★★½
“Secret Service with a smile.”
El Jardinero isn’t the only long-delayed review of a franchise opener. I saw First Shot, the third movie in this series about Secret Service Agent Alex McGregor (Hemingway), back in 2014, and at the time it was the only entry present on Netflix. A decade later, I now get the chance to catch up with the first entry and… it is pretty much what you’d expect. Competent enough for a TV movie, but the limitations of that medium are always going to knee-cap the material. This does begin well enough, with an energetic terrorist attack on a fundraiser for President Jonathan Hayes (Harrison) by members of the American Freedom Fighters – this clearly dates outside the 2001-16 window when domestic terrorism was ignored.
His life is saved by Alex, but only after she disobeys orders from her boss, which gets her into hot water. Still, a few months later, she is selected to accompany Hayes’s teenage daughter, Jess (Keena), on a wilderness adventure trip. Unfortunately, this drops them right into the Colorado terrain (actually Australia, but who can tell the difference?) where the AFF militia are hiding out. They get the bright idea of kidnapping Jess, so they can exchange her for their leader, captured during the attack mentioned above. Jess is the only agent to survive the initial assault, and so it’s up to her and tour guide Grant Coleman (Savant) to track the terrorists through the forest, and free Jess from their clutches
This is spottily entertaining, and you can probably tell most of the story beats in advance. Jess resents Alex’s presence on the trip, while Alex and Grant get off on the wrong foot – but you just know everyone is going to grow to respect each other by the end of the film. However, it holds together well enough, with decent performances from Hemingway and Savant, who make for a likeable pair. It is front-loaded, with the original attack a nifty piece of bullet-ridden carnage, before the film then goes to sleep on that front. It’s instead busy introducing characters, establishing relationships and making Alex do rock-climbing to prove she’s not a lesbian. Or something like that. My notes are a bit unclear on the point.
It has to be said, despite the presence of WWE’s Diamond Dallas Page among them, the AFF members are very much low-grade terrorists. There’s only three of the left, and I would not say smarts are their strong suit. As threats go, they’re lightweights. It was also a little disappointing how McGregor ends up needing to be rescued in the climax. While it’s an acceptable conclusion, tying up a dangling loose end, it does weaken her as a protagonist. There is some impressive bits of white-water action, and in generally, it feels more like a low-budget theatrical feature than a made for television one: its budget of $5 million certainly feels more than the typical nineties TVM. If my review of the third entry was scathing, I suspect it won’t take another ten years before I review the second.
Dir: Armand Mastroianni
Star: Mariel Hemingway, Doug Savant, Monica Keena, Gregory Harrison