Total Reality

TOTAL REALITY is a very low budget science fiction flick that marked one of the last screen performances for the short-lived martial artist David Bradley, who started out by appearing in AMERICAN NINJA 3. This one involves a totalitarian future where a couple of bad guys travel back in time to the present day to change history and are pursued by a ragtag team of prisoners who have to stop them. Bradley stars as the chief prisoner and is adequate enough in the role, playing against screen favourite Thomas Kretschmann as the villain of the hour. The sci-fi elements are acceptable and the present day storyline works well to a degree, although it's never quite as interesting or indeed suspenseful as it perhaps should be.

This film is striking only in its banality and use of cliches. Sadly it was obvious throughout up until the ending. But don't be mistaken into thinking that it ended strongly. Only a little unexpectedly, though nothing worth watching the thing through for.

From the taciturn and wronged hero, to the Germanic baddy, to the expendable team, the characters were entirely wooden and obvious. The two FBI agents Smith and Wesson (geddit?) gave some hope of humour, but that came to nothing.

I am a big science fiction fan but it is hard to find any redeeming quality in this film. A turkey!

Film-makers and movie-goers should see this film. It high-lights major problems with this genre. If we start with the use of studios and the penchant for special effects. This means that the sets are always, dark, and more than often that they are in derelict buildings. The models used are constructed by similar thinking people. The film itself is constructed on stereotypical binaries. The German accented villain - is unfortunate, it is built on I think a less than subliminated version of the Second World War. Brunettes, blondes, Germans, Jews, dirty faced children, clean children, war, peace, black, white. They are cliches.The dialogue could have been written on a beer mat. The acting was deplorable. Wooden. Why do people waste money on such a production? Yet there are so many like this.Given the same material and same budget I could have made a much better movie. I think Philip Roth should hang his head in shame. But as I said before. Watch it and study the formulaic, the stereotypes, the cliches --indeed this film should be put on the viewing list of film courses. A must to see.

David Bradley stars as Lt. Rand, a future soldier facing a death sentence is given a chance for freedom if he leads a group of commandos back to 1998 to prevent a group of rebel fighters from preventing the totalitarian government from ever happening. Bradley also has 40 hours to succeed or his device in his neck will explode, along the way Bradley questions his mission. David Bradley I always thought of as an awful actor, his works in American Ninja 3 and American Ninja 4 made Michael Dudikoff seem like a Shakespearan actor. However in one of his last films before his retirement (?) from films, he delivered one of his best performance to date in what is one of his very best. The movie's main flaw is simply that it tries to do too much, in that things are implied so much we often don't understand where the plot is coming from. The main story is handled fairly well but the subplots are often dropped or just barely skimmed over. Total Reality really does imply a lot more than it tells and it has some scenes off quiet effectiveness. The movie doesn't start off all that well, as it starts out just to run down time but in reality it's what sets up the motivation of Bradley's character and the movie despite ripping off Escape From New York, The Terminator, The Dirty Dozen and even Trancers the film still combines the elements well enough and comes up with its share of good ideas to make it work for Science Fiction fans. There are of course plot holes but what I found quite captivating about Total Reality, is how David Bradley's character questions his mission and indeed isn't all that inspired in his quest to save his government. In fact when he explains "When we die, they'll send someone to replace us." which gets a sad reply, Bradley's quip "Don't look at me, I just work here" is well handled. Indeed it's bizarre but it's David Bradley that makes the movie work the way it does. With someone like Olivier Gruner, the movie wouldn't have been nearly as interesting. It's somewhat sad Bradley went into obscurity because he really became not too shabby of an actor, at least on the basis of this performance. The ending is also unexpected and intriguing which earns the movie it's high marks and in the end Phillip J. Roth crafts his best work to date, which is no doubt due to David Bradley. Something I never ever thought i'd ever write ever.

* *1/2 out of 4-(Pretty Good)

As I mentioned in other comments, I became a real big fan of David Bradley ever since I saw him in "American Ninja 3". The guy is great doing martial arts, has some kind of charisma and is a cool looking dude on screen. Sadfully, he went to the DTV department ever since his debut and has remained as one of the king of TV movies until 2001 where he apparently stopped making movies. Now, one thing is watching Cyborg Cop or Hard Justice which are crappy clichéd movies but real fun to watch (coz they're entertainingly bad if that has any sort of meaning) but another thing is watching a tasteless piece of boredom like Total Reality. I mean, this and Crisis are the two biggest pieces of horse-dung this guy ever did. I wouldn't recommend this not even to the biggest Bradly hardcore fans. If I had known this and Crisis were going to be so f*****g crap, I wouldn't have spent the 3 or 4 euros they cost me. Total Reality is just as boring as Crisis although funnily, it starts promising. A group of military prisoners in the future are given a chance to stop some kind of disaster in the past (I'm sorry, I didn't really pay much attention to this atrociousness) and they only have 24 hours to get back or something like that. If they don't, they're stranded there forever. The poor director who oversaw this, "tries" some humorous (?) clichés like the convicts arriving on Earth and not knowing what a truck is for example (wow, hilarious...). The movie follows up with David Bradley teaming up with some Earth girl for the rest of the flick. This bored me so much that I had to force myself to watch it in like 3 or 4 installments to at least make use of the 4 or 5 euros it cost me. That's coz every time I tried, I fell asleep. And if you get a movie with David Bradley with just one crappy 10-second fight scene in it, then that's the final touch which would contribute to you throwing it off a hundred foot cliff so as never to see it again. I wish I could meet the "director" of this pile of poo on the street and I swear to God I'd ask him back for mi 5 euros. I'd also love to meet David Bradley to ask him why in God's name did he choose to star in this poor excuse for a movie. Don't even bother with this film, I mean it from the bottom of my heart, not renting borrowing it and specially not buying it.