Felony

Alright I'll start this off by saying the box cover is a lie, and a confusing lie at that. Leo Rossi is featured prominently there, but has about 12 minutes of screen time and is not the focus of this movie. Despite appearing nowhere on the front cover, this movie stars Jeffrey "Re-Animator" Combs as a reporter(?) who captured footage of a drug deal/political agenda killing(?) and is being chased by drug dealers/cops/crooked and/or non-crooked government agents(?) You'll notice there's a bit of uncertainty in this statement, and that's because despite having watched this movie in its' entirety I'm not quite sure what happened. This movie is either the greatest action movie spoof of all time, or the most clichéd attempt at a serious action film of all time, all I know for sure is that I loved it. This movie has a downright stellar cast, Ashley Laurence(Hellraiser series), Lance Henrickson(everything ever made), David Warner(everything else), Charles Napier(that guy that's played a general in everything for the past 30 years), and the man himself, Joe Don Baker. The strangest thing about this movie is its' focal point. For the first 30 minutes or so it's nearly impossible to figure out who our star is. The movie jumps from character to character almost desperately searching for someone to follow. It almost feels like this was supposed to be a vehicle for an 80's action star, but the filmmakers couldn't secure one so they just shot the movie based on the secondary characters from the script. It really does play out like the intended gun-toting catchphrase spouting protagonist just forgot to show up. The movie gives us shootouts, car chases, explosions and double crosses, and you'll be hard pressed to figure out what's going on even when they explain it. This may not be your cup of tea, but I was absolutely astounded.

If you are a fan of low-low-budget action flicks, with semi-famous and once-famous stars, then you might allow yourself to enjoy this movie more than it deserves. Only Joe Don Baker seems to have put any life into his performance at all. The best David Warner could come up with was having his character chew gum loudly. The action follows a crew of a "Cops"-type reality show involved in a huge nighttime shootout that leaves a dozen police officers dead, although the plots has more holes than they do. The two guys in the crew, one of whom is a pained-looking Jeffrey Combs, film the massacre unbeknownst to the killers even though the camera was about twenty feet from them with the spotlight shining merrily. The rest of the movie has Combs being pursued by the killers who just happen to be a CIA splinter group, two bumbling cops, and a charismatic inter-agency spook mediator. The ending of the movie, which I won't dare spoil, is so laughable and totally implausible that it completely invalidates the entire plot. No exaggeration.

Lance Henriksen has a knack for being the top name in a B-movie, even in this case starring along side Charles Napier, Master Control Program, and Joe Don Baker. As always he does a great job of being the bad guy, but the plot is just bad (don't even get me started about the ending). And the editing is so horrible it might actually be a thing of beauty. Is it just me, or does it seem that Joe Don Baker was spliced into the movie at the last minute? Also, anytime glass is broken in this movie, the editing is so anti-phenomenal. Lastly, after watching this, I figure David Warner is dying for Tron 2.0 to finally get the green light.

Unfortunately for Felony, this will be the third movie I give the rating of 1/10, joining Iron Eagle IV and No Mercy.

I saw this film only because I really liked Combs in "Re-Animator" and "The Frighteners". "Felony", however is a low-budget, slow-moving and predictable film and Combs is its only saving grace, and even he can't make it work.

For die hard Combs/action fans only.

A 3 out of 10.

With several name actors (Lance Henrikson, David Warner, Joe Don Baker), why was Jeffery Combs given the lead? Henrikson would have been a perfect fit for the lead, as would Warner, Baker or even others in the movie such as Charles Napier. Combs was miscast in this, and did a poor job of it. Everything he did seemed fake or contrived.

The script is poor. Meaning that if Lance Henrikson (or another) had the lead role, he might have saved the film (removed it from my "waste of time" category), but it still would have been a bad movie. The screen play was completely lacking. The director should have recognized this and helped the movie along.