Dragon Hunt (1990)

PLOT: Twin kickboxers fight for their lives as an army of misfit mercenaries attempts to hunt them down in the harsh Canadian wilderness. While the flannel is optional, moustaches are required.

Director: Charlie Wiener
Writers: Michael McNamara
Cast: Martin McNamara, Michael McNamara, B. Bob, Sheryl Foster, Heidi Romano, Curtis Bush, Ed Tyson, Charles Ambrose

PLOT THICKENER

There's a memorable scene in the 1993 action vehicle Back in Action that finds Billy Blanks's hero character fighting off an identical pair of mustachioed, Zubaz pants-wearing goofs of athletic build and below-average height. "Who ARE those dudes?!" I recall blurting out within the safety of my own stupid brain. It was only a few hours later that I discovered that these particular dudes were Michael (Mick) and Martin McNamara, Canada's own "Twin Dragons." (Ha! Take that, Jackie!) Not only had the twins made a successful living as martial arts instructors in their native country and promoted kickboxing matches all over the world, but they produced three of their own films where they were the stars. 1990's Dragon Hunt, a quasi-sequel-ish follow-up to their debut in 1986's Twin Dragon Encounter, promised double the action, double the facial hair, and approximately eight times the vanity as their first film.

In what one can only assume is an autobiographical tale, the McNamara brothers play twin Canadian kickboxing instructors named Martin and Mick. A twisted creep with a metal hand by the name of Jake (Bob) leads his private army -- er, the People's Private Army -- in framing the twins in a cruise boat hijacking. This act is not entirely without cause, as we observe via flashback that Jake is a previously vanquished adversary who lost his hand in a prior encounter of the Twin Dragon variety. If that's not bad enough, Jake contracts two attractive ladies -- played by Sheryl Foster and Heidi Romano, respectively -- to court the twins and lure them to a secluded island under the guise of a getaway vacation. Before long, the twins are captured by Jake and forced to act as prey in his own twisted version of a most dangerous game. His gang has used every method available to them, up to and including placing ads in "all the mercenary, hunting, and martial arts magazines" in order to find the best hunters, killers, and poachers in the world to hunt the twins down for a $250,000 (CAD) prize. Jake's mercenaries include expert trappers, whiteboy ninjas,  a "beastmaster" in a cowboy hat (Tyson) who owns a furry dog, and a lot of guys with terrible haircuts. The only arbitrary rule: no guns allowed. (Until the climax). Can the twins survive in the Canadian wilderness with the deck stacked against them? Will Jake get his ultimate revenge? Can the cast and crew manage only one restroom among them (per co-star Curtis Bush)?

Let’s get this out of the way: the heroes McNamara are total jerks in this film. At the start of their vacation with their lady friends, one twin snaps a girl’s bra strap while another twin mimes humping the back of the other girl’s head. While driving a boat, one twin pours a perfectly good beer all over one of the gals while she's sitting down and minding her business. The first fatal strike they make against Jake’s army is killing the Beastmaster’s dog instead of the goons for hire. Later in the film, they chase an enemy through the woods while taunting him about his weight. Maybe skull-humping, body-shaming dog murderers are celebrated as heroes in some parts of the world, but not in my house.

As the ruthless gang leader, Jake, B. Bob is both the best and worst thing about the film. His visual look strikes the right balance between loud-mouthed 1980s wrestling manager and walk-on extra in an Italian post-apocalyptic b-movie. His gruff, stilted dialogue ("trained assassins -- ruthless, fanatical, I LIKE THEM") is frequently hilarious and his incessant screaming is appropriate to match the campy tone of the film. However, his constant reliance on reciting fight songs and modified nursery rhymes is grating and not especially funny. If you thought the songs in City Dragon were an insult to the musical form, Jake's improvisations might be regarded as a cultural war crime. A certain segment of the viewing population will be entertained by these segments, and I want nothing more than for these people to fall victim to violent spasms of diarrhea while sitting in traffic.

The action builds in intensity and scale the way it should in genre action films -- Dragon Hunt gets this part mostly right. The rustic trap setting (a la First Blood) becomes more elaborate, the kills get more gruesome, and the firepower becomes louder and more frequent. The major misstep amidst all of this, though, is having two martial artists as stars and not featuring them in more than a couple of fights. Who do we have to blame for this oversight? The star martial artists themselves. One scene finds a twin battling a crossbow-wielding Curtis Bush -- the only other verifiable martial artist in the film, by my estimation -- but it's short-lived and a bit bland. The climax sees the twins deploying every weapon in their arsenal, punches and kicks included, but the fight is dogged by slo-mo and lacks any interesting exchanges or combinations. Instead of going with relative strengths -- actual fighting -- the McNamara twins oddly chose the more "Eighties!" option of traps and guns. This was the film's biggest weakness and a baffling decision when you consider the personnel.

VERDICT

Dragon Hunt is the second in three self-made McNamara films, and regardless of what you think of them from a quality perspective, you have to admire the gusto of the twins' effort. At the the end of the day, though, this story is derivative, the acting ranges from stiff to goofy, and the action isn't executed well enough to counteract the missteps in other areas. An odd, occasionally entertaining curiosity.

AVAILABILITY

The only official copies never made it beyond VHS, so eBay and Amazon are your best bet. Occasional do-gooders have uploaded it to YouTube.

2.5 / 7

Tough and Deadly (1995)

PLOT: An elite CIA operative is drugged and kidnapped during a botched mission. Let this be a lesson to everyone: keep an eye on your drink at all times.

Director: Steve Cohen
Writer: Steve Cohen, Otto C. Pozzo
Cast: Billy Blanks, Roddy Piper, James Karen, Lisa Stahl, Phil Morris, Richard Norton, James Lew, Sal Landi, Dale Jacoby





PLOT THICKENER
After their entertaining 1993 collaboration, Back in Action, Roddy Piper and Billy Blanks went back to the well just two years later for another action romp with a generic title. They easily could have kicked up their feet and cashed those sweet DTV checks. But led by a more experienced director, flanked by a stronger supporting cast, and adorned in 200% more denim, the pair actually ups their game in Tough and Deadly. It’s too bad the filmmakers steered away from literalism when branding this film, because I think “The Violent Adventures of Amnesiac Martial Artist and Guy with Dynamically Changing Facial Hair” would have moved a lot more units than the vague title they went with.

A covert company man with the code name of Quicksilver (Blanks) awakens in a hospital room days after being beaten and drugged during a mission. (He would have been left for dead but he regained consciousness and killed his captors). Due to the drugging and multiple kicks to the face, he can’t remember squat. Private investigator and former cop, Elmo Freech (Piper), initially mistakens him for a potential bounty when they cross paths in the hospital, but he takes him under his wing to help him recover from his injuries and loss of memory. Freech puts a roof over his head, food in his stomach, and even gives him a sweet temporary name, “John Portland,” he determined by throwing a knife at a map. Like you do.

Along with Freech’s business partner, Mo (Stahl), the pair beats the shit out of random assholes all over the city in their quest for information. Slowly, Portland’s memories begin to return. He remembers that he’s a great martial artist, that weak coffee is a terrible way to start the day, and that the bathroom is a great place to randomly remember things while staring at yourself in the mirror. He loves East Coast rap (Freech likes country), prefers a glass of OJ to a shot of liquor, and seems to reliably match his pants to Freech’s shirts without any effort at all. The CIA eventually comes calling to collect their “rogue” asset, and some other assholes are trying to nail Portland dead as well. Also, the mafia. Drugs. Corruption. All the boxes are checked off.

Blanks is off the chain in this film, and I can only assume that if there is a heaven, there’s a wall of LED TVs showing him getting in bar fights set to country music playing on loop there. Piper likewise looks great during the action scenes, throwing body blows and taking hits like few others in the action film biz can. This pair works so well, and everyone around them plays his or her part to perfection. As a CIA honcho, James Karen delivers expository details in grave tones without it feeling overly forced. Richard Norton, James Lew, and Dale Jacoby all play believable thugs. Even Phil Morris, Seinfeld’s Jackie Chiles, gets in the mix as a crooked CIA agent on the wrong end of a Blanks-brand ass-whooping. Stunt performers get blown up and fly through the air, warehouses explode for no particular reason, and one henchman has the good fortune of getting kicked into a giant pile of cocaine.

Steve Cohen got great performances from his cast, put the right pieces in place for some great action scenes, and has terrific command of this film’s pace. But I’ll be damned if I let homeboy off the hook for Piper’s wild variance in beard length and style. From short stubble to long stubble and even what appears to be a goatee, virtually no hair on the star’s face was safe from his beard trimmer during this production. Now, this would have been forgivable if it progressed in a logical fashion -- from long to short, or vice versa -- because we don’t normally knock films for not showing the hygienic practices of the characters over the time span depicted in the story (e.g. “John McClane hasn’t brushed his teeth in five days? FUCK THIS MOVIE”). All that would have been required of Cohen was some careful planning and editing. Instead, it looks like they set the “Piper Beard Length” meter to random during the production and walked away for pancakes.

In the second of just two film collaborations between Richard Norton and Billy Blanks -- the other was 1990’s China O’Brien II -- they tear shit up during two separate fights in two different living rooms that will have you clutching the arm of your love-seat with excitement. Why these fighters chose carpeted living rooms as the mise-en-scene for two of their only screen fights, we may never know, but I’ll venture a guess. Norton was 45 years old at this point, Blanks was 40 -- maybe they just wanted cushy places for their tired bones to land? Like most of the fights in this film, the Norton-Blanks ones were really well done, but they’re elevated further by the level of talent throwing the strikes. The fact that these two bad-asses only crossed paths twice in nearly 25+ years of doing DTV action movies would qualify as a goddamn war crime if not for the fact that according to “law,” such an act requires something like torture, pillaging, or child soldiers. (No, not these ones.)

It’s rare that real-world events are a determining factor in which film to review next. However, given Roddy Piper’s passing over the summer, I felt a strong urge to see him on the screen, looking strong and having fun. He’s not nearly the unhinged, dangerous dynamo that he was in Back in Action, but Elmo Freech is a character with different circumstances and demands a different sort of performance. Piper plays him with the right level of physical energy when the action scenes call for it, but the character has an undercurrent of world-weary concern and tenderness to him, which Piper conveys quite believably. The dynamic between Blanks and Piper is also different this time around -- the former is aloof, the latter is assured -- but both put the same good-natured and brotherly charisma to good use.

VERDICT
I won’t beleaguer the point: Tough and Deadly is a lot of fun. To put it in perspective, if it were a sea creature with which I was going to be slapped across the face, it would be halibut: solid, low-fat, and overfished. What -- that didn’t help? OK, then. The actors are having fun, the directing is competent, the humor delivers occasional laughs, and the choreographed violence is well-paced and nicely edited. If you’re watching these films and settling for anything less, you need to get your priorities in order. Eat this halibut on DVD or VHS if you can find it.

AVAILABILITY
Amazon, Ebay YouTube.

5.5 / 7

 

Tiger Claws (1992)

PLOT: A trail of murder victims with distinct scratch marks left on their faces has New York City on edge. Two cops reluctantly team up to search for the elusive killer.

Director: Kelly Makin
Writer: J. Stephen Maunder
Cast: Jalal Merhi, Cynthia Rothrock, Bolo Yeung, Nick Dibley, Bill Pickells, Robert Nolan, Kedar Brown, Michael Bernardo


 

 

PLOT THICKENER:
Training one’s body to be a killing machine can be a tiresome process, both physically and mentally. One of the better cinematic depictions of this concept is in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, where the fragile Leonard Lawrence goes off the rails after verbal abuse and hazing during military training. Not to be outdone by some lame-o 1970s Vietnam war classic, Canadian filmmaker Kelly Makin -- perhaps best known for the Kids in the Hall feature-length film -- brought the martial arts thriller Tiger Claws into the fold in 1992. This story about the consequences of extreme training and the failure to keep one’s nails clipped raises many important questions, none of which will be answered by this review.

The thankless hours of spending her shifts dressed like a sex worker to catch johns isn’t cutting it for Linda Masterson (Rothrock). She wants serious police work. Fortune smiles upon her as a series of victims pile up with no visible trauma aside from peculiar claw marks left on their faces. Since the stiffs were all martial-artists and they died from internal injuries, Masterson suspects a highly-trained fighter. Despite the solid hunch, her department chief wants to pair her with someone to work on the case, dubbed internally as the “Death Dealer” murders.

While he’s hostile to working with a partner, vice cop Tarek Richards (Merhi) doesn’t have a choice. Right after demanding a $25,000 increase in his undercover budget, he botches a sting operation and get suspended. This, combined with his ponytail, houseboat, and his wife leaving him, apparently makes him some sort of loose cannon. (Most would conclude he’s just a screw-up on a major tailspin). After looking at Masterson’s evidence, Richards believes the killer is using a rare version of Tiger style kung-fu.

Following some field research -- i.e. walking through Chinatown and going to a martial arts tournament -- Richards thinks he has a lead, but he’ll have to go undercover in order to chase it. This basically means that Cynthia Rothrock sits in a van doing surveillance while Jalal Merhi gets to have all the fun training in Tiger style. He’s done this once before, but this variation is so intense it can drive a man mad and it’s the real reason why his wife left him... not his ponytail. During his tenure, he befriends some trainees and meets a harmless interior painter named Chong, played by Bolo Yeung. Hmm, that’s weird. Why does the harmless 260-pound interior painter have a giant shrine with all these stolen martial arts weapons?

I’m not sure to what degree they should be held accountable for the way the fight scenes are shot, but as tandem fight choreographers, Steve Lucescu and Jalal Merhi do little to sway me with how they’re staged. The climactic fight involving the male principals lacks drama and is made watchable only by Bolo’s facial expressions and the fact that they crush more cardboard boxes than a trash compactor. Much of the combat is slow to develop and hurt by a lot of over-the-shoulder, first-person perspective shots. Since this was Makin’s first and only foray into the action genre, one could make the case that his team was favoring “feel” over “look” with this style of shooting, but they fail to achieve either effect.

There is some gold swimming in the garbage though. All of Chong’s kill scenes have decent build and execution, and the victims do a good job of selling Yeung’s strikes. Cynthia Rothrock creatively uses rope and a kayak paddle as weapons, and she has two fights with Yeung toward the back-end of the film which are paced a few beats quicker and incorporate their differences in size and speed. Most of the “Tiger” training portions are visually interesting and well-shot, and Bolo is made to look positively bad-ass in scenes where he displays his bastardized version of the training. One sequence has him dunking his hands in scalding water before splashing it on his face and drinking it, while another finds him making kung-fruit salad by squeezing apples to a pulpy mess.

In the area of performances, there’s not much to love. As Masterson, Rothrock is decent but her role is diminished, and Bolo is menacing as Chong but the character is underdeveloped. The best part of the movie is any scene involving real-life Canadian master Bill Pickells. I briefly participated in Tang Soo Do as a youngster in the early 1990s, and was thus exposed to a handful of martial-arts demos where middle-aged white guys with mullets and wonky facial hair would scream while breaking boards or waving swords. The insanely goofy Bill Pickells Karate Show featured in Tiger Claws brought all of those memories back. Even better is that Pickells plays an egotistical jerk who berates his production staff and complains that the set’s potted plants make him look short. We’ve covered several films with the martial-artist-as-serial-killer plot device and each of the antagonists was memorable for different reasons. As a counterpoint to that, Pickells earns the distinction of being the most memorable victim -- he’s hilarious in short minutes.

Despite attempts to paint his character as such, Merhi isn't especially adept at playing the dark, rough, and brooding type. I appreciate that screenwriter J. Stephen Maunder positioned the Tiger training as emotionally taxing and physically extreme; the case of a practitioner snapping and killing as a result of the grueling training is a believable and compelling dramatic device. The dialogue which describes the training process is another story, though. The total lack of emotive qualities in Merhi’s line delivery really makes him an unideal fit to play a “man on the edge.” A better dramatic actor like John Barrett or Jeff Wincott could probably pull this off more convincingly, but whether he’s striking down “NO SWIMMING” signs at the beach, or wearing his hair down and looking like a haggard version of Balki Bartokomous, Merhi isn’t quite that actor for the way this role is written. 

This was the first film released under Merhi’s Film One Productions banner, and it’s one of their better efforts. We often poke fun at Merhi around these parts but it’s all in good fun. He built a 15-year career on Torontoyork City martial arts movies teeming with big-name talent like Rothrock, Billy Blanks, and Loren Avedon, and for that longevity, he should be commended. That he seems to consistently elevate his own parts over those of his costars has always seemed curious to me, though. Maybe he’s just a really persuasive guy.

VERDICT:
I first caught this film as part of TNT’s action-oriented “Nitro” programming over a decade ago and at the time, I regarded it as nothing more than a barely-average fight film. The recent rewatch has done little to change my opinion but I did find some likable elements that 14 year-old Karl might've overlooked. The film is nicely paced and rarely drags. Bolo is convincing as the story’s monster and while not at the level of Chong Li in Bloodsport, he’s used more effectively here than in bit parts for other American films. I found Rothrock was underutilized but she did have some decent fight scenes and gets to show off her burgeoning fashionista side. Despite the occasional bright spots, the film is crippled by some awful dialogue and acting, and poorly-composed fight scenes. That said, it launched two sequels and is one of the better Jalal Merhi action vehicles.

AVAILABILITY:
VHS copies can be purchased on Amazon or EBay.

4 / 7

Talons of the Eagle (1992)

PLOT: Two cops -- one from Canada, the other from New York -- train in the specialized martial art of Eagle Claw in order to enter a fighting tournament organized by Mr. Li, a Toronto criminal overlord. As they penetrate Li’s inner circle, they must gather evidence, avoid suspicion, and hook up with as many foxy ladies as Li throws at them.

Director: Michael Kennedy
Writer: J. Stephen Maunder
Cast: Billy Blanks, Jalal Merhi, James Hong, Priscilla Barnes, Matthias Hues, Eric Lee, Harry Mok, Kelly Gallant, Qingfu Pan 










PLOT THICKENER:
What do you get when you add 10% worth of martial-arts actors, 10% of James Hong, 20% of Priscilla Barnes, and 70% of blue lighting gels? You get 1992’s Talons of the Eagle. And yes, I realize the aforementioned percentages add up to 110%. But you’ve failed to account for the fact that Billy Blanks always gives 130% and Jalal Merhi only gives about 80% and Canada has the metric system. I’m no math major, but I’m pretty sure you’re not either, so let’s move on.

In brandishing a golden cavalcade of b-movie martial-artists -- Billy Blanks, Harry Mok, Eric Lee, Jalal Merhi, Kelly Gallant, and Matthias Hues -- Talons of the Eagle is something of a dream cast of action talent. Throw in character actors James Hong and Priscilla Barnes, some gratuitous nudity, a silly early 90s score, and you have what should have been an action trash classic. Unfortunately, the elements of the film don’t quite coalesce the way they should.

FoBL favorite Billy Blanks stars as Tyler Wilson, a tough NYC narcotics cop. His counterpart across the border is Michael Reed, played by ponytailed former jeweler Jalal Merhi. Within the first five minutes of the film, each of them manages to botch drug stings in riveting fashion, except that Reed’s fuck-up leads to DEA cops getting killed. Tyler is sent to Toronto by his superiors to partner with Reed and infiltrate the gang held responsible.

The easiest route for access is a martial-arts tournament put on by the gang’s leader, Mr. Li (Hong). But before entering the tournament, they need better training, so they seek out an Eagle Claw academy. Real-life asskicker Qingfu Pan, who once trained Hong Kong police cadets in fighting techniques, plays the school’s master. His acting doesn’t quite leapfrog Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, but he’s here for his fighting widsom and his grizzled knuckles tell the story: he’s either punched a lot of people or has a gnarly bacterial infection.

After they do some fancy tournament fighting and break up an attempt on Li’s life, Tyler and Reed catch the gang-leader’s eye and he brings them into the fold as muscle. The bossman’s main lady, Cassandra (Barnes) acts as their guide but Li’s existing henchmen Khan (Hues) and Niko (Mok) are a little perturbed by the new help, with the former being particularly suspicious. The rest of the film follows Tyler and Reed trying to collect evidence under the gang’s watchful eye while carrying out Li’s orders and performing poorly-acted martial artist love scenes with female cast members.

As Mr. Li, James Hong is mostly excellent. The businessman-as-evildoer is nothing new in this genre, but Hong’s performance walks the line between sleaze and sophistication and it acts as a cohesive superglue that prevents an otherwise poorly made film from completely falling apart. He gets to show a fair amount of range too: he’s suave, he jokes with glee, he flies off the handle, fires off glocks, and looks mad cool while ripping through about seven packs of Pall Malls in the 97-minute runtime. Hong can and does act circles around everyone else in his scenes, but he also plays off them well enough to make their stiffness believable in the context of an aged criminal ordering around the hired muscle. Though for all his infinite criminal wisdom, he should have known better than to light a fucking cigarette in a tiny storage room full of C4 explosives.

 

While lacking speed and creativity, the fighting sequences during the climax still win points on settings and death blows. In typical martial-arts film fashion, characters pair off for individual battles which, for obvious reasons, vary wildly in quality. With Master Pan and company rushing in for the assist, we get a decent little weapons battle between Pan and Eric Lee. It’s rare you get an on-screen fight between such decorated real-life fighters, so it’s a bit of a bummer that the fight is short, slow, and like most of the fights, poorly shot and edited. Pan’s student, played by Kelly Gallant, gets an brief and boring fight that underscores how poorly utilized she was in the film.

Tyler and Niko have a pretty good scuffle in a restaurant kitchen with Niko bringing out his nifty giant-fucking-knife technique, which Tyler tries to counter with every piece of kitchenware he can find, up to and including the very same mesh strainer my wife has been asking for since last Christmas. It is not customary to see any man fighting someone off with a mesh strainer, nevermind a black-belt and fitness-craze inventor. Perhaps worse, he actually throws fistfuls of salad to fend off his attacker. Nay, TOSSES SALAD.

The real crown jewel of the fights is a battle between Blanks and Hues in a parking garage. Shit starts off with Hues walking into frame with an oil barrel raised over his head screaming like a maniac and we know from the jump that it’s on like Donkey Kong. Because of the barrel, see? Both guys are shirtless and bathed in the omnipresent blue light that plagues 90% of the film and all of this would be cheesy enough were it not for the delicious saxophone music that accompanies the throwdown.

During all of this, Reed is fighting Mr. Li on a roof. Keep in mind that Hong was on the wrong side of 60 at this point in his career and was using a folding fan as a weapon. How is it then plausible that a cop and martial-arts master in his physical prime needs more than 60 seconds to beat an elderly businessman using eight ounces of bamboo and paper to fight? Errrrrr?

While dramatic performers are often underutilized in films like this, it’s not always the case that they’re humiliated for their efforts. Not only is Priscilla Barnes subjected to an attempted rape scene, but she’s also forced to act alongside Jalal Merhi while he’s adorned in a ghastly Jockey banana hammock. And this is before they have random shower sex in which Merhi kisses her as if he were eating mashed potatoes with his hands tied behind his back. So not only does Barnes now have “Three’s Company replacement cast member” on her resume, but also “poorly acted martial artist shower sex.” She really does deserve better.

VERDICT:
You expect films like this to be poorly produced but there’s always a potential for choice moments that somehow elevate it above average fare. They’re few and far between in Talons of the Eagle. Outside of some lines from Hong, there’s very little quotable dialogue and Merhi and Blanks make a poor pair and their dynamic isn’t conflictual enough to be interesting. Worst of all, director Michael Kennedy and his editing team do a huge disservice to the fighting talent because the hand-to-hand action didn’t look so hot. The constant blue lighting was also a huge and distracting negative. While you get a decent villain performance from James Hong, this is probably only for Blanks completists.

AVAILABILITY:
Amazon, Netflix, bargain bins.

3.5 / 7

Back in Action (1993)

PLOT: A botched drug sting takes a giant shit in the punch bowl called Life for cop Frank Rossi and a cab driver named Billy. Rossi’s partner is killed during the violent fallout. Billy’s sister is dating one of the drug dealers at the scene and escapes unharmed. Since she’s a witness, her boytoy’s gang thinks she’s going to snitch and wants her dead. As both men go vigilante to exact their revenge, the body count skyrockets to levels unseen since the launch of the McRib.

Directors: Paul Ziller and Steve DiMarco
Writer: Karl Schiffman
Cast: Billy Blanks, Roddy Piper, Bobbie Phillips, Matt Birman, Nigel Bennett, Kai Soremekun

PLOT THICKENER:
It should surprise no one to learn that the people behind the 1993 action vehicle Back in Action probably hate Looney Tunes. Not because they’re Hanna-Barbera guys (though they might be), but because their film is almost always buried in search results by Joe Dante’s 2003 animated feature, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Are they justified in these hostile feelings that I made up and projected onto them? Doubtful.

Dante’s effort was the first Looney Tunes feature film since 1996’s Space Jam.  It was the second Looney Tunes feature to blend their 2-D characters with live action. The franchise was returning to action following a long layoff. Hence, Back in Action. Frank Rossi (Piper) is removed from an investigation by his boss and is forced to go rogue in order to get vengeance for his partner’s death. Billy (Blanks) is an ex- Special Forces soldier trying to rescue his sister from criminal drug dealers. But what exactly are these guys coming back from? A Caribbean cruise? Nasty colds? In light of the facts, this title makes no fucking sense. Thankfully, these types of action movies rarely do.

Billy Blanks really stretches himself artistically with this film role, portraying a high-kicking bad-ass named Billy. His years in the elite fighting ranks of the U.S. military somehow translated to him driving a cab in Toronto, and he has the added frustration of trying to support his deadbeat sister, Tara. She’s a real winner: won’t look for a job, has no discernible life skills, and dates a guy who looks more like a New Age percussionist than the drug-dealing gang member he purports to be. (Full disclosure: this describes all of my ex-girlfriends.) Since Tara fled the shootout with Billy instead of waiting patiently in the car until everyone exhausted their ammo, the gang wants her and her brother dead. When you want the job done right, you send in your top men with the best firepower money can buy. Because this is an early 90s Shapiro-Glickenhaus film, the gang sends a pair of unarmed twins in Zubaz pants, tank tops, mustaches, and mullets. Billy fights them in nothing more than his boxer briefs and kills them both. And detective Frank Rossi is left to pick up the pieces.

After watching his partner get stabbed to death during the botched sting, Rossi (Piper) is on a mission to bring his killer to justice. As the hardened narcotics detective, Piper gets to put his fingers in a lot of different pies: the chief-hating anti-authority pie, the street-fighting cop bent on vengeance pie, and also the Helen the news reporter pie, played by Bobbie Phillips. While Frank is her go-to cop for public comment, he’s also an evolving love interest. Most action films would use the romance as an excuse to show gratuitous nudity, but this is no ordinary action film. The closest we get is a picture on the back of the DVD showing the two in a bubble bath. In the film, the pair simply hangs around in towels and talks. Hmm.

Billy and Frank repeatedly cross paths as the former storms through the criminal underworld looking for Kasajian, the gang leader who he believes kidnapped his sister. (In reality, she’s gone into hiding with her loser boyfriend.) At first, Frank sees Billy as just another thug but begins to appreciate his brand of vigilante justice after learning of their common enemy.

When you have action heroes as unhinged as Piper and as skilled as Blanks, the villains in your story need to be equal to the task. Unfortunately, the baddies in Back in Action are pure villainfiller. Chakka, the dickweed in designer glasses who killed Wallace, consists of two-parts Color Me Badd and one-part giant gold medallion. His fighting skills are subpar and while he does some pretty evil shit in knifing people and shooting members of his own gang, I thought the character required a more grizzled and world-weary portrayal. He plays violent enforcer to Kasajian’s foppish mastermind, who spends most of his scenes in a robe and flip-flops. Played by British theatre actor Nigel Bennett, Kasajian is the type of villain I hate to see in this kind of movie: a relaxed and unmenacing douche who pontificates constantly and never actually fights. I could certainly see him running a meditation and spiritual wellness retreat. And I can’t help but imagine him standing in front of his mirror late at night doing the Buffalo Bill tuck-and-dance. But this is the vicious leader of a Toronto drug gang? Not buying.

The action throughout the film comes fast and furious. Piper, forever dogged by the high standards he set in 1988’s They Live, still brings his enjoyable blend of street-fighting and wrestling moves mixed with light comedy. His selling of strikes makes for some very convincing fights, particularly in an early skirmish with Billy at the local watering hole. Blanks operates almost exclusively in invincibility mode, growling and screeching as he mows down a variety of straw men. While none are a match for his fighting skill, they come in an entertaining array of shapes and sizes, from the mulleted Zubaz twins, to a dude that looks like Kenny Powers, to a 7-foot giant who yells a lot and moves really slowly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out what has to be the crown jewel of Billy’s path of destruction. While infiltrating the late-night drag racing scene, he realizes he needs a more covert ensemble, as his all-denim motif would surely give him away. So he sneaks up on an unsuspecting dude leaning against a pillar who, at first glance, appears to be urinating. However, there’s no stream and his zipper is closed; worse, the man’s hand appears to be making a stroking motion. I can only conclude that in an effort to ward off would-be solicitors, the miscreant is pretending to jack off. Billy is unfazed, and he knocks out the phantom-masturbator and steals his sleeveless hoodie. Most of us would have simply walked away in that situation so this is quite commendable; that he’s willing to confront a guy faking a wank underscores Billy’s determination to bring his sister to safety.

Of course, we can’t discuss a Billy Blanks movie without mentioning his incredible outfits. As with most of his films, Blanks wears nothing more than pants and sweat during the story’s epic climax. The vibrant vest he sports in the opening scene is similar to the clothes my mom wore when she was experimenting with found fabrics and her new sewing machine circa 1989. During his bar fight with Rossi, he’s decked out in a full Canadian tuxedo, and spends the majority of the film wearing yet another vest, but without an undershirt. I rarely dip into hyperbole, but I’ll brave it here: Billy Blanks has done for vests and denim what Bruce Lee did for yellow-and-black tracksuits and Onitsuka Tiger sneakers.


VERDICT:
Tango and Cash. Bodhi and Utah. Tequila and Alan. Add Rossi and Billy to whatever random list of action cinema team-ups you have stuck to your fridge (assuming that’s where you keep it). While the weak and one-dimensional villains in Back in Action could have ruined lesser films, the combination of Piper and Blanks somehow cuts through these and other weaknesses. The filmmakers strike a nice balance in letting Blanks loose and building the majority of his scenes around his fighting prowess, while giving Piper plenty of scenery to chew in addition to some solid fight scenes of his own. This might actually be Blanks’ best good guy performance; he comes off as especially stiff when paired with equally wooden martial artists but Piper is animated and emotive enough to bring a little flavor to their team dynamic.

AVAILABILITY:
Your best bet is on VHS. Of course, you can try for an out-of-region DVD but you may have to sift through dozens of pages of Looney Tunes results to find it.

5.5 / 7