Shepherd Code: Lapierre (2026)

This is one Ty and I covered on the podcast, episode 269 in the archives, and with the names involved, and because we'd covered the other two films on here as well, I knew it needed a written review too. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has also covered this.

Shepherd Code: Lapierre is a prequel to the previous two films, where we learn how our eponymous hero (Alan Delabie) came to be the guy we saw in those other two entries. After his wife divorces him (and he tells her "I'm disappointed in you" and "look at all I've done for you," because I guess he'd rather his wife be unhappy and stay married to him than file for divorce?) he gets a job from his boss, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, to keep a target safe, one Tania Edwards (Theresa Kassa from the first film), because Lapierre "knows how to handle women." Beyond the chauvinism in that, or that his wife just dumped him and his response was "look at all I've done for you," so maybe he can't "handle women," Lapierre takes the job, and proceeds to fall in love with Tania. Will the dancing and romantic dinners go to his head and prevent him from carrying out his mission?

This is a different movie from the first two, with less action and more drama. What does that mean for you the viewer? Exactly that. It's the opposite of the Elvis song that Dolph performed on a Swedish awards show, so if you're looking for a little less conversation and a little more action, this isn't the movie for you. There is an independent spirit aspect of this though that is worth supporting, an earnestness in what Delabie wanted to do here that I appreciated. To have a vision for a film, and despite limited resources have it completed it and available on places like Tubi where the whole world can see it is something to be applauded. And it isn't all conversation, we do get some fight scenes that look nice and have some inspired moments. On the other hand, the chauvinism should've been left on the cutting room floor. "You know how to handle women" is something out of 1966, not 2026, and something like that can make it harder to champion an indie effort. Overall though I think with this on Tubi and other free streamers here in the US, if you're looking to support independent filmmaking, this is worth a watch.

With an indie film like this, I think there needs to be a different calculus when evaluating it. For example, recently we looked at Kill 'Em All 2, and the question came up, "who was asking for this film?" Right? Did we need a sequel to Kill 'Em All? And the reason we ask that, is that movie is being distributed by Sony, which means they're expecting an audience to be there that will turn them a profit--and they were probably right, because Netflix picked it up. For this film, the "who was asking for this?" question is easier to answer, Alan Delabie asked for this. It was his vision, and he successfully got his vision on the screen and available for us to consume, which I think is fantastic. From there it's a matter of who the audience is, but I don't think we should create art with an audience in mind, we should let the audience find it. And to that end, the podcast episode on our YouTube channel had a comment from someone who really enjoyed this, even saying it was their favorite of the three. For me, I would've liked more action, but that's not the movie he made, and I think that's okay too, there's an audience out there for the vision he wanted to make, even if it didn't work for me, but I wouldn't want him to change his movie for me or anyone else.

We're on our fifth paragraph and only now getting to our film's Hall of Famer and 40 Club member, which gives you a sense of how much he's in the movie, but this is still Don "The Dragon" Wilson's 44th tag nonetheless. Six more movies to 50 could be tough based on how many we have left to do and ones currently in production, but maybe Delabie will make a few more Shepherd Code movies, and Cynthia Rothrock and Alexander Nevsky will make a few more Westerns, and he'll get there. Even if he doesn't get there, he's still one of the greatest to ever do it, and it's great to see him in anything, even it's a small part. Speaking of small parts, Eric Roberts and Patrick Kilpatrick each have one-scene cameos. One idea that Ty and I had to break up some of the monotony that we saw in the long stretches without action, was to have Lapierre call either Roberts or Kilpatrick from time to time, that way they don't need to shoot in additional locations, and can do their scenes at the same time they're doing their one scene with Delabie, but those calls can be spread organically throughout the movie for the audience to enjoy. Just a thought, but I think how a film uses its names when they can only afford them for a limited amount of shooting can really impact how the film comes across overall.

As many films nowadays are wont to do, we have our share of overhead drone establishing shots here, but one shot caught my attention. Before we see our hero in a workout montage showing off his skills, we get an overhead establishing shot of the MMA gym he's going to be working out in, and the roof is covered in solar panels. The gym is Shocx MMA training center, I believe in Brussels, so if you're in the Brussels area and need to practice your grappling or boxing, you can go there and know that they're using sustainable energy to keep the lights on. It's probably no surprise to you that I'm not much of a gym guy, but I do walk a lot, which also helps the environment, so I'm trying to do my part too. We all do what we can, but here's to you Shocx MMA for going the extra mile.

Finally, look at that gem. I think it's a Birmingham Barons hat, which is the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. They're most famous for being the team Michael Jordan played for during his retirement from basketball in the mid-90s, which, when the Major League Baseball players lockout happened in 1994, their games were aired on ESPN to make up for the lack of Major League games. As you know from any amount of time reading this site, I'm a huge baseball fan, and among my baseball bucket lists, one is seeing a game in every US state that has a professional team. Right now I have 12 plus DC, so I have a long way to go, and Alabama is a state I've never even been to before, let alone see a baseball game, so it's a trip I have to make at some point. Who knows, Major League Baseball is facing another potential lockout for the 2027 season, and if that happens, Minor League Baseball like the Barons will be my only option, so next year might be the perfect time to make it happen, and if I do, I have this movie to thank for reminding me to go.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on a whole host of screeners here in the States, including Tubi, which has the other two as well. The lack of action may turn action fans off, but if you're looking for something a bit different and you want to support indie film, this is a great way to go. Also, be sure to check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this one, 269 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36415829/

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Black Creek (2024)

This is one that's been in production for some time, a labor of love for DTVC Hall of Famer and 40 Club member Cynthia Rothrock, we've seen myriad DTV stars attached to it who have dropped out, news of premiers and complementary media like a graphic novel, and finally a pre-order date ahead of it's recent release. Now that it's here and available, let's see how it did. In addition to us, Jon at the After Movie Diner and Chris DePetrillo at Bulletproof Action have covered this as well.

Black Creek starts with a sheriff (Patrick Kilpatrick) who gets bumped off by an evil landowner (Richard Norton). When the sheriff's sister (Rothrock) shows up and finds out her brother's been killed, she vows revenge. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but Norton's got a lot of men working for him, who in turn work Rothrock over and leave her for dead in the desert. Luckily, bumbling local drinker Roy (R. Marcus Taylor) finds her and brings her to a local medicine practitioner (Don "The Dragon" Wilson), who heals her in a wonderfully psychedelic sequence. With that out of the way and everyone sufficiently healed, it's time for our hero to get after it and get her revenge. Will she make it happen?

This is a fun deal. It's done on a budget, so there's plenty to pick at on that score if one were so inclined, but if it was between not having this because there wasn't the budget to make it look as clean as possible, or having what we got, I prefer the latter. My two qualms were the length, which at almost two hours was a bit long for me; and I think the script could've used some trimming--a lot of instances where someone says something, and someone asks why that is, and then the first person explains further, when we could've just had the further explanation without the back and forth. Those qualms are overshadowed by all the stuff that worked here though, like Rothrock as one of her best heroes since China O'Brien, Richard Norton as a chilling baddie in one of his final performances, and then guys like Wilson, Kilpatrick, and Keith Cooke giving us the fun performances we want from them when we see their names on the tin. It doesn't skimp on the action either, especially with Mike Möller as action director/fight choreographer. Again, budgetary constraints meant they couldn't do the quick edits we're used to in modern action, so instead we got sped up film that may not have looked as nice, but as a fan of everyone's work here, I was okay with it. This is a really great time that's worth supporting if you're a fan of Rothrock and everyone else involved.

I didn't mean to do Rothrock films on back-to-back weeks (and technically this is her third film in two months, with Darkness of Man back in May), but I felt like I needed to get this one reviewed sooner rather than later, if only to get the word out and support it. The reality for me as I was watching it was we needed a series of Westerns with Rothrock in the lead back in the 90s, and this should've been the callback to those movies thirty years later, but unfortunately we never got them in the 90s, so this has to be the movie that makes up for the movies that never were, if any of that makes sense. On the PM Podcast episode on Guardian Angel (which yours truly was also a guest, but not part of the Rothrock interview), she told Jon that she'd always wanted to do a Western and be the lead, and it shows, because she's a natural at it. Her Rose Jennings character in this is right up there with China O'Brien for me as her best character, even better than Kris Fairfield in the Rage and Honor films, and McKay in Guardian Angel. She also said on the PM Podcast interview that she plans to do a sequel, so hopefully that will happen. I think it's up to us to support this kind of thing though if we want to see it happen.

As I mentioned above, Richard Norton is fantastic in this. It unfortunately ended up being one of his final roles, but if it had to be, I think it's a nice thing that it was in this, making it as good as it could possibly be by his performance. In my Not Another Mistake post, I talked about how he knew exactly what a movie needed from him and he knew exactly how to deliver it, and that's so true here. Patrick Kilpatrick also would've made a great baddie, but I like the twist of him being one of the good guys; and then we have Norton giving us this fantastic villain who is sufficiently evil, but never takes away from Rothrock as the hero. We're going to miss him, but at least we have this performance here as a reminder of how great he was--as if we needed it.

Our third Hall of Famer and second 40 Club member in this is the great Don "The Dragon" Wilson, who plays Xiyang, part-Chinese part-Apache medicine and martial arts practitioner. I wish they would've done more with the Apache side if they felt it was that necessary to include that as part of his heritage, like maybe some advanced knife fighting through a sequence where he takes out three or four of Norton's baddies. That aside, Wilson is as all in as Norton was, which is nice considering, like Rothrock, we've been getting a lot of smaller roles from him lately. And after this, we have Taken from Rio Bravo, where he has almost as big a part as this, but beyond that, I think the rest we have of his to do are all small roles. In that sense, when we get a Dragon role and performance like this, we need to take it and run.

Finally, I want to touch on the length of this movie, because, as you know, I'm a stickler for runtimes. Recently in a writer's group I'm in, the topic came up that, if we want our books to sell, we need short chapters. For me, I don't think about my novels that way. If short chapters fit, I'll use them, like in my first novel Chad in Accounting, or my short action novel Bainbridge; if not, you get something like Don's House in the Mountains, which is five chapters over 275 pages. With that in mind, if Rothrock felt like she needed her movie to be almost two hours to tell the story she wanted to tell, then more power to her. If the mindset is similar to mine, where she didn't want to compromise on the story that was important to her just to get things in under 90 minutes, I can appreciate it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available as rent VOD and purchase on most major streaming sites that offer that kind of thing. I personally got it on Fandango at Home through a promo code I had. This is a great opportunity to support indie filmmakers, and hopefully the more we're able to support these efforts, the more movies they'll be able to make.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27078378

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Showdown (1993)

This has been sitting my Tubi queue for a while now, and I knew I needed to get more Billy Blanks on the site, so it seemed like a no-brainer. What I didn't expect was a backdoor 30 Club induction as well--more on that later in the post. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List, and RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema have all covered this as well.

Showdown has Billy Blanks as a police officer who's called to break up a teenage house party, only to find Patrick Kilpatrick and his brother terrorizing people there. When they attack Blanks, he accidentally kills the brother, causing him to quit the force, and Kilpatrick to swear revenge. Cut to seven years later, and Blanks is working as a janitor at a worst of the worst high school--the kind where they clean the eyeballs up at the end of the night--where young newcomer Ken (Kenn Scott) is terrorized by a gang of martial arts kids led by Tom (Ken McLeod) because Ken talked to Tom's girlfriend, Christine Taylor. Turns out Kilpatrick and Linda Dona are also running an illegal fight ring with these teenage boys. That's enough for Billy Blanks to train Ken and take down Kilpatrick and company.

This is as fun as a 1993 Karate Kid rip-off should be. Blanks is fantastic as the sensei, and the situation that causes him to leave the force is believable enough. Patrick Kilpatrick is great in the Martin Kove role, though more evil and over the top (Stallone style) as a DTV Karate Kid rip-off requires. Then we have our hero, Kenn Marx, who was 25 playing 16 but looks even older than 25, which is sounds great enough, until you factor in that he's opposite Ken McLeod who is 31 playing 16, so they use all manner of Chess King outfits to try to make him look younger--also good to note that he played a college student in College Kickboxers two years earlier, so I guess if that trend of him playing younger roles continued, there's a 1995 film out there where he plays a 13-year-old? From there though we round out the cast with more familiar names, like Brion James as the assistant principal, John Asher (aka Wyatt from the Weird Science TV show on the USA Network) as the high school friend, DTVC favorite James Lew as one of Billy Blanks's attackers, and then the aforementioned Christine Taylor as Tom's girlfriend, fresh off her stint on Hey, Dude, and two years removed from her breakout role--Marilyn Munster on the TV movie Here Comes the Munsters--which I just found out was directed by Robert Ginty--yes, that Robert Ginty! With all this, I think what works best about this movie is it doesn't try to be more than it is, and I think part of the reason for that is it's directed by Robert Radler, who also directed the first two Best of the Best films and the third and fourth Substitute films. This is the fun 90s Karate Kid DTV rip-off you came for. 

We're now at 11 films for Billy Blanks on the site, which doesn't sound like a lot, but we also don't have many more left to review for him either. If you look at the date, 1993, Tae-Bo took off only three years later, which would make sense that he'd focus on that, but I don't think he picked Tae-Bo over DTV movies, I think he picked it because he wasn't getting the roles he wanted in DTV films. Michael Jai White said in a Vlad TV interview that a producer once told him "I wish there was a white you," meaning "I love your skills, but I can't cast you in leads because of the color of your skin." You'd have to imagine Blanks was dealing with the same thing, and once he did make it big with Tae-Bo, when those same people who wouldn't cast him before came calling, he probably didn't return their calls. Another thing I hadn't considered was if something happened between him and Jalal Merhi, because he doesn't make another film with him after 1995's Expect No Mercy until they reunited for The Circuit TV series in 2020. We know from Cynthia Rothrock's YouTube channel that Merhi wasn't always great about paying on time, so maybe Blanks got tired of it? Those are just my guesses, and maybe it was a combination of factors, but I think it explains why someone as talented as he is drops off not long after this. It's a shame, because we as the audience lose out when this kind of thing happens, but at least we have the films of his we do, including this one. A Hall of Fame induction is probably long overdue for him, so expect that this October--and this would've been a great induction post, so now I need to find something else for him!

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, you may be familiar with The Asylum Rule for inductions, which states that anyone who's in the 30 Club is automatically inducted. We've only invoked it that one time, for The Asylum, because we try to preemptively get people in before that--for example, Danny Trejo's induction post was also his 30 Club entry. That brings us here, to this review, where I discovered that Imperial Entertainment didn't have a tag. When I went back and retroactively added it, I saw that they had 29 films--Mean Guns was posted twice, so they had 30 tags. That makes this their 30th film, and as such gains them entry into the 30 Club. So I guess we now have two of our October Hall of Fame inductions set, and it's only February. I was surprised that I hadn't tagged them already, because that opening animation is a thing of beauty, almost as nice as Cannon or PM's. Like those others, it was a sign that you were in for a good time, evoking a comfort food kind of feeling, like smelling McDonald's fries from one of their establishments five miles away. And like that McDonald's, sometimes the person working the fryer was having a bad day, or maybe you got the last order from that batch before they started a new one, but at least it did the job, like Imperial's films, whether they were the cinematic equivalent of a piping hot order of fries or a limp, lukewarm last-of-the-batch order, they got you to the church on time. In this modern age of 8 animations before we get to our movie, each as unrecognizable as the one before it, it's nice that we have access to Imperial's films on places like Tubi.

Out of everyone else, James Lew, who only has one scene when he's part of the gang that attacks Billy Blanks, has the most films on the site, now with 18. It was kinda too bad that it was only that scene, because he and Blanks are good. Once they realized they had Lew, they should've worked in some random fights between him and Blanks throughout the rest of the film, like maybe he holds up a convenience store Blanks is in. If that scene would be too expensive to shot, what if Lew holds up a kid's lemonade stand? After Lew, we have Brion James with his 15th film. In this role, he's a goofy assistant principal who's trying to maintain some sense of control over the school, like Kevin Tighe in Road House before he decides to call in Dalton. In one scene we see that he's been collecting cigarettes he's confiscated from students so he can smoke them himself. Beyond how great a racket that is, is there another actor who could pull that kind of thing off better than him? Finally, Mr. Kilpatrick as our Martin Kove character now has 11 films on the site. I saw that before this he only had one tag, because I'd only tagged him for Best of the Best II and nothing else. I've corrected that, but even 11 seems low. I think that's because a lot of DTV films employ a Patrick Kilpatrick-esque baddie in their films, so it feels like he was in things that he wasn't. I don't think it's because they couldn't afford him, I think it's because he does so much, he's probably not always easy to find available.

Boom mic, big time. And it just hovers there too, like someone's dog or cat moseying into the frame when they're on a zoom call for work. On the one hand, I want to forgive this and say maybe they didn't plan on releasing a widescreen cut, so they figured the stuff on the left wouldn't be in the final version of the film. I'd buy that, except IMDb only lists the 1:85:1 aspect ratio, and the mic is right above Ken McLeod's head, and I feel like they intended to have him in the shot. Speaking of IMDb, in the goofs section people mention that a stack of books that gets knocked over in one shot is magically restacked in the next, that a folder that was on a table in one shot is magically being held in someone's arm in the next, and that "Selina, KS" was mispronounced, but they all missed the boom mic? Imagine being that pedantic that you're concerned about a stack of books, but you miss a boom mic that was in the shot for the entire scene! I guess when you crowdsource information the way IMDb does, that's the crowd you're sourcing it from.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi, Freevee, Plex, and myriad other free streamers here in the States. If you haven't seen this before, it's a fun time. It knows it's a 90s DTV Karate Kid rip-off, it doesn't try to be anything more, and in the process is exactly what you want. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111174

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

Beyond the Law (2019)

This one appeared on my radar when it was first released on VOD, and I was just biding my time until it was included in one of the subscription packages I already have. First it became available on Hoopla, which is where I think I watched it for this, but it is also available on Showtime On Demand, which we also subscribe to through our cable package--either way, not a bad deal. In addition to us, Todd Gaines at Bulletproof Action reviewed this, so you can go there to see what he thought. Now, without any further ado.

Beyond the Law is not the early 90s Charlie Sheen action-thriller, but rather a 2019 suspense yarn with some action in it featuring Johnny Messner as a former crooked cop whose son is murdered and he wants answer. The murderer is played by Zack ward, aka Scut Farkus, who is crime boss Steven Seagal's son. With Messner and Seagal on a collision course to wackiness, we also have DMX as the detective on the take trying to stand in Messner's way. The real problem though is, Seagal, as the baddie, always has it in his contract that he can't be beaten in fight, so how does Messner vanquish a baddie he can't beat?

  

I don't know what to make of this movie. The cover told me all I needed to know, right? The actor with the most screentime is always the one furthest to the back on the tin, so I knew going in this was a Messner movie instead of a Seagal or DMX movie. That then leaves us with the issue that we only have Seagal and DMX in this to splash on the cover and make the movie worth more to the studios--I mean, would I be reviewing this right now if Messner was front and center on the cover with Zack Ward? Maybe not; or maybe I am because maybe the people who made it are getting the word out to people like me so we can sell it for them. I would love to sell a Messner vehicle to people as a Messner vehicle, as opposed to killing it for another lackluster Seagal performance.

That I think is what makes this the worst, this cynical aspect where Seagal needs to be unbeatable, so the film had to come up with a way for him to lose without him losing. Is it worth it that much to get his face on the cover so people like me will review it and say "save your money"? That's what the DTV world has come to though; and while maybe we could say it's always been that, that the only difference now is instead of me seeing Seagal on the cover on the video store racks, I'm seeing Seagal on the cover in a thumbnail on my VOD rental selections, but there's something about this that feels more crass. The reality is we didn't even need Seagal in this, Zack Ward was plenty bad enough as the baddie, Seagal's inclusion just weighed it down; but from the cynical VOD standpoint, it doesn't matter, because Zack Ward standing where Messner is, and Messner standing where Seagal is, and Seagal nowhere in the film, means fewer VOD rentals, so it's better to make the overall film suffer, because the film itself is no longer important once we've already plunked our money down to rent it.

 

All that being said, I want to get into Messner in this. Why is it that every cover he's on has him with this look on his face like he's a teenager whose mom just told him he can't go anywhere until he's cleaned his room? And why do all the roles he's in feature him as this personality-less protagonist, when his IMDb photo has him with a monkey on his shoulder? Why can't he have a film that showcases both his action chops and his personality? Why can't he have a wisecracking buddy cop movie? Pair him with Michael Jai White or Byron Mann, and give us 88 minutes of fight scenes, shoot-outs, and great one-liners. This is another movie where we feel like we're just scratching the surface of Messner, and I think part of the reason for that is the studios are afraid to make the movie I described, and instead need to pair him with people like Seagal and Dolph. The studios need to trust us as a movie audience more. If you make the Messner movie, we will watch it.

DMX, like Seagal, isn't so much as wasted in this, as we're wondering why he's here. Other than a scene where he's at a bar asking for a full bottle of Hennessy, and the bartender doesn't get what he means, and he keeps saying "just give me the bottle," there's nothing particularly DMX about his role. He's really just there to be on the cover to get us to rent it in the hopes that it will be Exit Wounds 2. On the other hand, Zack Ward really delivers as the baddie, kind of the way Tim Abell carries Sniper Special Ops despite Seagal being on the cover, Ward carries Beyond the Law from the other side. Again, it's more of that cynical side where Messner and Ward were all we needed, but the studios don't like a move with just them on the cover, so enter DMX and Seagal, which gets me to review it and other people to watch it. On the other hand, this only has 14 external reviews on IMDb, meaning maybe Seagal is hitting his saturation point with these, and even the lure of a potential Exit Wounds 2 wasn't enough.

 

Finally, this film was directed by James Cullen Bressack, who is know more for his horror films. For me, I remember when he was first starting out, I was on a mailing list he had to get the word out on his early movies. The problem for me was, his films were too extreme for my tastes personally, and I didn't think it was worth it for both me to put myself through them if they made me that personally uncomfortable, and worth it for him to have me review a movie that wasn't made for me. Just the same, I wanted him to be successful, so to see him here directing this movie was really exciting for me as someone who hoped he'd do well. For that reason, I decided to include this shot above instead of a screen of DMX. To me it felt like the shot of a director trying to make the best of a film he was given that was beset with many limitations. It's too easy in the cynical DTV world to focus on the bad and turn up the snark, and miss some of the good that comes out of movies like these, like Messner and Ward's performances, or Bressack as a young director trying to put his stamp on a film that isn't his own.

And on that good note, it's time to wrap this up. I think as part of a streaming services you already have, or on Hoopla for free, this is worth checking out. Beyond that, it feels like we're playing into the forces that turned this movie into what it was, that every rental makes the studio think they're right by having a less-invested Seagal with his script demands or a DMX whose part could have been played by anyone in this just so they could be slapped on the cover; but by the same token, by skipping it altogether, you miss out on Messner, Ward, Bressack, and others who did their best to make this beyond just an enticing cover for a VOD rental.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11161374

Assassin X aka The Chemist (2016)

When I came back from hiatus, I was looking at Dolph Lundgren and Gary Daniels's numbers, and started to think about who else had 40+ and 30+ movies reviewed on the DTVC, and from there gave that status a special recognition with the 40 and 30 Clubs. Kind of like how there's the baseball Hall of Fame, but also players in the 500 and 600 home run club. Anyway, I had Art Camacho just below 40, and was going to use this film to celebrate him joining the 40 Club--until I checked again and found 3 movies he was in that hadn't been tagged yet, putting him already above that milestone. I guess instead it's just an Art Camacho celebration, which is well-deserved as well.

Assassin X has DTVC Hall of Famer Oliver Gruner as a well-paid assassin who uses poisons to avoid any hand-to-hand combat. When it's time to kill a young woman he's taken a fancy to though, he turns on his employers, led by Patrick KilPatrick. Now the bounty is on his head, the hunter has become the hunted--but this prey strikes back!

I saw on imdb that this film won awards, and while I can see why, I also ran into the issue where the shaky cam was so pervasive that I needed Dramamine. That kind of shocked me a bit, because one of the awards this won was for Camacho's fight choreography, so why distort something so great behind a mess of shaky cam and quick edit effects? One thing I've learned over time is that that may not have even been Camacho's call, meaning we don't know who to blame for my nausea. I think without it, this really would have worked in that slimmed-down stylized actioner format, especially with someone like Gruner in the lead, and with Camacho's fight choreography. The other issue is the film's runtime. 102 versus 90 minutes doesn't seem like a big difference, but in movie terms it is, especially in a film like this where the added minutes run contrary to the slimmed-down stylized actioner tone. Overall though, I feel like the good outweighs the bad here, and especially appreciate that this wasn't just cobbled together and shot on the quick in Michigan or Baton Rouge to try and get it on Red Box and Prime as soon as possible; Camacho and the rest of the cast and crew involved are invested in trying to make something great, and it paid off in the awards the film won--and for me makes me want to judge it with the respect it deserves, even if parts of it didn't work for me.

This is no longer the post I had planned it be in celebrating Camacho's entrance into the 40 Club. Before writing this I discovered that he was an inaugural member along with Dolph, Daniels, and Albert Pyun, I had just missed a few films that he had worked on as either stuntman or fight choreographer. Just the same, he is someone whose DTV work deserves to be celebrated just because of the scope and influence he's had over the years. I was looking at his directing work, and he did one of my all time favorite PM Entertainment flicks, Recoil. I'm not expecting every film he does to be Recoil, but there are some elements in that that this didn't have that may have helped it work better. First, no shaky cam; second, a shorter runtime with more action--Recoil hits the ground running and instantly grabs us and won't let go. This film was ambitious in different ways from Recoil, and I appreciate the attempt, it just wasn't the home run Recoil was for me.

It's good to see Gruner back on the DTVC. Yes, he had a small cameo in Showdown in Manilla, but seeing him here as the lead reminds us why that cameo he, Rothrock, and Wilson had was so sauteed in wrong sauce. It's just fun to watch him kicking ass, and between scenes, be the coolest guy in the room. One thing I realized when I was going over his imdb bio to see what other films of his I could do in the future, was that I had totally forgotten to do Sector 4: Extraction, which was written by friend of the site Richard Pierce. He had asked me to review it right before I went on hiatus, and I lost track of it. For that Richard, I'm really sorry, but hopefully we'll get to it soon!

Martin Kove is the film's other Hall of Famer, and like many roles for him, he's not in this too much. On the other hand, he's in this much more than he's been in some other stuff we've seen that credits him. He unfortunately has the distinction of being one of the Hall of Famers with the fewest tags, yet maybe has the biggest filmography, so we have a lot of places we can go to get more of his films up on the DTVC, the issue is finding the ones where he has a bigger role--and I'd settle for a role as big as the one he had here!

Finally, when we see Gruner make his first kill, he has a dog with him that he needs to get rid of, so he just gives it to a child. Very irresponsible pet guardianship I'd say. You adopt a dog to get your hit, then pawn it off on some kid? What if the kid can't keep him? The parents drop the poor fella off at a shelter, then what? You hope he gets adopted again, but there's no guarantee. What if it's a kill shelter? So you've just killed an innocent dog just because you need to get close enough to poison your target? That's the hero we're rooting for? A dog killer? It's little details like that that can make or break a movie. Hopefully in the next Gruner/Camacho collaboration, we'll have a little more respect for our furry companions who aren't able to advocate for themselves.

And with that, let's wrap this up. For a Camacho celebration film, this may not have been his best--I reserve that honor for Recoil--but I think it's an earnest attempt to work outside the box and do something a little different in the action genre. The fact that it's available to stream for free on Tubi means you're only investing your time, which is still very valuable, but at least you're not out as much if you end up disappointed.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3616894

Black Water (2018)

I first found out about this one when it was suggested to me on a streaming site while I was looking for something else.  My bigger question was how I didn't know about this before?  Dolph/Van Damme in a movie together is almost as big as De Niro and Pacino--almost.

Black Water has Van Damme as Wheeler, a CIA special agent working deep cover to find someone leaking top secret info for money.  Things go bad though, and he finds himself on a submarine that technically doesn't exist, and is used for detaining and interrogating high-risk targets--like Dolph, who's being held there for unknown reasons.  While Van Damme is being interrogated, he's able to escape his cuffs and escape onto the sub with a plucky young CIA recruit, Cass.  Now Cass and Dolph are the only people who can help Van Damme get off the sub and clear his name.

This wasn't horrible, but I think for a movie with these two, "wasn't horrible" isn't exactly what you're looking for.  The movie starts with Van Damme waking up in a cell and trying to figure out where he is, while he talks to Dolpg through their cell walls.  It then takes us about 20 minutes to get us back there as we replay the events to show us what happened before. Why not just start the movie at the beginning then?  There was some nice action in that, but part of that brings me to my other issue with the movie: the submarine set was a bit too claustrophobic.  It's no coincidence that the best action scene in the movie came in that "here's what happened before" act that took place outside.  The other thing was, someone on imdb tagged this as having a Die Hard paradigm, but it really wasn't, it was more like one group against another trying to get control of the sub.  Maybe, had this been an actual Die Hard on a sub model, it would have worked better, but I still think the limitations due to the space would have been hard to overcome.

Usually if a movie has Dolph in it, we start with him, but because this was more of Van Damme's vehicle, I think it's only right to go to him first.  I really liked him in this.  His scenes with Dolph were a lot of fun; and his action sequences, especially with his gun fu and knife fu were great.  He just celebrated his 59th birthday, but based on what we're seeing with guys like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, he could have another ten years of movies like this.  I get the sense though that he wouldn't want that, that by 2029 he'll be doing something different from this, and I'm okay with that, what he's already given us has been fantastic enough.

Dolph is this movie's Chekhov's Gun.  We see him in the opening scene, and we know eventually they're going to use him, it's just a matter of when.  For that reason, I wouldn't call this a bait-and-switch, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have liked more Dolph in the film.  For me, Dolph isn't your Chekhov's Gun character, he's the co-star, and he and Van Damme should have been taking out guys, bantering back and forth, and chewing up scenery for 90 minutes.  Steve Buscemi is great Chekhov's Gun, or maybe someone like Mike Tyson. 

We had Jasmine Waltz as Cass, the plucky recruit teamed up with Van Damme after he wins her over.  I felt like she was a victim of what I've always seen as a poor device used in action movies: the annoying partner who hampers our hero before he/she redeems themselves and becomes likable.  Why do that?  Why not just make her character likable right from the start?  Instead of having her try to keep Van Damme at gun point, when we've already established that her character is way over her head and couldn't keep him at gun point, why not have her trust her gut and support him right from the start--which, going back to Chekhov's Gun, they established during the interrogation scene that she was already having doubts that Van Damme was a baddie, and then suddenly went away from that and didn't trust him.

We talked about Van Damme's age earlier in the post, but I think I may be getting softer in my old age too (if 40's old), because I really liked the fight scene between Van Damme and his son Kris. I don't think I could do a choreographed fight with my dad, but they definitely pulled it off.  We talk about Scott Adkins or Michael Jai White as guys who could carry the torch from some of these action greats like Dolph and Van Damme, but if they're going to be sticking around another ten years, there might not be a torch to pass before they're in their 50s and 60s too; but Kris Van Damme is only in his early 30s, and with one of the all-time greats in his dad there to possibly train him, I think he's someone that by 2029 could be on the cover of these movies and taking DTV action to that next level.

Overall, as I said, I didn't think this was horrible.  I think if you have 104 minutes to kill, you could do a lot worse than this.  It's available to stream if you have Amazon Prime, or to rent on streaming through Amazon or Redbox.  For a Dolph/Van Damme flick, I expected more, but, again, it wasn't horrible.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5622412/

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

I don't remember when I first saw The Toxic Avenger. I couldn't have been that old though, late middle school maybe. This is one I've been meaning to do for sometime, and I considered doing it as a milestone post, but figured why wait, we got it now, let's fire it up and make it happen.

The Toxic Avenger takes place in Tromaville, NJ, a New York suburb that has the distinction of being the toxic waste capital of the world. It's there that our hero Melvin works at the Tromaville gym, and after a practical joke gone bad, he finds himself diving head first into a drum of toxic waste. He's then transformed into a hideous monster with superhuman strength and an ability to sense when evil is being done. Unfortunately for the town's mayor, the idea of a monster cleaning up the town's crime problem is a problem for him, because he's Tromaville's most prolific criminal. Can our hero prevail when even the national guard has been called in to stop him?



You don't need me to tell you how great this is. As a send up of the action and superhero genres it's excellent, plus you have all the gore you expect and want from Troma. I loved the love story between Toxie and the blind girl, especially when she's remodeling his toxic waste dump shack. The brutality is so over the top that I couldn't help but laugh at that too, like the Clockwork Orange homage when a thug beats an old lady with her cane while humming "Singin' in the Rain"; or the twelve-year-old kid that's run over by some kids playing a game where objects are worth points, a la Death Race. This is a true classic, and has only gotten better over time.

I wish I had seen this right before I watched Sgt. Kabukiman with Lloyd Kaufman's commentary, because it would've given me a better perspective on what Kaufman was going for with Kabukiman versus what other people involved with that project wanted him to do. When Toxie takes out baddies, he's pretty brutal, and they come up with all kinds of creative ways to off people. It's a little different from The Exterminator though, because this brutality is meant to be funny-- or funnier. When I see things in Sgt. Kabukiman like the hooker and pimp turned into bloody sushi, in the context of The Toxic Avenger, it's a much milder version of a guy getting his hands stuffed in a deep fryer or having his eyes poked out. There's something about the way Troma does this kind of thing that works though.



Long time readers and action fans will recognize this fellow right here dressed like an extra from the Frank Gorshin episode of Star Trek. That's right, it's Patrick Kilpatrick. He's only in this one scene as part of a trio of men robbing a taco restaurant. This is his first listed role on imdb, so it's great that we get to see where it all started from for him. The film's other highly recognizable face is that of late character actor Pat Ryan. He plays the evil mayor. It's too bad he passed away in 1991, because he had so many sleazebag roles in low-budget films left in him.

One scene I got a kick out of was when the poor man's Corey Feldman they had as one of the workout thugs put a garter snake in an aerobics instructor's shirt. Growing up in Maine, the garter snake was a regular part of the summer, and we used to catch them and act like the snake wranglers we saw on TV. I remember one of our cats brought one in the house, and before I had a chance to stop it, the thing had coiled itself inside the electric baseboard heater. It was a baby one, but still, it was a pain to get it out. It was only later in life that I learned that not all people grew up with these snake experiences, and most find the idea of any snakes, even garter snakes, to be abhorrent. I still hate spiders though, so I guess I'm not a total dude.



Finally, anyone who's been rockin' with us for sometime would know about my love of McDonald's, so it should come as no surprised that I'd be stoked to see what looks like a Quarter Pounder with Cheese vintage Styrofoam container. I think the Styrofoam container had another ten years in it for McDonald's before they went the cardboard route, which is too bad. Remember the bright blue one for the Fillet-o-Fish? It was like a greenish-blue. What was the McD.L.T? A white one, right? Remember the McD.L.T.? "Hot on the hot side, cold on the cold side."

Okay, enough reminiscing about McDonald's-- especially since I don't get any ad revenue from them. This movie is currently on Watch Instantly here in the States, and while that's a great way to check it out, you should eventually consider purchasing the director's cut, because it's in widescreen and has all kinds of goodies. This is one of those ones that's well deserving of its classic status.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090190/

Open Fire (1994)

I wasn't sure if I'd do a Jeff Wincott flick while the Bruins were playing Vancouver in the Stanley Cup. I know what you're thinking "Wincott's from Toronto, they're two totally different cities thousands of miles apart." Don Cherry answered that question back in 2006, when he referred to the Edmonton Oilers as "we" and then followed that up with "that's right, I said 'we'!" He laid down the gauntlet, it's America Jr. v. Boston right now, and I probably shouldn't be reviewing movies from the enemy, but I'll make an exception because Wincott is so awesome-- even if he is Canadian.

Open Fire is Die Hard in a chemical plant starring Wincott as a disgraced FBI agent working construction in the desert who finds out his father's chemical plant is taken over by Patrick Kilpatrick and the serial killer from The Expert-- and perhaps Yuji Okumoto, I can't be sure. Anyway, Wincott is their only hope, so the odds are against the hostage takers.



This was an extremely frustrating movie. Of the 88-minute runtime, too much was used to further a plot that was atrocious. Seriously, you're making a movie about Jeff Wincott, so don't waste ten minutes of my life showing a doughy guy with a mullet driving a decoy car with bomb in it, is that too much to ask? Apparently it was for these film makers. The first 35 minutes had two fights, an appetizer at the beginning with Kilpatrick, then one of the sweetest bar fights ever about twenty minutes later with Wincott. Then around that 35-minute mark, Wincott zip-lines into the base, lands at the feet of one of the guards, and says "I'm the health inspector, we had some complaints", and kicked the guy's ass. Now it's on-- at least that's what I thought, and for a solid 15 minutes it was, until, you guessed it, more bad plot. Crap about Kilpatrick's escape plan and all his explosives. It was so bad that Wincott actually disappears and I asked out loud "hey, wasn't Jeff Wincott supposed to be in this film?" It redeemed itself a little more towards the end with a great end fight between Wincott and Kilpatrick, but overall, this was a waste of some of Wincott's best stuff in favor of cramming a sucky plot down our throats.

And when I say some of Wincott's best stuff, I ain't lyin'. The bar fight, the fights with the guards, the end fight, the one-liners, the mean mugging, and for the ladies, the shirtless jackhammering. He literally disappears from his own film around the hour mark though, as we're inundated with the asinine minutiae of Kilpatrick's plan, and then he comes back in the form of stalking Kilpatrick and his gang and hostages while we're forced to deal with the even dumber doughy guy driving the decoy van with the bomb in it. I don't know, I don't get it. How do you cast Wincott and put him in some amazing fight scenes, and then say "okay, that's enough, now let's cut to a doughy guy driving a van-- the kids'll love that!" The more I think about it the angrier I get, and I need to focus on the positives, that Wincott was great when the film allowed him to be.



I've noticed we've been getting more women commenting here at the DTVC, which is always a good thing-- and maybe more gay men too, who knows. Me being a straight guy, I tend to focus more on how hot the women are in a given film I review, so for everyone who feels left out by that, this shot of a shirtless Wincott using a jackhammer is for you. Enjoy.

Patrick Kilpatrick was a great villain here, and when combined with the serial killer from The Expert, the two were fantastic. Problem: I shouldn't see more of the villains than the hero, especially when the hero is played by Jeff Wincott. No Die Hard rip-off should ever have a plot that diminishes the action, and furthermore, no Die Hard rip-off should cram so much into the villain's nefarious plot that it involves losing the hero for long tracts of time. I'm only watching this film for one reason, and one reason only: to see Wincott kick ass. This isn't about you film makers, it's about Wincott.



Is that Yuji Okumoto? It looks like him, right? But he isn't listed in the credits, and imdb doesn't have him either. Not only that, but his character isn't listed, so I can't tell if it is someone else, and I just didn't know. It's the shadowy world of DTV, where actors and characters get clipped from the credits, and we're left wondering...

This is maybe for Wincott completists, because he has some excellent fights, but even then it's a stretch and there are much better all around flicks of his to check out first. This is more a missed opportunity from a plot-happy group of film makers thinking they had something good, while Wincott sat on the sidelines smoking a cigarette-- now that you mention it, Wincott smoking a cigarette would've made for better film making than of a lot of the crap we ended up with here.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110740/

Luck of the Draw (2000)

I actually came across this film when looking for more Sasha Mitchell films-- of which there aren't many that we haven't already done. I had it my queue for a while, while other films jumped it in priority; but now it's at the top, as the second film of our Dennis Hopper tribute week.

Luck of the Draw has the star of Gladiator (the underrated boxing movie with Cuba Gooding Jr., not the Ridley Scott blockbuster), as a dude looking for a job after spending a few years in the clink for breaking and entering. After being turned down at a bank, he's in the right place at the right time as a bunch of Dennis Hopper's men hit a limo carrying extremely high quality counterfeit plates. Government agent William Forsythe appears at the hit as well, and a three-way shootout ensues, with the dude carrying the plates falling in front of our hero. Now he sees an opportunity, and he tries to sell the plates through his old partner, Michael Madsen. The thing is, Dennis Hopper doesn't suffer losing his property lightly, and he'll do whatever it takes to get it back.



This wasn't too bad. It was a classic Tarentino-esque heist caper style deal where the violence is more out of fun than any seriousness. The problem is, they betray that lightheartedness when they kill the hero's love interest's dad, played by Frank Gorshin. In a way it's germane to the plot, but it was weird and took the whole thing in a direction it didn't need to go. Also, the whole love interest thing was quick and forced anyway, and I was surprised they didn't do like most heist films do and have her have ulterior motives, i.e. the fact that she even falls for him in the first place is because she sees him take the plates or something. Anyway, that this worked at all was due to the great performances of the large and deep supporting cast, from Hoppper as the main baddie, to Eric Roberts as his right hand man and Sasha Mitchell as his grunt; to Forsythe as the fed; to Frank Gorshin as the father; to Ice-T as the rival crime lord; to Madsen as the hero's friend; all the way to the Patrick Kilpatrick in one of his best roles ever as the Irish hitman. It was those performances among a pretty run-of-the-mill premise that sold it for me.

In my Circle of Pain review, I made fun of the script, saying the writers' go to verb was "fucking". It just sounded ignorant, as swearing can sometimes do. But guys like Dennis Hopper throw rules like that out the window. He makes swearing awesome. In one scene where he's on the phone, he calls a French guy a "fucking French frog fuck!" He has a way of taking material like this, that is pretty basic, and making it something more. He's not the only one though, everyone else I mentioned above did the same thing. I mean, how easy would it be for Hopper to mail it in and just be the guy from Speed every time he's cast as a baddie in a DTV movie, but he doesn't do that, he brings it each time, and I think that's why we love seeing him in movies so much.



The love interest was a total hottie, Wendy Benson (since Wendy Benson-Landes). Her character was an unfortunate cross between the main character's redemption, and hottie window dressing, only having a moment of true assertiveness grafted on at the end. I was surprised, because had they used her character better, I think it might have made for a more intriguing movie. I mean, why would a woman as hot as her pick up a guy who looks like Corey Hart off the street and take him to meet her father (which is essentially what happened)? She wouldn't, that's why. What she would do is see our hero outside of the bank, see him pick up the briefcase with the plates in it, and find out where he lives from her boss's paperwork that had the guy's work application with his address on it. Maybe she falls in love with our hero in the process, maybe she tries to use him and leave him-- whatever, it just would have been that little bit that would have made this thing really work.

The hero's name in real life is James Marshall. You may remember him from A Few Good Men, but he's really great in Gladiator, as was Cuba Gooding Jr. (our good buddy whom we haven't seen in a while. I wonder what he's up to...). Here, with his poofy hair, he looked like a Corey Hart impersonator, which is cool, don't get me wrong, but in the context of this film looks kind of silly. I think his character was supposed to be a reformed bad boy trying to make a new life for himself, but he ended up just looking like a boy-- even if he was 33 at the time. If you haven't seen it, go out and rent Gladiator. That'll give you a new appreciation for how good both Marshall, and Gooding Jr. are.



DTVC favorite Sasha Mitchell is in this as a partner for Eric Roberts, the man doing Hopper's dirty work. The only martial arts he even remotely does comes when he beats up Frank Gorshin because he's into Hopper for some gambling debts. I was half-expecting big graphics with words like "Bam!" and "Pow!" to pop up on the screen each time Gorshin was hit, and I could tell as he fake took each punch, he was drawing from his old Batman days for inspiration. Anyway, Mitchell did look like he'd put on some pounds, so perhaps that's why we've seen so little of him over the past few years. That's too bad, though, because the guy is only in his early 40s, and he had the stuff back in the 90s to lead action films, so he'd make a great candidate to carry the torch as the current crop of DTV actions stars get even longer in the tooth.

This is fun for the actors, but not so much for everything else, so you need to ask yourself how much you like these guys. The film is available on Netflix, so that's a bonus. What you're looking at is a classic Tarentino-esque heist film, pretty pedestrian at best, but the performances from all the stars were anything but, and so that made it for me, but it might not for you.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207036/

Riot (1997)

This is another flick that I had said I'd review some time ago, forgot about, then discovered as I was updating the archives so they'd have images that linked to larger versions of the original when you click on them that I had said in a comment that I would review it. I should make this clear to everyone who has ever made a request or suggestion that I said I'd get to then didn't: it's not on purpose, they just sometimes get lost in the shuffle, and if I do forget about one you wanted, don't hesitate to say something-- I won't take it personally.

Riot takes place in LA on Christmas Eve, and a riot has broken out after some kids were killed by the cops. In the wake of this riot, the British ambassador's daughter is kidnapped, and special forces dude Gary Daniels is sent into the war zone to get her out. As things shake out, Daniels realizes it's not simply a matter of a gang-banger seizing an opportunity for a quick payday, it goes much deeper. Doesn't it always, though? Suddenly, when we think the movie's almost over, it becomes an anti-Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland pro-UK pro-Protestant propaganda fest.



I can see why a lot of people like this, and I did too-- for the most part. The action was there, Daniels was great, the problem for me was it suffered from the Ninja Gaiden II Syndome. If you remember Ninja Gaiden II, it seemed like it would never end. There were like three last bosses; you'd beat one, and either another would take his place, or he'd transform into some kind of demon or something. Anyway, Riot has that same issue. At about the hour mark, it looks like it's wrapping up: Daniels and the girl are near the end of the riot zone, the head baddies are there for the final confrontation, life is good. Then the girl cuts herself, Daniels decides he can't take her over the riot zone like that (why?), and he finds a house owned by the Cold Case guy. Even the final confrontation with the head baddie went on forever, with a fight in the street that ends up in a parking garage with Daniels riding on the hood of a car. I felt like I was at a party, and my ride home just would not leave, and he'd like get his coat on, or the conversation he's in will seem like it's run its course, only to have him sit or take his coat off again. This also became poorly disguised pro-UK pro-Irish Protestant propaganda, which irked me too, and I'll get into that later.

And that's too bad, because this really did have some top notch action in it. The scene with the helicopter dangling on the edge of the skyscraper was big budget action quality. That wasn't the only scene. The end in the parking garage was great-- too bad it didn't come sooner. If they cut the entire Cold Case guy's part, and made some of the other crap a little shorter, this could've been great. There were other areas where bad editing detracted from the action. There was a great homage to 1990: Bronx Warriors with guys on Rollerblades with hockey masks and hockey sticks attacking Daniels. It would've been great, if they had focused on the action and fighting, and not wasted five minutes of them skating and circling him. They did the same thing again when guys on dirt bikes attacked him. This isn't the X-Games, and even if it was, guys just doing wheelies on dirt bikes wouldn't be cool for that either. Yes, it got good when the guys on dirt bikes started crashing and getting set on fire, but the effect is dulled some by the whole Disney on Ice thing. This is an action film, don't waste my time, get those fuckers on the dirt bikes crashing and exploding as soon as possible.



I think as far as Gary Daniels goes, he was good, and one of the many redeemable parts of the film. Again, with some better editing, this could've been a classic, and Daniels was a big reason why. I was looking through Netflix and imdb to see what the next Daniels film should be, and a lot of the ones I'd like to do aren't available through Netflix. To give you an idea of how ridiculous this has gotten, Bloodmoon, which I got from Netflix back in May, is no longer available. I don't really know what the rules are that govern renting movies, but is it really the worst thing in the world for them to make available films that are out of print? And what do they do with those DVDs if they aren't renting them out? Can we buy them? Regardless, it's frustrating, because Gary Daniels has a great filmography, and a good chunk of it is unavailable through Netflix, including ones that are available on DVD.

Sugar Ray Leonard is in this as Daniels' right hand man. He wasn't bad. In his fight scenes, he really only punched, but that was fine. I'm surprised he hasn't done much more, other than some TV shows and whatnot. He'd be great as a detective opposite someone like Daniels. I guess with the money he has from fighting he probably doesn't need to make low-budget DTV actioners.



If rule number 1 of action films is don't let the plot detract from the action, rule number 2 is definitely: be careful when you get political with it. The review I saw of this on imdb suggested the film was racist. The reasoning behind this was that almost every black person on screen was a bad guy. I didn't see it like that. You could infer that, because all of the African American males are either bad guys or good guys that served in the military, that black men have only two options in society-- crime or the service-- but even then I'm not so sure that's racist as opposed to making a statement about the need to make better opportunities for people living in the inner city. What I did sense, though, was some definite pro-UK pro-Protestant Irish sentiment, which I didn't like. Especially galling was when the IRA terrorists were banging on people's doors in the riot zone looking for Daniels, because it called to mind for me the Irish Protestant practice of knocking on the doors of Irish Catholics and taking the men off to torture and kill them. If a movie's going to bring the IRA into a film and make them the baddies, they need to make sure they present both sides of that conflict, otherwise they're coming off as propaganda, which is what this film ended up being.

Sometimes movies just go too far, and this was one. It was too long, needed a lot of it trimmed, and devolved into anti-Irish Catholic propaganda. That was too bad, because Daniels was great, the action was big budget quality, and all of that was, for me at least, overshadowed by the shortcomings. These shortcomings may not be too much for other viewers, so if you're a Gary Daniels fan, you may still want to give it a try and disagree with me.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117481/

Never Surrender (2009)

As I'm sure many of you know from rockin' with me here at the DTVC, I'm a huge fan of the UFC. When I saw Never Surrender at the video store, and all the UFC stars it had on the cover, I was like "man, I need to review that!" But one thing after another came up, and it wasn't until I saw Confessions of a Pit Fighter with Hector Echavarria that I remembered that Never Surrender existed. I actually watched it a few weeks ago, but the review was pushed back after the passing of Patrick Swayze.

Never Surrender is about a fictitious MMA star, Hector Echavarria, who has just won the championship belt, but something inside him is burning for more. So he just happens to see a hot woman at a club that just happens to work for a guy who just happens to have an underground fighting circuit. The way it works, each fighter is paired with a hot prostitute, and when he loses, the guy who beats him gets his prostitute for the night. Anyone who watches the kinds of movies we watch knows that guys who run underground fighting rings can't be trusted, and it's only a matter of time before this one shows his true colors too, and our hero has to take him down.



Not good. Big ol' pile o' blah. First off, the UFC guys all have cameos, they aren't featured like the cover says. None of them, except Rampage and Anderson Silva (because he doesn't talk), can act. Echavarria not only also has trouble acting, but he wrote and directed this, and it's bad on those levels too. That's an extreme disappointment, because Confessions of a Pit Fighter was actually pretty good. The plot is crummy, and the action doesn't make up for it. Having just seen a movie with a similar paradigm, To the Death, executed much better, Never Surrender was sloppy and irksome in comparison.

Confessions of a Pit Fighter was written and directed by Art Camacho, which might explain why it was so much better. Camacho's gone through his growing pains, believe me, and he has a few bad reviews on this site to attest to that. Just the same, I can't give Echavarria a free pass, especially when he has quite a few other movies coming down the pike that he wrote and directed. The biggest issue I had was how he didn't make his hero likable. Why am I rooting for this moron? In Confessions, his character was endearing and flawed, and nothing about him seemed contrived. This guy was just an ass. My favorite part was when his girl asks him "how do you know this will work?" to which he replies "because I'm always right", except the whole film is based on the idea that he was so wrong about this guy running this underground fighting circuit. He has a movie called Hell's Chain that was supposed to be released last August, and another called Duel of Legends that has Cary Tagawa that should be released in December. We'll see what happens with those two.



I can't blame BJ Penn, Heath Herring, or George St. Pierre for not turning in inspired performances. The script was so atrocious, Sir Laurence Olivier would've been hard pressed to make it work. What sucked was how St. Pierre and Penn were featured on the cover, and they were barely in it. I love BJ Penn, but he was just ill at ease on the screen. And his fights weren't well choreographed. I think it would've been okay to showcase his jiu jitsu more. Have him fight a guy that was way bigger, take his back, and choke him out. How cool would that be? St. Pierre barely fought at all, and when he did it was poorly choreographed too. I think for both of them they'd have to be trained to fight in a way that works for an action film, unless all they're doing is a cameo where they get their ass kicked in a Seagal film.

Rampage, on the other hand, was great in his one scene. I wonder if he ad libbed his lines, because they sounded much better and much more natural than everyone else's. Word on the street is UFC president Dana White is less than stoked that Rampage is putting off a fight with Rashad Evans so he can act in the new A-Team movie. The unfortunate reality for White, and the UFC, is that Rampage actually can act, and he's entertaining. If the A-Team movie is successful, the offers will just keep pouring in, and being an action star is a much more lucrative occupation than a UFC fighter. Their loss is our gain.



Anderson Silva, the UFC Middleweight champ, is in this for one fight scene with Echavarria. Out of everyone, his martial arts looked the best onscreen. I know he doesn't speak great English, but to be a bad guy's hatchet man, he doesn't have to. I could see him in something like a Transporter 4 slugging it out with Jason Statham. That would be a better use of his talents than fighting with Hector Echavarria. One small note, Silva was born on April 14, 1975, which makes him another Aries. I'm just saying.

Don't be fooled, this is a major bait and switch sack of asscrack. All it really did was get Corey Hart's "Never Surrender" in my head every time I saw the title. Echavarria has only proven with this film that he should stick to playing dark, brooding heroes, and leave the directing and screenwriting to someone better qualified. He's certainly no Orson Welles. When a movie's cover has to show all the famous guys that have cameos, instead of the main star, you know you're in for some pain.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307989/

Best of the Best 2 (1993)

This is a movie I've been trying to get up for a long time. It's one of those movies that makes me proud to be a connoisseur of DTV video (is that redundant?). Watching it again recently just reinforced how much I love it.

Best of the Best 2 takes place some time after the first one. Phillip Rhee, Eric Roberts, and Chris Penn have all opened a karate school in Las Vegas. Penn has also found his way into an underground fighting ring called The Colosseum, run by Ralf Moeller and managed by Wayne Newton. Penn's killed by Moeller in a fight, and has his body dumped in the river, but not before Roberts's son witnesses the event and tells Rhee and Roberts. They go after Moeller and Newton, only to have to go into hiding to train to fight Moeller when he sends a hit squad after them. He's salty because Rhee sent his face into a mirror, cutting him badly. Long story short, Moeller catches Rhee, makes him fight him, while Roberts rushes in to help save the day.

Don't get me wrong here. Though I may call this awesome, and it is, I must stress that it is extremely silly. One of my roommates came in as they were dragging Penn's body from the river, and Rhee says to Roberts "They're calling it an accident!" She burst out laughing. That's what you can expect from this: it's paint-by-numbers, but paint-by-numbers done well. Great martial arts, a fair amount of gunfire, some explosions mixed in, and a plot that didn't get in the way of the action.

Phillip Rhee was better here than in part 1. His martial arts skills are off the hook. He has one scene when he and Roberts are taking out a Ralf Moeller hit squad, and this guy has a gun on him. So he disarms him by twisting his wrist, and he's got the guy's arm, and he's saying to him "do you want to shoot me now? Huh? Do you?" That being said, I was unimpressed with the scene where he's captured by Moeller's goons. I know I tend to give Seagal a hard time because his characters seem to be omnipotent, but at the same time, it's annoying to see a hero so awesome relegated to wuss status so easily by a few armed men. The same armed men he took out just as armed however many scenes before. We as movie watchers would've believed it just as much if he'd not been captured, but instead infiltrated the fight the way Schwarzenegger did in Conan, or Bernhardt did in Bloodsport 3.

This film makes the rather dubious claim that it's introducing us to Ralf Moeller. I was suspicious, so I looked him up. Not only was he in Cyborg, but he also did Universal Soldier. Why would they make a claim like that? They must've thought he'd be the next Schwarzenegger. If you listen, he even sounds like him sometimes. I think even as a poor man's Arnold, he's not quite there, if you consider his work on the Conan series. Could you see him now trying to drum support for a gubernatorial campaign? "Help me get special interests out of Sacramento." It just sounds better when Arnold says it.

Chris Penn is killed off here, and unfortunately, they don't bring him back as a twin brother or something later on. I guess it had to happen, I was just disappointed when it did. Penn is no longer with us in real life, but he left behind quite a legacy in the film world. His IMDb bio is interesting, because it fluctuates between big screen blockbusters to DTV actioners starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson. I'm not sure who his agent was, or if he just owed a lot of people during his career, but you'd think he'd've been able to turn one or two of those bigger movies into something where he didn't have to do the bad ones anymore.

Wayne Newton plays a definite heel here. I'm not sure I care too much about that. He very easily could be a heel in real life. One thing I do know is that his birthday is two days after mine, so he and I are both Aries. As is Steven Seagal. I wonder if there's anything to this zodiac stuff, and if so, if Newton, Seagal, and I all have certain personality traits in common. Maybe the three of us could go on a picnic this summer and find out. I'd like that.

This is a good time. If you love bad action, you'll love this. It's got everything you could want, without being bogged down too much in the stuff you don't. You're best bet is to slap it on your Netflix queue.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106393/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/