Act of War

I rented this movie because I wanted a movie where thought process was minimal. That is what I got. There was lots of explosions and shoot outs, and no big name stars. Jack Scillia played the take no crap one man army of this movie. He shot people, blew things up and in the end he romanced the girl. Sounds like James Bond you say? Well it is very similar. There is even a character that resembled Odd-Job from "Goldfinger". This was not the worst movie I have ever seen ( the worst being "Trucks" and "Ape" ) but I was down there. There were many acting problems due to the fact that no one could act. And the fact that the camera kept zooming on Jack's eyes, I am clueless. I give it a *1/2 out of ****.

This movie remind me many real situations I saw in Central Asia post Soviet republics. But, everything shown so sketchy that this action became parody.

It is set in some fictious Soviet country, terrorists take over a palace and the Scalia character has to come in to save the day. I liked the effect sequences of the Palace in the final scene. If you like typical action, you'll like this film.

When oh when will I learn that the bargain priced movies in the bin at Walmart are there for one reason. They're shoddy junk. "Act Of War" for a buck fifty was no exception. James Bond without the class. John LeCarre without the intelligence. The acting is bad. The plot is simplistic and predictable. As usual in these bang bang epics, the bad guys are all lousy shots. I know nothing about guns but I'm sure I could kill more people banging off an automatic weapon than this bunch. But then, if they hit their targets, the movie could be a good forty minutes shorter. (Which might not be a bad thing.)This indeed is one of those films that is so bad it's almost good. One suggestion. If you must buy bargain movies at Walmart, go for VHS rather than DVD. At least that way you can re-use the tape. I haven't yet found a use for old DVD's.

At first glance this appeared to be one of the better looking Jack Scalia outings I've seen. Of course that feeling doesn't last long. The story is a James Bond reject with a dash of romance. It isn't worth talking about at length and neither is any mention of the cast. There's some real cheese grade acting going on here.

The F/X are passable for a low budget movie of this order, but the entire contraption is void of anything mildly redeeming. The whole secret agent scenario is cliché and the characters are devoid of any depth or meaning.

My one wish is that I had a briefcase like Jack Gracy (Scalia's character). In the movie his has a red light that goes off when an unauthorized entry at a Russian Nuclear missile silo has occurred. Mine would be slightly different. It would still have a red light, but it would only go off when someone made a really memorable direct to video action flick.

This is not one of those times.