The Chaos Factor

Cambodia during the 1970's. Max Camden is responsible for a prison camp where human rights do not exist and experiments are ruthlessly carried out. When he is ordered to destroy the camp to avoid incriminating anyone in the US Government, he misses one soldier, who escapes but dies in the subsequent bombing of the area. Over 25 years later, Jack Poynt is leading a mission to clear the same area of landmines when he discovers the remains of the camp and discovers the journal of the escapee. However Camden is now one of the top men involved in the crisis with China and Poynt must face great odds to expose him.

I expected nothing from this film as I knew it was a video thriller at best and was on a channel best known for scooping up cheap action movies just to fill the time slot. As such this film is so-so, in other words it doesn't excel itself in any way and has all the low standards that we have come to expect from this type of film. The plot is ok at the start but spins out of control from then onwards. The significant of the modern day plot with Camden is not fully explored, the reason for Kim is iffy other than having a love interest and a babe in the film and the final twist is such an absurd coincidence to pull out that it's a wonder they bothered to make it personal!

The action scenes trundle along ok, but often feel like they are very cheaply done and looked to the A-Team for inspiration. The plot itself provides no great tension or drama so the action scenes at least distract from the business at hand and allow us to watch cars crash every now and again.

Sabato is a very poor leading man. He is every bit as wooden as he looks and I never once got involved with his character. The presence of Fred Ward either means his standards have fallen drastically or he just bought a new car and needed to clear the payments. He does ok but you can see in his eyes that he is just hamming because he has no material to work with. Susie Park is a nice addition, true her character adds very little other than oriental style action scenes, but she is quite pretty – just a shame the script demands her to inexplicably fall for Poynt in a matter of moments!

Overall this is not an awful film – it is an average video thriller. It doesn't do anything to make itself stand out and has a very weak plot. All the video clichés are there – love scene, conspiracy, bad guys who can't hit a brick wall with an automatic etc, but it just about manages to keep going. Passable if you're doing something else at the same time but probably vile if you're 100% focused on it and looking for it to entertain you.

One of my pet peeves is watching a movie where someone rips off a really good premise, like Enemy of the State, and botches it.

Same idea: a guy (Antonio Sabato Jr.) finds a long buried secret that could destroy an extremely powerful politician and suddenly the guy is prey to the powers that be.

Most glaringly apparent plot hole: Antonio's character is in the Army and could have been easily detained by his superiors with just one phone call from the powerful politician. Instead, the bad guy who works for the politician (and former CIA/military man, as usual), tries to blow him up, kills two of his friends and kidnaps him with the intent of torturing him for information. Luckily, he's saved by a Chinese secret agent (Susie Park in the best portrayal of a female agent in tight black leather since Charlie's Angels) and together they expose the evil plot to eradicate the Asian race.

I liked Susie Park's character. She is a cold blooded killer (which she plainly states) and martial artist that can trade punches with the best of the bad guys and she doesn't have a problem using bondage on Antonio (ooh, hot flash). She can also take a punch in the face and, as she recovers, coolly flip her hair at her aggressor. Now that's one cool customer!

Sorry, I just realized that I'm making this movie sound good...it isn't. There are 2 too many cars chases (if you've seen this movie you'll find that extremely funny) and the characters are one dimensional. I only have one question: who gives these people money to make this kind of garbage? They must have had one hell of a pitch-man to get this one made.

My one word summary: Ugh!

This film appears to be a poor quality remake of 'The Odessa File', with fewer ideas. The main characters are unpleasant, you don't care about any of them, and what was the Chinese girl upto anyway. Not worth watching.

"Chaos Factor" - maybe not the title I would have chosen, but it really was a pretty good movie. I thought that Sabato did a good job and I really like Fred Ward too. Sabato's character was a decent guy who was destined to make the right decision at the right time. The action and stunts were good and I thought the locations were believable. His decision to do the right thing, however was predictable, rather than blindly follow military protocol and cover-up the wrongdoing of a few bad apples over 20+ years prior.

I also liked the fact that I could watch this movie with my 10 year old son. There was very little, if any, vulgar language and the love scenes were left to the imagination which makes it easier watching was kids. Overall, I think this movie is worth the time and money!

Every film student should watch "The Chaos Factor" as a study in how to take a pretty good premise, write and direct it poorly, and come away with an uneven, not very satisfying film.

War crimes were committed in 1972 in Cambodia. The bad guys thought they covered their tracks, but a diary turns up in 1999. Then the fun and action begins. Too bad it wasn't written better.