that I wasn’t the only one unpleasantly surprised by
this, and while I had some
fun with it,
I need to add my general disapproval to the cacophony. Though better
produced than expected and bearing
a decent premise, it’s ultimately toothless and doesn’t take its
ideas nearly far enough.
The
story: A team of military operatives is sent to investigate radio
silence at a high-tech, AI-supported interrogation facility called
the Temple. When the Temple inexplicably traps them inside, they’re
subjected to mind-bending phenomena and mortal danger by a mysterious
entity.
The
studios involved in the production include Saban Films, WWE Films and
Erebus Pictures – Gene Simmons’ new company. I expected something
over-the-top and bombastic from this alliance, and in a way, I got
it. The story is determined to break the rules we expect for such a
horror film, with the result that a lot of its details come as a
surprise. (Even if the plot itself is predictable.) Director John
Stockwell somehow manages to keep me from falling asleep despite
filling his movie with endless scenes of characters stalking down
corridors. I was never bored while watching this…but I did get
irritated. At some point, for its own convenience, the film just
stops trying to make sense. The facility is pretty miraculous to
begin with but stretches things to head-shaking levels by physically
conjuring a ghostly figure to knock off the cast. Eventually it just
grows hands out of the walls to rip a character’s limbs off. The
movie’s selling itself as a combination of The Cube and any
number of rogue A.I. stories but then pulls Nightmare on Elm
Street-style tricks without precedent.
The
cast is okay, even though they’re not made the most of. Again,
Wesley Snipes shouldn’t have top billing – at least not ahead of
Dave Annable, who plays the real protagonist. Snipes’ presence
isn’t even essential: with only a single fight scene to justify his
casting, anybody could’ve played his role. WWE wrestler Colby Lopez
(AKA Seth Rollins) is used to greater effect, but neither of his two
fights are against Snipes. Anne Heche spends most of the movie being
a plain supporting character before suddenly ascending to main player
status. Gene Simmons is practically unrecognizable in his cameo and
doesn’t leave any impression.
My
biggest complaint is the lack of thought behind the movie’s premise
and themes. There’s no real discussion or acknowledgment of the
dark reputation that interrogation facilities have earned since the
Bush years, which is disappointing given where the plot goes. While
the story’s “twist” is that the sentient Temple is choosing to
punish the operatives for war crimes, its morality is disappointingly
mainstream. It kills the most direct perpetrators but inexplicably
gives a pass to the Heche character – choosing to ignore (1) her
complicity in the atrocities and (2) her willing participation in an
immoral war. Additionally, there’s at least one character on the
team who’s legitimately innocent (Morgan Roberts), but the Temple
does nothing to protect him from murder. I can’t help but imagine
what the movie would be like if its sense of right and wrong was more
nuanced…
Armed Response
will make for a tolerable evening
when it finds its way onto the SyFy channel, but there’s no need to
spend money on it unless you’re an absolute Wesley Snipes
completionist.
Starring
Dave Annable (Brothers
& Sisters),
Wesley Snipes (Blade
trilogy), Anne Heche (Six
Days Seven Nights),
Colby Lopez [AKA Seth Rollins]
Cool
costars:
Most of the supporting cast
has credits
in major action flicks, but I haven’t seen enough of those to know
whether the actors are sufficiently cool; they definitely aren’t in
here. Gene Simmons would be included if he weren’t such an asshole.
Content
warning:
Extreme violence,
military brutality, violence
against women, child murder, drowning
“Touch that gun, I’ll shove it up your ass and pull the trigger!”
Even
23 years after
its release, Ballistic
is a breath of fresh air. I put off buying it for a long time because
of the
higher-than-average price tag it
goes with these days, but
that was a mistake; it’s
worth every penny.
This isn’t the perfect action movie and
it isn’t
quite unique
enough to be in a class of its own, but it gets
enough of the genre’s necessities
right while also adding
some extra
touches
to make for a genuinely worthy
video entry.
Putting its assets to good use while avoiding any glaring faults,
this is a great vehicle for
first-time star Marjean Holden and
a real hidden gem in the VHS mine.
The
story: When a straight-shooting detective (Holden) is falsely
implicated in a murder, she must prove a conspiracy between the
department and a sleazy arms dealer (Sam Jones).
Marjean
Holden is a fixture of the U.S. action scene, but despite her career
spanning theatrical, video,
and TV
work, she’s been underutilized as
a martial arts star. She’s
best known for her exotic but disappointing role in Mortal
Kombat: Annihilation (1997),
and to date, Ballistic
is the only action picture she stars in. There’s no apparent reason
why she’s seen so little
lead roles, as Holden uses
the opportunity to prove
herself the complete
package. She has an engaging screen presence and more than one note
to her acting. Her martial arts lack the world-class sheen of a
Cynthia Rothrock but she’s yards better than, say, Mimi Lesseos. Or
Michael Dudikoff. In a
perfect world, Ballistic
would be the rough freshman effort that helps lead to a polished solo
career. As is, it’s a good
demonstration of how to build up a potential star, especially when
you have plenty of other
assets at hand.
The
production values are what you’d expect from an upper-level DTV
studio like Imperial, and the cast is surprisingly great for this
kind of film. Sam Jones is an appropriately smug villain, and Charles
Napier brings some dramatic
clout to the ensemble. Cult hero Richard Roundtree plays Holden’s
onscreen father, and while I’ve grown
to regard Roundtree as
someone who gets top billing and then only appears in a handful of
scenes, he’s a genuine character here and is made full use of as an
action veteran. And amid
a fair number of recognizable
enforcers and onscreen combatants, the great star-to-be
Michael Jai White shows off his moves as he does in few films that
he’s not
actually starring
in. Everyone plays to their
strengths, whether that be martial moves or dramatic prowess. While
nobody was about to win awards for this film, no one’s phoning it
in, either.
The
things
that set this movie apart
are Holden’s
relationships to some of the other supporting figures –
specifically Richard Roundtree and her onscreen boyfriend Joel Beeson
(The Dragon Ring). You
can guess that martial artist Beeson will make his way into the
greater story, but it’s not until the film’s second half when
Roundtree’s character is released from prison and joins in the plot
that both assume prominence almost equal to Holden. In a lesser
movie, this might give the impression of
the filmmakers not having
confidence
in their star’s potential to headline, but surprisingly good
writing conveys the importance of family in this scheme.
Thematically, Holden’s
family – defined by their entertaining,
well-established
interrelationships – proves itself stronger than the shifty
criminal enterprise. It’s probably
not what the 18-36 male demographic was demanding, but the film’s
all the better for it.
The
fight content is a mixed bag, but
even here there are definite high points. Again, Michael Jai White is
fantastic, even if he can’t always find opponents to match his
acrobatic skills. Joel Beeson is a pretty decent kickboxer; in any
other incarnation of this film, he’d be the lead. And while Marjean
Holden may technically be the least skilled performer to have more
than one fight, she proves versatile in a weapons-based match and has
a fun climactic brawl against
Corinna Everson – the bodybuilder from Double Impact
who you’ll subsequently
agree was severely
underutilized in her fight with Jean-Claude Van Damme.
All
of this plays out under the direction of Kim Bass. Bass is one of the
very few women who’ve directed a martial arts film in the U.S., and
while her aesthetic approach is
virtually indistinguishable to my eye,
she’s got a sense
for action and deserves much credit for everything she gets out of
her main characters. I can’t
think of many directors who’d produce the same familial kinship in
a picture while also filming skillful karate encounters, and
in light of that, it’s a
shame that Bass has yet to direct another martial arts feature. On
the other hand, that just makes Ballistic
stand out all the more. I like this movie a lot, and
the fact that there are few others like it makes it a little
precious. There’s a good chance others will like it, too, so give
it a look if you happen to find it on TV or in a thrift shop.
Ballistic
(1995) Directed
by Kim
Bass (Kill
Speed) Written
by
Don Lamoreaux (creative consultant for Day
of Days) Starring
Marjean Holden, Joel Beeson, Richard Roundtree (Shaft trilogy),
Sam Jones (Flash
Gordon) Cool
costars: Charles
Napier (The
Silence of the Lambs),
Corinna Everson, James Lew (Balance
of Power),
Julie St. Claire (A.J.’s
Time Travelers),
Michael Jai White (Blood
and Bone),
Vincent Klyn (Cyborg),
Robert Miano (Broken
Blood),
Nils Allen Stewart (Mercenary),
Georges Bejue (Cage
II) Content
warning: Sexist
dialogue Copyright
Imperial Entertainment Corp.
Though economic realities require filmmakers at
all levels to balance their artistic visions with the demands of
financiers, DTV flicks have historically felt these demands
particularly hard. Producers and studio representatives frequently
have vetoing power over all creative aspects of a feature, and the
result has been an often baffling amount of narrative dis-fluency.
Newcomers to the video market in the early-to-mid-2000s like Sony
were particularly bad about this, and the resulting poor quality of
the movies was all too often incorrectly regarded by fans as the
fault of incompetent writers, directors, and talent.
This isn’t to say
that things were super before the new millennium, thanks to the
impact of international distributors. You see, U.S. productions were
(are?) surprisingly reliant on foreign sales to recoup on their
budgets, and as a result filmmakers often planned their productions
to meet an all-important goal: impress agents at film festivals.
Distributors who purchased the rights to these pictures often
wouldn’t even watch the whole movie – just the first few minutes.
Consequently, many films were thematically unbalanced due to the
makers pouring an overabundance of resources into the opening 10
minutes. As such, the stereotype that these movies are all very
similar is truer than I’d like to admit, but for a different reason
than many critics suspect.
Smaller,
action-oriented studios like PM, Imperial, and Shapiro-Glickenhaus
developed a reputation for above-average content during video’s
heyday. However, the crash of the video market around the turn of the
century resulted in such
studios
going out of business, being bought up, or otherwise dropping
out of the marketplace.
In their place came the likes of Sony and 20th
Century Fox: giants of film
production/distribution but newcomers to DTV flicks. The transition
wasn’t particularly smooth, with the studios largely churning out
pictures that were clunkier and less memorable than the schlockiest
indie production. This was something of a surprise, since these same
conglomerates were simultaneously producing
award-winning theatrical fare.
The
reason for this
low quality output
is
surprisingly base. As indicated by Nicholas Chartier –
co-founder of Voltage Studios, the production house that released the
Academy Award-winning film The
Hurt Locker
– in
a 2009 Variety
interview, the strategy of larger studios
is to produce and market DTV fare based solely
on name recognition,
ignoring
quality
and
using
the proceeds to finance larger
and
more ambitious productions. While
this may have changed a little over time with
DTV productions eliciting a little more respect from studios,
you can still see this
meat & potatoes
approach in many films.
Before
the time of the aforementioned video crash, the DTV action circuit
was regarded as a potential stepping stone to greater fame and
fortune. Don Wilson, Jeff Wincott, Billy Blanks, Cynthia Rothrock,
Loren Avedon, Michael Worth, Jerry Trimble, and Mimi Lesseos are
just some of the names that fans discussed during
the subgenre’s zenith,
with the question being who
would eventually ascend to Hollywood stardom.
However, the market’s fall saw most of these figures flushed out of
the market
and replaced by previously-established
names:
Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and Wesley
Snipes. The message was clear: there was only limited room for stars
and studios
favored
aging
ex-
A-listers over more talented alternatives. Worse
yet, their movies tended to be pretty darn bad.
In
a short amount of time, fan conversations turned from who was going
to be the next major action hero
to how little Seagal & Co. must care about their fans to deliver
such poor results. To
be sure, the problem wasn’t that these stars were now making
non-theatrical fare, but that doing so came at the expense of
everybody we’d been hoping
to make it big for years. While the ex-superstars
suddenly
dominated the rental shelves with well-funded but poorly-made
vehicles, the heroes of yesteryear were either relegated to even
cheaper
flicks or dropped out altogether. It
was a
disappointing end to
many aspirations.
As stars age and aren’t in the spotlight anymore, we can often
rest
assured that they’ll continue to share their influence behind the
camera as directors
and producers.
Eastwood and Stallone are doing it. Hong Kong fans are particularly
lucky, as Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and Stephen Chow are known just
as well as filmmakers
as they
are action
stars. The
B-movie action genre, on the other hand, doesn’t have this to
look forward to.
The
best we’ve got is Dolph Lundgren directing the odd low-budgeteer
that the guy himself criticizes. Seagal
and Van Damme have nursed directorial hopes in the low budget realm,
but these have yet to bear fruit. [NOTE:
I just found out that Van Damme’s self-directed Full
Love
is scheduled to come out later this year, after having been in and
out of production for almost
a decade.] And though a few less-recognized names are finding notable
behind-the-scenes work in major motion pictures, the fact is that
most of what made the subgenre enjoyable during its heyday looks like
it’s being forgotten. No other faction of martial arts filmmaking –
from the earliest Chinese productions to the sloppy Bourne
style of
fight
scenes – has been so disregarded by its successors, and
it’s happening for no reason. Time will tell whether this changes,
but for now,
it’s not looking promising.
“You
fight well, little man. You have good spirit.”
Taekwondo
champ Julian Lee has been appearing in action movies since 1990, but
his earliest work readily available in North America is 1992’s My
Samurai. This one fell into my lap by accident (my boyfriend
happened to have an unopened copy on his shelf), and overall, I’m
glad I saw it. What threatens to be a boring indie exercise turns
into an engaging adventure with a lot of fight scenes. It doesn’t
fully realize its potential, but the raw fun makes for a feature
worth digging your VCR out for.
The story: When a young
boy (John Kallo) witnesses an underworld crime, his babysitter (Lynne
Hart) and he are targeted for assassination and must rely on the
protection of a martial arts instructor (Lee).
The movie
starts off umpromisingly. It’s really hurting for good actors, with
lead villain Mako and absentee father Terry O’Quinn having
relatively few scenes despite their important roles. I totally buy
Julian Lee as the martial arts teacher he is, but drama seems alien
to him; he makes Philip Rhee look like an Oscar nominee. Young John
Kallo is, somehow, in even greater trouble. They stumble through the
movie’s opening third, gumming their lines and failing to impress.
Then, to my surprise and delight, the screenplay wakes up. At first
it’s just little things that you notice – realistic touches about
what three people on the run have to contend with, like how to find
new clothes and needing to sleep in a cramped space – but
eventually, it’s like the film remembers that it can do whatever it
pleases and has its three stars fighting a glam-inspired martial arts
gang and buddying up with a minister played by friggin’ Bubba
Smith. The final 15 minutes or so lose some of that gusto when the
filmmakers try to shoehorn in a whole scenario about Kallo and his
dad, but overall, this is a pretty energized movie that’s unlikely
to bore its target audience.
There are some disappointing
missteps throughout, beyond the aforementioned pacing issues. Lynne
Hart – one of only two prominent female performers in here –
shows a lot of promise but is somewhat wasted by playing a character
whose sole arc in this otherwise bombastic film is about her love
life. There seems to be some untold backstory regarding the villain,
with the filmmakers trying to draw a parallel between two sets of
fathers and sons, but this is left until the film’s final minutes
and is thus rendered confusing and pointless. Julian Lee has an
embarrassing philosophical scene wherein he claims he never got rich
teaching the martial arts because he didn’t -want-
to be rich; if all martial arts instructors who’ve struggled
and sacrificed
in pursuit
of their passion watched
this scene at once,
their combined laughter might cause earthquakes. Lastly, take note of
the movie’s inappropriate title. Didn’t the studio realize that
neither Julian Lee nor the character he plays are Japanese?
There’s
no shortage of fight scenes, here – about a dozen individual brawls
– and I’m happy to say that they balance out some of the film’s
flaws. The action doesn’t start out promisingly, with some strikes
clearly not making contact and a combatant dying by falling out of a
five-foot window, but it picks up dutifully. Julian Lee provides his
choreographers all the physical talent they need, and they exploit it
by keeping the matches grounded and intimate – lots of
close-quarters street fighting. There’s some flashiness (the glam
gang contains several acrobatic tricksters), and this makes for a
satisfying adrenaline package. Disappointingly, Lee’s onscreen
nemesis – fellow martial arts master Christoph Clark – is
portrayed as so powerful as to negate any potentially cool matches
between them. Clark beats the heck out of Lee, forcing the final
showdown to conclude anticlimactically.
My
Samurai has the right attitude to be a kickboxing flick of the No
Retreat, No Surrender variety, but not quite the concentration to
maintain its enthusiasm. Nevertheless, the mixture of unusual touches
and inspired moments make it worth owning for mildly patient fight
fans.
My
Samurai (1992) Directed by Fred H. Dresch (The
Kudzu Christmas) Written by
Richard Strahle Starring
Julian Lee (Dragon and
the Hawk),
John Kallo, Lynne Hart (Perry
Mason: The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host),
Mako (Conan the
Barbarian) Cool
costars:
Bubba Smith (Police
Academy
series), Terry O’Quinn (Lost),
Christoph Clark (Tiger
Street).
Mark
Steven Grove (Legacy
of the Tengu)
plays a member of the glam gang Title
refers to:
Julian Lee’s character, presumably. Potential
triggers:
Violence against women, violence towards children, implied
torture Copyright
Starmax
Film Partnership
“We both want to forget what we do at the
end of the day”
Crooked (AKA Soft Target) is a
film from late in Don Wilson’s prime career – that is, from before his hiatus
around the turn of the decade. Overall, it goes to show that it wasn’t a bad
time for him to take a break, not necessarily because he no longer had the
stuff but because the DTV action circuit seemed to have left him behind. The
movie is weak sauce, for despite its strong supporting cast, it’s lacking in
style and substance. I’ll say it now: this one’s for completionists, only.
The story: Two police detectives – Tyler
(Wilson) and Yordan (Olivier Gruner) – are assigned to protect a witness to an
underworld murder (Diana Kauffman), but their efforts are hampered by internal
corruption.
The film’s primary selling point is its
cast, which also includes Gary Busy, Martin Kove, and Fred Williamson. However,
don’t get your hopes up: while Wilson and Gruner make the most of their team-up,
Williamson and Kove have a combined screentime of maybe five minutes and Busey
doesn’t even get in on the action. Personally, I was expecting this – Martin
Kove has particularly been irritating me for a long time with his reluctance to
do fight scenes – but it could be very disappointing to someone who thinks
they’ve come across a B-movie supergroup. That’s not to take away from the
memorable performances delivered by lead villain Michael Cavalieri and Martin
Morales as a flamboyant pimp, and Gary Busy manages to be memorable, but it’s not
what viewers wanted to see.
Speaking of things unwanted, I’m sorry to
say that the movie is ugly in more ways than one. Production-wise, the movie toes
the line of an indie feature. The way it’s been shot makes me think it had a
very rushed schedule: endless nighttime scenes, shaky camerawork, inharmonious
editing, and a lot of ADR lines. All of this amplifies the sleazy tone of the
story, which really turned me off. Few of the characters are endearing, with
Yordan in particular doing all he can for the viewer not to like him. Violence
against female characters and sexist dialogue is recurrent. As usual, Don
Wison’s character is a paragon of morality, but he’s on in his own in that
regard, amidst all of these other slimy critters. Basically, this isn’t the
kind of film you watch to put you into a good mood.
The same is generally true for the action
content, though it has its redeeming qualities and ends up being the one
passable aspect of the film. There are four shootouts and five full-length fistfights,
and while the former are overlookable, the latter can be decent. Don Wilson and
Olivier Gruner don’t fight each other and that’s pretty disappointing
(especially when the film teases it), but they do fight alongside each other and
that’s pretty cool. A direct comparison favors Gruner: even though both
performers are former pro kickboxers and have been listed among the authentic
“tough guys” of martial arts movies, Wilson plays his fights very safe with
relatively slow choreography and a lot of cuts, whereas Gruner performs a more
dynamic and rougher-looking style of brawl that more accurately conveys his
real-life strength and ability.
Crooked isn’t a film for casual martial arts fans. It *might* pass for a
slow night on cable, but that’s only if you really want to see the two lead
stars and are tolerant about shortcomings.
Crooked(AKA Soft Target) (2006) Directed by Art Camacho (Assassin x) Written by William C. Martell (Virtual Combat) Starring Don Wilson (Out for Blood), Olivier Gruner (Nemesis), Diana Kauffman (The Mailman), Gary Busy (Lethal Weapon) Cool costars: Michael Matsuda (X-Treme Fighter), Jason Yorrick (Transmorphers: Fall of Man), Eric
Perrodin (Street Crimes), Joe Perez (Silicon Towers), McKay Stewart (Vampire Assassin), Glen Levy (Confessions of a Pit Fighter), and Sam
Hargrave (Unlucky Stars) are
real-life martial artists and play various fighters throughout the film. If I
were in a better mood, I’d include Fred Williamson and Martin Kove on here
without a qualifier, but I’m too irritated with them right now. Title refers to: (SPOILER) The
actual title is a reference to Gary Busey’s character, who’s a crooked cop. Its
alternate title presumably refers to Diana Kauffman’s character, who’s an
at-risk target of the villain. Potential triggers: Violence towards
women, sexist dialogue Copyright Soft Target, Inc.
“Well,
I’m sorry to hear about that. Because now, I will snatch every motherfuckin’
birthday.”
On Friday, I finally received my DVD of A Good Man after putting off buying
it for two years. This will probably be the last Steven Seagal movie I purchase
for the foreseeable future, because the man’s politics, conspiracy theories,
and scandals have become intolerable and I no longer want to put money in his
pocket. I’ll still review the films of his that I own as I please, and to that
end, I’m reviewing this one. I initially wrote about A Good Man when it came out in 2014, but my perspective has changed
enough since then to revisit the movie. No analysis here; just plain old
reviewing.
The story: While tracking a dangerous arms
merchant in Romania, ex-Special Ops agent Alexander (Seagal) is caught up in
the perils of a family threatened by a local gangster.
In the “behind the scenes” featurette, the
filmmakers go on about their intention to make this more of a “classic”
Seagal movie, with more in common with his past work than the DTV stuff of the last 12 years. Their statements remind me of those made by Don FauntLeRoy
and Christopher “mink” Morrison while hyping their own Seagal vehicles, and considering
that, I could have told A Good Man’s creators that the effort was in vain. It’s impossible to
turn back the hands of time, and A Good
Man is never going to be mistaken for Seagal’s Warner Bros. adventures.
The story isn’t like anything he’d have done back then, and the film doesn’t
play out like his best work, either. (This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I’ve enjoyed
the unpredictable nature of Steven’s non-theatrical work.) This one has some interesting touches,
but it’s not the miraculous return to form we might have hoped for.
One thing that I enjoy is how
Seagal shares the action scenes with a prominent costar. He’d done this before
with Byron Mann, Steve Austin, and Bren Foster, and now, Victor Webster takes up
the role of the workhorse. I hadn’t seen the Mutant
X star before, but I became a fan over the course of the film. He’s the
total package, possibly the best actor in the film, and in some ways, he plays the real hero of the story. The most
important thing that he contributes, though, is a smattering of solid fight
scenes. There are nine full-length ones, and Webster leads five while Seagal takes
four. Some viewers who pine for Seagal’s glory days may not satisfied by the simple insertion of a nimbler sidekick, but I think it’s
great – not just for the general upgrade of fisticuffs but also for the variety
it brings them. Webster has a noticeably different fighting style than
Seagal and thereby brings an alternative tone to the brawls. The Buddhist
Bonecrusher mixes up his game a little by regularly drawing a short sword (“Oni
no hocho – the devil’s butcher knife”), but too many shots still feature a
stunt double. Doubling in non-combat scenes seems rare and Seagal overall is
more involved in second unit shots, but still, the fights could be better.
Beyond its action scenes, the movie is
pretty decent, if conventional. The way that Alexander pursues the arms dealer
– Mr. Chen (Tzi Ma) – is fairly inspired, and the way the movie handles intrigue is one of its best surprises. Less
pleasant is how the screenplay blatantly kills time with two unnecessary police characters
(Ana Perjoiu and Ovidiu Niculescu). There are a lot of European gangsters,
scenes in strip clubs, some kidnapping – all things you can see in plenty of
other Seagal features, so it feels a little more akin to previous films than I’d
have wished for.
Dramatically, the movie is a thing of extremes,
and one of the few films for which Seagal can claim to be one of the best
performers. He can do these tough guy roles in his sleep, and Victor Webster
and Tzi Ma provide solid anchoring performances alongside him. Everyone else,
though, is in serious trouble. I respect actors who have the courage to perform
in a second language, but holy heck, was this script ever not written for them!
Some performers obviously deliver their lines phonetically, but even those who
have a greater grasp of English have a tough time making their dialogue sound
natural. Typical U.S. expressions sound contrived when coming from people who already
have difficulty pronouncing basic English words, and given that the film already
features a good deal of subtitled Romanian dialogue, I would have preferred a
little more of that over what’s there.
In the DVD featurette, at least one of the
filmmakers alludes to the film as a morality tale, but even if it fits that
label, it’s got a pretty mean spirit. I hate it when writers use arbitrary
cruelty as cinematic shorthand for “this is gritty and realistic,” and A Good Man is full of such instances.
The threat posed to Victor Webster’s onscreen sisters (Iulia Verdes and Sofia
Nicolaescu) by the gangsters is a driving factor of the story, but this could
have been conveyed without the former being called “bitch” at every other
opportunity or the latter being sold to a pedophilic businessman (Massimo
Dobrovic) for a little while. These are unnecessary, unimaginative touches that
merely strain the film’s likeability.
A
Good Man remains one of the better-written,
better-produced, and better-treated exploits from Seagal since 2002, and in
that regard, my opinion of the film hasn’t changed much since I first saw it.
However, my opinion’s lessened in regard to the action and my appreciation of
how the characters are handled. This is a movie for established fans, and it’s
a decent one, but it’s not worth the money of a rental for people who either
don’t like the star or are looking for a more creative slice of martial arts.
A Good Man (2014) Directed by Keoni Waxman (The Keeper) Written by Keoini Waxman, Jason
Rainwater (Chick Street Fighter) Starring Steven Seagal, Victor
Webster, Iulia Verdes (The Last Incubus),
Tzi Ma (Rush Hour 1 & 3) Cool costars: Martial arts master
and security specialist Ron Balicki (The
Prodigy) plays one of Mr. Chen’s two main bodyguards. The other is played
by Elias Ferkin, who’s previously appeared in two other Seagal films – Shadow Man and Born to Raise Hell. Title refers to: Alexander, described as “a good man who does bad things to bad people.” Potential triggers: Extreme
violence, child abuse, child murder, violence against women,
sexist dialogue, kidnapping Copyright Lions Gate Entertainment,
Inc.
Steven Seagal will probably never escape the label of a political filmmaker and may always be known best for the
time he took on corporate polluters in On
Deadly Ground. His movies have never been that politically brazen ever again,
but he’s frequently touched on socio-political matters since then. One of his
more overlooked outings of this sort – indeed, his last overt “movie with a
message” as of this writing – is 2004’s Out
of Reach, wherein the Buddhist Bonecrusher takes on a child trafficking circuit
in Poland. Though Seagal’s film addressed a genuine epidemic long before it
became part of mainstream awareness, its direct-to-video status assured that it would be generally overlooked. The fact that it’s not held in high regard even among people who have seen it is thanks to the movie’s production quirks, highlighted by a huge amount of
Seagal’s dialogue being dubbed by a different actor. Interesting as it can be,
this one’s definitely not for everyone.
The movie opens with a juxtaposition of our two main characters: ex-government
agent William Lansing (Seagal) and his teenage pen pal, Irena Morawska. Irena
is an orphan living at a Warsaw orphanage and William lives a secluded life in
North America, helping injured animals he finds in the forest. Through Irena’s
voice-over, we hear that William corresponds with her via the orphanage’s
outreach program and that they’re quite close. When William narrates a letter
he’s sent her, we learn that he encourages her self-esteem and teaches
her about codes and ciphers…but the most noteworthy and immediate thing we realize
is that the voice coming from Lansing isn’t Steven Seagal’s. It sounds nothing
like him, and as it recurs throughout the film, viewers will wonder what in the
world is going on. This wasn’t the first time Seagal’s character has been dubbed,
but it was the first time it’d been done so extensively, and would subsequently
become a much-derided feature of Seagal’s DTV work.
TRIVIA: William Lansing’s status as an
animal healer reflects Steven Seagal’s own history as an animal rights
proponent. However, this reputation was damaged in 2011, when – while breaking
up an Arizona cockfighting ring for his Lawman
reality show – a police squad he was accompanying crushed over 100 roosters
with a tank and shot a puppy to death.
As William is shown nursing an injured hawk
back to health, Irena reveals that she will soon have to leave
the orphanage. We assume via the visual metaphor that Irena is bound for freedom, but this is not so. An ominous group of men arrives at the orphanage,
led by a fellow called Faisal (Matt Schulze) who’s so obviously evil that his
first act is to threaten one of the orphans (Jan Plazalski). Faisal
appears to be ex-military – take note of how he lines up the orphans
to address them – and if it’s not clear by the predatory way in which he speaks,
we find out soon that he’s collecting the girls for sale into sex slavery. The
orphanage is feeding its female children into this circuit, and Irena is among
them. Scenes of the girls’ processing are uncomfortable and
chilling: their belongings are stolen, they’re photographed against their will,
and – seemingly to ensure that the movie toes the line for taste – there’s a
scene where one of Irena’s friends (Aleksandra Hamkalo) attempts to escape and
is apprehended by Faisal; we later learn that she’s murdered.
Luckily, William travels to Poland to search for Irena after receiving
a suspicious letter claiming that she can’t correspond with him anymore. William’s decision is facilitated by a squad of his
ex-coworkers from the government – led by Agents
Shepherd (Shawn Lawrence) and Morton (Robbie Gee) – showing up at his cabin and attempting to tie up “loose ends.” William fights his way free, heads to
Vancouver, and then seemingly up and decides to make the trip to Poland. There,
he visits Irena’s orphanage. The corrupt director (Maria Maj) is of no help, but
with the aid of the orphan who Faisal threatened (“Nikki”) and a cipher left by
Irena on the frame of her bunk, he realizes that something’s wrong. The
feeling’s confirmed when Faisal, having realized that someone’s looking for
Irena, kills the director and sends men after William. Again, William fights
his way out of the situation.
Ambiguity seems to be one of the principles this story has been
built on. We’ve already seen that William is wanted by a mysterious government
agency (the “C.S.A.”) for reasons never sufficiently explained, and
now Faisal inexplicably realizes that William – who he hasn’t even laid eyes on
– is such a threat to his operation that he needs to
eliminate him. Shortly thereafter, we learn through a voice-over that Irena
expects William to save her, even though the movie provides no indication that
she’d even know he’s in Poland. How do the characters make such leaps of
understanding? Knee-jerkers blame it on lazy writing. People who’ve read Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films
of Steven Seagal blame it on the process of DTV screenwriting, wherein
scripts go through multiple changes during and after production. I lean towards
the latter explanation,
but it’s impossible to guess precisely what details may have gone missing while
the movie was being made. Faisal may have gleaned the extent of William’s
abilities after learning (from Irena’s letters) that he’s good with cyphers, and the
fact that he’s in the city may have been leaked to Irena…but that’s pure guesswork.
Returning to the orphanage to find the
director’s murder investigation in full swing, William is questioned by
the leading detective, Kasia Lato (Agnieszka Wagner). Kasia is suspicious and takes William in to the police station, where he uses an unsupervised
moment to bypass the police database’s security and find out that the
missing girls were all applicants for the same suspicious student program.
William later shows up at another investigation, at the building where the children had been held. Upon realizing that a girl was murdered and discovering a
bracelet he gave Irena, he’s visibly devastated, but regains hope when he’s
shown that Irena has left a message for him on a mirror. Even though he’s lied
to the police and refuses to reveal much about his identity, Kasia is impressed by
his resourcefulness and chooses not only to not arrest him, but to include him
on the case. It pays off: through technical skill and detective work, William
is able to distinguish a connection to Faisal’s broker (Witold Wielinski) and
the dummy corporation used to traffic the girls. There’s a chilling scene
wherein William listens in on the rerouted phone calls of buyers bidding on the
girls.
While a good deal of intrigue and action goes on around
William (including a fight wherein Kasia is shot and
William inexplicably performs surgery instead of taking her to the
hospital), Irena’s ordeal is at least as interesting. Faisal has become
increasingly interested in her ever since he recognized the ciphers in her
letters, and it mounts to an obsession. He presumably keeps her around as a hostage,
but the movie actually builds the two up as rivals in their own right. Irena
keeps her cool, never panicking and leaving messages for
William whenever she can (including on a tray of caviar); her resourcefulness exalts her, whereas Faisal is
denigrated by their relationship. I don’t know whether this was the
filmmakers’ intent – to show a human trafficker eye-to-eye with one of his victims –
but as dangerous as Faisal is, he becomes rather pathetic during
the movie’s second half. There’s a scene wherein Irena and he play chess until the girl
suddenly becomes dizzy and collapses onto the board; he drugged her orange
juice. This man runs a massive trafficking operation, has umpteen subordinates
doing his bidding, and has been shown to be a skilled swordsman, but he thinks a 14-year-old child is too
much for him to handle when she’s conscious. It’s possible that this is
simply meant to show how sadistic he is, but given that he’s about to use
Irena as bait to lure William into the open, I think he actually considers her
a base that needs covering. All things considered, it’s a pretty effective
backhand to such a despicable character.
As it turns out, Faisal is in cahoots with
the agents who attempted to kidnap William at the beginning of the movie (?!) and deploys
them against our hero at an embassy ball where the undercover William almost
succeeds in rescuing Irena. (By the way, the C.S.A. does not seem to be an
actual government organization. It’s possible that the script originally named
the C.I.A. – one of Seagal’s favorite onscreen punching bags – but I think the
filmmakers prudently decided against implying that the U.S. government is
involved in human trafficking.) William escapes, and along with Kasia, he soon thereafter engages
the agents and Faisal’s men in a shootout at a brothel. It’s an odd
place for the film to stage a gunfight in, given that an underlying theme of
the film is the threat of sexual assault. They shoot up the place pretty
good, which may symbolize the destruction of consent and personal responsibility.
Faisal is left alone, but before he can flee with Irena, William arrives at his palace. Faisal and he point guns at each
other, but agree to set the firearms aside and fight “man to man”
– an odd thing for them to come to terms about now, but it’s good for viewers who prefer more intimate fights. Leaving Irena behind,
they head for Faisal’s dueling space, but the crime lord preemptively grabs a rapier
from the wall. William disarms him and fights back, but Faisal escapes from his
choke hold and flees. William grabs a two-handed backsword and heads
outside, where he finds Faisal armed with a saber. As the soundtrack fades to
silence, the two begin to fence. It’s a fairly unique match, played more for
technique than thrills, but I find it enjoyable. Both Steven Seagal and Matt
Schulze are trained swordsmen and it shows, as neither is presented as superior
to the other. It comes down to a standoff, with both characters rushing each
other, and William slays Faisal with a horizontal slash.
Trivia: Faisal’s palace is actually the interior of the Warsaw University of Technology. The Palace of Culture and Science (Pałac Kultury i Nauki) stands in as the embassy.
With the trafficking empire destroyed, William
and Irena leave the bloodstained abode. We don’t know what’s become of the
other girls, but we find out in the epilogue that William has taken both Irena
and Nikki back to North America. Irena is in contact with Kasia by mail, and though
she and her apparent stepbrother seem happy, it’s mildly uncomfortable to hear that
“[William] spends most of his time by himself, wandering the forest, looking
for injured animals. He seems to like it that way” – does that mean no one’s
supervising the children?
Steven Seagal’s DTV career is often characterized
by its shortcomings: overly complicated storylines, numerous stand-ins and
doubles, poor action scenes, and especially the dubbed dialogue. Though most of those features were apparent in movies before this one, Out of Reach is the first film
where they all come together at once and test the resolve of even longtime
fans. There’s not as much doubling as in Seagal’s previous film, Belly of the Beast, but what’s there is
generally for shots that you’d think don’t actually require doubling. The
storyline’s not so convoluted that you’d forget the names of the main characters,
but I had to watch this one several times before the identities of the supporting cast sank in. I think the action is fairly decent, especially the brothel shootout and
swordfight, but when I sat through the credits and realized that the action
choreographer is none other than Hong Kong staple Tak Yuen (Fong Sai Yuk, My Father is a Hero), I got a renewed perspective of how
spectacular the fight scenes actually weren’t. And then there’s the dubbing,
which is every bit as disconcerting as if a boom mic were hanging in the frame.
Whatever plague affected this era of Seagal’s career truly set in during this
film, and would flare up again so often that many fans gave up on the man.
Nevertheless, the film does some things
right, and chief among them is directing attention to a very prominent problem
in the world. Again, the movie’s technical shortcomings have helped ensure that
it won’t be taken seriously by casual viewers, but as was the case
with On Deadly Ground’s stance on the environment, Out of Reach was
ahead of its time in pointing to the proliferation of human trafficking in Europe. Liam Neeson’s Taken would bring
the matter to the mainstream’s attention with a more sober tone,
but Out of Reach does something which
its successors regularly fail to do: it presents a female perspective on the
issue. Human trafficking and sex slavery are ills which predominantly affect
girls and women, but many films concerned with the matter treat it
as merely another catalyst for male heroes to get indignant. Out of Reach does this a little, too,
but featuring two actively-involved females in the main cast makes a world of
difference. Kasia’s role in actively combating the problem is particularly valuable, and Irena’s
prominence reminds us what’s important about the situation: the lives of
victims, not how pissed off the hero gets.
The role of Faisal bothers me. I appreciate
Matt Schulze’s involvement in the film, both for his physical presence and how
comparatively recognizable he is compared to Seagal’s
future adversaries, but the way the screenplay handles Faisal is a little weak.
He’s basically an over-the-top version of Schulze’s role in The Transporter, with no redeeming
features or motives beyond making money, but the feature still treats him with more
respect than he deserves. I appreciate the duel at the end, but the honor involved
in William setting his gun aside and agreeing to duel him is really misplaced,
especially considering how Seagal regularly brutalizes characters for lesser crimes. Indeed, sex slavery is approached mildly, here. I appreciate
that the filmmakers don’t titillate viewers at the expense of female characters,
but there’s not much indignation about what’s happening. The word “pedophile”
is never uttered. I expected the socially-conscious Seagal to take a few verbal
shots at the criminals – maybe even quote Beau Bridges (“You make money off
a little kid, you miserable jerk! You oughta be shot!”) – but the film treats
the premise no differently than a regular kidnapping scenario. It deserves more
gravity than that.
The film has a few prominent themes, but my favorite is the one of ambiguous personal identity. As an orphan, Irena is rootless and metaphorically
bereft of self. The traffickers try to strip her individuality by assigning her
a new name. Her friend Nikki appears to be a voluntary mute, whose absent voice may be
synonymous with suppressed identity. And then there’s William, who cycles
through an endless amount of aliases. (This trend is so pervasive that he’s
referred to as “Billy Ray” by the Region 1 DVD jacket.) His virtual facelessness is illustrated pretty
blatantly when he comes to rescue Irena and she doesn’t know who he is. Seagal’s
characters have often been accused of interchangeability, and the film may be
commenting on that qualm by starring a character who plays fast and loose with his own identity.
Out
of Reach is a lot of things, but it’s not boring.
It’s afflicted by a lot of problems, but with the possible exception of the
dubbing, none of them are so debilitating as to disengage the viewer. Director
Po-Chih Leong seems to be fighting DTV convention (and possibly even the
meddling of producers), and the result is a lot of interesting touches in an
otherwise predictable thriller. Occasionally excellent
cinematography, unexpected twists, and Faisal’s ridiculously cheesy dialogue
are some of the things that shine in what could otherwise have easily been a
dreary picture. Had Seagal done this movie ten years earlier, it may have
become an ironic classic. As is, I don’t quite have the heart to recommend it outright, but if you’re up for an odd adventure and think you’re fine with
the subject matter, you might have an interesting evening with it.
Out of Reach (2004) Directed by Po-Chih Leong (Hong Kong 1941) Written by Trevor Miller (Into the Sun) Starring Steven Seagal, Ida
Nowakowska (Suicide Room), Agnieszka
Wagner (Fala Zbrodni), Matt Schulze Cool costars: Robbie Gee (Underworld) as one of the main
supporting villains. Nick Brimble (Robin
Hood: Prince of Thieves) has a single scene as the “real” villain who
controls Faisal. Martial artist Murat Yilmaz (The Accidental Spy) plays Faisal’s lead henchman. Title refers to: Irena, who William
spends the movie trying to rescue. It could also be a play on words, given that
they met via an “outreach” program. Potential triggers: Child abuse,
implied child murder, violence against women, drugging Conspicuously missing: A title
screen. Seriously, there’s no title shot. I had to get the still from the
trailer. Copyright UK/Polish Co-Production
“Are you here for a reason, or are you just here to play cute?”
Fugitive
Rage is a disappointing little adventure with just
enough of a budget to look professional but not enough talent in the right
places. Its lead star, Alexander Keith (credited as Wendy Schumacher), once
described themselves as wanting to become “the female Van Damme,” but I’m sorry
to say that this movie isn’t even up to JCVD’s standards. It’s an action movie with bad action, and a weak attempt
at a feminist feature by people who definitely aren’t feminists.
The story: Sent to prison for the attempted murder of a mobster (Jay Richardson),
police officer Tara McCormick (Alexander) is offered her freedom by a shady
government agent (Tim Abell) in exchange for renewing her assassination
attempt.
The quality of the action is average, at best. The shootouts are so impersonal that you won’t care about them. There’s a goofy instance
where Tara hood-surfs a car until the vehicle inexplicably
crashes, but this too manages to be boring. This leaves us with the five fight scenes, but
their quality is no better. While Keith is a legitimate martial artist,
the brawls are plagued by a variety of problems: if they’re not poorly blocked
or clumsily edited, they’re painfully slow-moving or just feature bad
choreography. If you want to see Keith’s moves utilized a little more
gracefully, check out the Michael Dudikoff vehicle Counter Measures, but don’t get your hopes up for this one.
Dramatically, all of the performers do a decent job, and there’s even a little chemistry
between Keith and cellmate Shauna O’Brien. The problem is that the
boring screenplay demands so little of these performers that virtually anybody
could have played the characters. Surprises are few and innovation is
nonexistent, unless the clumsy attempts to turn this into a “girl power movie”
can be called clever. Director Fred Olen Ray and producer Jim Wynorski have
gone on record stating their condescending opinions on female representation in B-movies,
and the things they’ve decided to highlight in the movie reflect these. There’s
gratuitous nudity and sex, violence against women, recurrent sexist (and
racist) dialogue, lurid descriptions of violence, and a sadistic lesbian warden.
Aside from the fact that none of this is counterbalanced by simply having a powerful female lead character, such features give the film a mean-spirited
edge that’s too much for it to withstand. Despite its lazy pro-woman overtones, Fugitive Rage disingenuously panders
to the 18-36 male demographic and suffers for it.
I can’t
recommend this one at all. Die-hard B-movie enthusiasts may find mild delight
in its corniness, but even they will wonder whether it was worth
digging out the old VCR for. Leave it be.
Fugitive Rage (1996) Directed by Fred Olen Ray (Dinosaur Island) Written by Dani Michaeli (SpongeBob SquarePants), Sean O’Bannon (Air Rage) Starring Alexander Keith (as Wendy
Schumacher), Shauna O’Brien (Friend of
the Family), Tim Abell (Soldier of
Fortune, Inc.), Jay Richardson (Hollywood
Chainsaw Hookers) Cool costars: Katherine Victor (The Wild World of Batwoman) as Miss
Prince, the primmest gunwoman you’ll ever see. Title refers to: The determination
of the incarcerated heroine to exact revenge on the mob boss. Content warning: Prison violence,
violence against women, group violence, torture, sexist and racist dialogue,
graphic descriptions of domestic violence Copyright Roxie/Rosie Ruby
Productions
B-Movie Dragons 