Tag: s

Shadow Corps, by Justin Sloan

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

After a brisk start, this fades into mediocrity, half space opera (that would include the “space dragon”) and half LitRPG. The latter was particularly unexpected, and poorly integrated into the rest of the story. I mean, you’re supposed to be fighting with the fate of the galaxy at stake. Why do you need to level up in order to get abilities? It’s like recruiting the best fighters from across the universe, then sending them into battle unarmed, because they don’t have the necessary experience points yet. No. You should give them all the best tools, right from the get-go, simply because it will help them survive. It just doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, this begins in better shape, with an alien invasion of Earth already well under way, and it largely under the heel of The Syndicate. The LRR – Last Remaining Resistance – are trying to fight back, and among their members is Samantha, a sixteen-year-old girl who can barely remember a time when she wasn’t fighting from her life. However, she is snatched off Earth by Hadrian, to become part of an elite team, comprised of multiple different intergalactic races. For The Syndicate are basically small fry compared to the true Big Bad, who have already destroyed many worlds and races, including Hadrian’s. Earth is among the planets now coming up on their “to do” list.

It kinda reads like a more serious version of Guardians of the Galaxy, with Samantha in the Star-Lord role. She ends up becoming appointed leader of the group, despite her lack of age and experience, and has to meld the disparate personalities into a cohesive whole. Though, to be honest, she doesn’t really do much “leading.” and everyone more or less just does their thing. Indeed, I’d be hard pushed to point out much in the way of Samantha’s development as a character over the course of the book. Well, apart from the obvious levelling-up that occupies a chunk in the middle. If my teenage self had been vacuumed up off Earth and dropped in the middle of an interstellar conflict, I suspect it would likely have changed me, just a bit.

I can’t argue about the action here, and Sloan does have a better handle on this than the characters. Despite my slightly mocking tone above, the space dragon actually sounds pretty bad-ass, though you only get to read about it in full effect, at the end. It perhaps should have been more like the Death Star: destroy a planet or two, to establish its credentials. Despite the copious amount of firefights and hand-to-hand battles, I never felt particularly concerned about the safety of Samantha, or any of the team. Maybe one or two minor characters could have been killed off to give a sense of danger which seemed oddly lacking, given the copious amounts of collateral damage? But the lack of emotional investment would still likely have capped any connection.

Author: Justin Sloan
Publisher: Elder Tree Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Shadow Corps series.

Skull Forest

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★½
“Going Dutch can be a very bad thing…”

I think Len Kabasinski probably is the director with more  films reviewed here than anyone else, save perhaps Andy Sidaris. This is the fifth; the previous four have seem palpable improvement, from the near-unwatchable Warriors of the Apocalypse, to the reasonably competent Hellcat’s Revenge II: Deadman’s Hand. This, however, is one of his earlier efforts, and you have to peer pretty hard past the dreadful film-making style to see any worthwhile elements.

In particular, it feels as if it was made as a wager, after someone bet him he couldn’t make an entire film with the camera pointed at a 30-degree angle. The Dutch angle shot, in which the camera is tilted to evoke a sense of unease, is a well-known cinematic technique, used by the likes of Hitchcock. But it’s one that needs moderation. In a famous review of Battlefield Earth, Roger Ebert said of the director, “Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.” The same is true here of Kabasinski, who appears to think every shot is better at 30 degrees off vertical. Or perhaps he was just drunk throughout filming. Then there’s the excessive close-ups and violent shaking of the camera. No. Just, no.

The story open with a quote from The Most Dangerous Game, and that’s what we get. Four women, on a weekend getaway, find themselves targeted by a group of rich hunters, and have to fight for their lives. That’s the entire plot, and I’m fine with that. The action is no great shakes, to be honest; a lot of something happening off-screen, then cut to a not-too-convincing make-up effect. The only sequence that succeeded in holding my attention, was when two women among the hunters had a falling out, and ended up fighting each other. Kabasinski plays another one of the villains, and I’m not sure which is more distracting: the single contact lens his character wears, or the bad English accent employed, for no apparent reason.

However, there is a surprising amount of nudity, so the film, clearly aiming at shallow exploitation (and I’m fine with that too!), does at least deliver on this score. Though it is a bit of a mixed bag; Playboy model Neeld looks the best, but Brooks has the most memorable (if not exactly erotic)  shot, clawing her way naked out of the shallow grave in which she was left for dead, and beginning her quest for vengeance. However, the impact of these and any other credible moments, are sucked away by the truly dreadful camerawork employed. It seems likely to induce motion sickness and/or a migraine. If he’d simply nailed the camera to a tree, it would have been an enormous improvement, and likely been worth close to another whole star. I guess this was early enough in his career Kabasinski was still experimenting. We should be glad it’s not a style with which he persisted.

Dir: Len Kabasinski
Star: Sara Brooks, Lisa Neeld, Pamela Sutch, Melissa Scott

Sexy Rangers

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★★★
“Something mighty morphing in my pants.”

Because what the world really needs, is an all-girl version of Power Rangers, tasting very strongly of cheesecake. That’s what you have here, in a world where women’s breasts are a source of energy. Okay, later on we discover it’s actually male appreciation of women’s breasts that is the true source of power, but let’s not quibble over details. This “pai” energy has been used by Professer Saionji to create a team of five, color co-ordinated heroines, who use their abilities to fight off monsters from other dimensions, sent here under the control of Queen Amorous (Yamada). These “Pai Rangers” are firmly referred to in the subtitles as “Sexy Rangers”, presumably to avoid a cease-and-deist from Saban. Their leader is the Red Ranger, Momiji (Tejima), apparently because her breasts are the biggest. Um, the biggest source of pai energy, I mean. Occasionally, she and her team need to recharge, which is done by flouncing about the beach in bikinis, exploiting the male gaze.

It is, of course, utterly ridiculous and possesses all the production value you would expect, given a budget estimated on the IMDb at 50,000 Yen. Adjusting for inflation and converting to dollars, that’s $480 in 2021 terms. I double-checked no zeroes had gone missing in the process. It does appear largely to have been filmed in car-parks. But I have to say, it’s bright, colourful and energetic, and all stupidity is absolutely in line with the show which is its inspiration. Witness the two main monsters: Unikong, which is an armoured, lance-wielding unicorn, and Camerang, a humanoid camera. Because, why not? Anyway, Queen Amorous kidnaps the Professor’s daughter, ransoming her for a device which can extract the pai energy from the Rangers, weakening them so that her monsters and their (literally faceless) minions can overpower them and take control of Earth. Meanwhile, she’s working at the order of King Muscle, a giant eyeball – again, because why not?

The fight scenes are more or less complete garbage, barely even reaching “I kick in your general direction, you vaguely swing in my postal code” level. But what would you expect when you have five bikini models going up against a giant camera? They clearly are not the point; the director’s choice of camera angles and focal points makes that abundantly clear. Yet it helps that everyone takes it dead seriously; maybe it’s just me, but the hottest woman here is likely evil Queen Amorous, the one who shows the least amount of skin. Not that there’s every anything more than copious cleavage, I should point out. Though I can’t think of many films which feel more like a porn flick, yet fail to contain any actual nudity. As such, the combination of wholesome values (loyalty to friends and family, perseverance, etc.) and fan service is quite conflicting. I would still watch this on a weekly basis. Hell, considering the cost, I’d be prepared to fund a sequel.

Dir: Shinji Nishikawa
Star: Yû Tejima, Yuzuki Aikawa, Jun Suzuki, Yoko Yamada
a.k.a. Big Boob Squad: Sexy Rangers

Snow Black

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★
“Put this on your blacklist. And that’s snow joke.”

This isn’t quite the worst action heroine film I’ve ever seen. That dubious honour still goes to Naked Avenger, I think. But this one certainly deserves to be in the conversation. I don’t think a movie has ever lost my interest so quickly. Literally before the opening credits rolled, I realized this was the kind of almost entirely undiluted rubbish, I wouldn’t waste five minutes on, if I didn’t have to for this site. How bad was it? The film is still on, and I’ve already started writing the review. That’s virtually unprecedented. The main problem is audio which appears to have recorded on a flip-phone, from the bottom of a swimming pool. It’s among the worst I’ve ever heard on a commercial release. Initially, I thought it might be the source, but the Prime Video version was just as intolerable. At least that version had closed captions.

The plot is no great shakes, though has some potential. Sarah Camden (Buckner) comes home from the Marines to bury her mother. While she’s at home, her little sister is killed on the streets of her local town. Sarah – code name Snow Black – realizes it has been taken over by gangsters and drug dealers, with even the mayor in their service. After her father is also murdered, she decides to clean up the neighbourhood. The issues with this are plentiful, beginning with the fact our heroine’s tattoos wouldn’t actually be allowed on a Marine. Then there’s the fact she doesn’t actually fight anyone much until 55 minutes in – and this only runs 80 minutes. While Buckner looks at least somewhat the part, when she finally gets into action, it takes place in slow-motion, presumably to disguise her lack of fighting ability. This is probably also the first time I found myself wishing for some rapid-fire editing. 

Let me be absolutely clear. There is hardly a single aspect of this, which is not excruciatingly incompetent. The only scene that is even slightly memorable is when Sarah’s Aunt Sydney goes into battle herself, taking on a barful of gang members. She’s played by former Bond girl Gloria Hendry, from Live and Let Die and Black Belt Jones. Now in her seventies, it’s not a great action sequence, to put it mildly. But that it happens at all, is the best thing the movie has to offer. They should have made the whole film about her and Sarah’s father, played by another veteran action star, Van Clief (the Black Dragon), who is approaching eighty. The concept of senior citizen vigilantes is something which might have done a better job of holding my attention. 

Instead, this is 100% one of those films which I had to sit through, so that you do not have to. Find something, anything else to do, and you can thank me later. Oh, hey: the end credits are now rolling. It’s clearly time to wrap this up.

Dir: Robert D. Parham
Star: Sarah V. Buckner, Robert D. Parham, Ron Van Clief, Humberto Gonzalez 

Sugar Boxx

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★★
“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

The Spy

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★★★½
“Don’t expect any applause. That doesn’t exist in our line of work.”

I guess the moral here is that things aren’t necessarily as they appear, and the truth can take quite some time to come out. After World War II, Norwegian actress Sonja Wigert was largely shunned, her career going downhill because she was seen as having fraternized with the German forces that had occupied Norway. She died in 1980, largely forgotten. But in 2005, it was revealed that Wigert (Berdal) had actually been operating as a spy on behalf of the Swedish government, who were very much concerned the Nazis had their country next on the list for invasion. Her “collaboration” was actually the actress using her fame to get close to high-level officials like Reichskommissar Josef Terboven (Scheer), and get information from them. This film is her story.

However, these already murky matters are complicated by several further factors. There’s an agent, ‘Maria’, working for the Nazis, and passing them information, who must be identified and stopped; Sonja’s “real” relationship, with Hungarian diplomat, Andor Gellért (Chapelle); her father’s incarceration at the hands of the Germans; and, last but not least, Terboven’s request that she become a spy for the Nazis, feeding them information on Sweden. After some early wobbles, the film’s script does a good job of keeping all these elements in play, without collapsing into the over-complex mess sometimes seen in the spy genre. It’s also nicely nuanced, with Wigert initially trying to remain neutral, until circumstances, in the shape of her father’s arrest, force her into getting off the fence.

There begins a very dangerous game – though as an actress, used to playing a role, Sonja seems well-equipped to it. [I was reminded of John Le Carre’s The Little Drummer Girl, which also saw a thespian recruited into becoming a spy] Berndal, who previously made a good impression here as the villainess in Escape (Flukt), does another good job in a rather more sympathetic role as a reluctant secret agent. I’d like to have seen rather more about the tradecraft involved in her work. There are times when her actions seem almost to be too easy, with the security of the Nazis being close to non-existent, as she swans in to offices, and takes snaps of documents. I know a pretty face opens doors, but still…

There are points where it seems to be considerably more concerned with the relationships between the characters: the spy thriller as soap-opera, perhaps? In particular, the Sonja and Andor thread perhaps gets a bit more time than I’d like it to have received. However, it still managed to hold my interest, rather better than those couple of sentences might sound! The performances and period detail both have a ring of authenticity to them, and it’s a sobering reflection of a time where people sometimes had to make sacrifices without recognition. [Sonja’s handler says the lines at the top to her near the end] Sometimes, secrets go to the grave with those who hold them.

Dir: Jens Jonsson
Star: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Damien Chapelle, Alexander Scheer, Rolf Lassgård
a.k.a. Spionen

Senora Acero: Season two

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★★★½
“Sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ cartels rule.”

There are more famous narconovelas, such as La Reina Del Sur, but you can’t argue with the success of Senora Acero. Surviving for five seasons and a startling 387 episodes in the cut-throat world of Mexican television is no mean feat. Admittedly, there were hardly any characters who lasted the entirety of the show. But such is the nature of organized crime, especially in a show like this. Compared to the first season, it seems like the second helping significantly ramps up the action quotient. It feels like a single episode could not pass, without a car-chase, shoot-out, or at least guns being pointed at each other.

It begins with Sara Aguilar (Soto), a.k.a. “Senora Acero”, the woman of steel, sitting in prison, where she has been stuck for five years, awaiting formal sentencing [Mexican justice moves slowly, it would appear]. After her son is attacked, she escapes prison in order to help him, but gets caught and ends up back in jail, having been sentenced to a punitive 25 years. This is in part due to the interference of her estranged sister, Berta, who is now the private secretary to the Mexican President, and wields her influence maliciously to punish her sibling. But her best friend, Aracely (Litzy), finds the key to getting Sara’s sentence revoked, and her out of jail.

Life doesn’t exactly become much easier thereafter, as there’s still a state of near-war between the two main drug gangs. There’s the Jalisco cartel, led by Miguel Quintanilla, and Acasio “El Teca” Martínez, of the Tijuana cartel. Sara ends up taking the Jalisco side, stoked largely by her hatred of El Teca, and his chief henchman, “El Indio”, with whom Sara crossed paths in season one.  However, that only fuels the fire as Martinez has long held a burning obsession with Sara. His guiding principal appears to be that if he can’t have Sara, nobody can. Sara has no problems using that obsession against him, but it’s a very dangerous game, especially when El Teca realizes he is being manipulated by her.

It also seems to delve significantly deeper into the relationship between the cartels and ‘legitimate’ business and political interests; quotes used advisedly. In this case, the corruption goes right up to the top, with the Mexican president very much in bed with the leader of one group of drug traffickers. Evidence of this connection is a powerful tool, though for obvious reasons, highly dangerous to anyone who possesses it. There is also the head of a major pharmaceutical company, who is using his company’s resources for less legal product; he thinks he can come up with a new drug that will give the high without the dangerous side effects.

The international aspect is well represented too, with another strong female character in Colombian drug lord (drug lady?) Briceida Montero, who seems fairly obviously inspired by Griselda Blanco, about whom we have written previously. There is an effort to involve Chinese traffickers at one point, though this doesn’t go far. On the other side, the DEA are involved. Though their gringo boss is most notable for Chris turning to me and expressing a fervent hope that, as I continue to learn Spanish, I do not sound like him when I speak the language. Mind you, she’s not exactly impressed with the gangster slang used by the likes of El Teca either. I’m clearly going to have to find posher series from which to pick up my diction…

The show does have one particularly memorable supporting character – though not in a good way. Marta Mónica Restrepo, a.k.a. ‘La Tuti’, is a sometime small scale drug dealer, sometime psychic, and always a slut, who also collects dolls. She ends up getting involved with… just about every male character who crosses her path, which makes her subsequent pregnancy resemble a daytime talk-show episode. Manipulative and fickle, she is easily our most “love to hate” character. Not just in the show, or narconovelas generally, but perhaps the history of our TV viewing. I suspect it’s entirely deliberate, so much credit to the writers, and actress Ana Lucía Domínguez, for making it so.

There’s another aspect we found more genuinely enjoyable. El Teca finds himself a doppelganger, in the form of an immigrant worker from Colombia. Also kidnapping the man’s wife and daughter for leverage, his double is used to fool both the authorities in the Jalisco cartel. While the technical aspects for the depiction of El Teca and his twin are primitive – it’s mostly shooting from behind the shoulder, with an obvious stand-in – the characters are so utterly different, it’s often difficult to believe the same actor is playing both parts. Again, credit where it’s due, to José Luis Reséndez, for bringing both men to life with his performance.

It is, however, Sara Aguilar’s show, and she is the Sun around which all the other bodies revolve, in their elliptical subplots (some of which I could have done without, such as that about one character’s dreams of musical stardom). Much like Teresa Mendoza in Queen of the South, it’s Sara’s fierce loyalty to those on her side which is her most defining characteristic. She’ll got through hell for them, including her son, even after he has been turned into a junkie by her enemies. Needless to say, that’s an act which will not go unpunished. The ending proves quite satisfactory in this area, although also has the kind of cliffhanger, with Sara apparently badly wounded, that will only be resolved in series three.

Despite the tease at the end of the opening credits, with Sara wielding a large, automatic weapon, and quite a lot of heavily-armed arguments, she isn’t quite as personally involved as I might have hoped. Still, I guess delegation is a significant part of being a good leader, isn’t it? This was certainly enjoyed, and became a staple of morning entertainment for me, over several months. I think Chris was even getting into it more than she’d admit, as she drifted through and got ready for work. It may be a while before I have the stamina to start the next season, however. For there’s ninety-three episodes in that…

Creator: Roberto Stopello
Star:  Blanca Soto, Litzy, José Luis Reséndez, Lincoln Palomeque

Six Hot Chicks in a Warehouse

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★★
“#TechnicallyTheTruth”

There are indeed, six reasonably attractive ladies here, and they do indeed spend most of the film in a warehouse. Can’t argue about that. The problems, unfortunately, are numerous, and start with the fact that 6HCiaW is not, in itself, a concept sufficient to sustain a feature. The half-dozen women in question are models, hired by moderately creepy photographer Adrian (Malam), for what he announces will be his final photoshoot before retiring. Which is a bit odd, since he looks no older than thirty. Whatevs. Unfortunately, after he overhears the models making fun of him, Ade goes a bit loopy – a situation not helped by the steroid-like substance “Pump ‘n’ Gro'” which he has been ingesting. So he locks the models up in cages, injects them with the same stuff, and makes them fight each other inside an electrified cage. As you do.

It’s a concept with appeal, especially for this site, and more or less as soon as I saw the cover, this went right into our “pending” pile. However, there was still caution. I’ve been burned on multiple occasions by films with great titles which fail to live up them. For every one that does, e.g. Hobo With a Shotgun, there are ten Assault of the Killer Bimbos. This, sadly, falls much closer to the latter, not least because it takes for-freakin’-ever to get to the stuff we want to see. We’re half way through the movie before anything of action substance happens, save for lead model Mira (Messenger) getting accosted on the way to the shoot. To get to that point, you have to sit through not one, but two interminable sequences of Adrian taking photos. Maybe when I was 12, that slice of cheesecake might have been of interest. But now, even 12-year-olds have Internet access, and this can only be called weak sauce, and tedious padding.

When the fights eventually break out… Well, credit editor Justin Black for doing the heavy lifting, because it’s largely only through his talents that the action has any significant impact. Messenger and her tattoos kinda look the part, and veteran model Ana (Crossen) has an attitude which passes muster. But I’d be hard pushed to say any of the actresses here had actual combat experience or skills. It’s much the same problem which sank Kiss Kiss, and is where Raze worked so well. If you’re going to focus so much of your film’s energy and running-time on hand-to-hand battles, you had better make damn sure those involved can deliver. Here, they really can’t, and outside of one rather nice impalement, there isn’t enough gore or nudity to justify your interest on a purely exploitational level. There certainly isn’t the plethora of guns depicted on the cover. I think there might be one. And it shoots someone only by accident. [Hey, it’s British. We don’t do firearms.] There is, however, a cricket-bat, in what I’d like to think was a loving nod to Shaun of the Dead…

Dir: Simon Edwards
Star: Jessica Messenger, Oliver Malam, Sabine Crossen, Jade Wallis

Spare Parts

  By

★★½
“Somewhat more than pure junk.”

All-girl punk band “Ms. 45” – and I’m awarding half a star purely for that name – are on tour, though things threaten to fall apart due to the bitching between members Emma (Alatalo) and Amy (Argyris), despite them being sisters. Driving away from their latest show (which turned into a bit of a bar-room brawl), they are run off the road by stalker fan Sam (Rouse). The local cops are kind enough to arrange for a tow to a nearby scrapyard. Except, there, the four woman are drugged, and wake up to find themselves each missing an arm, and forced to fight in gladiatorial combats for the pleasure of the Emperor (Richings), Sam’s father and his devotees. But Sam has taken a shine to Emma, and has an eye on using her to replace his Dad, while Emma and her friends only want to escape.

It’s not a bad idea, though the contemporary American setting is poorly considered. Make it a Central American shithole, post-apocalyptic wilderness or something similar; as is, it’s ludicrously implausible, and outside the first five minutes the musical angle is completely irrelevant too, bar a couple of axe jokes. It’s more than similar to Kiss Kiss, which had four women, kidnapped and made to fight in a rural American setting. Admittedly, their count of functioning limbs passed three, though here, it’s never less than obvious that the makers just slapped a weaponized glove on top. There’s no Imperator Furiosa level effects here, and you wonder why they bothered, rather than just handing the women their tools. Though the arm-flamethrower was appealing. It’s not as if I use my right arm for much…

If you liked Gladiator, but felt that it needed more punk rock, this is perhaps for you. I was moderately amused, even though there are only about three actual fights over the ninety minutes, and while those are decent, much of what goes on between them isn’t particularly exciting. You’ve got Sam’s plotting against his father, and there’s a trainer type who seems to be quite an interesting character. Otherwise, it’s kinda meh, especially since the members of Ms. 45 got off on the wrong foot with me, by being cringeworthy stereotypes. I cared little or nothing for their fates thereafter.

In concept, this feels like something out of Japan, perhaps by the creators of The Machine Girl. It just doesn’t have the necessary sense of gonzo, go for broke-ness, save for a couple of nice uses of an arm-chainsaw. Richings seems to be the only one who is truly buying into it, giving the Emperor a sense of insane omnipotence that’s a lot of fun to watch. The other performances need to be equally larger than life, in order to sell what is, let’s be honest, a difficult concept – and in most cases, they weren’t enough to hold my interest. Never a good sign, when the ending seems to point to a better movie than the one you just watched.

Dir: Andrew Thomas Hunt
Star: Emily Alatalo, Michelle Argyris, Jason Rouse, Julian Richings

SAS: Red Notice

  By

★★★
“Train of thought derailed”

“Less than one percent of the population is psychopathic. Psychopaths often inherit the trait, and are incapable of love. They manage their relationships with clinical precision, succeeding in all walks of life. Psychopaths that can learn to love are even more rare. As rare as a black swan.” That voice-over opens this British action flick, whose main twist is the presence of female villain, Grace Lewis (Rose). She’s part of a family business, a mercenary group that gets its hands very dirty; we first see them clearing the way for a pipeline in Eastern Europe, with automatic weapons and flamethrowers. When footage of their exploits are leaked, an Interpol “Red Notice” is issued – basically a worldwide “wanted” notice. Their employer is none too happy, and that employer just happens to be the British government. So they send a snatch squad, led by special forces operative Tom Buckingham (Heughan), to capture the family.

Grace escapes, and plans savage revenge for the perceived betrayal. She takes hostage a train from London when it’s in the Channel Tunnel, and threatens to blow the tunnel (and various bits of other infrastructure) up, unless she gets 500 million pounds and safe passage. Fortunately – and what are the odds? – Tom is also on the train, taking doctor girlfriend Sophie Hart (John-Kamen) to Paris to propose.  Grace is always one step ahead of the authorities under George Clements (Serkis), thanks to a mole deep in the establishment. Tom thus becomes the world’s only chance of stopping an incident which appears increasingly likely to result in the loss of several hundred lives, as the psychopathic Grace’s plans become clear.

This brought home just how rare a true female villain is in our genre. By which I mean, one who is: the main antagonist; possesses few if any redeeming features; and who doesn’t end up becoming the heroine (I’m looking at you, later series of Killing Eve). Outside of fringe entries like Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction, in terms of Western films reviewed here, there’s perhaps The Huntsman: Winter’s War, with Charlize Theron, Demi Moore in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle… and I’m kinda stuck [Other countries have perhaps done better, with films like Angel, À l’interieur (Inside) or Temptress of a Thousand Faces] Rose, recently seen here in The Doorman and who was Batwoman for one season, is an excellent choice, and you genuinely believe she’s capable of the most heinous of acts.

The problems largely lie elsewhere, most obviously the script which has little to offer beyond being Die Hard on a train. The attempts to make it seem that Grace and Sam are fellow psychopaths don’t work, with Heughan having nothing like the necessary edge. It’s better when it’s not exercising pretensions to depth, and concentrates on bringing the mayhem. Though even here, the underground setting does occasionally leave the viewer literally in the dark. Still, as a way to spend two hours on a Sunday afternoon, this was solid enough, and certainly succeeded in holding our attention, especially when its villainess was on-screen.

Dir: Magnus Martens
Star: Sam Heughan, Ruby Rose, Hannah John-Kamen, Andy Serkis