Tag: c

Chokehold

  By

★★
“Gasping for air.”

I wanted to like this more than I did: director Skiba is a veteran of the Arizona film scene, though his other film previously covered here, .357: Six Bullets for Revenge, left a bit to be desired. This is slightly better; but only slightly. The heroine is Zoe (Croden), a mixed martial artist who is trying to make it big in Las Vegas. Her dad (Van Dien) is back in Arkansas, and crosses paths with Russian mobsters, led by Natalia (McCrea). It doesn’t end well. Let’s just say, if you’re watching this for Van Dien, you’ll quickly be underwhelmed. Zoe leaves Las Vegas, seeking justice for her father – naturally, the only way to get to Natalia is through her convenient underground fighting circuit…

It’s as if the writers were determined to check off every cliche of the genre in 95 minutes. If that was indeed their aim: well done. Outside of having a female protagonist, there is almost nothing new or of interest here, the story unfolding exactly as you’d expect after Van Dien collects his cheque. I think peak eye-rolling was unlocked when Zoe “discovers” a video letter left by her father. Fortunately, this narrative conceit was too much even for Skiba, and is quickly discarded. Even the depiction of the underground arena was painful, with blaring music from a DJ, and people doing that “waving their fists in the air during fights” thing, that you only see anyone do in movies.

All of the above would likely be fine, if the fights were any good, as Lady Bloodfight proved, overcoming its basic plot with a plethora of kick-ass action scenes. Certainly, there’s no shortage of action here. However, MMA style is not the same thing as kung-fu movie style: one isn’t necessarily better than the other, they’re just different. Here, instead of going for one or the other, they occupy an unfortunate middle-ground between realistic and non-realistic, and don’t work as either. The exception is a battle between Zoe and Natalia in a bar. Released from the constraints of being a “proper” fight, the makers get to have a bit more fun, e.g. kicking a bottle at your opponent – and as a result, so do the audience.

The producers of the film include two sports legends. However, they’re baseball players, Kenny Lofton and Torii Hunter, which makes mixed martial-arts seem like an off choice of topic. Probably wisely, they stay off-camera, and some credibility is lent by the presence of retired MMA star Chael Sonnen, playing a fight promoter. It isn’t enough to save this, as it limps through the motions towards the expected ending. The surprises end with the unexpectedly early departure of Van Dien. And even that’s more the result of his name being misleadingly front and centre on most of the advertising, rather than any conscious effort by the film itself. Despite the female focus, this is just another entry in the bargain bin of UFC-lite fight flicks.

Dir: Brian Skiba
Star: Melissa Croden, Ilona McCrea, Corinne Van Ryck de Groot, Casper Van Dien

Camp

  By

★★★
“Nastiness, strong-style.”

Kozue (Yokoyama) and her younger sister Akane (Momomiya) are driving through the countryside when their car breaks down, near a closed camp-ground. Closed – but, unfortunately for them, not deserted. The well-mannered young man whom they first encounter turns out to be a lure, who brings the two women into the grasp of a pack of psychopaths. The nicknames these weirdos have, largely sum up the extreme peril of the situation for the siblings: Hypo, Pyro, Copro, Necro and Thanatos. It turns out they were all pals during an enforced stay in a nearby mental hospital. When that shut down suddenly (in a way explained later on), they opted to hang around, forming some kind of sexually-deviant collective. Kozue and Akane pretty much represent a theme-park for these perverts.

What follows is pretty tough to watch. And regular readers will know I’m hard to rock, having about 35 years of watching “video nasties” under my belt. This, though… It goes beyond the simple unpleasantness of say, I Spit on Your Grave, perhaps due to the sick inventiveness here. I mean, effectively vacuum-sealing a victim inside one of those giant plastic bags, typically used for storing bedding, and watching her suffocate? Then there’s the bit where Pyro lives up to his name – likely the scene where I questioned most quite why I was watching this. For one of our mantras here, is that when it comes to rape-revenge films, we are considerably more interested in the revenge than the rape. Which is why the original ISoYG isn’t here, but the reboot entries area.

This certainly teeters on the edge of the same exclusion, despite Kozue’s sterling efforts to draw the assailants’ attention to her and away from Akane. There’s a subplot which helps to explain the frosty relationship between the sisters, dating back to an incident involving them and Akane’s then-boyfriend. Eventually, Thanatos (Kawatsure), who seems considerably less enthusiastic about the depravity than the others, helps Kozue make a break for it. She then meets a former nurse from the facility (Ayana), who explains the history behind the posse of perverts. Although she has been trying to take them down, success has eluded her until now, when Kozue’s arrival might give her the added help necessary.

And this is where the movie does just about deliver the adequate level of revenge necessary to qualify here. For the two women team up to ensure no-one else has to suffer the same atrocities as Kosue and Akane. But even this is not as unequivocal as it could be, for the avengers are unable to agree on how Thanatos should be treated. Is it a case of, as my mother used to say, if you fly with the crows, you’ll be shot with the crows? Or do his actions perhaps indicate a salvageable slice of humanity, not deserving of the same penalties as his associates? A thoughtful movie would probably have done a better job of examining these moral issues. The target here is considerably more visceral, no argument. Yet even a low blow like this can still pack a punch.

Dir: Ainosuke Shibata
Star: Miyuki Yokoyama, Peach Momomiya, Hiroaki Kawatsure, Rei Ayana

Cats Kill

  By

★★
“Dead cat bounce.”

It’s quite a feat for a film which runs a crisp 67 ½ minutes to outstay its welcome, so… Well done? The problem is mostly that far too much time is wasted on the set-up, introducing us – in quite excruciating detail – to characters in whom we have little or no interest. These would be the friends who decide to spend a weekend in upstate New York, unaware they are about to cross paths with a pair of bored locals who have decided to alleviate the tedium by going on a killing spree. When one of them gets cold feet, however, it’s left up to Cat (Rafferty) to follow through on the original plan, which she does with some enthusiasm. Just a pity this doesn’t happen until roughly the final twenty minutes.

Up until that point, the film makes the mistake of concentrating on the victims. They are, by and large, not people with whom you would want to spend more than five minutes. To the movie’s credit, this does appear to be deliberate, yet it renders every moment an increasingly aggravating experience. That’s especially the case, when contrasted with the lack of motive provided for Cat and her partner, who simply choose to become murderers in virtually the first scene, with little or no justification. More time spent building towards that decision, and less watching the Big Apple pals swapping tedious banter, would certainly have been a wise move. Heck, hanging out with the New Yorkers for a bit first would surely convince anyone about the wisdom of murder as a moral imperative. No jury in the land would convict.

Indeed, the whole spree-killing couple angle is given such short shrift, I was left wondering why the directors bothered. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as when it’s just Cat operating by herself, things get done at a considerably brisker clip, which is certainly to the film’s benefit. [I’m not certain the likes of Milton Bradley, Victoria’s Secret and John Deere will be quite as enamored by the name-checks their products receive over the course of proceedings here – particularly the last] After capturing and disposing of a set of victims, it ends with Cat going up against final girl Alana (Loren), and it’s then that the film is at its bes… uh, least underwhelming.

Definitely a case of too little, too late however, even with the final twist, which I’ll admit gave me a dark chuckle. The makers here claim they were going for something giallo-esque. I know giallo. And this is no giallo. Given the complete lack of style shown, it’s more like a bad eighties straight-to-video slasher pic, with all the lack of gore, shortage of tension and terrible pacing that implies. Rafferty gets a full pass and Loren a partial, with their more energetic performances something the rest of the cast would have benefited from following. Otherwise, it’s hardly catnip for horror fans.

Dir: Alexander Cherney, Gregory Casino
Star: Alanah Rafferty, Kay Marie Loren, Daniel J. O’Connor, Will Scarlett

Crawl

  By

★★★★
“The shark was otherwise engaged, torturing Blake Lively…”

I have to say, I’m neither an expert on that strange sub-genre of “animal horror,” nor am I a particular fan of it. I’m mainly looking for a movie that can give me a suspenseful time in the cinemas. This is becoming more and more difficult. Partly because in by my time of live, I have has seen quite a lot of movies, of all sorts; but also because I feel modern film makers have forgotten how to create real suspense and a feeling of slowly rising and constant terror in movies.

Mostly we are left with nonsensical pictures of man-killing animals that seem to have supernatural abilities. Usually it’s played for laughs because of all the silliness that comes with these kind of movies. That’s a pity. Sure, as a cinema-goer you can’t expect the greatness of classics like Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) or Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) an ymore. But is it really that difficult? Create a modicum of interest for the main characters; introduce the predator; put the future victims in an isolated spot with the animals; and play with the ambiguity of the question as to whether said territory is safe at the moment – or not! That’s not rocket science, folks!

But for that you have to take the movie and the characters of your story seriously and the timing of every scene is essential: You’ve got to know where you set up your “beats”. How long can you ratchet up suspense before you’ve got to deliver? Where do you put the shocks, without which you can’t do a good horror movie? Do you put in a little bit of humor and to what degree? When is it time to give some relief to the audience, e. g. with character or relationship moments which seem obligatory background for these kind of stories? Whom do you kill? Whom do you have survive? And should you kill off the family dog or not? 😉

Alexandre Aja is a French film-maker who has got to show his talents across very different horror movies. His great High Tension, a psycho-thriller produced by Luc Besson, was followed by a The Hills Have Eyes remake, the good but not great Kiefer Sutherland vehicle Mirrors and later the (consciously) ridiculous Piranha 3-D. After a good start, in recent years it seemed as if he had lost “it” a bit. So, the offer from producer Sam Raimi to film an original story by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen came at the right time.

While the script has a few humorous moments (if you’re looking for them), it plays its story straight and Aja also focuses on creating genuine suspense and danger. Yet he also delivers in the important categories of shock and gore – something not really that evident from the trailers. That makes sense: you won’t show your climaxes in a trailer of an action movie. I’ve to say my expectations were pretty low when going into the movie. As a fan you know the score, so can a film still get you? To my surprise and delight, this was not only able to do that but also surpassed my expectations by far. But let’s start with some background info on what I want in such a movie.

Though you never expect a character study, I’m always happy if the characters get enough backstory or character traits, that they don’t appear as totally bland, two-dimensional audience stand-ins. That’s definitively true for Crawl‘s main actors Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper. Neither had that much luck with past roles: Scodelario, I remember from the Maze Runner movies but hardly seemed to register anywhere else much. I think I saw Pepper last with a supporting villain role in the True Grit remake (2010). I also need predators I like and respect. Some animals won’t really work for me, e. g. bears are simply too sympathetic. But for my money reptiles of all sizes always deliver the goods. And I’ve got an enormous respect for crocodiles or alligators.

Next, the simple but effective story in a nutshell. Florida, hurricane time. Swimmer Haley Keller (Scodelario), who just failed in a swimming competition, receives a phone call from her sister She’s worried because she couldn’t reach their dad. Neither sister has had much contact with him, since their mother and father divorced; he was Haley’s former trainer, leaving their relationship no on the best of terms. The streets are beiing closed due to the dangers of the approaching hurricane and the rising water levels.

After finding her father’s house abandoned, save for his dog, Haley drives on to their former family house which he was renovating. Following the sound of a radio, she descends into the derelict cellar where she finds Dave, her wounded father (Pepper), who tells her that two alligators have entered the cellar through the drain. While they have some sanctuary in the cellar, they have to make an escape, due to the rising water that is coming up through openings in the cellar floor…

This may sound maybe a bit dry (pun not intended). But, believe me, the screenwriters and Aja have used every trick in the book to push and pull us, the audience, emotionally through our seats, in the same way the alligators push and pull the two likable yet imperfect protagonists through their surroundings. I was very pleasantly surprised about the high level of suspense and tension here. But also how the important ingredients mentioned above were perfectly blended together. The movie really creates suspense and grisly anticipation – yet also doesn’t forget that audiences need moments of relaxation so they can breathe a little, before the next furious attack or moment of extreme danger arrive. It’s a very well-written and executed entertainment, showcasing a kind of story-telling we don’t see much any more.

That said, the movie doesn’t reinvent the wheel. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if the Rasmussens saw two other recent animal horror movies with female leads: Burning Bright (2010) told the story of a young woman, locked together with her autistic brother in a house with a wild tiger by her evil uncle during a hurricane. And, of course The Shallows (2016, is it really already that long ago? It feels as if I saw the film just a couple of weeks ago…), which showed us Blake Lively on a rock in the rising water off an unknown beach while a blood-thirsty shark circles. As a matter of fact, both of these movies would make for a good triple-bill with this. And once Crawl comes out on DVD, it will find its place directly next to them on my shelves!

What is it about all those young women fighting predators with large pointy teeth? I’m no psycho-analyst but I guess it has something to do with the re-integration of certain character traits into the female psyche. Whatever these may be. I do remember an early trailer when The Shallows came out that had a voice-over of what sounded like a life coach trainer, encouraging the Blake Lively character. I wonder if the idea of the father who trained his daughter to extraordinary achievements was inspired by that trailer?

Actually, this movie goes a different way from some recent action-heroine movies, that looked to discredit father figures or put them in a negative light. Haley may have felt betrayed by her parents divorce and her father “abandoning” her. Yet during the course of the story, she finds out that her parents were not as happy as she thought and that her dad, who always loved her and believed in her, is just a normal guy. [Though I must credit him for absolutely convincing me how every household needs a utility belt for hand tools!] Having to survive and fight for what is left of her family, with the support of her father makes Haley overcome her own anxieties, through facing more than one deadly situation. Certainly, crawling through the drain by which the reptiles came into the house evokes quite distressing birth trauma… That’s a very positive message. After so many negative portrayals of father figures and “family values”, I found this a highly sympathetic and, for 2019, unusually traditional depiction.

But it only has to work – and it does that very well. We are not immediately tossed into shock-infested seas, there’s a nice build-up, so when the gators appear they evoke the desired audience reaction.Haley and her father have enough back story that you are on their side and want them to survive, while at the same time worrying if they will make it. Despite being just that just 90 minutes, the movie is full of ideas of how the imprisoned father-daughter couple could get help from outside (which leads to an unpleasant looter-reptile encounter) or escape the cellar and the house. It really plays with giving you hope, just to take it away again. One of my favourite moments is when Haley and Dave make it to an escape boat outside, when the levees break and a wave of water throws them back into their house – only one floor higher. Well-timed elements of humor, such as Haley’s reaction when normal house spiders fall on her face, help make for very satisfying entertainment.

A fascinating side-fact is that the movie was shot in Belgrade, Serbia, which doubles for Florida perfectly. And a little “tidbit”: Scodelario’s and Pepper’s family name in the movie is “Keller”. For German cinema-goers that’s extremely funny as “Keller” is the German word for “cellar”. But one last question: will the dog survive? Watch the movie to find out! It gets four well-earned stars from me. Your mileage may vary, but honestly I think it’s on the same level as The Shallows, which also scored highly with me. So, if you enjoyed that, this should be right up your (flooded) street.

Dir: Alexandre Aja
Star:  Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper

Counterfeiting in Suburbia

  By

★★½
“Fake it till you make it.”

High-schoolers Reilly (Albuquerque) and Erica (Wallace) have discovered a way to literally print money, forging hundred-dollar bills. They then use these to buy high-end fashion, and sell these ill-gotten gains on to their schoolmates for genuine cash. The more cautious Reilly wants to stop, but realizes she can do good by helping Karen (Butler), her aunt and guardian, who is in financial trouble. So when Erica is insistent they expand, Reilly goes along with it, and they use the school’s art-class resources to up their game, laundering the fake money through foreign exchange stores. However, this criminal empire comes under threat, after art teacher Tim Sylvester (MacCaull) discovers what they’re up to. Because by chance, he owes a large sum of money to some nasty people, and starts a relationship with Erica, to make sure she’ll keep working for his benefit.  Worse still, the Secret Service have been alerted to the flood of funny money, so are also investigating.

I have… questions. What made R+E get into counterfeiting to begin with? For when the film starts, they’re already printing out the Benjamins on their home printer. And where do you get the special paper? While there have been cases of people using inkjet printers for this purpose, it seems these involved wiping $5 bills, then reprinting them with higher denominations. [Googling to find this out has probably got me on a watch-list…] And while the film makes the point, especially in high-end stores, that most purchases using credit-cards means assistants are less familiar with spotting fake bills, this surely doesn’t apply to currency exchanges? As a credible piece of scripting, this ends up skipping most of the necessary check-boxes, and I doubt it’s based as much on a true story as claimed.

It’s not entirely without merit though. The underlying idea – teenagers gradually getting out of their depth, and not realizing it until they are too far in – is a decent one. The contrast between the two leads is effective as well: Erica is perpetually touting them as being like Thelma and Louise, and is unfazed when Reilly points out how that ends. There’s also a contrast in motives between the girls – though you wonder a bit why they’re friends, given their divergent natures. Reilly is entirely selfless, and is using her illicit income for what she perceives as “good” [though never quite considers the negative implications of her acts]. Erica, on the other hand, is apparently doing it for the thrill or the LOLs, and you’re never sure quite what this loose cannon might do.

By coincidence, this was watched the same weekend as Body of Sin, and the two films are similar. Both focus on two young women of disparate characters, whose decision to team up and go over the border of legality has severe consequences. Both also have severe problems in the script department. Body was perhaps better technically, but this gets the edge – simply for the sheer uselessness of the only sympathetic male character, which may arguably be more feminist than anything the women do. While some way short of great, it just about passes muster, if you’re in an undemanding Netflix mood.

Dir: Jason Bourque
Star: Larissa Albuquerque, Kayla Wallace, Sarah Butler, Matthew MacCaull

Curvature

  By

★★★
“Time out for fun.”

Helen (Fonseca) is struggling to come to terms with the sudden, unexpected death of her scientist husband, who was engaged on a top-secret project with his partner, Tomas (Morshower). Then things get truly weird: she experiences the mother of all blackouts, missing an entire week, and shortly afterward, Helen receives a phone-call warning her to get out of her house… from herself. It turns out, husband and Tomas had come up with a limited form of time-travel. As a result of this and subsequent events, there are now two Helens running around this point in. And future Helen appears to be considerably more militant. She leaves present Helen a sniper rifle as a gift, as well as stocking up on things like pressure cookers – and you can safely assume she’s not preparing a nourishing casserole. Present Helen decides future Helen needs to be stopped. But the more she uncovers, not least about the circumstances of her husband’s demise, the more she understands why future Helen is intent on carrying out her take on Project Mayhem.

I love me a good time-travel movie, and this is just that – a good time-travel movie, rather than a great one, like Retroactive or Run Lola Run. It manages to keep its two heroines in the air, revealing information at a decent rate, and also to balance brain and brawn. To the latter end, the heroine has to solve puzzles left behind by her other self to clue her in – without doing so to Tomas or the others seeking to shut the Helens down. On her side is work colleague Alex (Avery), though to be honest, he seems there mostly as a proxy for the audience, so Helen can explain stuff to him. Against her is Kravitz (Lanipekun), a crypto-federal agent – for it seems the defense industry has its own plans for the technology in question. That said, if it were really all that important, you’d think more than one guy might be sent in pursuit. Whatevs….

A bonus point is awarded for gratuitously casting Linda Hamilton in a small role as Helen’s former mentor. For, of course, Hamilton was part of the original “Going to the past to save the future” franchise: Terminator. Here, she doesn’t get to do much; it’s still a nice nod to one of the film’s influences. However, it feels as if the film couldn’t quite work out how it wanted to use time-travel. There’s a nice get-out which explains why future Helen didn’t come back and prevent her husband’s death. But beyond that, it’s more mildly engaging than deeply engrossing, as one Helen gradually closes in on the other Helen, and Kravitz closes in on them both. To be honest, I’d rather have focused on future Helen, since she seems the one actively involved in changing the world, rather than reacting to it, as present Helen does. Though scripting that version might have caused too many headaches – both for the writer and the viewer.

Dir: Diego Hallivis
Star: Lyndsy Fonseca, Zach Avery, Glenn Morshower, Alex Lanipekun

Chase Step By Step

  By

★★★
“Chase what matters.”

A solid if unremarkable Taiwanese kung-fu film, it’s set in 1887 and focuses on a mission to deliver a thousand taels of gold, which are intended for use in drought relief by another province. (Presumably) To avoid attracting unwanted attention, the delivery is kept very low-key. In fact, only two people are assigned as security for the gold: circus acrobats Lin Ying (Hsu) and Sao Wu (Chow). However, word apparently leaks out, and on their journey, they’re almost perpetually under attack.

These attempts range from the straightforward – two guys they meet at a rest-stop try and run off with their cart – to the more subtle. The wife of an inn-keeper attempts to seduce Sao, for example. Or in the most complex, an incident is staged in which our hero and heroine rescue a young girl. She then invites him to dinner, gets him drunk and… Step 2. ? Step 3. PROFIT. Yeah, it’s a bit vague, since it’s not as if Sao is carrying the thousand taels of cold on him. Anyway, even when they reach their destination, the relief aid isn’t safe, since there are greedy local eyes, intent on diverting it into private hands.

It’s very much a two-hander, with Lin and Sao portrayed as equals, though the poster would indicate Hsu is the star (she’d go on to become a successful producer, including on the Oscar-nominated Farewell My Concubine). Less clear is quite what the relationship is between the pair: Sao seems to take the lead, but Lin is the smarter, and has to rescue her colleague more than once, in part due to his eye for the ladies. Fight-wise, Chow is the better: he gets the final battle against the man bad guy, while Hsu is battling the two minions who are absconding with the gold.

It’s a bit of a shame they don’t make more of the pair’s supposed circus and acrobatic background. This is the focus of the scene behind the opening credits (though quite what the dog tricks have to do with it, I’m uncertain!), then only intermittently references these skills thereafter. There’s a scene where the two have to escape by crossing a chasm on a tightrope, pushing a hand-cart, and a rather cool scene where Sao fights the bad guys while on a pair of impromptu stilts. That’s about it.

Lin does get the movie’s most memorable moment, however. Her opponent hurls a knife as she’s on the ground, which pins down her pigtail. With one flick of her head, she returns it to him, burying it in his chest. [Here’s the animated GIF] They say there’s nothing new under the sun: that kind of lethal hair-fu shows they’re wrong. In comparison, the rest of the film is not as memorable, and offers hardly much in the way of an inventive story-line. Yet it proceeds at a decent enough pace to sustain interest, and Hsu’s facial expressions sell her talents well – perhaps better than her talents do.

Dir: Yu Min Sheong
Star: Hsu Feng, Chow Chung-lim, Ma Cheung, Nam Wan

Hell on Route 666, by Dan Leissner

  By

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

At the very end, of the characters says to Cat, the heroine, “Will someone PLEASE tell me what this was all about!” I can kinda sympathize with them: I think it’s safe to say this defied expectations, though I must stress, in a good way. It’s close to 12 years since we were first introduced to Cat; not sure what Dan has been doing in the interim, but I was delighted to find a second volume had finally arrived. Re-reading our review, I probably should have been less surprised: the original managed to have a plot combining “black militants, white supremacists and aliens from outer-space.” I had managed to forget the last, so was expecting merely another funky escapade of seventies style, sex and violence.

Yes… and no.

Initially, it seems almost like a cross between Dennis Wheatley and Russ Meyer, with Cat investigating and infiltrating a Satanic cult based around heavy metal group 666, whose teenage fans are being mind-controlled into committing increasingly heinous crimes in the name of the Devil. But the further on we go, the more outrageous things get. 666 are entirely discarded, with a Devil-worshipping rock-band becoming positively mundane. We end up heading for territory that’s more like the Book of Revelations adapted by H.P. Lovecraft – oh, yeah, and throw in a demonic version of Bumblebee from Transformers, because… Well, just because. Except, Lovecraft wouldn’t have a kick-ass heroine like Cat, breaking limbs and hearts with equal confidence. Or an all-girl commando platoon. Or quite so many pairs of tight jeans, inevitably worn low on the hips…

I did have some issues in the opening third, mostly because Cat wasn’t all that likeable, to be honest. Not sure if I’ve changed, she’s changed or the world has changed, in the twelve years since the first novel. Probably a bit of each. She seems to spent an inordinate amount of time stoned, dressing/acting to attract the male gaze, yet simultaneously resenting it. “Jeez! What a bunch of low-lives,” is a sentiment she expresses at one point; “Shit! Just look at them… bunch of no necks and beer-bellies. God, I hate this crap!” at another. Apparently, she’s the only one allowed to overtly express any sexuality. She certainly has no qualms about seducing a boy of “barely 16”. Reverse the genders there, and it would play rather differently, to be sure.

It was only later, I realized, perhaps this might be deliberate – expressing a darker side to Cat may be why the Satanists were so keen to bring her over to their team. However, I prefer my heroines a bit less… whiny! Still, even in this difficult first third, Leissner packs a wallop, particularly with his chilling descriptions of the mind-controlled terrorism. And the deeper we get, the more Cat relies on her actions to define her. That, and the continually escalating apocalypse make for a real downhill avalanche of a read, one that eventually becomes entirely unstoppable. Dan promises we won’t have to wait until 2031 for the next installment. He’d better live up to that, or I’ll be swinging past to know the reason why.

Author: Dan Leissner
Publisher: Midnight Marquee Press, available through Amazon, for now only as a paperback. I received a review copy in exchange for an honest opinion.
Book 2 of 2 in the Cool Cat series.

Cassidy Red

  By

★★½
“Better red than dead. Albeit, only just.”

Josephine “Joe” Cassidy (Eiland) is promised in marriage to Tom (Jenkins), the son of the area’s richest rancher, but her heart actually belongs to Jakob (Grasl), the Indian who is Tom’s adopted brother. The two lovers consummate their relationship when Tom is away, but  the spurned fiancee hatches a long-term plan to get revenge. Years later, after becoming the local sheriff, he uses these connections to frame and execute Jakob for murder. Word of this reaches Joe, who conveniently for the plot is handy with a firearm, because her father (Cramer) was a renowned bounty-hunter, and passed on the necessary skills to her. Dying her hair red – hence the title – she sets out to take revenge on Tom, only for him to reveal that Jakob is not dead… Not yet, anyway.

The structure here is quite convoluted – rather needlessly, I’d say. Not only does it unfold in several different eras, the entire thing is enclosed in wraparound sections, where the story of Cassidy Red is being told, for inspirational purposes, by a piano-player in a brothel to one of the working girls. It’s definitely a case where less feels like it would have been more, with a straightforward chronological timeline working to the film’s benefit, instead of characters dropping in and out. Perhaps the director felt that might have been too simple, for once you peel away the trapping, this is indeed a very straightforward tale of revenge. Is that necessarily a bad thing, though?

This was submitted for Knudsen’s thesis at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, which perhaps explains some of the issues here: on occasion, it certainly does feels as if it was an academic requirement with an earnest Message (capital M used deliberately), rather than wanting to tell its story. The best section is likely the one where Joe is being taught the mechanics of gun-fighting by her father, which is very well written, performed and edited. The result is a sequence that sheds genuine light into the mindset of someone who, for survival, has to be permanently ready to shoot to kill. Given the limited budget here, credit is due for production values which are generally good. It was filmed largely on location at Old Tucson Studios, and that adds authenticity to the 19th-century Arizona setting, which some films wouldn’t have bothered with. 

Other parts, unfortunately, fall short of that, and some are flat-out unconvincing – the scene where Jakob is taken on board as a foster son, for example, seems entirely inexplicable, and they just shouldn’t have bothered, since it’s not something the audience needs to see. It’s a shame, since the central performance is good: however, the two male leads both struggle to be more than forgettable, and that leaves the end result feeling unbalanced on the dramatic level. This sporadic quality is perhaps the biggest problem: there seems a general unevenness of tone and approach, resulting in a film which takes two steps forward, then one back.

Dir: Matt Knudsen
Star: Abigail Eiland, David Thomas Jenkins, Jason Grasl, Rick Cramer

Contract: Snatch by Ty Hutchinson

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

Sei is a former assassin, who quit the industry after getting pregnant, then having her daughter stillborn. She has taken up a quiet life in the Belgian countryside, when she’s brought out of retirement by a shocking offer she received over the deep web. Her prospective employer says Sei’s daughter is not dead, and offers information in exchange for carrying out a job: breaking another assassin, the notorious Black Wolf, out of the Turkish prison where he is being held. After confirming with the doctor who was present that the claim of her daughter’s survival is true, Sei accepts the mission. However, it turns out she was set up as a patsy, and finds herself also incarcerated in conditions which seem not have improved much since Midnight Express.

It’s a little odd that Sei is described as an assassin, yet doesn’t actually do any actual… assassinating here. Sure, she certainly kills a lot of people, mostly members of Turkish law-enforcement (as well as a wild boar) – just not for money. Might have made more sense to begin by establishing Sei’s credentials in this profession; as is, the reader has to accept her skills on faith. Perhaps the vague hints of back-story should have been fleshed out more. There’s also a large debt to Kill Bill in the driving force of the story here: specifically, the end of Volume 1, when Bill says, “One more thing, Sofie. Is she aware her daughter is still alive?” To my great surprise – sorry, can’t find the sarcasm font – this element is left entirely unresolved at the end of the volume. Indeed, she’s little if any closer to finding the truth than when she leaves the doctor.

While I’ve qualms about the overall structure here, I did actually enjoy the meat of the sandwich more than the bread. That would be the mission to Turkey, including her initial attempt to free the Black Wolf, then Sei’s subsequent escape from incarceration and flight across the country, with evil prison governor, General Rakin Demir, leading an extremely hot pursuit. It’s a crisply paced saga of action sequences, that have an interesting variety to them, from her compromised attempt to free the Black Wolf, through to a climactic race from Cesme across the Chios Strait to Greece. While she’s mostly a solo operator, who prefers to rely on stealth, she ends up teaming with Kostas, a Greek who… well, let’s just say, his connections come in handy, and I predict, likely will do so again in future volumes.

As the review to this point should make clear, I’m in two minds about whether I’ll be going further, because certain elements I liked and others I didn’t. Sei’s a good character, and I appreciated the almost complete lack of romance to get in the way of the “good stuff.” But I get the feeling the saga of her daughter is going to be stretched out beyond the point of tolerance, to deceased equine level. Probably one of those cases where I’ll wait for volume two to be available at a discounted price.

Author: Ty Hutchinson
Publisher: Gangkruptcy Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in the Sei Assassin Thriller series.