Tag: 2009

Masterless Ninja

  By

★★½
“I hate being bored.”

This is actually an improvement over the same director’s Ninja Girl (Kunoichi), made two years later. Just do not ask me what’s going on in detail. It begins with the following caption, which I transcribe as it appeared: “It was the Sengoku Era, a few years before the events of Honnoji [1582]. The Iga relied on a hierarchical system in which the jyonin ruled over the genin, before Oda’s forces destroyed their nation. [Jyonin: high-ranking ninja] This meant that countless genin and female shinobi died by orders of the jyonin, [Genin: low-ranking ninja] without the chance [Shinobi: ninja] to flee their villages.” I hope that has cleared everything up. Because, trust me, that’s more or less all you’re going to get. 

The heroine is Uragami (Hijii), and she is a… [/checks notes] shinobi, I guess? She’s part of a war between two groups of ninjas, though she’s not exactly getting much support from her own side, with some of her colleagues suggesting a career in farming or even child-minding. Still, even though she’s not great on the “obeying orders” department, her talents prove enough to keep her occupied, such as a mission to bring back an intelligence report from a genin who infiltrated enemy territory. However, all that goes to one side, after her long-time friend, Kamari, is abducted. She decides to go rogue, and will not let anything stop her from freeing Kamari, despite the unpleasant truth which is revealed as a result. 

Well, somewhat unpleasant, I guess. Due to the confusion surrounding the various plot elements – in particular, who is doing what to who, and why – the emotional impact of it all is close to zero. It doesn’t help that the pacing is weird: we get what feels like it should be the final fight, and the film then dawdles along for another ten minutes of idle chit-chat, revealing more stuff about which I couldn’t bring myself to care. Fortunately, the film is saved by some decent action sequences. Hijii seems to know her way around a fight, and if the editing is occasionally a little too kinetic, it’s rarely bad enough to make you lose sight of the face-off’s overall progress.

While I was hard-pushed to care much about events in general, Uragami makes for a decent heroine, with a feisty attitude, and a zero-tolerance policy for glass ceilings. Or whatever the equivalent is for 16th-century Japanese shinobi. I was worried that in the final battle against [name redacted for spoiler purposes – and not at all because I failed to make a note of it…], she would end up needing help from one of her male allies. Pleased to report that wasn’t the case, with this sister capable of doin’ it for herself from beginning to end. That even includes a battle in the middle of a forest, where all I could think about was the uneven footing inevitably resulting from such a location. Nice heroine: shame about the plot. 

Dir: Seiji Chiba
Star: Mika Hijii, Masayuki Izumi, Mickey Koga

The Casino Job

  By

★★★
“Stripper’s 11.”

Make no mistake, this is a cheap and tawdry excuse to show nekkid women, which may well leave you with a more cynical view of human nature. But if you’re going to watch a cheap and tawdry excuse to show nekkid women… You could probably do a lot worse. The main area in which this punches above its weight is in the script, which has had some thought put into it. The viewer may actually leave the film knowing more about Nevada gaming regulations than they did going in: nekkid women and genuinely informative. I did not see that coming. It also has a final twist which will make you rethink much of what has happened.

It takes place in Las Vegas (though the less glitzy resort of Laughlin stands in for Sin City at certain points). Sleazy strip-club and casino owner Barry (Mauro) needs four of his ladies to make a good impression on his business partners, but the evening ends with one woman, Jennifer (Joiner), alleging he raped her. Due to lack of physical evidence, the cops won’t take action, but Jennifer’s friends, led by Amber (Martinez), swear to take revenge, and cook up a scheme that will relieve Barry’s casino of a good chunk of cash. The aim is more than simple larceny, but also to drop him in hot water with the gaming authorities, who require casinos have enough on hand to cover winning payouts.

Doing so requires them to bring on board a friendly blackjack dealer, Scribe (Franke), and also use their womanly wiles to ensure everything goes to plan. That’s what I meant about human nature, because every man here can be easily manipulated to do anything, with the promise of a little action. This is absolutely required by the plot, in order for the heist to work. And every woman is perfectly willing to do the manipulating. By the end, you could argue the case that nobody here, even Jennifer, should be classified as a nice person. And I write as someone who, in my youth, was not unfamiliar with strip-clubs, and so is under no illusions about the illusion, if you see what I mean.

Still, if none of the characters were likeable, the mechanics of the heist managed to keep me interested, along with the way Barry is kept out of touch and unable to deliver the needed funds. He then ends up trying to take revenge on the girl-gang, and it’s that what proves his ultimate downfall. There’s a lovely montage at the end, showing everybody getting laid… ending with Barry in jail, also getting laid. I genuinely LOL’d at that. The women are undeniably easy on the eye, particularly Irina Voronina as the club’s top earner, Paradise. Really, its clear the makers have kept their ambitions here restrained and, I suspect, on those terms, it should be considered a success. Clearly nonsense, yet was I not entertained? Yes: yes, I was.

Dir: Christopher Robin Hood
Star: Amylia Joiner, Dean Mauro, Ilsa Martinez, Jay Anthony Franke

A Certain Scientific Railgun

  By

★★★
“Beware level 5-espers when they point their fingers at you!”

Have you ever noticed, when you are consciously looking for things that fall into a certain category, you find more and more of them? You may have seen it in action yourself after you discovered the “girls with guns” genre. Compare it to the time before you knew about it, how few movies/series there seemed to be there, and how much you realized were actually available after this site drew your attention to the specific genre. I have started to experience the same thing since I started to look into anime, and in particular the specific target of entries belonging to the GWG genre, that go beyond your usual Miyazaki-Ghibli production.

But then, anime seems like a bottomless pit; I recently saw a video by a German anime fan and publisher, who said there are thousands of anime being produced each year. For the year 2017 he spoke of 3,400 (!). I don’t know if that’s true: but considering, for example, how many Hong Kong martial arts movies I found when I really was looking for this specific kind of entertainment, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. Of course, he also admitted most of these anime series are garbage, get ignored and vanish as fast as they appeared. The Japanese manga and anime market is every bit as focused on turning an idea into a highly profitable product (including action figures, OVAs, soundtracks, etc.) as your average Hollywood franchise.

They may perhaps be even more calculated. The business is a highly competitive one, with studios opening and closing every year: they only stay in the business for as long as they produce successful series, and a lot of underpaid animators work free-lance. As enjoyable as this stuff can be, the production background is merciless. It’s maybe better to ignore it, especially as most of these series on DVD are just too expensive (though I never bought bootlegs, but if the Anglo-American territory offers a cheaper alternative, why should you buy over-priced German-dubbed volume boxes?).

But onto the subject of this review. This is a spin-off of another anime series, A Certain Scientific Index, which preceded Railgun. I’m not reviewing the original show, or its other spin-off, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, but would like to stress that while Index is a good show, Railgun is much better. All these series are based on the manga and light novels of author Kazuma Kamachi. He, obviously, is continuously working on his own fictional universe. There are so many volumes of the respective series out there, people on YouTube are making videos on what series to read/watch, and in which order, to get into it without having to consume everything that is on the market. The three seasons of the show I review here have alone already reached 69 episodes.

Index deals with a male character, Kamijou Touma, who has to solve problems of girls and other people, that are either of a magical or a supernatural (read: scientific) nature. Railgun puts a supporting character from Index, middle-school girl Misaka Mikoto, and her female friends to the center of the viewer’s attention. While Railgun might have been created to cater to a female audience, it may have become more popular for a general audience, similarly to how Xena overtook Hercules in popularity. Part of the reason may be Misaka Mikoto’s cuteness, for the Japanese love everything that is “kawaii”.

Misaka is an esper of the highest degree, level 5. And while she is one of only seven level-5 espers in Academy City, this is not as unusual as it may sound at first. For the whole city is filled with students that Charles Xavier would probably have called “extraordinarily gifted”! They are all learning to develop and use their abilities at school, though for what purpose I still have not found out; is there a job market for those kind of abilities? Still, given their powers it’s a very sensible thing to do, since otherwise the students might easily misuse their powers.

It’s understandable if this sounds a bit like your typical X-Men animated show from the late 90s. But those shows were primarily concerned with showcasing the abilities of these supernatural beings and adapting the most well-known comic book story-lines. Railgun is a bit different. Heck, it may not even really belong to the same genre as the X-Men, and very often puts its focus elsewhere. It may be the reason this series originally was of minor interest for many. While the girls from time to time show what they are capable of, the main narrative is telling nice little stories about the girls’ everyday life. Getting to know each other, their own little (or bigger) problems and oddities, going out in their spare time and… yeah… Occasionally solving some crimes and blowing things up!

This kind of tale is called “a slice of life story” and is its own genre in Japanese manga and anime. While we have that in the West too, I never noticed and probably would categorize this mainly as “drama”. But then this genre can obviously encompass more, as it is in part a social drama about girl friendships, part sitcom and (here) part superhero story. What to make out of this is, I think, up to individual taste. I can absolutely understand that, for many in the West, this kind of story is unusual; those expecting an ongoing superhero saga will likely be disappointed by this kind of storytelling. I personally found it charming and fresh, even though there certain elements did astonish me. The closest thing to this kind of show in the West might be something like Smallville.

The girl group here consists of the following. Misaka, who is able to control, and more importantly unleash an enormous amount of electricity. Her room partner, Kuroko, who is a teleporter and has a very painful-to-watch crush on Misaka. Uiharu, whose power is somewhat vague, but it is indicated that she can control the temperature of things. And finally, her best friend Saten, who surprisingly has no superpowers at all. Which actually comes in very handy at the end of the story, because sometimes having such a talent can be your Achilles heel.

Other characters include, Konori, a normal teen working for “Judgement”, kind of a social service which Kuroko and Uiharu also join. These teens maintain order on the streets, ranging from helping find a lost bag up to preventing innocent people being harassed or beaten up by outcast rowdies. Then there’s the school director who regularly seems to break Kuroko’s neck (or at least it sounds like it!), when she and Misaka use their powers on school property. The strange Doctor Kiyama who turns out to be the local legend known as “The Undresser”. This means she regularly takes her clothes off without any embarrassment, for minor reasons like it being too hot. No, I’m not making this up, I swear. It’s part of the story.

In the beginning Uiharu and Saten get to know Misaka who, much to the astonishment of Saten, isn’t arrogant at all, as most high-level espers seem to become. Misaka is a cool, sympathetic girl, constantly angered by… the affections of Kuroko, whose feelings for her are definitely more than platonic. It’s kind of shocking sometimes for me, when behavior we would probably label as bordering on sexual assault, is depicted in an animated show, largely targeted towards teen girls. But then this is anime and we all know it operates with different parameters from Western entertainment! Also, the show never takes itself too seriously. Except when it actually does, but more on that later.

Misaka sees through all Kuroko’s attempted manipulations and when Kuroko goes too far, you can expect Misaka to throw her (virtually) out or use her electro-powers on her. The pair remind me in their strange “dog-cat-relationship” of DC’s Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, with the difference that the Japanese versions are the good gals! It’s just natural that hotheaded tomboy Misaka is the leader of the group. Though she mainly keeps her powers in check, she may from time to time break the rules, such as by duping the public vending machine or when hunting an evil-doer. You know something not so good is coming your way, when she tosses a coin with enormous power in your direction.

While she has a temper on the outside, she is a sweetheart on the inside, caring very much for her friends and the people around her, and is definitely in the process of learning to trust others and to open her heart. Her most beautiful moments are when she is emotionally touched and doesn’t know how to articulate what she feels. It grounds this over-powered character and makes her more human. Indeed this “over-poweredness” was the reason why Kazuma Kamachi originally wanted to make Kuroko the main character, but the publishers saw it differently. Mikoto is not perfect despite all of she is being able to and that makes her so relatable.

These powers are what gave her in the previous Index show the name of “Railgun”- in her words, “because even objects of a minor size can generate an enormous power when thrown with enough energy in one’s direction”. She also comes across Touma, the main character of Index, who embarrasses her when he tries to rescue her from the company of some teenage boys. Unfortunately for him, she takes his well-meant help as a personal insult, which leads her to constantly challenge him to a fight. Unfortunately for her, his special power is that the talents of others don’t really function when he holds up his hand. Hilarious scenes ensue.

It’s a good show in the GWG anime genre, though in my book no match to highlights such as Black Lagoon, Canaan or Mirai Nikki. If you are in the mood for something a bit different, that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, this might be something for you. It’s sometimes light as a feather, followed by solid SF action and intriguing plots, while still retaining its own certain charm. It may not sound like too much, but having recently watched the dense and sometimes difficult to understand Bakemonogatari, I actually enjoyed this much more.

The series consists of a nice mixture of stand-alone episodes and a very slowly building story-arc. I like that very much, as it gives time to build each of the characters, their relationships to each other and emotional connective moments for us, the audience. This kind of structure also did remind me a bit of the old X Files show with its single episodes, in contrast to today’s series, which tend to have a constantly developing story arc. You miss a few episodes and you’ve got problems catching up, and trying to understand what’s happening again.

That’s not the case with Railgun. The series initially takes its time, with the girls and their everyday life the focus of attention. Then, to my surprise, it moved to a bigger story with unethical experiments performed on helpless esper kids, and dark forces lurking in the background. It’s almost shocking, since the place we have been shown here mostly seemed sunny, funny and enjoyable. The biggest problems the girls ever faced, was how to deal with personal little insecurities. But where there’s light, there must be shadow, too! Local urban legends of a “level-upper”, a device said to improve or increase one’s esper abilities, make the rounds and while investigating these seem a harmless leisure activity for the girls, the outcome is much bigger than anyone could have foreseen in the beginning.

After a big climax it looks to go back to square one, and we return to small “what did XYZ today” stories. But then a new girl appears and so-called “poltergeist activities” happen around her, leading to another, much bigger challenge which also includes a twist. Not everyone you think must be put behind bars is evil; not everyone you trust is trustworthy; and sometimes the one with the least powers can be the savior of the day.

What I especially liked was that each of the girls is their own character and acts differently. They are not just bland copies of each other with only differing abilities. While I don’t think many people will ever get to know this series if they are not deep into anime, I especially enjoyed the way it structured its story. We in the West may have had our Kim Possible, the Japanese post-Sailor Moon have this. I liked it well enough to invest time and money in the second season, A Certain Scientific Railgun – S, which will also be reviewed here.

Dir: Tatsuyuki Nagai
Star (voice): Rina Satō, Satomi Arai, Aki Toyosaki, Kanae Itō

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo

  By

★★★
“Cowgirls behind bars.”

Well, this is certainly the first film I’ve reviewed here which drops both into the “women in prison” and the “sports” category. It takes place in Oklahoma, where since 1940, they have been staging an annual prison rodeo event in McAlester. The competition takes place in an arena built just inside the walls of the State Penitentiary, and includes competitors from facilities across the state. In 2006, the event was opened to female inmates as well, and this documentary (while not absolutely focused on just the women, also including 13-year rodeo veteran and convicted murderer Liles) is about their preparation for the 2007 event, training on a rig pulled back and forth by fellow inmates, and climaxing with the event itself.

What stood out in particular was how normal most of the inmates seemed, though my perceptions there were likely skewed by the more, ah, dramatic depictions of life behind bars. You’d be hard pushed to pick the likes of Brooks, Witte and Herrington out of a line-up at the local PTA, though some of the stories they tell are startling – as much for the casual air with which they admit to dealing drugs or violent robbery. The rodeo gives them a bit of relief from the crushing boredom of life inside, though it’s very much a privilege. Brooks is kicked off the squad when caught in possession of contraband, reportedly unauthorized lipstick, an incident which also puts her release on parole in doubt.

While regular rodeo typically limits female involvement to the less dangerous events, such as barrel racing, there’s no such restriction here. The women inmates take part in bull and bronco riding, as well as the particularly fraught event called “Money the Hard Way”, where the first person to pluck a ribbon tied to a bull’s head wins $100. The beast is clearly no respecter of the fairer sex, sending both men and women into the air with a strictly gender-neutral approach. The comparisons of the event to gladiatorial combat seemed particularly apt here. Yet this feels more like a backdrop to the lives of the prisoners, and I found myself Googling their names in hopes of recent updates.

As with most documentaries, it’s not tidy, with loose ends a-plenty, and if I was both informed and reasonably entertained, I can’t say I reached the end with any life-changing revelations. It feels quite “safe” and conventional as a film of its genre, and Beesley clearly is not interesting in challenging narratives, least of all the self-reported ones of the women’s lives. While they do largely accept responsibility for their crimes, it’d be interesting to hear an outside perspective on those. Not mentioned in the film: the event was canceled in 2010 due to a state budget shortfall. It hasn’t returned since, mostly because the arena has now fallen into disrepair, despite support from the warden, local community and state governor for that. Whether it ever will is uncertain, leaving the documentary a record of an odd slice of Americana that may be forever gone.

Dir: Bradley Beesley
Star: Jamie Brooks, Brandy Witte, Danny Liles, Crystal Herrington

Jack Squad

  By

★★
“Considerably less would have been more.”

At 85 minutes, this might have been fine. For it’s a fairly simple tale, of three women who decide to escape their financial woes by drugging and robbing married men, banking on their victims not being willing to involve the authorities. While this initially works as planned, inevitably, they end up targeting the wrong guy, a minion of feared drug dealer Grey (Anderson). How evil is he? Grey appears to have an employee whose full-time job is to fan him. That’s some Evil Overlord style, right there. Grey doesn’t just want his stolen money back, he wants the trio to continue their activities – for his benefit. And that isn’t the only problem which the trio face, with Tony, the estranged other half of Dawn (Tares), unhappy at her having escaped their abusive relationship.

Somehow, in the hands of writer-director-producer Rankins, this uncomplicated story runs 128 minutes, which is way too long. If ever there was evidence that films sometimes need someone else to step in and say, literally, “Cut that out,” this would be it. You could go at the “director’s version” blindfolded, with a rusty bread-knife, hacking entire scenes out, attacking others with all the savage brutality of a starving man at a Vegas buffet, and would be incapable of doing any real harm to the end product. If you can’t see where half an hour couldn’t be excised, to the general improvement of the pacing, you’re not trying hard enough.

Which is at least somewhat of a shame, since this wasn’t otherwise as bad as I thought it might be. It is certainly an improvement over the director’s almost unwatchable, Chop Shop. The three leads are adequate, and the script gives them reasonably well-delineated characters. As well as recovering abuse victim Dawn, there’s fashion student Kennedy (Halfkenny), who has qualms about the whole endeavour. Though she’s also the one who triggers the escalating body-count, by robbing Grey’s underling. And then we have Mona (Williams) who develops a liking for the violence, and gradually becomes a fully-fledged psychopath. The three different personalities certainly provide plenty of scope for drama and conflict, as they try to figure out how to handle their increasingly untenable situation.

That said, some of the attitudes here are difficult to empathize with. For example, Kennedy ghosts the kind but poor fellow student, apparently preferring the lure of well-heeled “pharmaceutical” workers. And that’s how you end up in abusive relationships, folks, or having to chase down your baby daddy for child support, as recently documented in Sweet Justice. There’s also no getting over the low-budget approach, most obvious in “gunfire” which couldn’t be much more fake, if the people wielding the weapons were yelling “Bang!” and using their fingers as firearms. But the major problem is the one described above: a self-indulgent approach, almost as if Rankins believed everything filmed had to be included in the final product. When making a low-budget feature, like this, you may need to wear many hats. But that does not negate the need for external and neutral guidance.

Dir: Simuel Rankins
Star: Dawnisha Halfkenny, Onira Tares, Patshreba Williams, Benjamin Anderson

Sugar Boxx

  By

★★
“Is that a machete?”

I completely get what the director here is trying to do: make a homage to the seventies women-in-prison movies, made by the likes of director Jack Hill (who has a cameo here as a judge). The plot here, certainly, feels like it’s almost a straight-up copy, in particular from Bruno Mattei’s 1982 film, Violence in a Women’s Prison. Both have undercover journalists who get themselves sent to prison as an inmate, in order to expose the corruption of those running the facility. In this case, it’s TV reporter Valerie March (Anderson), who is asked to look into the dubious Sugar State Women’s Prison by the aunt of an inmate.

Naturally, it turns out the prisoners get sent there in order to become prostitutes for the warden, Beverly Buckner (Dona), who has a cosy arrangement with various suppliers to the jail. March, in her incarcerated alter ego, becomes part of the out-call service, though matters are complicated by one of the suppliers, chicken magnate Gilbert Sackry (Hunter), being the subject of one of her previous exposes. After tragedy strikes, the scheme is revealed, only for it to be swept under the carpet by authorities. March is having none of this, the system having failed to bring them justice, and with the help of former inmate pal Loretta (Brown, in the Pam Grier role) and a repentant guard, sets out to take revenge on Buckner and the rest of her cronies.

The films which inspired this were never high-end product. But in comparison to this, they are Avatar. The paucity of the resources here is all too often painfully obvious. The “prison” consists of a couple of tents in a field; while this could be a nod to infamous Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his “Tent City”, the absence of… oh, I dunno: fences or bars, is glaring. In the early going, I was prepared to overlook this, since there’s enough energy (and, let’s be honest, gratuitous nudity) to sustain interest. As well as Hill, there’s a cameo by GWG goddess Tura Satana, also playing a judge; another Russ Meyer muse, Kitten Natividad, plays a prison guard, and is fun to watch in that role.

However, the previously mentioned tragedy flicks a cinematic switch. Valerie’s reaction to it is laughably bad, and she’s then taken to a “hospital”, which we only know is a hospital, because it has a large Red Cross flag tacked to the wall. As hospitals do. The lack of effort put in finally overpowered my goodwill, and there was little thereafter which proved capable of taking up the slack. It really needed more actresses capable of going full-throttle into their roles here. While Brown seems to have a decent handle on her role – even if she’s no Grier – Anderson is too anodyne to make the necessary impact. The further we get into the film, the less her ability to hold the audience’s attention, and interest withers and eventually dies, as a direct result.

Dir: Cody Jarrett
Star: Geneviere Anderson, The’la Brown, Linda Dona, Jack Hunter

Tomboys

  By

★★★½
“What happens in the barn, stays in the barn…”

Dark in literally every sense of the word, this Australian film unfolds in close to real-time. Five women, fed up with the abuse of a local sexual predator, kidnap him and take him to a building on a farm owned by one of them, to teach him a lesson. However, it’s not long before their revenge begins to go off the rails. Firstly, not everyone is quite as on board as with the plan. Kat (Day) is the most gung-ho, intent on exacting the most brutal flavour of retribution. But at the other end is Imogen (Hall): barely have things got under way, and she’s already having second thoughts, as the apparent weak link. Then, after the savagery has got under way, the women get a phone-call, from their intended target. Yep, they got the wrong victim. But is anyone really innocent? Or should they just do a twofer?

This certainly doesn’t feel it was made over a decade ago; its themes are right up there with a post-#MeToo world. On that basis, it was interesting to compare this to the woeful recent Black Christmas remake, watched the same weekend. which was also (at least in its early stages) about a group of women coming to terms with “rape culture”. Tomboys adopts a much more direct approach, yet is also rather more nuanced, offering a broader spectrum of opinions, even as it’s basically five chicks in a shed for an hour and a half. Which tells you a lot about the dismal failure of Christmas, I suspect. This, however, doesn’t shy from violence: not so much in an explicit depiction as in reactions and results, which are arguably just as horrific. You wonder how Cat could possibly justify the savagery in which she indulges. Then, towards the end, you hear her story, and it’s thoroughly ugly, repellent stuff. Never mind, Cat – please continue wielding that blow-torch…

However, I was irrationally annoyed by the cinematic style, with Hill pushing the camera in too close, and also keeping the lighting at the dimmest level. I get why he opted for this approach, to create a claustrophobic intensity. It doesn’t mean I have to like it, however. For some reason, I prefer being able to see what the hell is going on when watching a film, and there are times here when I simply can’t. [The still, top, is considerably more well-illuminated than 95% of the film] Not sure we necessarily needed five female characters, either; Cat, Imogen and one other would probably be enough. Yet this remains solid where it matters most, in the story and performances. There were sufficient twists to keep me engaged, and the main roles were well-differentiated, despite the limited setting. This could very easily be a stage play, albeit one harkening back to the days of Grand Guignol. It’s a production I wouldn’t mind going to see.

Dir: Nathan Hill
Star: Candice Day, Naomi Davis, Sash Milne, Allie Hall

Sweet Justice (2009)

  By

★★
“In need of significant support.”

Four women run a charitable agency in Texas, helping single mothers track down and obtain child support payments from deadbeat dads. However, they don’t limit themselves to the simple serving of legal papers. The women adopt a more… hands-on approach, shall we say, first luring their targets in with the promise of sex, then threatening them at gunpoint, to make sure they pay up. For obvious reasons, the cops soon take interest in this string of unusual armed robberies. Meanwhile, the city’s white mayor, is dealing with a domestic crisis of her own, thanks to her daughter having had a child by (gasp!) a black man.

Y’know, woeful though this is in many ways, I actually somewhat respect the intent and the topic: at least its heart is in the right place. It seems like I have seen a lot of female vigilante films of late, and too many of them seem to descent into undiluted man-hating. This does a better job than most of avoiding that. There are times when the agency’s female clients are actually wrong, identifying the wrong man as their “baby daddy”, and some men are actually trying to do the right thing as well, such as the father of the mayor’s grandchild. It’s all considerably more even-handed than I expected, and does a decent job of highlighting just how screwed-up the current system is, failing almost everyone involved. However, social commentary, no matter how well-intentioned, is generally pretty low on the list of things I’m looking for on this site.

It doesn’t help that the execution is laughable in most regards, with few of those involved in front of the camera giving any indication of being genuine professionals. To be fair, the actresses generally come off slightly better than the “actors,” who appear to be a selection of wannabe rappers. But the story is ridiculously implausible as well, and morally dubious, too: is armed robbery really an appropriate and measured response to failure to pay child support? You’ll definitely have time to consider such things, during the many slacker-paced scenes. The cops are spectacularly incompetent too, though this is stupidity necessary to the plot, otherwise the vigilante squad would be locked up inside fifteen minutes. This perhaps therefore deserves slightly more slack.

There isn’t even any particular escalation or closure to be seen here. The sole thread which gets properly resolved involves the mayor, who eventually comes to terms with her grandchild’s parentage, and quits the re-election race in favour of her family. That’s nice. The vigilantes just continue on their serene way, as if this were some kind of pilot for a banal TV series. It all feels less like a coherent or interesting feature film, than an excuse for the director to hang out with a few of his pals and some local musicians. To anyone outside that clique, there’s little here of interest, and it’s certainly as forgettable as its remarkably generic title.

Dir: Arthur Muhammad
Star: Tammy Thomas, Reagan Gomez-Preston, Shannon Ashe, Z-RO
a.k.a. Black Angels

Stripped Naked

  By

★★★
“Firmly dressed to kill”

Even if the film doesn’t quite live up to the title and poster, it turned out to be better than I expected… from the title and poster, to be honest. It has been my experience that, the more lurid the advertising, the more disappointed I’m likely to be. Films like this often don’t just fail to deliver on what they promise, they also struggle with basic aspects of film-making, like plot and characterization, providing a double-whammy of failure. While the former is true here (no-one, at any point, is ever stripped naked), the underlying construction proved to be solid enough to keep me watching and engaged, to a greater degree than I was anticipating.

Cassie (Allen) gets dumped out of the car after a bitter argument with boyfriend, Jack (Cor). Seeking help from another car, she finds herself in the middle of a drug-deal which goes horribly wrong for everybody else. This leaves her in possession of $90,000 in cash, and about the same value of meth, providing a potential way out of her job as a “professional undresser”, shall we say. However, Jack finds the money in Cassie’s house, which she shares with fellow dancer, Jade (Pirie), and the former owner of the money sends a hitman (Slacke, looking like a low-rent version of Bill Oberst Jr.) to recover it. It’s not long before the bodies start piling up, and Cassie realizes she has bit off more than she can chew.

From the sex-and-violence angle, this is remarkably tame. Despite being strippers, both Cassie and Kyle seems remarkably attached to their clothes. There is some secondary nudity from the background, but on the whole, the story could have had them be waitresses, without the slightest impact. It also takes Cassie a while to tap into the inner bitch she needs to be, for survival, but that does become an increasing part of her character as the film develops. One incident in particular had me remarking, “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” There’s another interesting dynamic present, in the shape of Kyla (Cinthia Burke), one half of the sibling team who run the venue where Cassie works, and who turns out to have a murky past of her own.

It’s characters like these which make it work. Kyla and brother Howie (Linden Ashby), for example, are not your prototypical sleazy strip-club owners, being rather kinder than generally depicted. Cassie and Jade both have unexpected depths, too, though I do have qualms about the latter’s eyebrows, which have been tweezed into near-oblivion. Jack is probably the most underdrawn and, consequentially, least-interesting character. The plot unfolds along the lines you’d expect, though the final reel delivers some unexpected twists, and not everyone you think is going to survive, ends up doing so. Had this actually provided the heady mix of grindhouse elements promised by the title, poster and trailer (below), it could have been a classic, rather than the acceptable way to pass the time it turns out to be.

Dir: Lee Demarbre
Star: Sarah Allen, Jon Cor, Tommie-Amber Pirie, Mark Slacke

Life Blood

  By

★★½
“Still a better love story than Twilight“

There’s a fascinating idea at the core here. Namely, that vampires were created by God, in order to mitigate mankind’s sin by preying on the most evil examples of humanity. They’re effectively angelic enforcers. The potential in this is great. The execution, however… Well, it largely comes down to two such vampire/angels sitting around a gas station for the majority of the running time. This isn’t the only aspect which is poorly considered. It starts in 1969, when lesbian couple Brooke (Lahiri) and Rhea (Monk) are at a New Year’s party. Brooke kills a rapist, stabbing him (literally) 87 times, and the pair then flee. In the desert, they are visited by God (model Angela Lindvall), who makes Rhea into one of her enforcers.

However, Rhea insists Brooke gets the same treatment. You’d think God, with all that infallibility and omniscience might figure out giving such power to someone who just stabbed someone (I repeat, literally) 87 times, might not be a good idea. But, whatevs. The pair then lie dormant in the desert sands for forty years, because… Er, I dunno. Reasons? Eventually surfacing, Brooke revels in her new found abilities and quickly turns them to murderous ends, while Rhea tries to restrain her lover, being more in the “with great power comes great responsibility” camp. God, meanwhile, is apparently otherwise engaged, probably writing a monograph on free will.

After Brooke has offed her first victim, an unfortunately passing hitch-hiker, they hijack a camper and hole up in the gas station mentioned. This is necessary in order to avoid daylight, which in this version, still has that unfortunate effect on vampires; quite why God didn’t address that in her wisdom is also unexplained. There, they are eventually located by local police officer, Sheriff Tillman (cult legend Napier), who has followed the trail of mayhem. Rhea is going to have to decide whether to stand with Brooke, or go against her.

It gets some of the little things right, and has an off-the-wall sensibility that’s kinda endearing, and rather trashy. For instance the Sherriff’s favourite TV show is Chicks Chasing Chickens, which is exactly what it sounds like, and is the most amusing fake TV show since Ow! My Balls! God turning up in an seethrough nightie from Victoria’s Secret was also… interesting. Lahiri seems to be having fun with her role too, all lip-gloss and gleeful violence.

Unfortunately, Lahiri is flat-out terrible – with the emphasis on “flat” – and the plot doesn’t have a clue what to do with itself for the middle hour [It may be relevant in terms of the apparent lack of plot direction, the original title was the inexplicable Pearblossom, then became Murder World before settling on the eventual title]. The two leads lurk around the gas-station, bickering with each other and the cashier (Renna, who could be a low-rent version of Sean Astin), while occasionally offing people who show up. It’s far short of enough, and leaves almost all that potential, sadly unfulfilled.

Dir: Ron Carlson
Star: Sophie Monk, Anya Lahiri, Charles Napier, Patrick Renna