The Bad Pack

Usually, these low budget affairs seek to cash in on a cinematic heavyweights popularity, here we have what could be considered the opposite. You could be forgiven for thinking that part of the production process of making 2010's The Expendables was watching 1997's The Bad Pack, given the similarities. Set in a small Texas border town, under attack by a local militia group, Mexican immigrants hire a band of mercenaries to protect them. Robert Davi and Roddy Piper provide the star names in what I found to be a very enjoyable low budget independent action movie, one which deserved more backing and perhaps even a franchise.

Might as well watch an episode of the A Team or Knight Rider, it looks so late 90s cheese action made for tv movie though it probably wasn't, think TBS on a Sunday afternoon type B movie. Roddy Piper did a fun job, Davi was his usual self, the Austrian guy I can't put a finger on, maybe he was in Beer Fest with the Super Trooper guys circa 2000s. It was a silly frivolous cheaply made quickie with chessy bad guys, a few familiar faces and the usual poor Immigrant folks who need help lol. Watch it for a laugh, I paid a $1 for it at a charity shop, worth about 50 cents of that but you can't beat cheese, it's no Tango and Cash, or Expendables or 7 Samurai but it is old school silly fun for 80s kids. Late night or Sun afternoon if nothing else is on. But 12 reviews says it all lol.

Not sure how this movie was as bad as it was as it had a couple of stars, a mildly good premise and what one thought was going to be a very violent conclusion with guns blazing, but here we are. None of the stars seem interested, not even ones who should if they wanted to keep getting roles, the premise did not work because the big bad conclusion one expects in a film like this turned into a slight pit stop. I have been in fast food drive in lines longer than the 'explosive' finale lasts...

The plot, a town on Mexican Americans are being harassed by a group of racist militia types. Who do they turn to for help? Well, a group of highly trained solider of fortunes, a kind of A-Team if you will, only they are more like the C-Team; however, that being said as easy as they take down the militia, the Mexicans could have just bought guns and skipped the middle man and done the whole job themselves...

So we get Davi who is good as a villain, but not so good as the hero, who for reasons unknown wears a confederate hat. Not a rebel flag hat, but an actual confederate soldier hat making me wonder who thought that was a good idea. Then there is Rowdy Roddy Piper who plays guy who drives. Seriously, there are more members of the team, but they are so poorly fleshed out as the rest are just crazy guy, buff guy and good shooting girl. Meanwhile, a dude who just joins up for no reason gets more screen time and is fleshed out better. I mean sure, guy stops a bank robbery in a diner I'm at, I wish to serve him like a toady forever...not!

So, the film should have been good, but was instead very weak. Not taking inspiration from 80's hardcore action films, but instead kind of being tepid. The bad guys are completely inept and the townspeople should feel embarrassed to have been terrorized by them. Still, good for a laugh or two as we watch this team of misfits get their fairly simple plan to stop the evil doers together.

Albeit not a horrible film, it wasn't a good film either. A plethora of stereotypes (The cool leader, the insane guy, the ice-cold assassin chick, the happy-go-lucky guy, the introspective muscleman, the computer geek) are paraded out and put through a typical A-Team adventure involving some really badly acted white supremist survivalists who are terrorizing a Tex-Mex boarder town. This is the type of screenplay one knocks out during a slow television night.

I stumbled upon this on a Home Screen and noticed how many actors I recognized from different movies. It's like the original 90s Expendables of b list actors. Ralph Moeller, Sven O Arnies buddies he always cameos. Lamar from Revenge of The Nerds. Roddy Piper! Jeep Swanson. The crazy Australian guy from Road Warrior and Weird Science. It's crazy how many people were this. If you watch it for just fun it's enjoyable and has heart. The heroes have honor. If you watch some scenes you can see some funny mishaps. Lamar dude is drinking a Corona but he slams it too hard and it starts to bubble up so he has to sip it or ruin the scene. The blonde is about to snipe a guy and Roddy happens to look right at the barrel as she shoots w no eye protection. You know that was not planned. I didn't expect to enjoy it when the first long training mo rage was playing out but as soon as all the good guys were on screen I was I to it. The 50 cal firing off w just a fire out of the barrel looked so fake but it's a fun movie if you don't take it seriously.