Sworn to Justice (1996)

PLOT: After her sister and nephew are murdered during a break-in at her home,  a psychologist must pick up the shattered fragments of her life. Will she be doomed to step on tiny shards she may have missed during the clean-up? (It’s tough to find them all with high pile carpeting).

Director: Paul Maslak
Writers: Robert Easter, Paul Maslak, Neva Friedenn
Cast: Cynthia Rothrock, Kurt McKinney, Tony Lo Bianco, Kenn Scott, Katie Mitchell, Mako, Brad Dourif, Max Thayer, Vince Murdocco, Eric Lee, Art Camacho, Ian Jacklin

PLOT THICKENER

Beginning in 1985, Cynthia Rothrock appeared in seven Hong Kong action films over four years, smack dab in the middle of the territory’s cinematic golden age. They didn’t all reach the cinematic high of Yes, Madam! but this run of films was instrumental in making her a star. She parlayed this status into steady paychecks and softer landings in an American film industry that was less mindful of the level of effort that went into action choreography, and much easier on the bodies of its performers. She worked steadily in the U.S. after her time abroad -- starring in five films in 1990 alone, and ten films between 1992 and 1994 -- but by the mid 1990s that pace had slowed considerably. In spite of this, Rothrock used Paul Maslak’s 1996 debut film, Sworn to Justice to effectively point down at her hypothetical diamond-encrusted name plate necklace (“ACTION SUPERSTAR”) to remind all of us that she still ran the game.

Janna (Rothrock) comes home during a home invasion to find her nephew murdered and her sister succumbing to fatal injuries. She escapes a similar fate from the same violent burglars but incurs trauma to her head during a daring escape. The upside? By touching any object, she now has the psychic ability of psychometry, which allows her to “see” the recent past of anyone else who has touched it previously. This might come in handy with her day job as a psychologist at Forensitec, where she works as an expert witness for criminal defense lawyers, but it’s tough to focus on work with hunky new copyright lawyer and publisher, Nicholas (McKinney) strutting around the office. Her boss, Lorraine (Mitchell) think she’s coming back to work too early after the tragedy, but Janna needs a healthy distraction from the sputtering investigation led by Detective Briggs (Lo Bianco), still ongoing at her home.

Idle hands hands do the devil’s work, and Janna can’t help from using her newfound abilities to solve the crime for herself. What starts off as some harmless snooping soon turns into her dispensing vigilante justice on a nightly basis to the city’s criminals. All the while, a major court case looms and she’s beginning to fall in love with Nicholas. Will the local crime kingpin, Eugene (Scott) squash her efforts before she can find the men responsible for her family members’ deaths? In a world full of shadows, who can she really trust? And how can she really be falling for a guy who wears tighty whities?

This film has it all: action, melodrama, martial-arts-sparring-as-foreplay, and a terrific cast. I’m a sucker for a star-studded ensemble, but very few films in our wheelhouse ever approach the dense clustering of b-movie action stars that Sworn to Justice manages. Ian Jacklin, a guy who has starred in his own films and appeared in countless others, shows up for a cameo where he spouts three lines and gets thrown through an office window! Max Thayer, the Han Solo of No Retreat, No Surrender 2, shows up in an arrowhead bolo tie and slick hair for a quick cigarette and some hearty laughs at an office party! Art Camacho robs an armored truck, Vince Murdocco is a meathead gang member, and Mako gets three scenes as a blind guy who runs a newstand in a lobby. This is Cynthia Rothrock’s constellation of friends, and they’ll happily put in a day’s work and get paid in meatball subs.

This film does a fair amount of thematic shape-shifting over the course of its 90 minutes -- psychological thriller, court-room drama, romantic romp -- but it’s an action film at heart, so let’s start there. The opening is a damn barn-burner! Janna fights the home invaders tooth-and-nail, throwing one guy through a glass table and smashing another guy’s head through a vase. As another aggressor unleashes a barrage of gunshots, she runs *through* a glass door to her balcony, and continues to outrun the gunfire. When she reaches the railing, she throws herself off to evade the thieves and falls about two or three stories through the branches and foliage of a tree before landing on the manicured lawn below. Considering the variety and intensity of the action in the opening, it’s a little puzzling how the rest of these scenes took shape.

Both Eric Lee and Tak Yuen (Douglas Kung in the credits) were credited as fight choreographers on this set, with Art Camacho acting as second unit director. I won’t use the differences in the fight scene quality to criticize any of the personnel, but they are worth pointing out. One scene in the storage room of a convenience store has Janna fighting off some would-be robbers with a lethal combination duct tape, cardboard, and slapstick, complete with cartoon sound effects. Oh, and Latin instrumental pop music!

A fight scene later in the film features Janna fighting off Eugene’s gang in his chop shop. One sequence has her fighting an attacker on the roof of the car before the action spills to the floor and leads to a fast exchange of blocking-and-punching techniques (i.e., the closest the film gets to Hong Kong style fight choreography). The fighter then tries to electrocute Janna with car battery cables before being downed for good. What’s my point with all these details? They demonstrate major differences in the underlying tones of each fight scene -- one comedic and clumsy, one gritty and technical -- and different approaches to how the action flows from shot to shot. For some that’s a draw, for others it’s a hurdle.

This might be the best acting we’ve ever seen from Rothrock, and from a dramatic perspective, Maslak makes sure she runs the gauntlet: there are crying scenes, flirty scenes, fighting scenes, love scenes, and intense scenes in which she has to hold her own alongside seasoned actors like Dourif and Lo Bianco. Her and McKinney have a genuine chemistry and it was surprisingly enjoyable to watch that relationship play out. Now, I’m no James Lipton and this ol’ blog is chewed gum on the underside of the table where they film Inside the Actors’ Studio, but I was really impressed by the completeness of her performance. In the past, most directors for her American films had a tendency to leave her out to dry with awkward dialogue and unearned emotion; that’s (mostly) not the case here. Maslak’s direction is good, and Rothrock is great as a result.

The only thing that may have surprised me more than Rothrock’s solid acting was Kenn Scott’s turn as a dickish villain. As an actor of somewhat short stature and relaxed demeanor, he was convincing as a bullying victim who learns to defend himself in 1994’s Showdown. He even played a Ninja Turtle (not here, I hope). Everything about what we know about Scott as an on-screen performer screams wholesome. But between his snarky insults, brutal methods of intimidation, and a blazer at least two sizes too big for him, he manages to make Eugene the sort of jerk we love to hate. (To that end, his hoop earrings and stubbly beard evoke roughly one-fifth of all late-‘90s boy-band members).

VERDICT

Even though Sworn to Justice is a later Cynthia Rothrock film, and the fight scene quality is all over the place like your grandma after three mint juleps, and it wasn’t filmed by Godfrey Ho in the state of Maryland, I dug this film on balance. Between the great cast of familiar faces, the solid action, a wacky story, and a pace that keeps you engaged, this film offers plenty of positives for Rothrock fans and fight film aficionados alike. Recommended.

AVAILABILITY

Currently streaming on Amazon Prime. DVD on Amazon, Netflix, or eBay.

4.5 / 7

Deadly Bet (1992)

PLOT: A drunken, degenerate, kickboxing gambler must overcome his vices to regain his self-esteem, his money, and the woman he loves. But mostly, his money.

Director: Richard W. Munchkin
Writer: Joseph Merhi, Robert Tiffe
Cast: Jeff Wincott, Steven Vincent Leigh, Charlene Tilton, Michael Delano, Mike Toney, Ian Jacklin, Gerald Okamura, Ron Hall, Gary Daniels

PLOT THICKENER

I’ve only been there once, but I can say from experience that when Las Vegas puts its hooks in you, it can be hard to break free. One minute you’re walking around on the casino floor, slack-jawed and overstimulated, and the next minute you’re $2,000 in the red, wondering where it all went wrong and why you’re wearing mismatched sneakers. (Don’t ask). Director Richard Munchkin and PM Entertainment honcho Joseph Merhi originally met in the City of Lights, so it’s no wonder that Vegas was often featured as a setting in many PM films. In 1992’s Deadly Bet, it’s also the antagonist.

Angelo (Wincott) and Isabella (Tilton) are a young couple on the verge of a move, trading the neon of Las Vegas for the natural wild of Colorado. This particular night finds them exchanging a hearty goodbye with Isabella’s lounge-singer brother, Frank (real-life entertainer Jerry Tiffe) before Angelo announces that he needs to settle a debt of $1,000. The creditor in this situation is Rico (Leigh) a suave fight promoter and fighter who gives Angelo the chance to settle the debt by taking a new bet on two fighters currently in the ring. Angelo’s fighter wins! The couple celebrates over drinks! A steamed Rico finds them later in the evening and challenges Angelo to a fight for even more money. This time Angelo not only loses, but made the foolish mistake of putting Isabella up as collateral. She begrudgingly goes home with Rico, but not before slapping Angelo in the face for his dumb deeds and broken promises.

Broken, alone, and flat-broke, Angelo must decide between two paths. One: cease gambling, get sober, and win back everything that he’s lost. Two: get shit-faced, owe more people even more money that he doesn’t have, and act like a total asshole. As you can probably guess, he spends a lot of time in this story stumbling down path #2 before he reverses course to take the first one. Along the way, he bets on college basketball, drinks whisky, sniffs the clothing Isabella left behind, and is forced into working as muscle for a bookie named Greek (Delano), who oddly decides not to go by "The Greek," perhaps because he's not really Greek. Neither was The Greek though!

This wasn’t Wincott’s first time at the chopsocky rodeo -- see Martial Law II -- but it would mark his first time as the leading actor in your standard 1990s kickboxing tournament feature. It also marked his last time in this sort of movie, which might demonstrate that you can only go so far working in that sub-subgenre. Much to my surprise, this was also the first of only two films he did with PM Entertainment, the other being 1996’s Last Man Standing, which I maintain is one of their top three films ever. This is just further evidence that unlike a lot of chopsocky stars who stay in their lane, Jeff Wincott is full of surprises. He attended the prom in Prom Night. He did a romantic comedy with Adrien Brody. He even beat up Dave Matthews. Not surprisingly, Wincott is the best part about this movie, and I say this as someone who is perversely obsessed with Zubaz pants and poorly lit action scenes.

The action scenes are fine by PM Entertainment standards, which is to say, 'poor' by 1980s Hong Kong standards and 'borderline genius' by 1960s Star Trek episode standards. For me, there were two stand-out fights worth mentioning. The random alley confrontation between Angelo and a group of thugs led by stunt stalwart Art Camacho is punctuated by some humorous dialogue where Angelo details his losses from that day before fighting off his would-be muggers. It made sense in the context of the plot and added a light, self-aware touch to the hero’s circumstances. The other fight of significance is the climactic blow-off between Rico and Angelo. It has drama, some blood, and decent kicks that make both fighters look competent, but the fight is also preceded by one of the most blatantly homoerotic pre-match stare-downs I’ve ever seen. Apropos of nothing, Angelo decides to jump up on the top rope in his corner in a split-legged position while flexing, and Rico’s face lights up like he just got served a plate of filet mignon after two months of forced Tofurky dinners. While the tone is not exactly foreign to a genre where muscular dudes beat the shit out of each other, it was a weird moment.

We’ve seen some wacky tournament fighting before, but the tournament featured in Deadly Bet stretches the laws of time, fashion, and even spelling. Greek tells Angelo it’s a 50-man tournament. OK then. The tournament then unfolds over the course of a single night. I hate to drop math on you guys, but assuming it’s a single elimination tournament, 50 fighters means 49 matches. How the hell are you going to get through 49 matches in one night? The sartorial choices add further confusion to the proceedings. Some of the fighters, Angelo included, don the unfortunate combination of bike shorts with white cross-trainers, giving this tournament the appearance of uncool dads fighting each other to exhaustion. And last, one of the people keeping tabs on the brackets spells Rico’s name wrong on the whiteboard. Whoever organized this tournament (hint: it was Rico) performed no quality control whatsoever, and really should have hired an event planner.

Regardless of the significance of their roles, there are plenty of faces in the film that will be familiar to fans of action b-movies. Gary Daniels shows up for a brief, non-speaking role as the fighter who wins Angelo a bunch of Rico’s money to set the plot in motion. Ron Hall took a small part as a tournament fighter. Ian Jacklin shows up as a shaggy bartender who tangles with Angelo over unpaid debts to Greek. And even Gerald Okamura (listed in the credits as his Irish doppelgänger, Gerald O'Hamura) gets in the ring for an underground fight -- and wins!  Didn’t catch James Lew or Al Leong anywhere, but there *was* a scene where Isabella visits a hair salon. Maybe they were getting their hair did.

VERDICT

Deadly Bet is one of several love letters from PM Entertainment to the city of Las Vegas. But instead of affectionate words, the letter is actually just a 47-page storyboard of Jeff Wincott repeatedly kicking motherfuckers in the face. The boozy, sin-soaked Vegas kickboxing film seems to be an actual THING (recall To Be the Best) and I’m going to chase down more movies like this one.

AVAILABILITY 

Amazon, eBay.

4 / 7

American Streetfighter (1992)

PLOT: A successful businessman leaves the lap of luxury to save his estranged younger brother from an underground kickboxing ring. Unfortunately, the airline screwed up and he’s really pissed about having to fly coach along the way.

Director: Steve Austin
Writer: David Huey
Cast: Gary Daniels, Ian Jacklin, Gerald Okamura, Roger Yuan, Tracy Dali, Kent Ducanon, Andrew Cooper




PLOT THICKENER
“Youth is wasted on the young,” said George Bernard Shaw, a man I once believed to be a curmudgeonly dickhead. It wasn’t until I turned into one myself that I discovered he was totally right! Young people have boundless energy and opportunities but spend most of their days finding ways to fuck it up. The bubble of youth is the best time to make those mistakes, though. American Streetfighter, a 1992 Silver Screen movie starring Gary Daniels, explores this idea of youthful indiscretion and the relationships that suffer as a result. It also answers the age-old question: is a funeral parlor a good setting for a samurai sword fight?

As evidenced by his tassled leather jacket, acid wash jeans, and poor decision making, Jake Tanner (Daniels) is a young punk mixed up with the wrong crowd. After he and his fellow gang member, Ito (Yuan), rig up a jukebox with explosives to damage a local business, they realize innocent people were inside! They run back to save them, but the hapless potential victims are packing heat and open fire. Jake escapes with his life, but Ito is shot dead. To be more accurate, Jake drives off after Ito is shot, but still alive. Because Jake drove off, Ito is stuck waiting around to be shot again.

Years later, Jake has moved on to bigger and better things in his new life in Hong Kong. Leather jackets and unkempt locks have given way to power suits and a greasy ponytail. His shitty getaway car has evolved into a shitty office with a drop ceiling and poor lighting. Dead business deals have replaced dead friends. During a late night at the office, he receives a troubling phone call from his mother: Randy is in trouble. Wait, who’s Randy? Oh right, the younger brother in the picture Jake is now holding.

Randy (Jacklin), is a rising star in the world of underground fighting. When Jake arrives after his latest fight to discourage this behavior, Randy rejects the advice. After all, Jake ran away following his own transgressions and left his sibling alone to fend for himself during his formative years.

A shrewd businessman if there ever was one, Jake approaches the fight circuit boss, Ogawa (Okamura) and asks to buy out Randy’s contract. When Ogawa rebuffs, Jake instead offers to take Randy’s place as a fighter-by-proxy. For reasons known only to screenwriter David Huey, Ogawa totally goes for it. Jake gets his ass handed to him in his first competitive fight -- even suffering the indignity of being repeatedly whipped with a car antenna -- and retreats to the home of his master’s daughter, Rose (Dali), to lick his wounds. While there, he goes through a rigorous rehabilitation program under the supervision of Rose’s adolescent son, whose martial arts knowledge is informed by his rabid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fandom. Once he’s fully healed, Jake is joined by his master, Nick (Ducanon) and they take the fight to Ogawa’s gang.

If you know his work, the involvement of Expert Weapon’s director, Steven Austin doesn’t inspire much confidence. In fact, if the films I’ve reviewed were holiday desserts, King of the Kickboxers is a delicious pecan pie at the high end of the spectrum, whereas Expert Weapon would be a pile of stale-ass pizzelles or plum pudding. (For continued debate around weak-ass holiday desserts, please leave your thoughts in the comments). This film isn’t nearly as rough as the aforementioned Ian Jacklin joint, but it lacks technical polish -- the soundtrack appears to have been lifted from a mix of 80s porn and an SNK fighting game ported to a 16-bit console -- and the pacing is fairly wonky. Fight circuit backdrop: plastic sheeting and gaudy light colors. The action: occasionally competent but weirdly edited and choreographed. The dialogue: just nevermind, OK? The movie definitely gets points for the feathered locks of Gary Daniels but I don’t think we should give Austin credit for that. (Unless he did hair and make-up. I’ll need to consult the production credits again to confirm).

Out of at least three Daniels films, this is the third in which he’s been drugged or otherwise had his mental acuities compromised. While Daniels needs to keep a better eye on his drink, I suppose putting your martial arts hero on drugs is the logical extension of the “drunken master” trope popularized and codified by Hong Kong kung fu cinema of yesteryear. That said, what drugs would make for the best martial arts movie? Weed would turn any serious fight film into a stoner comedy, so that has crossover appeal. Heroin is too prone to overdose. I’d have to think that something like meth or crack cocaine would yield the best product. If the hero in "Return of the Supreme Crackhead Master" seems too invincible, just put all of the bad guys on bath salts and have them eat the master’s face for the inciting incident. This shit practically writes itself.

This film nips around the edges of some solid and trashy action, but it comes in drips and drabs. The underground fight scenes are comical -- Ian Jacklin’s youthful arrogance is characterized by him flexing his muscles with exaggerated grunts after he strikes (“flex fighting”) --  but also slow and awkward. The same can be said of the stunt work. During a climactic scene involving henchmen on dirt bikes, we see one of the most disproportionately cruel and protracted retaliations by a hero in the history of cinema. After a snazzy dirt bike entrance, a henchman is tossed from his bike, pummeled to the ground, covered in gasoline, and then set ablaze via Zippo by the grizzled, eyepatch-wearing Nick. The whole scene transpired over what seemed like hours and would be right at home in a Videodrome telecast. Then there’s that funeral parlor sword fight, which is plodding despite the inspired mise-en-scene. Remember kids: not even a samurai sword can make a short-sleeve shirt and tie combo look cool.



VERDICT
American Streetfighter is a fight film made on the cheap and punctuated by occasional quirks. The choreographed violence is frequent and often over-the-top (see: aforementioned funeral parlor sword fight). There are curious character ticks galore, a totally hamfisted subplot about dead kickboxers, and more socially awkward moments than at a food packaging convention. (I have no proof, but I’ve always assumed this industry is full of weirdos). The movie works as a cinematic curiosity, but is probably for Daniels and Jacklin completists only.

AVAILABILITY
Amazon, EBay, Netflix.

3 / 7

Death Match (1994)

PLOT: A dockworker's friend goes missing after participating in underground fights to the death. To be more accurate, though, they fight to the death only occasionally. Other times, they just break appendages or fight until one guy gets too tired and falls asleep in the ring.

Director: Joe Cappoletto
Writer: Curtis Gleaves, Bob Wyatt, Steve Tymon
Cast: Ian Jacklin, Martin Kove, Matthias Hues, Michele Krasnoo, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, Eric Lee, Peter Cunningham, Ed Neil, Jorge Rivero, Richard Lynch.


PLOT THICKENER:
I had this post ready to go earlier in the week, but after reading similar coverage over at Comeuppance Reviews, the events of the past 10 days or so made me rethink my jump-off point of positioning Death Match as a DTV answer to The Expendables that happened years ago. Suffice to say, there have been a lot of movies in the martial arts b-movie catalog that stacked their casts with recognizable names. Shootfighter, to name one, featured Martin Kove, Bolo Yeung, John Barrett, Kenn Scott, Hakim Alston, Gerald Okamura, and William Zabka in its cast. That’s enough action b-movie talent to choke a horse! (To be fair, Bolo alone would be sufficient for the task of horse-choking).

Director Joe Cappoletto’s 1994 film Death Match is like Shootfighter on cocaine and redeemed IOUs. He either had a ton of friends in the business or a vast, filthy collection of blackmail material -- this is an incredible cast. So what if there’s no Brian Thompson or James Hong? We get appearances like Eric Lee as a hotel proprietor, Conquest star Jorge Rivero as a crime boss, and pro wrestlers Tony Halme and Debra Micelli as random muscle for short action scenes. Richard Lynch. A dwarf in a do-rag hitting a gong before matches. Benny “The Jet” Urquidez. Two minutes of Ed Neil from Breathing Fire fighting No Retreat No Surrender’s Peter “Sugarfoot” Cunningham. This sort of fanboy casting might be the closest we’ll ever get to Tarantino directing a DTV kickpunching homage.

Death Match stars Canadian kickboxer Ian Jacklin as a dockworker named John Larson. He and his friend Nick Wallace (Hill) are winding down their shift and shooting the shit. When Nick approaches who he assumes is the foreman to collect their paychecks, he's stopped by a bodyguard. A massive brawl ensues and the pair of friends is forced to kick ass. During the skirmish, a broken crate reveals a stash of guns and the heroes make a break for it before things get too heavy.

They head to the local bar to pound beers and lament the loss of their jobs. This is the third time they've lost employment together since moving to Los Angeles! John speculates that he may head north to find work, save money, and head back to college. Nick has other ideas. He recently met a dude at the gym who runs underground fights and they pay handsomely, or at least enough to cover a small studio apartment and the occasional trip to Whole Foods.

The aforementioned dude is Paul Landis (Kove) and as far as crime bosses who are into designer glasses, and own lots of blazers, and have a pool, and enjoy red-rope licorice, and think that crystals give them magical powers, and credit their “edge” on the competition to the use of computers, he’s a tough customer. He’s flanked by right-hand man Mark Vanik (Hues), a smooth-talking hulk who’s a little oversensitive about his hair (he beats up anyone who refers to him as “Goldilocks”). In addition to their underground fight ring, the duo also sells illegal firearms -- like any sound businessmen, they offer multiple products to create more marketing opportunities and diversify their customer portfolio, Procter & Gamble stylee.

Business comes at a cost, which Nick soon discovers first-hand when he fails to kill his opponent during a fight. The crowd voices their disappointment, and no, Nick, they are not mispronouncing your name as “Booowallace.” Landis and Vanik confront him in the locker room about closing the deal and whatever happens next is anyone’s guess, because Nick disappears and John is left with only questions about the whereabouts of his friend and former co-worker.

This is the point where our filmmakers crank the “film noir undertones” knob up to 11, but the knob breaks off at 6 and the machine starts smoking and sparking and then everyone has to evacuate the building because it’s on fire. John cruises around L.A. on his motorcycle and meets all sort of odd characters holding different pieces of the puzzle. Who’s on his side? What does the foxy journalist really want? Why is Michele Krasnoo playing her character like she’s a 12 year-old boy who just bought his first Dr. Dre album?

For the most part, this film delivered the goods. It was well-paced, the characters were interesting, the acting was competent, and the action was solid. I’ve groaned in the past about the constraints of tournament and/or underground fight movies, but I couldn’t find much to malign here because the main story thread was compelling and it moved at a good clip. The fights themselves take place in a variety of settings with all sorts of variables: in a cage, with sticks, on the streets, with boxing gloves, inter-gender, in bars, and even on a military ship. There’s a date montage inter-cut with a training montage, a villain obsessed with crystals and early-90s computer technology, turtlenecks, bolo ties, and strategic conversations while characters are getting massages. Cappoletto went down the fucking martial arts b-movie checklist and ticked all the boxes. Does that make it a little “paint-by-numbers”? I guess, but he colored within the lines and has a creative palette.

VERDICT:
When the novelty of interesting casting choices has worn off, what’s left? That’s the question this or any film which makes a spectacle of its ensemble cast is forced to answer. Fortunately, the filmmakers crafted Death Match as a pacey underground fighting story with film noir flourishes. The fight choreography won’t blow you away, but Ian Jacklin brings improved charisma to the screen, Martin Kove is hitting his rich asshole villain stride with another good performance, and all of the players -- martial artists and otherwise -- fulfill their roles admirably. Recommended.

AVAILABILITY:
VHS, Region 2 DVD, or YouTube.

5 / 7

Capital Punishment (1991)

PLOT: There’s a new and dangerous drug in town, and a secret group of government agents needs the help of a kickboxer to bring down the trafficking ring. See? The road towards a sound federal drug policy is not paved with large-scale crackdowns or even legalization, but with guys like Gary Daniels.

Director: David Huey
Writer: David Huey
Cast: Gary Daniels, David Carradine, Mel Novak, Tadashi Yamashita, Ian Jacklin, Mark Russo, Linda Lightfoot, Scott Shaw, Ava Fabian

PLOT THICKENER:
While drugs appear pretty regularly in action movies, it’s rare to see the drug experience itself mapped out on the screen. We’ve seen heroes get drugged before or during a big showdown and been treated to first-person blur-vision to share in the character’s perspective. However, it’s uncommon to the action genre to have the experience of the drugged character closely match the experience of watching the movie unfold. In only his third film, David Huey manages to accomplish this with 1991’s Capital Punishment. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that only someone on drugs could have made this movie.

James Thayer (Daniels) is leading a simple life as a fighter working the grueling restaurant-lounge circuit. After tossing his latest opponent through a table of two-for-one appetizers, he gets jumped in the locker room area by a pair of stooges and tazed into blackness. He awakens in an office run by a secretive branch of the DEA investigating the mastermind behind a new and popular street drug called “kick,” which causes heightened euphoria and temporary immunity to pain. The only ill effects are debilitating pain during withdrawal and genetic mutations in the offspring of users. No biggie. While watching an organized but extremely boring slideshow called “Project Kick,” Thayer is shocked to learn that the mastermind is his sensei, Kenji Nakata (Yamashita). The secretive unit, led by the creepy Mason Dover (Novak), wants to use Thayer to bring his old mentor and father-figure to justice, but they may have other motives as well.

Thayer must not only contend with Nakata’s thugs, covert double-crossers, and a kickboxing toolbag played by Ian Jacklin, but he’s also drugged at random throughout the movie with the very drug he’s grown to abhor. DEA agent Nikki Holt (Lightfoot) is disgusted by the corruption within her own ranks and wants to help Thayer, but his experience with the alternate worlds of undercover work and being high as a motherfucker may prevent her from showing him the way. A normally trusting human being, he has confidence in nothing, believes no one, and punches and kicks everyone in his path towards the truth. Can Holt and a doctor versed in Eastern medicine help Thayer to erase the druggy fog preventing him from dispensing justice? Or will everyone be content to just sit around eating Cool Ranch Doritos and laughing uncontrollably?

The combination of "slow and sloppy" can have positive connotations when you're referring to cooking pulled pork or having sex, but when it comes to film fights, it usually spells doom. Capital Punishment contains some of the most hastily put-together fight scenes I've ever seen (and I watched For Hire)! One fight featuring Daniels and Jacklin appears to have been secretly recorded without the actors' knowledge as they worked on blocking out the moves at half-speed. The stunt teams in Filipino productions tend to be reliably solid, but it looks like Huey required a history of faulty vestibular systems as well; these guys make the Shockmaster look coordinated.

The standout sequence would have to be a bar fight between Daniels and Floridian martial arts champ and veteran of No Retreat No Surrender 3, Mark Russo. His beard is just as epic but his part here is even smaller than his small henchman part in NRNS3. The two trade strikes and a long exchange of wrist-lock takedowns in a nod toward the future of film fights by incorporating grappling and MMA tactics. It ends rather memorably with a death-by-pool-cue, but the fight is still marred by crummy shooting angles and a lack of consistent sound effects. Still, you have to take what the film gives you and next to the climactic fight scene between Daniels and American Ninja's Tadashi Yamashita, this is probably the best of the offerings.

David Carradine appears as a behind-the-scenes order-barker and all of his scenes are filmed in a dimly lit office or a big-rig truck interior. He was almost completely wasted here and his character felt tacked-on to what was already a total mess of a plot. Along with Mel Novak, he’s the most actorly of this bunch but he’s rarely afforded the chance to guide this group of mostly inexperienced performers to more watchable dramatic scenes. You don’t necessarily need Carradine to fight either, but he and Daniels share no screen time whatsoever so I’d have to regard this as a wasted opportunity on all fronts.

Capital Punishment is a strange film because its anachronistic narrative both fails and works at the same time. In one sense, it's no different than the hundreds of films like it which ignored any semblance of logic and flauted the rules of escalating action and tension. In a vacuum, by these traditional measures, it falls short. But given the druggy experience of the film's protagonist, the disjointed and often surreal tones actually work pretty well to throw the viewer off-kilter as they try to navigate the film's events. Was this the intended effect by the filmmaker? Probably not, but since I regularly take tremendous satisfaction when receiving credit for unintentionally positive results, I imagine director David Huey would too.

VERDICT:
The story is convoluted and confusing, the characters who aren't assholes are uninteresting, and the fight scenes are mostly lackadasical and poorly shot. Yet, despite all of the elements that snowball to make Capital Punishment a forgettable film, there's something about it I still enjoyed. Part of it was Yamashita as a somewhat hilarious villain, but it's also an early Gary Daniels joint where you can see him honing his screen presence and learning how to carry a film in the face of so many other problems, technical and otherwise. There's something admirable about that and you can't really quantify it, but it's present here. However, I can't honestly recommend this to anyone but Daniels completists or action trash enthusiasts who've exhausted all other options.

AVAILABILITY:
AmaBayFlix.

3 / 7

Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel (1993)

PLOT: A doctor’s fiancee is kidnapped by a ruthless gang and taken to a hide-out deep below Los Angeles. Can he and his friends battle through various underworld gangs to save her, or will they pass out after a massive lunch order of Double-Doubles from In-N-Out Burger?

Director: Richard W. Munchkin
Writers: Richard W. Munchkin, Steve Tymon, Paul Maslak
Cast: Don Wilson, Ian Jacklin, Sy Richardson, Evan Lurie, Dale Jacoby, Maria Ford, Vince Murducco, Eric Lee, Ron Yuan, Gerald Okamura, David Loo




PLOT THICKENER:
The Blackjack Hall of Fame counts mathematicians and computer analysts among its members. Its 2009 inductee also happens to be the director of the 1993 film, Ring of Fire 2: Blood and Steel. So was Richard W. Munchkin’s choice to follow up his 1991 Don Wilson vehicle a gamble? Will the return of Maria Ford as Julie be a total bust? Does the film double up the action of the original and hit you with the whole loaf of kung-fu, or stand by idly and force you to split? Having exhausted my full arsenal of terrible jokes incorporating Blackjack terminology, let’s get to the movie.

In the first installment of the Ring of Fire saga, the filmmakers combined elements of West Side Story with Kickboxer and washed it down with a chaser of racial tension and Zubaz pants. For the sequel, Munchkin and company crib from the Mad Max franchise, The Warriors, and almost every search-and-rescue film you’ve ever seen. The question is not so much whether the sequel improves upon its predecessor. Rather: do I like a movie that shamelessly rips off a lot of fun genre movies more than one which borrows heavily from a musical I was forced to watch during my freshman year of high school?

The last time we saw Johnny Wu (Wilson) and Julie (Ford), he was carrying her out of an arena after her brother accidentally stabbed her with a samurai sword. Their relationship has since evolved into an engagement, and the opening scene finds the lovebirds shopping for a ring. Unfortunately, a group of thieves are pulling a smash-and-grab at that very store and one thug has his eye on Julie’s rock. When she resists, he uses the pimp hand, which is generally inadvisable in the presence of Dr. Wu, the best kickboxing surgeon in cinema history. He puts the jerk through a window but before the gang scatters, Julie is shot. A car chase ensues between the cops and robbers, and one carsplosion and five smashed panels of glass later, we’re off to a good start.

Johnny tends to Julie’s wounds at the hospital just in time for her to be kidnapped by Predator (Lurie), the number-one guy in a gang run by the devious Kalin, played by Ian Jacklin. Following a skirmish at the hospital in which his brother is shot, Kalin gets arrested, vows revenge and Johnny is left to freak out over the disappearance of his fiancee. Kalin’s in police custody for all of about five minutes, as Predator runs the county prison bus off the road and uses his mind bullets to make it explode as the thugs escape to their underground lair (literally).

What do you do when the love of your life gets kidnapped by a bunch of guys who look like they wandered off the set of The Road Warrior? You call your boy Ron Yuan (reprising his role as Li) on his car phone and tell him to assemble the crew. In this case, the crew consists of Li, Kwong (Eric Lee), and the two guys they were fighting to the death in a race war only six weeks ago in Chuck (Murducco) and Brad (Jacoby). It was comforting to see these characters back, but it was a little surreal to see Jacoby as a good guy. He practically made a career out of douchey, Zabka-lite villain roles, and his face-turn felt like bad pro wrestling booking more than the organic result of virtuous actions.

Johnny can’t wait for his buddies because they’re too busy surfing or eating guacamole or some other time-consuming activity common to native Californians, so he goes it alone. Within seconds of entering their underground lair, Johnny is attacked by a bunch of dudes in goalie masks brandishing flash lights. A homeless veteran named Ernest (Richardson) comes to Johnny’s aid before begrudgingly leading him through the hobo underground to where Julie is being held by Kalin. Along the way, they encounter all manner of fighting gangs in weird outfits. There’s the Garbage Gang, a group of rowdies in trash-covered football shoulder pads. The Shadow Warriors do not dress in all black, but rather in colorful outfits with day-glo paint smeared on their faces. The Nightrats are not rat-human hybrids, but guys on rollerblades and skateboards with head-mounted flashlights. Would you believe that the majority of the film’s budget went towards a Russian-built supercomputer used to generate these ingenious naming conventions?

After Johnny and Ernest fight through the various gangs, the trailing Li, Kwong, Brad, and Chuck get the sloppy seconds and do some fighting of their own. This pattern continues all the way to the final showdown, where Kalin and company preside over a cage and a wild and unwashed crowd. It’s never stated what the purpose of the fighting venue is, but we’ll have to assume it’s something to pass the time when you’re living in the Los Angeles sewer system.

A quick note for you burgeoning filmmakers out there: just because you load up on neon wardrobe and flashlights, it doesn’t mean you can skimp on lighting. There were stretches where it was tough to see the movement during action scenes simply because they weren’t lit well enough. Beyond that, Munchkin makes decent use of the locations and the film definitely has a choked, dark, subterranean feel to it. And no, I did not draw that conclusion because I practice autoerotic asphyxiation while watching films to review... although that is an interesting idea for one of those month-long, themed post series.

The story structure of the various “mini-boss” gang fights is a good device for driving up the action quotient. The quality of the fights varies though. During an isolated stretch, Eric Lee puts on the best fight in the movie where he wards off some attackers with a three-section staff. The fights in Kalin’s cage are decent, but they have the same limitations on space and visuals that shooting through the obstacle of chain link fencing always does. Still, everyone gets to show their stuff and the editing was often reminiscent of the Wing Kong/Chang Sing alley fight in Big Trouble in Little China: quick cuts between shots of impacting blows with less attention given to flowy combination exchanges.

The cast of characters is solid. Eric Lee is amusing as Kwong, equal parts nervous wreck and total horndog. Yuan, Murducco, and Jacoby do little to stand out beyond Murducco’s unprompted “LET’S GET NAKED!” line when they encounter a gang of foxy females. Evan Lurie has some decent lines and may have been a more menacing main villain. However, from the ridiculous clothes and accessories (BBQ rib necklace?) to the obvious wig, Jacklin nails his part as Kalin.

The scene that made it for me was a phone call he makes to Johnny at the hospital to deliver his ransom demand of $250,000 in exchange for Julie. She grabs the phone and screams for her lover not to buy the bait. He bops her on the head with the receiver and with a spoken cadence straight out of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, admonishes her: “I’M TRYING TO USE THE PHONE!” before telling Johnny, “pardon me, your wife was being a bitch.” Amazing.

VERDICT:
At the end of the day, Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel is an offbeat and enjoyable sequel. It’s less grim in tone and the filmmakers had some fun with the different gangs and their respective wardrobes. It doesn’t quite have me itching for the continued adventures of Dr. Johnny Wu and his merry band of meatheads, but that’s not the goal. At its essence, it’s derivative and disposable DTV action that has its moments. Tune in for Eric Lee hamming it up, some absurd villain performances, and the silly costumes.

AVAILABILITY:
VHS or Instant Download on Amazon, DVD or VHS on EBay.

5 / 7

Expert Weapon (1993)

PLOT: An illiterate convict is sprung from death row and undergoes training to become an assassin. As it turns out, learning the finer details of killing people covertly is a hell of a lot easier than those prison GED programs.

Director: Steven Austin
Writer: Steven Austin, David Huey
Cast: Ian Jacklin, Sam J. Jones, Mel Novak, Joe Estevez, Julie Merrill, David Loo, Judy Landers




PLOT THICKENER:
If you chart the career trajectory of a randomly selected marital arts actor who started his or career in the late 1980s or early 1990s, you’ll notice one of two themes. The actor’s filmography either fits on a postage stamp, or it contains a long and winding road of bit parts and stunt work that may or may not have paved the way for lead roles. Examples of the former include actors Rion Hunter and Brad Morris, both of whom turned in great lead villain performances but never again returned to the action genre. On the flipside is a guy like Billy Blanks. He played uncredited henchmen or mini-bosses before graduating to main villain in The King of the Kickboxers and finally settling in as an action lead during his prime DTV years in the 1990s. After several supporting roles in films with Gary Daniels and Don “The Dragon” Wilson, former kickboxer Ian Jacklin answered a similar call for 1993’s Expert Weapon. Did his early film work prepare him for the burden of carrying a film? Um … we’ll get to that.

Jacklin plays Adam Collins, a disrespectful street tough who gets his jollies from carjacking with his partner, Rex (Loo). They botch their latest attempt so badly that the car never leaves its parking space and the duo is forced to flee the police on foot after Rex shoots the car’s female owner in the back. Collins doesn’t appreciate the cruelty of his partner’s methods; after all, he took a nicer approach by only punching her in the face. During the ensuing stand-off with the cops, Collins struggles with one of the officers over a gun and guess who gets shot in the process? No, not Carrot Top. Why would you say that? Random.

While waiting in prison on death row and contemplating the next day’s usual onslaught of high-fives and extra pudding cups as a branded cop-killer, Collins receives a visit from a kindly middle-aged priest who wishes to pray for his eternal soul. The hardened convict responds by whipping out his member and unleashing a weak stream of urine on the priest’s Bible. While most priests might show forgiving disappointment toward this act of disrespect, this man of the cloth kicks Collins in the pills and starts raining blows on him before telling him that he has a choice: come with him, or die by execution. Collins isn’t about to go anywhere with some creepy priest, so he chooses the latter.

As he later watches noxious vapors fill the gas chamber on the day of his execution, Collins falls unconscious, only to awaken in a state of confusion on a cot in a darkened room. So ... there’s a Hell? And you have to sleep on rickety cots? No, actually. Collins has been transported to an underground facility run by Janson (Flash Gordon’s Sam Jones) and his co-pilot and priest impersonator Frank Miller (Novak). They’ve selected Collins for training in a shadowy program designed to turn ruthless and undereducated killers into elite assassins, and Miller has six months to shine this rough stone into a lethal gem.

Is six months enough time to create an elite assassin out of a convict who can’t read or write? When you’ve got the right mix of drama training, computer classes, and karate lessons, it’s apparently more than enough. From the waking hours through the end of the night, Collins is exposed to a smorgasbord of highly specialized training. A drama class is run by the sultry Lynn (Landers) to teach recruits how to perform undercover roles convincingly. A computer class teaches recruits how to hack networks. On the violence front, a course in firearms is taught by the hammy Joe Estevez, and Miller handles the fighting instruction by teaching students karate.

After Collins executes his preliminary assignments and later eliminates a mafia narcotics dealer, he becomes conflicted about the welfare of the kingpin’s blind widow, Vicky (Merrill). In an effort to wipe away the sins of the carjacking which left an innocent woman dead, Collins takes the widow into his care and they go on the run.

So, yeah, this isn’t a good film. In most cases, having a man on fire appear within the first three minutes of your film is a good sign, but the training scenes are pieced together haphazardly and the film gets excessively talky once Jacklin’s character turns into Hitman with a Heart of Gold. It would be all too easy to hang the anchor of blame for this movie’s failures around the neck of Ian Jacklin; after all, he’s the star and gets the lion’s share of screen time. However, I think the combination of a bad script and Jacklin being too green dramatically to carry a film is ultimately what sinks this. Like many martial artists thrust into the cinematic spotlight during the golden age of American DTV films, Jacklin was a kickboxer first and dramatic actor second. I'm not sure you could expect him to convincingly perform dialogue like “Screw you, nobody tells me what to do. I'll see you in hell!” Are there any actors who could? OK, fine ... any actors besides Nic Cage? Jacklin delivers most of his lines with all of the wooden disbelief you’d expect out of a twenty-something non-actor betrayed by poor writing and direction.

The pairing of bad acting and poorly choreographed martial arts can lead to magical, off-kilter cinema, but Expert Weapon isn’t awful enough on either front to embody the kind of reckless DIY spirit typified by films like No Retreat, No Surrender or even City Dragon. The action is pedestrian with poor camera angles on the fight scenes and a lack of imagination in the choreography. The actual techniques of Jacklin’s offense look good, but the filmmakers fail to make his moves flow together and these scenes have a stilted vibe. The wooden staff fight near the end of the film between Collins and an old crime partner is a cut above the rest, but it’s below-average even when compared to similarly below-average films.

As far as mentors go, Mel Novak’s asthmatic karate instructor Frank Milller is pretty good. It’s somewhat interesting to note that his initial appearance in Adam’s jail cell as a priest wasn’t such a stretch dramatically; Novak has apparently been involved with prison ministry for many years. Whether or not he kicks pestilent inmates in the balls and recruits them into secretive assassination squads, we can’t be sure.

While the film overall is rather poorly written and acted, the filmmakers make a genuine attempt at contrasting the Miller and Janson characters. Janson is the brash drill sergeant, always chewing on a stogie and referring to underlings as maggots. When he’s not sucking on his inhaler, the asthmatic Miller attempts to instill flimsy facsimiles of Eastern philosophy during martial arts training sessions. Performance-wise, Jones and Novak are the best parts of this movie, but even their collective dramatic competence isn’t enough to offset the film’s various technical and narrative flaws.

VERDICT:
The only condition under which I could recommend Expert Weapon would be if someone asked me what movie might cause a spouse to withhold sex indefinitely. It’s a rough watch. There are a few small morsels of hokey violence and unintentional humor to savor, but not enough to satisfy a healthy craving for either element. For a kinder and gentler experience with the work of Ian Jacklin, try Death Match or his wigged-out turn as main villain in Don Wilson’s Ring of Fire 2.

AVAILABILITY:
Netflix, Amazon, EBay.

2.5 / 7

Blackbelt (1992)

PLOT: A rising pop singer harassed by an obsessed stalker hires an ex-cop and martial-arts expert as personal security. As with most pop female vocalists, she’s kinda hot so her terrible music is tolerated by all involved.

Director: Charles Phillip Moore, Rick Jacobson
Writers: Paul Maslak, Don Wilson
Cast: Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Matthias Hues, Alan Blumenfeld, Deirdre Imershein, Richard Beymer, Jack Forcinito, Timothy D. Baker, Bob McFarland





PLOT THICKENER:
When I was about 13 or 14 years of age, the Spice Girls were just beginning to break through in the U.S. They were annoying. Their music was awful. But for whatever reason, I had a thing for Ginger Spice, she of the reddish hair and reasonably big cans. Like all teenage infatuations, it faded and I moved on. However, there are those out there incapable of getting over these kinds of fixations. Pop starlets from Tiffany to Britney Spears have had brushes with stalkers, and this seedy byproduct of celebrity status was popularized as a cinematic plot device with 1992’s Kevin Costner thriller, The Bodyguard. It turned a good profit at the box office and gave us Whitney Houston’s smash hit ballad “I Will Always Love You.” Earlier that same year, the Don “The Dragon” Wilson vehicle Blackbelt was released to the U.S. video market and gave us a new film to gather around with large groups of friends and larger amounts of whiskey.

Jack Dillon (Wilson) is a no-nonsense guy who has dedicated his life to cleaning up the streets of his American city which shall remain nameless. As a cop, he fought societal filth with a badge and a gun. These days, he fights scum with nothing more than his fists and his boots. In a dark urban alley, an aggressive pimp with an aggressive mullet is using his pimp hand on a reluctant sex worker when Dillon discovers them. After smashing the pimp’s face and laying waste to his undercarriage, Dillon coolly remarks that “the broken nose is for the girl, the vasectomy’s free” before returning the tearful girl to her mother. Not only is Jack Dillon a retired cop and martial-arts expert and teacher, but he also gives out free vasectomies! You should look him up if you’re done having kids, though your insurance might not cover him.

Rising pop star Shanna (Imershein) is accustomed to a chaotic lifestyle as a foxy touring live act with a rabid fanbase. But following her latest performance, she and her assistant make a grisly discovery in a box of long-stem roses left in her dressing room. No! It’s not the tacky inclusion of Baby’s-breath. It’s a severed female finger. Her manager and boyfriend Bobby (Forcinito) is basically nutless, and her mob-connected label owner Eddie D’Angelo (Twin Peaks’ Richard Beymer) kinda hates her, so Shanna goes outside her circle of handlers for help.

When a bratty pop star shows up to his martial-arts class looking to hire a bodyguard, Dillon is resistant; he doesn’t do that kind of work. As it turns out, Shanna could care less, because she doesn’t like cops anyways. Unwarranted speeding tickets? No. Her dad was a cop. So? He raped her. Ohhhhhhh..... awkward. In any case, she was only following up on a recommendation from Dillon’s old partner, Detective Will Sturges (Blumenfeld). Rather coincidentally, Sturges calls Dillon to consult on a crime scene at that exact moment.

Awaiting Dillon at a nearby hotel is a complete massacre. Five men, all armed, have been left dead in a hotel room with trauma to various vital organs. Due to the nature of their injuries, Dillon rightly suspects a martial-arts expert. As a counterpoint to this mostly bloodless execution, there’s a body left in another room which looks like a victim straight out of 1980s slasher film. Enough blood was spilled for the killer to spell out “SHANNA WE’RE GOING TO THE CHAPEL” on the wall. Not enough blood was spilled for grammatically correct punctuation, apparently.

Shit just got real, so Dillon decides to take Shanna on as a client. As he chases clues, he eventually discovers what the audience knew a half-hour ago: the killer is a former Special Forces member named John Sweet, played by Matthias Hues. Like any good serial killer, he has a raging Oedipal complex and a poorly lit secret hideout. I couldn’t help but notice that Sweet also bears a passing resemblance to the Stingray character from Undefeatable. Beyond their deep-seated mommy issues, they both collect trophies from victims (Sweet prefers fingers to Stingray’s eyes) and have amazing manes of hair.

What he lacks in fantastic hair, character actor Richard Beymer more than makes up for in acting chops. There are two things he does extremely well as an onscreen performer: act sleazy and eat food. Whether it’s the pasta and salad of Blackbelt or the brie-and-butter baguette sandwiches from Twin Peaks, Beymer has an effective way of eating that makes me want to join in. On that note, it’s time for pancakes.

As Jake Dillon, Don Wilson keeps it simple. He kicks ass and delivers some occasionally well-written lines with true aplomb, with the aforementioned vasectomy one-liner as the highlight. I can’t say that Wilson and Imershein have much chemistry together, but some of that has to do with the dick-punching turn-off that is her character’s awful music. Even by early 1990s standards, the attempts at pop songs are quite heinous and could take a lot of viewers out of the film completely. To his credit, Dillon treats Shanna’s music the same way he treats her celebrity status -- with complete indifference. Which is, of course, in sharp contrast to the way he (eventually) treats her lady parts -- with fumbling teenaged zeal. We’ve covered only two Don “The Dragon” Wilson movies so far, but in those films he’s batting 1.000 in getting his onscreen love interests to disrobe for sex scenes. Good show, Mr. Wilson!

The film’s opening credits and marketing materials boasted what was apparently a fighting cast full of decorated championship talent (one of whom you may remember as the hilarious dad from No Retreat, No Surrender). Unfortunately, none of these fighters is provided with a unique character to make their screen time particularly noteworthy. Compounding the issue is that the action set pieces from fight choreographer Paul Maslak are utilized to do nothing but make the film’s hero and main villain look strong ahead of their climactic showdown. It seems the primary role of anyone else involved in the fight scenes was to look as good as possible while getting their ass kicked. The generous helpings of blood and sweat during the final fight are a nice topper to a solid film, but if you’re going to offer up the numerous accolades of your fighters as a selling point, it would help to give them a little bit of room to shine.

VERDICT:
While I’m certainly no expert on the cinematic exploits of Don Wilson, I do feel that Blackbelt is as good an entry point as any into his filmography. This was the film that really cemented my fondness for the “kung fu killer” as a compelling narrative device, if only for the bizarre ways in which the main villain is characterized and portrayed onscreen. Due in large part to great selling from the stunt performers, Hues comes across as a real monster in his short but dominant fight scenes. However, it’s his character’s sleazy back-story which puts the film into favorable territory for me. In order to strike a sharp contrast with Dillon’s wholesomeness, writer Charles Philip Moore deserves a bit of credit for going into some dark and weird places in creating the John Sweet character. This and the Richard Beymer performance were the highlights for me in what I found to be a fairly serviceable DTV action movie.

AVAILABILITY:
Netflix and Amazon.

5 / 7