FATAL DEVIATION (1998) is “Ireland’s first martial arts film.” I had heard of it before but I didn’t realize it’s kind of infamous online. Cracked.com once did an article calling it “the worst film ever made” and “an ancient curse on the Irish people,” but that’s, frankly, an extremely stupid thing to say. Amateur shit. This review is for pros.

This is a no budget, shot-on-video, home made production faithfully following all the traditions of the western martial arts picture: a guy who left town long ago has returned to set things straight, there’s a fighting tournament, there’s a death to avenge, there’s a local crime boss, a woman to fight over, all conveyed crudely and awkwardly. In a good way. Absolutely it’s good for a laugh, but considering the amount of resources and level of experience here (virtually none), writer/director/star James Bennett has achieved the feat of making one of these movies admirably well, and with what seems like complete sincerity.

Bennett stars as Jimmy Bennett, “the young Bennet boy” who has returned to his home town of Trim, Ireland “to discover who I am, what it is I should do, and what happened to my father.” He breaks into and fixes up his dad’s old trashed barn as a place to live, work out, and train.

Jimmy’s talents include martial arts and happening to be there when some guy is harassing some lady. There’s a flashback to him being bullied as a child, as if we need an origin story for his hatred of bullies. (That’s also the reason his dad starts training him in martial arts. I guess it wouldn’t have occurred to him otherwise.) In the tradition of RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, he happens to be there when some grown adult scoundrels are running around a grocery store breaking eggs, eating things and knocking things over. They approach a female employee, Nicola (Nicola O’Sullivan), who has just finished stacking paper towels into an aisle display, and start hassling her. Jimmy appears and says, “You’re very brave to be harassing young women.” He kicks one of them, knocking over the paper towels, which I thought was really funny because I’d assumed that was what they were threatening to do.

Jimmy is also there when Nicola is walking down the street and some guys in a car start bothering her to go see their boss, Mikey (“and from the Rock Group Boy Zone, MIKE GRAHAM,” according to the opening credits). She apparently dated him but has lost interest. They won’t take no for an answer so Jimmy kicks them, etc. That leads to:

1) a monk watching him and becoming his sensei and revealing that he was also his father’s sensei

2) Jimmy and Nicola dating via montages of a carnival, picnicking, horseback riding, skipping stones in a river, etc.

It seems like the two of them must’ve been together for weeks when there’s finally a dialogue scene and he asks about Mikey.

“Do you like him?”

“Well, I tot I did. But not anymore.”

“Mm. Tell me a little about yourself.”

Also there’s a bar fight scene. Always good to have a bar fight scene. He gets knocked onto a pool table, picks up a ball to use as a weapon, the whole bit.

The monk shows up at his door to hand him an invitation (in calligraphy) to “the Bealtaine Tournament at the Old Abbey.” Local gang leader Loughlan (Michael Regan) enters his men in the tournament, because if they win it will be good for their reputation. He has it in for Jimmy for beating up his thugs and also he’s the guy who killed Jimmy’s father.

This is quite obviously a song in the key of JCVD, and they signal that right at the beginning when he’s looking at his wall of family photos and and there are a bunch of Van Damme 8 x 10s mixed in, at least one of them autographed. I’m not sure if that’s meant as an Easter egg or a character detail, but either way Bennett does the BLOODSPORT and KICKBOXER traditions proud with his training montages. He’s got shots of himself kicking on the beach, lifting big pieces of wood, doing pullups on a high branch, balancing on things, doing the splits. There are at least two specific homages to famous Van Damme moments: the kick stopping in front of the guy’s face from TIMECOP

and the legendary standing up on a motorcycle and shooting a gun from HARD TARGET. Hats off to that one.

The fighting tournament portion is well done for a DIY movie, and there are an impressive amount of big bruisers in this tiny village, but obviously the charm of watching nameless muscle guys kick each other in a small barn is fleeting. Luckily that’s not the climax – Bennett moves from the ring to extracurricular action such as a motorcycle chase, an exploding car and a big shootout. Supposedly the shot of a car flipping was done on accident. They tried enough shit that they were able to put together an end credits blooper reel a la Needham, Chan, et al.

Along with Bennett, the credits list Simon Linscheid and Shay Casserley as directors. If Wikipedia is not mistaken, Linscheid is a bobsledder who competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics.

According to a news show called Nationwide that someone was kind enough to put on Youtube, Bennet was a 22-year old part time farmer trying to start his career as a martial arts actor. Hong Kong producers were interested in him for a major part, but he didn’t have any proof he could do it, so he made the movie.

I’m not gonna link to the obnoxious Cracked.com article referenced earlier, but I want to mention it again because this guy said, “From the first kick, it’s clear his only hopes of getting into action movies were filming his own, or pretending to be an amputee orphan and applying to Make-A-Wish.” Well, he doesn’t seem to have gotten the Hong Kong gig, but even at the time of that article he’d already been in movies with Don “The Dragon” Wilson (MOVING TARGET) and Michel Qissi (EXTREME FORCE). He’d go on to appear with his hero JCVD (KILL ‘EM ALL, KICKBOXER: RETALIATION, BLACK WATER) and Seagal (ATTRITION) and even be directed by Isaac Florentine (SEIZED) and Clint Eastwood (JERSEY BOYS). So I disagree about him not being able to get into action movies. I mean, I know that Cracked guy doesn’t respect this genre, but Bennett can hold his head high having grown into a formidable henchman, opponent and even co-star.

And most guys like that don’t have a movie like this as a time capsule of their youth. For those of us who appreciate the JCVD-knockoff format this is a fun version of it. It has all the common ingredients presented in their most rudimentary form, without really trying to put a spin on them other than the minor (but enjoyable) touch of the Irish monk mentor. If it were a more professional production the lack of originality might be a problem, but just the fact that it’s awkwardly acted by a very dedicated young man and his civilian friends gives it personality. By definition a guy who goes through the trouble of making this movie is at least a little interesting.

I got nothing against a vanity project or a fan movie, but FATAL DEVIATION somehow finds a comfortable spot in between the two. Bennett has confidence in himself more than delusion, and an infectious love for this type of movie and badass character. I enjoyed goofy moments like when he kicks a flip phone out of a thug’s hand. We hear a “Hello? Hello?” as it flies through the air, he catches it and says, “Everything’s okay, boss.” Then we see the monk nodding and smiling with pride.

I only remember one corny one-liner: he says “Enjoy the slide” to a guy that he kicks down a ledge. But then he himself slides down it while firing his gun. I guess he enjoys the slide himself.

There is a titular line. The monk keeps saying, “Fatal deviation, fatal deviation” during the tournament. If there was an earlier part that explained what it meant I must’ve missed it. The movie was apparently released on VHS, I imagine in a very limited PAL release. I saw it on a surprisingly good quality DVD-R that I assume is a bootleg (though it’s possible the filmmakers burned it) and I believe it’s on Youtube. I’m not sure what elements exist for it, but one of those weirdo labels that does SOV horror really oughta look into releasing it.

Further reading:

Den of Geek did a nice apprecation though:

Meet Fatal Deviation, Ireland’s only martial arts film‏