“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