Category: Review

Wolf Creek: season one

  By

★★★★
“The dark side of Crocodile Dundee.”

Here is a confession: I have never seen the acclaimed two Wolf Creek movies (2005 and 2013 – a third movie is planned). The reason was simple: I just didn’t care for ultra-cruel slashers from Australia. After watching this TV-spin off I might revise my opinion and catch up with them; if they are as good as this TV series I definitely want to see them!

So, what’s the story? The American Thorogood family is on holiday in Australia. Unfortunately for them, their young son is swimming in a crocodile-infested lake (who goes swimming in Australia? Don’t we all know their waters are full of deadly animals?). Fortunately for them, Australian animal hunter Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) arrives, right on time, to shoot the crocodile before it can attack the boy. Unfortunately for them, Mick is a psychopathic sadistic serial killer who kills them all before the evening is over, including daughter Eve (Lucy Fry). Or so he thinks, because Eve survives. As she is slowly nursed back to health, and answers the questions of the police, she comes to the realization that the authorities won’t be able or willing to catch the killer.

She decides to hunt Mick herself and take revenge for the death of her family. Eve is originally innocent, and carries feelings of guilt, since her family was only in Australia because she was recovering from drug addiction – she used to be an athlete. She has to learn to get along in a hard, merciless country by herself, and avoid or defeat the criminals, thieves and would-be-rapists there who pose a threat during her journey. Eve is pursued by the police, as she herself has broken the law, and also by a well-meaning policeman who wants to help her. Not to mention Mick who – happily slashing his way through unpopulated areas – has realized that someone is pursuing him and starts to play a cat-and-mouse-game with Eve…

I have to say that this series really surprised me. I had bought it based solely due to the cool cover photo and didn’t expect much more than a probably over-gruesome third-rate slasher, I mean, is Australia really famous for great serial killer psycho thrillers? Though there is the very good Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis thriller from 1981, Road Games. As a matter of fact, this short (six episodes) series blew me away with its astounding quality. When you read the above, you might be forgiven for getting the impression the whole thing will come across as a bit cheap in its storytelling, or the motivation of its characters – a bit schlocky in general.

But… it isn’t.

The best way I can describe the show is with the word “unpretentious”. That might sound strange. Yes, it is, at its core, a revenge story. And, yes, people are tortured and killed in cruel ways: when someone has an infected hand, you see him cut it off with a saw. But I never got the feeling these scenes were gratuitous or to make the blood-thirsty gorehounds happy. Quite the opposite: things like this are carefully integrated into the narrative of the story, and have a meaning that goes above mere shock value. I would almost call this story, about a serial killer tracking his prey across desert hunting grounds, decent and yes, even tasteful – considering how different this narrative could have been presented.

Most surprising for me was, though big game hunter Mick is always looming in the background, it’s mainly Eve’s story. In the beginning I wasn’t too impressed with her. She seemed like a bland, pale character, just a victim who survived a catastrophe. I was half expecting her to become the usual superwoman, who knows it all and can do everything better than every male – thanks, mister! But the filmmakers were smarter than your average Hollywood screenwriter and producer, who nowadays seem only to be able to create one-dimensional, flawless, conveyor-belt manufactured heroines. Eve does not know it all, she can not do it all alone, and makes mistakes – some really terrible. She fails and learns from it. She falls and has to stand up again. It alone makes the character better than almost 95% of today’s female protagonists in American movies or shows. Kudos for that!

Also, there is a second season, which I have not seen yet (it isn’t available in my home country). Given it has everyone’s favourite killer from Down Under again, but not Eve, I began seriously to worry about her fate. You really start to sympathize with her. Running away from the police in the beginning might be anything but rational, but as the series develops, so does she. You start to understand who she is, and she gets a backstory: she is not a random female character out for revenge anymore. She has these understandable feelings and more than once I thought: “Gosh, this could be going different, girl. You should be working together with the police. There could be common ground if you were not so stuck on the idea that you’ve got to do this all on your own!”

Then there are moments when she realizes herself she is way over her head, fighting insurmountable odds. She gets better at it, slowly, and the point in a way is about self-discovery. It becomes an odyssey for oneself, where the protagonist has to question when reaching the nadir of life: What am I standing for? Why do I do what I do? Is it really worth all that? Could I choose a different life? There are moments that indicate that Eve might give up her hunt. The series repeatedly contrasts her persona with other characters who have lost themselves, who may have been destroyed by this vast open country where you seem to be far from civilization or God.

Eve is repeatedly confronted by these criminals, or wanna-be-rapists who see a normal dressed woman as an offer, and experiences family tragedies that actually form the core of the narrative. She is not without help though. As well as the policeman on her trail who reluctantly starts to cover-up for her, there is a criminal whom she meets in the desert, an old Aborigine who fits into the classic mentor role, a colleague in a bar and she even gets a canine companion. Though the question always lingers while watching the show: Will she get her revenge? What will she do when meeting the man who killed her family? Does she even have a chance against an experienced, sadistic killer like Mick?

So, yes, I applaud Lucy Fry’s performance in the role. Thanks to an excellent script, it made me believe she – albeit slowly- becomes a potential threat to the seasoned serial killer. But also John Jarrat, playing this role for a third time, is incredibly good. Mick Taylor is a nightmare of a character, superficially charming, but essentially a disgusting sleazebag. Though it’s great even he has been given a backstory. While he kills the way other people drink their morning coffee, we get to know enough about him to deduce how he became that way. An episode tells us in flashback about a key event in his childhood that may have been the catalyst for his murderous doings. If this is believable is up to the viewer, I think. I like it they gave him more than the “Well, he’s insane” explanation so many movies and shows tend to give their killers nowadays.

Having Eve faced with what can only be labelled as a devil in human form, touches an even more ambitious question. It’s a theme that classic The Hitcher (C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer) dared to ask. How much of your own humanity do you have to leave behind, to be able to fight the devil? I think it refers to the age-old Nietzsche-ism “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” I’m not saying how this “psycho thriller” ends, but I really, really recommend this show. Every episode had me glued to my TV, and I got much more enjoyment out of this short Australian TV show than I imagined. Also, I think it’s far superior to your average American product playing in the same genre pool.

I really feel I should get my hands on season 2, even though the main actress won’t be back. Also, I look forward to the third movie – and I wish you happy hunting! 😉

Creator: Greg McLean
Star: Lucy Fry, John Jarratt, Dustin Clare, Jessica Tovey 

Scarlett Cross: Agents of D.E.A.T.H

  By

★★
“Hot, Cross buns.”

To be honest, I enjoyed this a good bit more than the rating above would indicate – probably another star or so. But I have a particular tolerance for cinema with rough edges, which I know not everyone will share. This is such an entity. I can’t really recommend it, since most people won’t be able to get past the micro-budget anesthetics, which the film rarely bothers even to try and hide. But I could appreciate the obvious passion that went into this. Put it this way, if I had twenty quid with which to make a movie, it could end up looking something like this. Probably not with such a kick-ass poster though.

I suspect we credit Meadows there, since it seems he did everything else. Specifically, he wrote, directed, shot, edited, produced this and was stunt co-ordinator too. Plus he plays foul-mouthed gangster Danny McQueen. Unlike most such cases, there’s no obvious deficiency in any of these areas. It’s all adequate: if there’s a weakness, I’d say it is the audio, which is especially weak in the fight sequences. “Seventies kung-fu movie” bad. Mind you, the fights themselves occasionally are two people, clearly trying to hit each other’s weapons, rather than the opponent. On the other hand, there are times where things do come together reasonably well. The titular heroine (Clatworthy) looks the part and seems competent enough for a job as an assassin working on behalf of the British government… Or is she?

The story-line beyond that is kinda fractured. It’s described as an anthology, and there do appear to be various “chapters”, which are or more or less loosely connected to Scarlett’s quest for her own identity. And her survival, since it seems that some parties are keen to dispose of her, because that whole “identity” thing poses a potential threat to said parties. There’s a side-plot about a woman who is seeking revenge for all the abuse she suffered at the hands of the church, which does at least give us the immortal line, “No, I’m deadly serious. We’re dealing with a fucking killer nun!” This kind of self-aware sarcasm is likely when this is at its most effective.

This needs to embrace its exploitative elements to a greater degree, though I wonder if the version I saw (on Tubi) was edited. I did read one review which said, it “opens rather salaciously with a truly bizarre, literally titillating, yet oddly engaging fight sequence, not for the children. In fact this movie if rated would probably be an NC:17.” Not the movie I saw. One rather chaste shower scene was about the extend of the mature content, and the violence – lots of digital muzzle-flash – is along the same lines. That CGI does play against the grindhouse aesthetic for which Meadows is definitely aiming, down to the fake film scratches. As a debut, however, this is not without premise, so let’s see where he goes from here.

Dir: Dean Meadows
Star: Kat Clatworthy, Maria Lee Metheringham, Tayah Kansik, Hannah Farmer

Against the Ropes

  By

★★½
“More soap than opera.”

In one of the odder remakes I’ve seen in a while, this is a repurposing of the French 2013 film, Les reines du ring, which translates as “Queens of the Ring”. The core concept is retained, but the location is changed from France to Mexico, and the idea is expanded to a ten-part series. These changes make for a bit of a mixed blessing. Pro wrestling is certainly a more well-established part of the cultural landscape in Mexico, where lucha libre is extremely popular. On the other hand, the multiplication of the running time a factor of about four, leads to the necessary injection of superfluous storylines, which definitely reduced the entertainment value as far as I was concerned. It’s less a wrestling soap-opera, than a soap-opera with wrestling in it.

It begins with Ángela (Sánchez) getting out of jail, after a largely unwarranted six-year sentence for drug possession. While she’s been in jail, daughter Rocío (Santiago) has been living with her grandmother, but has been spending increasing time with her father, Lalo (Jimenez). He runs a local wrestling arena, and his girlfriend is the woman’s champion, Candy Caramelo (Gruber). Rocio has no interest in re-connecting with her mother, and Ángela ends up breaking out the old family business; her long-gone father was a star. She secretly becomes masked wrestler Novia Negra – the Bride in Black – to win back Rocio’s affection. But Candy is not impressed by this new rival, in either the ring or her family life.

If this had been it, I feel things would have been entertaining, though I admit it would have been tough to stretch that plot-line out over eight episodes. The makers prefer to throw in a slew of additional storylines, of varying effectiveness. Ángela seeking for the truth behind the knapsack which got her sent to prison. Rocio’s trouble at school, with bullies and a boy she likes. Hell, even Ángela’s mother gets a subplot in which she finds romance with the owner of the bridal store for whom her daughter works. There are times when it feels like there’s barely a mention of lucha libre over an entire episode. GLOW did a much better job of striking a balance between character development and sports entertainment.

This is a shame, since there are some interesting quirks here. GLOW never pretended wrestling was anything but predetermined. This show firmly keeps “kayfabe” – the illusion that what goes on in the ring is real. I don’t mean that Candy and Ángela are pretending to dislike each other: that’s genuine enough. But the battles between Candy and Novia are not carefully choreographed spectacles of athleticism, they’re presented as “real fights”. I’d love to have seen more exploration of this, and considerably less of Rocio’s pre-teen angst. To be frank, who cares if she has had her first period? I know I didn’t. Wrestling has been described as “soap-opera on steroids.” This show feels in need of an injection of PEDs.

Showrunner: Fernando Sariñana
Star: Caraly Sánchez, Scarlet Gruber, Alisson Santiago, Cuauhtli Jimenez
a.k.a. Contra las cuerdas

Nemesis

  By

★★½
“Two’s company, Tree’s a crowd.”

I was going to go with “Tree’s company” as the tagline, before I realized I’ve actually used that in three separate, forest-set movies. So I decided to adjust it slightly, and what’s above is indeed very apt. There is a cast of three (3) and the entire thing unfolds in the woods. There isn’t a single set or interior shot in the whole film. Indeed, if you’d asked me, I’d have said this had all the hallmarks of a COVID-era project, designed to be shot with a small cast and in a nicely sanitary, outdoor location. Not so, even though Tubi dates it as 2020. There was a screening in April 2019, well before anyone had heard of Wuhan, and the IMDb gives it a year of 2017.

McKenzie Montero (Villegas) is a bounty hunter transporting a fugitive she has captured back to civilization. Her car is involved in an crash, and her captive, murderer Noah Burnham (Wilder), escapes into the expanse of woods by the road. McKenzie goes in pursuit, but ends up having to babysit the driver of the other car, Abigail Stroud (Slattery), who professes to be concerned about McKenzie’s health after the accident. Except, almost none of the preceding statements are 100% accurate. In particular, we learn that Abigail is actually an accomplice of Noah – albeit somewhat reluctantly – and her motives obviously do not line up with those of her new friend. McKenzie, meanwhile, is desperate to get the reward Noah represents, and will not let anyone get in the way.

Given the constraints under which its operating, this is not a terrible time-passer. However, I can’t say that the various twists ever came as quite the shock the writer seemed to think. It felt obvious from the start that Abigail was not the innocent driver she claimed to be, and the way the relationship between her and McKenzie went from zero to BFFs, confiding secrets, seemed a tad forced. On the other hand, I’d like to have learned more about some elements, such as Noah’s claim to be an officially sanctioned serial killer, working for the US government. As is, this seems inserted as a rather crude way to leave the viewer uncertain of who the “good guy/gal” is, given McKenzie is not exactly law-enforcement herself.

As such, you will soon realize there are no real heroes here, with each of the trio clearly intent on manipulating the other two, to their respective ends. For instance, Abigail and Noah need McKenzie, because she’s the only one who can get them out of the woods. Watching this mental chess game unfold, in between bouts of adequately-staged physical confrontation, is when the movie is at its most entertaining. I was never sure until the very end who was going to be able to walk away by the time everything was decided. The problem was, though, that when the final credits rolled, I realized that I did not particularly care about anybody’s fate either.

Dir: Carl Joglar
Star: Colleen Slattery, Sarah Villegas, Nicholas Wilder

Stowaway

  By

★½
“Doesn’t hold water.”

I had quite forgotten that Rose was part of John Wick: Chapter 2 in 2017. That should have been a gilt-edged opportunity on which she could have built over the following years to become a top action actress. But she managed to squander the chance, getting herself fired from Batwoman, and then making a series of largely unimpressive vehicles, which came and went without any impact. Perhaps it’s a symptom of insanity, in the sense of repeating the same action, hoping for a different result, but we keep reviewing them here. The Doorman, Vanquish and now this, which is certainly not going to rejuvenate anything. Its sole point of note is more or less it being a home invasion movie, which is set on a ship.

The heroine is Bella (Rose), who gets a call out of the blue, informing her that her long-estranged father has died, and left her a boat. This isn’t any boat either. It’s a $10 million, ocean-going yacht, much to her astonishment. Taking advantage of it, she crashes out on it one night. The next morning, she awakens to find it heading out to sea, the craft having been hijacked by her late father’s former associate, Meeser (Grillo), and his two henchmen. They are intent on breaking into the safe on board, which they believe contains $80 million in gold. Bella’s presence on the boat is just as unexpected to them, as they are to her, and threatens to pose a major problem in their plan to crack the safe and scuttle the ship.

This really does the bare minimum in just about every area. The villains are the Leader, the Psycho and the Nice One, while the only surprising thing about Bella is that she finds someone willing to have a one-night stand on the boat [really, that crew cut does nothing for me]. We get far too much creeping around the boat, though when the heroine does go toe-to-toe with one of these ex-military guys, she’s inexplicably able almost to match them. Though I did laugh at her response when she’s asked where she learned to fight, spitting back “Prisoner Cell Block H,” a joke likely lost on most non-Australian viewers.

It all proceeds in an utterly predictable fashion. Show Bella a picture of your family? You’re dead. Call the coastguard? You get a visit from Capt. Oblivious. The contents of the safe come as a shock only to Meeser and company, and once you’ve seen the explosives intended to scuttle the ship, there are no prizes for guessing things will end in a poorly-rendered and thoroughly unconvincing CGI explosion. Even Grillo, one of the more reliable of B-movie bad guys, isn’t able to do anything to sail this vessel out of the doldrums in which it quickly is becalmed. It begins to look like Rose’s career may be irreparably holed below the waterline, and is certainly sinking fast. I think that’s probably enough nautical metaphors for the time being.

Dir: Declan Whitebloom
Star: Ruby Rose, Frank Grillo, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Luis Da Silva Jr.
a.k.a. The Yacht

Save The Girls, by Terry Toler

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

I think I can point almost to the exact point where this one jumped the shark. It had started well enough. Jamie Austen works for the CIA, taking down human traffickers across the world, in conjunction with a non-governmental organization called Save the Girls. Now, I have questions here: why exactly would the CIA care about this, unless American citizens were involved – either as victims or perpetrators? They are not exactly a charitable group, and while certainly a laudable goal, fighting sex trafficking is not generally in their remit. But that aside, Jamie is sent into Belarus to investigate a large ring – moving up to 300 women a month to Russia and Turkey – whose proceeds could be funding terrorism. Ah, that makes more sense.

From the start, the mission begins to go wrong. A local gang try to mug her on the way to meet her contact. While she disposes of them, it causes her to miss the meeting, and also puts her firmly on the radar of the local cops, hampering her future investigation. This forces Jamie into making use of her resourcefulness, in order to make things happen, and following her as she peels away the layers of the onion – for the corruption here goes all the way to the top in Belarus – is interesting stuff. The first misstep is a twist, which brings an unexpected character into play. It stretches credibility heavily, and to a certain extent turns Jamie into a “damsel in distress”, reliant on external help.

A bigger misstep follows. They discover the man behind the ring is also looking to acquire a suitcase-sized nuke, and hold America to ransom. These nukes are held in a nuclear waste management facility, but Toler basically bypasses the entire issue of how Jamie and her colleague recover them. Skips right over it. It’s something to do with using a pass belonging to the Belarus Minister of Transportation. But what you feel should be the action highlight of the book, is basically hand-waved away as a nothing burger. After that, I just could not find it in myself to care about the rest of the story.

The story does continue on for another seventy-five pages or so after this point, with Jamie peeling off on a solo mission to rescue literally thousands of captive women, single-handed. She’s so damn good at whatever she does, you wonder why the CIA is wasting her on freeing foreign nationals. Add in some sloppily-constructed romance, and the overall result is a clearly well intentioned, yet ultimately unsatisfying read. This is a pity, as the first half, despite some qualms, made for decent entertainment, and Toler manages to convey the “exotic” location of the Belarus capital, Minsk, making it come alive. The Cat Museum mentioned in passing is, apparently, a real thing. His narrative: not so much.

Author: Terry Toler
Publisher: Beholdings Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 12 in the Jamie Austin Thrillers series.

Jericho Ridge

  By

★★★★
“Assault on Precinct 1.”

After a year which has been filled with disappointments and films which have failed to generate much reaction beyond a mild “Meh,” it’s nice to see one which certainly surpasses expectations. Indeed, with about two months left to go in 2023, this would certainly be a finalist for GWG Film of the Year, were there to be such an award, and potentially could walk away with that hypothetical trophy. It’s the kind of movie which, even when you know exactly what’s about to happen, still delivers in a way that can generate an undeniable reaction. Considering my expectations going in were not much more than the made-for-TV level – this being a BET channel exclusive – it surpassed those greatly.

The heroine is Tabby Temple (Amuka-Bird), a deputy in a small, rural North Washington town (albeit one entirely faked in Kosovo!). She is just heading back to work following an extended lay-off due to a broken ankle. The reason for this injury is not immediately clear. Nor is the reason why she is no longer a chief deputy, but it appears to be something to do with her troubled teenage son, Monty (Morris). She returns to find the police station in some turmoil, due to a burglary the previous night, while an investigation is also under way regarding the murder of a local drug dealer. Sheriff Eddie Reynolds (Kunz) goes out to visit a suspect, leaving Tabby behind, to guard domestic abuse prisoner Earl Macready (Socha), and await the arrival of a locksmith to install new station locks.

It’s here things go very badly wrong, with Tabby discovering there is apparently something in the station that a certain party is prepared to go to any lengths to obtain, with the burglary being just the first step in that process. She finds herself under siege, and severely out-gunned, the station’s armoury having been stripped almost bare. Local help is… not going to help, shall we say, and the state variety won’t get there for some time, leaving Tabby to try and survive until they do. The unexpected arrival of Monty during a lull in proceedings, only heightens the stakes, and also forces mother and son to confront the truth about their fractured relationship, and how it became that way.

But this is not s touchy-feely emotional drama, to put it mildly. Once it gets going, this is a relentless assault, which sees Tabby go from a quiet, almost passive observer, into a fully-fledged warrior queen. Amuka-Bird is quite excellent in both parts of that dual role, being entirely plausible as both devoted mother and unstoppable force. And she needs to be, because the villains are just as brutal in their approach. The film also does well with passing out the necessary information to the audience, doing so in its own time, despite a couple of scenes which do feel rather too obviously expositional. In general though, this does a great deal without the need for stars or big production values. Story, performance and crisp execution are all on point instead, and the results are all the better for it.

Dir: Will Gilbey
Star: Nikki Amuka-Bird, Zack Morris, Simon Kunz, Michael Socha

The Irish Connection

  By

★
“Drop this connection.”

Dear lord, this is a chore. From an opening conversation which unfolds mainly in quotes from Gone With the Wind, Scarface and other, better movies, it was painfully obvious for what writer-director Patrick is aiming. This is supposed to be a Guy Ritchie-esque caper, in which a parade of quirky characters from the underworld jostle for possession of… something.  Hilarity will surely ensue, as they trade foul-mouthed banter, get into and out of sticky situations and generally act in an amusingly inept manner. Except, hilarity most definitely does not ensue. I don’t think I broke into a smile once, with the whole concept being dead on arrival. Malta does look quite nice as a holiday destination though.

The heroine is agent Aureille Fleming (Coduri), though quite who she is an agent of, or why she is involved, never becomes particularly clear. The objects in question are some high denomination bearer bonds, and the film feels obligated to open with a caption explaining what these are. They have been stolen by a man known as The Priest, who flees from Ireland to Malta, and heavily-pregnant crime boss Alice (Spencer-Longhurst) wants them back. Everyone half-competent apparently being otherwise engaged, she sends hapless brother Rory (Robinson) and her husband Casper to the Mediterranean to retrieve them. Fleming – and, yes, it IS a painfully obvious 007 reference – is there to stop the bonds from falling into Alice’s hands, because… I don’t know. Maybe it was explained. I just don’t care.

At times this feels more like a fancy dress party than a film. People dressed up as nuns. People dressed up as clowns. People dressed as priests. This probably isn’t surprising, considering that it feels like Patrick is cosplaying as a film-maker. There’s little or no evidence to indicate he knows how to construct a coherent or interesting narrative. Instead, he proceeds by simply dropping in scenes which, I gueaa, are supposed to be “amusing”, without rhyme or reason. I called Aureille the heroine above, though there’s precious little to make her so. I presumed she is supposed to be the “good guy”, because there are no other credible candidates for that role, so she earns it by default.

I might have forgiven this had the action been up to a decent level. However, the cover is blatantly lying to us about this as well. I do not recall any moment at which she was on a motor-cycle, let alone wielding a gun. Admittedly, it’s possible my attention had wavered to such a degree I didn’t notice. I’m not sure I remember anyone being shot, and must have blinked and missed the helicopter. She throws a few lacklustre punches, and that’s close to the sum total of the action. A genuinely feeble excuse, it would not surprise me if this had been a tax write-off exercise. It’s the only way I can realistically explain the painful level on which this operates.

Dir: Danny Patrick
Star: Rosa Coduri, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Jack Bence, Shane Robinson

Under Lock and Key

  By

★★★
“From prison to fashion.”

I can’t recall seeing an action heroine movie with quite so much gratuitous nudity, even among the women-in-prison genre in which this (obviously, given both the title and the poster) operates – at least in the early going. It feels like there’s some kind of contractual obligation for a shower, medical exam or just an inmate randomly changing their clothes, about every three minutes in the first half hour. It’s helps that most of the residents appear to be incarcerated for crimes involving beauty parlours. Either that, or there is some kind of quality threshold applies for inmates. I should mention this does adhere to the standards of the nineties: and I’m not speaking about hair on the head, if you know what I mean.

It’s not entirely devoid of story-line, however, and there is an actual plot. Danielle Peters (Westbrook) is an FBI agent who has been sent undercover into the prison. Her mission is to get close to another inmate, Sarah Sands (Smith), who was the girlfriend of a drug kingpin, Carlos Vega (Anthony). Sarah still has a notebook containing compromising information, and Danielle is tasked with finding out its location. It doesn’t go well. Sarah is killed when the vehicle transferring them both gets ambushed, and to make matters worse, Vega kidnaps Danielle’s daughter as leverage. The whole undercover thing ends, with Danielle formally taken off the case. Naturally, she continues her investigation anyway – albeit after a long. hot shower – along with prison guard and new pal, Tina Lamb (Niven).

Let me be 100% clear. None of this makes the slightest bit of sense from the perspective of law enforcement or the penitentiary industry. Danielle’s wilful disregard for FBI procedure never gets her anything that a light tap on the wrist from her boss. And by FBI procedure, I mean the pair committing homicide (arguably justifiable), leading to this exchange with Tina:
    “What do we do with the body?”
    “I’ll call a friend, he’ll take care of it”
That’s not very FBI now, is it? Meanwhile, Tina doesn’t even call to let her employers know she’s going to be busy for a while, taking down an international drug lord ‘n’ stuff. Everyone involved, including their boss, is going to be faced with difficult performance appraisals, when it comes time for their annual review.

Plausibility very much aside, I can’t deny I was entertained by the ludicrous nature of this, which basically aims for the lowest common denominator of cinema, and somehow still manages to come up short. How can you not love a film containing the line, “Jennifer’s not only a high fashion model, but she also works for several European secret service agencies on occasion”? Especially when Jennifer has the blank, placid expression of a cud-chewing bovine. Westbrook does a better job, on occasion looking like her kicks and punches have impact, and having decent presence. While I’ll likely never watch this again, I’m certainly holding back any complaints.

Dir: Henri Charr
Star: Wendi Westbrook, Barbara Niven, K. Phillip Anthony, Stephanie Ann Smith

Born of War

  By

★★
“Warn of bore”

While technically solid, and occasionally looking quite good, this may be the laziest scripting I have seen in a movie for a long time. I feel I may have lost actual IQ points through the process of watching it, such is the degree of stupidity which this provides. The heroine is Mina (Black-D’Elia), a college student whose life is upended when she and her little sister narrowly escape a home invasion by Arab terrorists, in which both her parents are killed. She’s rescued by intelligence agent Olivia (Leonard), who tells her she’s the only heir of an Afghani warlord, Khalid (Arditti). Her mother betrayed him, and had to change her identity: he finally caught up with the family, and wants his daughter back.

As protection, Olivia assigns her to private contractor Simon (Frain), who helps teach her certain skills. When further attempts to kidnap her follow, Mina has had enough of running, and agrees to be handed over to Khalid, after having a tracking device implanted. This will allow the military to locate the terrorist leader, and take him out, giving Mina her revenge. Except, things are not at all what they initially appear. There’s a whole hidden agenda, involving an oil company with designs on the region, duelling warlords and members of the intelligence community who appear to be operating without formal sanction from the government. To survive, Mina will need to stab someone with a CD, and carry out impromptu surgery. With a rock.

Yeah, it’s like that. I lost track of the number of times I rolled my eyes, snorted derisively or shook my head in annoyance. Sometimes, more than one of these in combination. I think it began with the home invasion, where a single, completely untrained (at that point) college student was able repeatedly to get the drop on a trio of hard-core fanatics. You just cannot get the quality terrorist minions these days. The same incompetence litters the path of the movie throughout. For instance, if they had once searched their captive, they’d have found the CD she broke and later used as an improvised weapon. Even after Mina finds the truth out and becomes disposable, multiple opportunities to do just that – dispose of her – are wasted.

The same writer-director pairing, of Jewson and husband Rupert Whitaker, was also responsible for Close, which at least had Noomi Rapace in it. This does not, and Black-D’Elia isn’t an adequate replacement. Her broad American accent is another point of pain, with the script’s explanation for it, more of a token gesture, really. The film does look sharp, and if you have this on in the background – say, if you are doing the ironing – it could conceivably pass muster. However, any attention to detail might well peel off the thin gold-plating of competence. A film which relies on two people bumping into each other entirely by coincidence, in a large city, is definitely one with major problems.

Dir: Vicky Jewson
Star: Sofia Black-D’Elia, James Frain, Lydia Leonard, Philip Arditti