Tag: o

One Girl, 2 Guns

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½
“Possibly the worst girls-with-guns movie in history?”

Even given that this was shot in 6 days for $5,000, it sucks on every conceivable level. Scenes are twice as long as necessary, or totally superfluous. The script has little of interest. And since there’s absolutely no sign of talent whatsoever, I have to presume the director slept with his leading lady. Hope she was better in bed than on screen. Rachel and Jane execute drug deals for their boss – emphasis on “execute”, since they get both the cash and your drugs. Jane’s qualms get worse when Rachel is shot dead, and she leaves the organization, until an FBI agent forces her to return, in order to kill her employer. She also gets frequent visits from the ghost of her dead friend.

In case the above sounds remotely interesting, let me repeat: this sucks on every conceivable level. The original choice for Jane quit because of qualms about the script: an excellent decision. Replacement Moss had never acted before, and it shows. Even as she’s being raped, I’ve seen pond scum with a bigger range of emotions, and if it’s an attempt to depict emotional numbness, she fails, coming across simply as tediously bad. Renee Roland does better as Rachel, and the film might have had a chance if they’d swapped parts – “dead” being just about in Moss’s dramatic range.

The rest of the cast irritate, with dialogue that’s not as clever as it thinks; the nadir is an inept scene where two henchmen bicker over how to cut up Rachel’s body. Beesley apparently wants to be Tarantino, but it’s woefully clear he lacks writing skill – indeed, any skill at all. Given his failure to work on a pic since, he might have been better off sticking to Playgirl magazine, an appearance in which helped fund this movie. Curiously, Googling Mike Lee Beesley turned up one in Palmdale (where the film was partly shot), who’s now founder and president of Cross Fire Ministries, Inc. If that’s him, wonder how he views this work?

Dir: Mike Lee Beesley
Star: Kirsten Moss, Renee Roland, Michael McGaharn, Tom Rees

Outside the Law

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★½
“A reminder of the inalienable rule of Rothrock films: the US ones suck.”

This is the first Cyn-flick seen in a while: rumour has it, she made a brief diversion (after implants) into erotic thrillers, but the good news is, she’s back in the martial arts arena. The bad news is, er, the film. It starts with her DEA colleague, about to bust a Colombian drug-lord, promising Julie (Rothrock), “Four kids, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence.” You know he’s dead, though given his willful lack of a bullet-proof vest, he also has a death-wish.

Before dying, he hands her evidence on the sale of US-government supplied equipment to the cartel, making Julie a target. Returning to Florida (how, exactly?), she goes on the run, with a dog, a truck and a sense of justice. Eating in a restaurant, she breaks up a fight, and gets fully involved when the woman running the joint is murdered by a guy connected to (tah-rah!) Colombian drug-dealers.

All of which might not be so bad; you watch this kind of film for action, not plot. But the director has no idea how to shoot fights, and the results are so poor as to make it look as if Rothrock has been replaced by a stunt double in a bad wig – oh, sorry, that’s her hair. The results are a pale imitation of her work in Hong Kong, and are even less interesting than the likes of China O’Brien. If she is, as the sleeve claims, “the queen of martial arts”, a popular coup must surely be imminent.

Dir: Jorge Montesi
Star: Cynthia Rothrock, Jeff Wincott, Seamus Dever, Dan Lauria