Tag: USA

Stand Off

  By

★★★½
“Reservoir Bitches“

A series of bank raids has local police baffled: ‘The Executives’ specialize in slick, swift in and outs, never over-reaching themselves. They’re also very well-dressed, which might actually be a clue, since these four robbers are women, under veteran criminal Fox (Evans). But all is not well in this gang of thieves, with some seeking a bigger score. Matters come to a head when they find a cop (Lombardi) nosing around their headquarters, and a tracking device attached to their van – all signs point to an informant within the gang, Is someone seeking to take over from Fox? Or is Fox herself tired of her accomplices? Let the accusations – and the bullets – fly.

The obvious touchstone can be found in the brief summary above, though clocking in at a crisp 61 minutes, the script does avoid the rambling on about tipping, the meaning of Madonna songs and the other verbal diarrhea which bog just about all of Tarantino’s scripts down. It’s ironic – presumably deliberately – that the Executives explicitly state they take inspiration from the likes of Point Break, while appearing to be blissfully ignorant of the closest parallel for their actual situation. I note that Notarile’s Blinky Productions, as well as original films, make fan films using characters such as Daredevil or Snake Plissken. This feels a little too close to a fan tribute to Reservoir Dogs; given my general skepticism over Tarantino (Kill Bill 1 aside), that’s a mixed blessing.

However, there’s still plenty to enjoy here, even for a Quentinophobe like myself. Notarile has a very good eye for action, directing it with a crisp efficiency that clearly captures what’s going on, generating tension and urgency. The bank-robbery which opens proceedings, for instance, would not be out of place in any Hollywood movie, it’s that slick. Similarly, the gunplay never succumbs to the sloppily-shot mentality, where the only way to figure out what’s going on, is to count the bodies afterwards and see who’s missing. The performances are also solid, with Evans and Santiago the most impressive, though all the characters are drawn and fleshed out effectively.

On the down side, there’s some plot holes that stood out. For instance, why do the gang simply dump the cop in a room, not bothering to handcuff him to anything? And why does he attach a tracker to the van? He has an informant, just ask her where their hide-out is. Something also felt fractionally “off” about the editing of the dialogue. The pacing and rhythm was sometimes weird, as if the conversations were spliced together from multiple different takes, and as a result, don’t always flow as they should.

All told, however, these are small quibbles, and the bottom line is: we enjoyed it. Someone should give Blinky enough money for a proper movie – but I suspect, Notarile will likely keep on making films, whether anyone does or not! I’ll be looking out for them.

[Director Chris Notarile emailed us to say, “The reason why the tracking device was on the van at all was pretty simple. It was part of Cole’s plan. If he were to call the cops in, and ______ (spoiler!) was going to be his informant, it would be best if he made it look as official as possible. A tracking device seemed cooler than him just randomly knowing or popping up. As for him being locked up, the girls didn’t think he’d break free the first time, but he did – thus Fox cuffed him the second time.]

Dir: Chris R. Notarile
Star: Mandy Evans, Kim Santiago, Kerri Miller, Roberto Lombardi

Warriors of the Apocalypse

  By

★
“We watch this shit, so you don’t have to.”

And winner of ‘Least Accurate Movie Tag-line of 2011’ goes to this one, by a country mile. “Sucker Punch on steroids”? Well, let me tell you something. I know Sucker Punch. And Warriors, you’re no Sucker Punch. The drugs reference is fitting, though I’m thinking less steroids, and more likely an overdose of Vicodin. Everything about this, from martial-arts fights staged at the speed of a reluctant glacier, through lighting of scenes that’s so poor as often to be non-existent and obvious digital gunfire [as seen in an extended scrap-yard gun-battle, without any glass being shattered at all], to a painful, sludgecore metal soundtrack presumably made by some mate of the producers, combine into a deeply uninteresting viewing experience.

It takes place after the apocalypse, when society has devolved into an almost entirely feral state outside the cities, where a small number of the population survive, and jealously guard their privileges, restricting entry to their number. The rest of the country is left to fend for itself, desperately seeking for what it can to survive in the ruins. Through this blasted land drive Luca (Caine) and her two female friends, with the aim of getting into a city, and with no intention of letting anyone get in their way. This is clear from their first encounter, when a routine stop for water becomes the first in a series of confusingly-composed battles, against an already resident group of scavengers. As well as the locals, they also have to handle soldiers dispatched by city dictator Rollins (D), who is out to stop them reaching their goal.

The lead actresses aren’t bad, even Caine, a veteran of low-rent soft-porn like Lord of the G-Strings. That’s the only positive thing I can say about this, and they certainly deserve an awful lot better than this strictly-amateur effort [and, as we’ve seen already this month with Carlito’s Angels, I have a decent tolerance for microbudget cinema]. But I got bored very quickly with the poorly-staged action, and a cinematographer who thought he could regenerate the missing excitement by shaking the camera violently. How bad was this? I started playing with the Kindle application on my phone…and didn’t even have any books on it to read. Yes: a useless Android app was more engaging and interesting. World War III, as depicted here in copious stock footage of atomic bombs, would actually come as a relief.

[Update: January 2017] Goddamit. Slightly over five years later, I sat and watched this entire piece of garbage again, under an alternate title. I was about to start my review, and it was only when I went to the IMDb page, and saw I’d already rated it, that I discovered it was a rewatch. It failed to hold my attention on a repeat viewing either, and I once again started playing with my phone instead of watching the film!

Dir: Len Kabasinski
Star: Darian Caine, Pamela Sutch, Brian Anthony, Debbie D
a.k.a. Apocalypse Female Warriors

Carlito’s Angels

  By

★★
“Do we really need a ghetto, microbudget version of Charlie’s Angels? But then, did we really need the TV reboot?”

In many ways, this is wretched beyond belief, crippled by near non-existent production values and likely only to appeal to those who live in the urban culture depicted. And yet… For every moment of wince-inducing idiocy [Agustin appears to be a big fan of Benny Hill, using speeded-up footage for “humourous” effect more than once], there were moments of surreal charm. For instance, “Captions for the Hispanic-impaired,” or the really terrible fight scene which breaks the fourth wall, turning into a “making of” segment which (and I can attest to this) accurately depicts the hell of being a microbudget moviemaker. Or that the large family of children belonging to one of the Angels includes a bearded midget. “He just showed up one day. Hey, he buys groceries, it’s cool” is her casual explanation.

As you’d expect, it’s a spoof, with the three leading ladies living in Harlem, and as in the original, getting their orders from Charlie by phone – except, here, that’s because he’s locked up in jail. While sent undercover at a strip-club, supposedly to track down some white girl whose sleeping with a local guy, they overhear their landlord Big Lou (Reynosa) getting a loan from the Mafia guy who owns the club. He promises to pay the loan back by fixing the “boleta,” the local numbers game. They’re not going to tolerate this attack on an integral part of their culture, so have to stop him and his associate, Triple Gauge, before they can bring this heinous plot to completion.

Credit the three leads for giving their all, attacking their characters with a great deal of energy, that helps overcome some of the obvious limitations. I’m pretty sure a lot of cultural references went whizzing way above my head, but as the kids say, I’m “down” enough [Phoenix is pretty Hispanic] to be able to get a good chunk. The plot is pretty awful, the action falls short of even the 1970’s original version, and there’s way too much yapping, of a style generally seen on afternoon talk-shows. But there’s a sense the people involved have genuine enthusiasm, and made it for the love of film-making. At barely an hour between (rather nifty) comic-book styled opening credits and (entirely unfunny) bloopers which close things out, it can hardly be accused of overstaying its welcome. I probably enjoyed it more than the grade above suggests, but I own the very substantial tolerance for poverty-row productions required; your reaction will likely depend on that.

Dir: Agustin
Star: Evly Pacheco, Alessandra Ramos, Jeni Garcia, Raymond Reynosa

The Breakout

  By

★★★½
“Really, DVD company? “Ultimate chick fighting”? Sheesh.”

S’funny what you stumble across on Netflix, at the end of a long chain of “See also…” recommendations came this, which according to the Amazon listing, this was “the first ever all women’s Mixed Martial Arts fight card.” Which it isn’t. I can state this for a fact, because we already reviewed Hook ‘n’ Shoot: Revolution, from almost five years prior to this night in Minnesota. This has similar strengths and weaknesses: there are clearly a number of talented women fighters, but it’s hard to put together a card without mismatches.

The most obvious one here is a main event which pitted Megumi Fujii against local fighter Cody Welchlin. Fujii was a perfect 10-0, while Welchlin had exactly one fight on her record. I read online Welchlin was a late replacement, and if so credit is due for taking on one of the top fighters in the world at two weeks notice. However, the result was exactly as you’d expect, and over inside three minutes [Fujii has subsequently become only the second MMA fighter of either sex to start her career going 22-0 – and the consensus is, the sole defeat on her record was a highly-dubious loss]. The penultimate fight between another local, Kelly Kobold and Adrienna Jenkins, was more even, with both fighters having double-digits victories. But Kobold charged in from the get-go, and never let up, even raining up punches when Jenkins was above her, and those blows resulted in a verbal submission at 3:26 in the first round.

Three minutes was about the average length of the bouts; Ginele Marquez got a rear naked choke on her opponent Liz Posener at the 3:16 mark in her bout. Marquez had Gina Carano in her corner: Carano is not just one of the top fighters in women’s MMA, she’s also the star of the upcoming Stephen Soderbergh flick Haywire. Was quite surprised the production didn’t mention her presence at all, as they did speak to some of the male MMA artists present, such as Jens Pulver [who was Jenkins’ fiancé]. Erin Toughill, another noted name, was also involved, doing colour work round the cage, and the production came over as generally slick and professional.

The shortest match of the night – lasting exactly one minute – was a bit unfortunate, as Shayna Baszler actually broke the arm of her opponent, Samantha Anderson. She was applying a submission hold on the arm, but it seemed that Baszler fell forward, resulting in the pressure being made much worse, and resulting in a clean break of her humerus. Ouch. The opening contest [on the DVD – there was an amateur fight not included for some reason] was the only one that lasted longer than one five minute round, with Marissa Inhofer beating Kirsty Bushnell. As well as being the brother of another MMA figher [Nick Inhofer was on The Ultimate Fighter 3] Inhofer was a roller-derby girl, and seemed to have brought a large contingent of her team-mates with her.

I can’t claim to be an expert in MMA, but as noted, the ‘Ultimate Chick Fighting!’ tag on the DVD sleeve does the women involved a disservice. As one of the commentators pointed out, “Pain doesn’t discriminate,” and it was also noted that it’s harder for women, since they typically have to hold down a full-time job, as well as fit in the rigourous training required. Respect is definitely in order. However, at the point of this event (March 2007), there still seems to be a lack of depth in the talent pool, which leaves a card like this short of truly successful.

Star: Megumi Fujii, Kelly Kobald, Adrienna Jenkins, Cody Welchlin

Nexus: The Drug Conspiracy

  By

★★
“You’ll probably need some drugs to get through this one.”

If you’re going to use a cover like this, you’d better live up to it, even if we can forgive the heels as artistic license. And while not a complete lie, this takes far too long to deliver, and comes up short of expectations. Holly (Kosaka) is a nightclub singer, separated from her husband, who got custody of their daughter due to a DUI Holly got, with the daughter in the car. On arrival at his house to pick up their child for a scheduled visit, she finds him missing – and a gun in the basement, along with a case of drugs. She calls the police, but ends up getting arrested after the police find her husband’s body, and her fingers on the murder weapon, which has mysteriously moved from the basement to the scene of the crime. The drugs have also vanished; while held in jail over the weekend, Holly gets a visit from their owner, who busts her out and insists she return with him and his thugs to the house to show her where they are. Can she escape their grasp, rescue her daughter and find out who the real murderer was?

Among the things we learn from the movie is that trees give off a shower of sparks when hit by bullets, there are only three cops per American town, and getting shot in the knee doesn’t slow you down. Yeah. I can forgive many things in low-budget films, but stupidity isn’t one of them, and too often, we were left rolling our eyes as the story developed. Kosaka isn’t bad in the lead role, and shows a commendable willingness to do stunt, not least being swept down some fairly nasty-looking rapids, as she tries to escape from her pursuers. It’s only then that the film develops any real energy, Holly developing in to a (somewhat) unstoppable force, prepared to go to any lengths to save her offspring.

If they’d adopted this approach from the beginning – hell hath no fury like a separated mother – this might have been salvageable, even on the low budget. They could even have lobben in her using the new drug mentioned here, Nexus – a mix between cocaine and ecstacy – to sustain her rampage. Just a thought. Instead, the script spends way too much time hanging around and chatting about things, instead of doing them, and the results are as pedestrian as you would expect.

Dir: Neil Coombs
Star: Grace Kosaka, Andrew Kraulis, Jefferson Mappin, Nick Alachiotis

6 Guns

  By

★★★½
“Hannie Caulder with less cleavage. And no Christopher Lee.”

The Asylum studio are infamous for producing ‘mockbusters’ – straight to DVD look-alikes of big-budget movies, designed to benefit from their publicity budgets. These have included their own versions of Sherlock Holmes and War of the Worlds, but they do make their own original works, including cheesy delights such as Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, starring 80’s popsters Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. They come in for a lot of flak as a result – some justified, some not, for this is neither mockbuster nor cheesy, and is surprisingly solid, if you want a straightforward Western tale of revenge. Selina Stevens (Mears) has to watch as her husband and two young sons are killed by Lee Horn (Mead) and his gang; she is brutally raped and left for dead, beginning a decline into alcoholic despair. Having reached bottom, she meets bounty-hunter Frank Allison (Van Dyke), and asks him to teach her how to shoot – conveniently, just as Horn’s crew start to make their way back to town. The townsfolk’s repeated affirmations that they feel safer with Frank around, might have been a bit premature.

Ok, ‘original’ might be a bit of a stretch, as the storyline is more than a bit reminiscent of Hannie Caulder [which I must get round to reviewing at some point], though sensibly reins back the glamour Raquel Welch provided there. On its own merits, however, this is based on a solid trio of central performances, with Mead particularly memorable as the black-hearted thug – in an interesting twist, it’s revenge which also triggers his initial assault on Stevens’ family. Selina’s transition to a gunslinger is nicely handled; she doesn’t exactly become a sharpshooter – but when opportunity presents itself, can shoot a fairly stationary target at shortish range, which is credible. Against this its low-budget nature is highly-obvious, with the “town” inhabited by about 12 people, and the action in general could have been spliced in from any randomly-selected 1950’s oater.

This remains a decent tale, satisfactorily told, with interesting characters, good performances and more than a local resonance, given its placedropping of Arizona names. And in case you’re wondering, no, there are not six guns in the movie, despite the title [depending on the count, there might be five or seven…] Still, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that this doesn’t fall in the upper echelon of the studio’s movies: this kind of thing should escape from The Asylum more often.

Dir: Shane Van Dyke
Star: Sage Mears, Barry Van Dyke, Geoff Meed, Greg Evigan

Colombiana

  By

★★★
“The revenge and hit-woman genres could cross-pollinate each other. Just not here.”

There are moments where this seems to have the potential to break out beyond its story, but once you get past the strong central core, the script has very little to offer. Cataleya (Saldana) narrowly escapes death when her parents are killed on the orders of their gangster employer, Don Luis. She flees from Colombia to Chicago and is raised by a family friend, but never forgets where she came from, and has revenge on her mind. Grown-up, she becomes a hit-woman, but has a side-project of payback. She has an occasional boyfriend (Vartan) who knows little about her, and a dogged FBI agent (James), intent on tracking down the mysterious, elusive killer. Y’know: all the usual baggage that goes along with being an assassin.

The action, however, is what rescues this, and when the heroine is in motion, it’s generally fluid and effective. There are two sequences in particular that stand out: Cataleya’s hit of a gangster in prison, and the final showdown where she goes to Don Luis’s headquarters, and takes on… Well, to borrow a famous line from another Besson script, “Everyone!” They are well-staged, with Saldana showing flexibility and athleticism of an impressive degree (Besson’s fondness for parkour also shows up). However, between these two, there isn’t much to speak of; a third sequence, involving a swimming-pool filled with sharks(!) fails, mostly because you’re wondering why the hell Cataleya opted to swim across said pool rather than – oh, I dunno – walking around it?

The background stuff doesn’t work either, particularly the efforts to give her a normal life, which seem both perfunctory and contrived, and Vartan’s role is entirely pointless in emotional terms. I suspect, going by past history, Besson would have been better off directing this himself, not giving it to the man who handled the eminently forgettable Red Siren and Transporter 3. This might be as close to a Leon sequel as we’ll ever get. However, a while back, probably nearly 15 years ago now, I came up with an idea for a film about a woman who witnessed her family being killed, and a decade later, came back for her revenge. I even got as far as starting on a script. While I’m probably biased, I’m pretty sure it was better than Colombiana.

Dir: Olivier Megaton
Star: Zoe Saldana, Lennie James, Michael Vartan, Jordi Molla

Sweet Karma

  By

★★★½
“Hang on: I thought revenge was sweet, not karma? Oh, well: never mind.”

After she gets word, back in their native Russia, that her sister has been killed in Toronto, Karma (Bechard) vows revenge on those responsible. This pulls her in to a seedy, dangerous world of sex trafficking, with women being lured from Eastern Europe to the West, with the promise of legitimate jobs, only to forced on arrival into working as strippers or worse, by the criminal elements who organize and run the business, with a fist of iron. As Karma stabs, shoots and bludgeons her way up the chain of command, those at the top grow increasingly restless. Initially, they think a rival gang is responsible, but the evidence eventually convinces them Karma is, indeed, a bitch,

This was better than I expected, with the obviously low budget working more for the film than against it, enhancing the ‘grindhouse’ feel that you have here – Karma is mute, which adds a definite resonance of Ms. 45 or Thriller: A Cruel Picture, though little more than that. It’s certainly not short on nudity and violence, but rarely topples over the edge into gratuitous, being largely necessary to bring out exactly how callous those are, treating the women as nothing more than slabs of meat, as in the scene where the girls “learn” pole-dancing.

After the initial death – an assault using office supplies, whose aftermath has Karma puking her guts out into a waste-paper basket – it does take a little while to get back to the nitty-gritty. There’s also a mis-step towards the end, where attention is diverted from the heroine, to an undercover cop (Tokatlidis) who is none too pleased to have his case threatened by an avenging angel. And some of the dialogue is a little too Tarantino-esque, e.g. burbling on about hockey. Well, it is Canadian, I guess.

However, the pluses generally outnumber the minutes, with some imaginative deaths, not least the pimp lured into a bathroom and offered “cocaine” by Karma. Bechard, despite her lack of dialogue, does a good job of putting across the determination she feels in pursuing her goal, and I liked the throbbing techno soundtrack which underscores proceedings. I’m also pleased to see it avoid the faux trappings of some recent genre entries, such as Machete. I was expecting something a good deal shinier, shallower and, well, shittier; instead, it’s a grubby and fairly serious look into a world which we probably would rather ignore.

Dir: Andrew Thomas Hunt
Star: Shera Bechard, John Tokatlidis, Frank J. Zupancic, Christian Bako

No Contest II: Access Denied

  By

★★½
“Second time’s the not-so charming.”

In many ways, this is a shameless rip-off of a shameless rip-off, trying to recapture the success of the original. It’s not quite as successful, lacking the gleeful sense of energy which help its predecessor overcome its (obvious) limitations. Once more, Tweed plays action actress Sharon Bell, this time filming her latest work in Eastern Europe. She arranges for the film to do some location work in a gallery owned by sister, Bobbi (Heitmeyer), which is just about to open an exhibition, showcasing artefacts that were looted by the Nazis in World War II. The gallery is taken over by Eric Dane (Henriksen) and his crew, who seal the place off from the outside world, intent in stealing a lethal German nerve agent hidden in the base of one of the sculptures. Unfortunately, inside at the time are both sisters, along with the movie director Jack Terry (Payne), who is scouting the place out.

To be honest, the plot makes little sense. Why does Dane – who has apparently had access to the statue for quite some time – wait until it is installed in the gallery, behind a hefty security system, before going after the nerve-gas? And when he does, his subsequent actions and plan seem to be designed more to artificially generate tension for the movie plot, than any practical purpose: for example, his decision to leave one of the canisters, attached to an unstoppable time, in an air-duct, while he is still present in the sealed building. Meanwhile, the heroes prove adept at fashioning tear-gas and lethal blow-darts from everyday materials (or, at least, everyday materials for an art gallery).

If you don’t look too hard, this is still passably entertaining, with the art gallery providing an interesting location for some battles (the cat-fight between Sharon and Dane’s henchwoman comes to mind, ending on a piece of unfortunately-pointy artwork). Henriksen us good value as ever in the psycho role, e.g. shooting people because they can’t deliver Shakespeare to his liking and, while Payne is better known as a villain, he does decent work here in a more sympathetic role. However, the film doesn’t use them as effectively as before, and the film needs to be less obviously stage-managed towards its conclusion, which is obvious well before it happens. The flaws are likely not much worse here – just a little more obvious.

Dir: Paul Lynch
Star: Shannon Tweed, Lance Henriksen, Bruce Payne, Jayne Heitmeyer
a.k.a. Face the Evil

No Contest

  By

★★★
“No originality, no budget… But no disaster, either.”

An almost-entirely shameless Die Hard rip-off, this stars Tweed as Shannon Bell, the host of a beauty-pageant, which is interrupted by Oz (Clay) and his gang, who take a half-dozen of the beauty-queens and Bell hostage, up in the penthouse, and demand $10 million in diamonds for their release. Bell manages to slip away and, fortunately, her character is an actress, famous for playing action heroines [yeah, it’s all a bit ‘meta’ – except, it came out in 1992, largely before ‘meta’ became popular…]. So she gets to go all John McClane on their asses, crawling round air-ducts and assisting ex-federal agent Crane (Davi), who was bodyguarding one of the participants, who is a politician’s daughter, but popped outside the building for a fortunately-timed smoke.

The script is hackneyed, certainly, but it’s a stellar B-movie cast, that works well, and largely keeps things entertaining. This is where the thought has gone in. While Oz is undeniably brutal, he is as far from Hans Gruber as can be imagined, a foulmouth sleazeball rather than a suave sophisticat, and Bell, similarly, is the opposite of McClane, despite her action pedigree (one character describes the roles she plays as, “Bruce Lee with boobs”). Endearingly, she bursts into tears after she has to kill someone. Davi, of course, was in the original, playing Special Agent Johnson [“No – the other one…”], and we’ll watch anything with Piper in it, after They Live. It’s clear Tweed is not exactly in the realm of Lee, but does credibly enough to paper over the cracks, action-wise, and perhaps surprisingly, keeps her clothes entirely on.

Things do fall apart at the finale, which is convoluted and strained, to say the least: the film is much better when sticking to its basic premise – or, more accurately, someone else’s basic premise. But, having sat through much the same film with Anna Nicole Smith in the lead, this is an enormous improvement. Certainly, it’s cheap and cheerful, the kind of thing you can imagine seeing in an early 90’s videostore, with an appropriately lurid cover. But it is entertaining, and given the sights of the makers were clearly aimed no higher than that, has to be judged a success.

Dir: Paul Lynch
Star: Shannon Tweed, Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay, Roberto Davi, Roddy Piper