THE MERCENARY is what they’re calling the new one from director Jesse V. Johnson, though it’s just MERCENARY on screen, and was developed under the less generic (if goofy) title LEGION MAXX. Johnson, of course, has been on a hot streak for several years, with movies including ACCIDENT MAN, THE DEBT COLLECTOR and AVENGEMENT. This is his first in a while to not have Scott Adkins in it – instead it’s a vehicle for his lesser known but even-longer-time collaborator, Dominiquie Vandenberg. The Belgian martial artist met Johnson working on MORTAL KOMBAT, and starred in his first shorts Death Row the Tournament and The Doorman, then his first features THE HONORABLE and PIT FIGHTER, and has since shown up in ALIEN AGENT, THE HITMEN DIARIES: CHARLIE VALENTINE, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS 2, THE BUTCHER and TRIPLE THREAT. He can also be seen in Yuen Woo-Ping’s TRUE LEGEND, but maybe his greatest claim to fame is training Leonardo DiCaprio for knife-fighting in GANGS OF NEW YORK and then becoming fight coordinator and appearing as a gang member. (read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
The Mercenary
Tuesday, January 7th, 2020Thunder Warrior III
Monday, January 6th, 2020
The final THUNDER WARRIOR movie came out in 1988, only a year after the second one. THUNDER WARRIOR III starts out seeming like it’s gonna be the NEXT KARATE KID or the BEST OF THE BEST 3 or the RED SCORPION 2 of the series, in that there’s a sort of white supremacist paramilitary type group set up as the villains. A guy named Colonel Ross is putting them through training drills and yelling something about “That’s why those yellow-asses at the Pentagon relieved me of my command!”
But these guys will pretty much just act the same as all the other racist hicks in town.
Thunder is still living peacefully near the desert, which I took to mean that there have been no recriminations for all the destruction and assaults on police officers and escaping prison and all that. And that the sheriff failed to kill him in that weird last shot of part II. But IMDb says he’s in Las Cruces, New Mexico, so I guess he’s supposed to have moved. (read the rest of this shit…)
Thunder Warrior II
Thursday, January 2nd, 2020
Writer/director Fabrizio De Angelis and star Mark Gregory brought us THUNDER WARRIOR II (a.k.a. THUNDER II) two years later, in 1985, and it presumably takes place about that much later. Although Thunder went on an arrow/explosive/bulldozer/bazooka rampage, paralyzed a cop, destroyed some cop cars, leveled a couple buildings, and faked his death, he’s just casually back in town at a bar for some reason.
It’s exactly the kind of violent biker bar that’s in every movie like this, except for some reason a normal couple with a pre-teen son are there trying to eat dinner. The mom attempts to ignore the mob of drunk bikers loudly sexually harassing her, but the dad convinces her it’s time to leave, which kicks off a scuffle where the kid is about to be beat up until Thunder intervenes and takes on the entire gang almost by himself (he has a little help from a Native old timer who’s good with knives).
I want to point out that the bartender at this place really sucks. He watches the whole thing go down and makes no effort to keep things under control, not even a meek “Hey guys, cool it.” Then when the brawl starts he calls the police on Thunder. My Yelp review will not be forgiving. (read the rest of this shit…)
White Hunter Black Heart
Wednesday, January 1st, 2020
Clint Eastwood ended the ‘80s fighting neo-nazis in PINK CADILLAC, the action comedy directed by Buddy Van Horn, but he started the ‘90s directing and starring in something more self-reflective. In WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, Clint plays eccentric filmmaker John Wilson, who has planned to film a movie in Africa mainly so he can try to hunt an elephant while he’s there. He brings along a young writer friend, Pete Verrill (Jeff Fahey, DARKMAN III: DIE DARKMAN DIE) to polish the script and to pressure into going hunting with him. That character is based on Peter Viertel, who rewrote THE AFRICAN QUEEN for John Huston. The movie is based on a novel he wrote about it when he got back.
So Clint is a little different in this one. He moves and talks a little different, doing a partial imitation of Huston, and is more verbal than usual. Also he’s introduced wearing an ascot and sock-garters.
Thunder Warrior
Tuesday, December 31st, 2019
THUNDER WARRIOR, a.k.a. THUNDER is the first in a trilogy of low budget action movies of the 1980s. I think I saw it a long time ago, but since the hero, Thunder (Mark Gregory, 1990: BRONX WARRIORS), is supposed to be Native American, I was misremembering it as something made to cash in on the success of BILLY JACK. Turns out it’s a pretty straightforward ripoff of FIRST BLOOD, which came out the year before. It’s the same basic idea of a sheriff who thinks he’s a reasonable guy trying to unjustly kick a long-haired drifter out of his jurisdiction and causing him to go on a rampage. It doesn’t have the military veteran angle, and it involves a conflict over sacred Native land – admittedly very significant differences. Rambo was part Apache according to RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II movie and novelization, but that was never what he was fighting about.
Thunder returns from unspecified adventures to his small Arizona desert town just in time to find Deputy Barry (Raimund Harmstorf, THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) sexually harassing his fiance Sheila (Valeria Ross, no other credits) at the gas station she owns and operates. (read the rest of this shit…)
Ip Man 4: The Finale
Monday, December 30th, 2019
IP MAN 4: THE FINALE is from the makers of the IP MAN trilogy, according to the giant standee in the multiplex lobby that made me aware of its Christmas day release. I’m grateful to be able to see movies like this on the big screen.
IP MAN is a series released across 11 years with stories spanning from the 1930s to the 1960s, with the great Donnie Yen (HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME) not only showcasing his great fighting skills (in a style he hadn’t previously practiced), but also giving his greatest acting performance as this distinctly gentle and polite asskicker. That’s why I wish it could go on forever. I’m sure we’ll get other great Donnie Yen movies, but I’ll miss him playing this character.
The final Ip Man adventure begins with the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships and takes place primarily in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Back home in Hong Kong, Ip lives in a tiny apartment with his moody teenage son Ip Ching, who has been kicked out of school for fighting (actually defending himself with too much enthusiasm). The principal and others convince Ip he should send his son to study abroad, so he decides to use a plane ticket sent to him by his former student Bruce Lee (Danny Chan, the Bruce-lookalike goalie from SHAOLIN SOCCER who subsequently played Lee in the TV series The Legend of Bruce Lee and then IP MAN 3) to try to get him admitted into a school in San Francisco. (read the rest of this shit…)
Jack Frost 2
Tuesday, December 24th, 2019
Last Christmas I gave you my heart, by which I mean I finally watched JACK FROST and wrote about it. This year, I wouldn’t say I was in tears, but JACK FROST 2: REVENGE OF THE MUTANT KILLER SNOWMAN wasn’t as special.
I mean… they tried. Writer/director Michael Cooney returned in the year 2000 (three years after the original) with another scrappy low budget bag of silliness. This one does not have a fancy Vinegar Syndrome special edition, because it was shot in shiny ugly digital video, so what would be the point? There are a couple obvious stock footage shots and I thought “Oh, that’s what a real movie looks like.” On his commentary track (respect for including that), Cooney says he hopes people don’t notice that the stock footage looks different. Whoops. (read the rest of this shit…)
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
Monday, December 23rd, 2019
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER is the kind of thing that happens when a singular voice creates a revolutionary trilogy that changes movies forever and becomes a cultural phenomenon beloved by generations and then years later makes a trilogy of prequels to said movies that are also a cultural phenomenon and also change movies forever in a different way but are disdained by many and after a while he gets so sick of fuckin hearing about it that he sells off his entire life’s work for nearly five billion dollars and gives most of it to charity while a giant entertainment conglomerate treats his creation as an all-consuming brand centered around a third trilogy that ends the saga but is made by three different directors with no plan for where the fuck it’s going and the first guy does a good workmanlike job, then the second knocks it out of the park with a soulful and distinct followup that severely pisses off a small faction of people we only know about because of the internet and then the third guy gets fired so the first guy has to come back and figure out how the fuck to conclude a story he designed for some other poor sucker to have to deal with and also find an ending to the larger cultural phenomenon he’s been mimicking and for some reason he feels the need to alienate the people who like the movies by pandering to the people who didn’t.
So, you know, if you haven’t seen it yet, you surely can picture that type of movie, but also you shouldn’t read this review because it’s ALL SPOILERS and also you won’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. (read the rest of this shit…)
Once Upon a Time in Venice
Thursday, December 19th, 2019
About 12 miles and 48 years from ONCE UPON A TIME …IN HOLLYWOOD lies ONCE UPON A TIME IN VENICE. In this 2017 DTV joint, Bruce Willis is the center of a sunny, quirky, comedic crime tale ensemble. Though the story is narrated by his dorky new assistant John (Thomas Middleditch, THE KINGS OF SUMMER), it revolves around Bruce’s low-life private eye Steve Ford. As you do in these movies, a pan through his office shows us some of his history through the medium of props. For example, some photos and a surfboard tell us he’s a surfer. There’s one touch that made me laugh, but maybe wasn’t supposed to: we learn he’s a disgraced ex-cop from an article that calls him “disgraced” in the headline. Why would he frame that and put it on his wall? It’s not even an important piece of exposition.
Anyway, Steve has two small time cases:
1. Find a missing woman named Nola (Jessica Gomes, “KSI Spokesmodel,” TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION)
2. Find the graffiti artist painting obscene murals of real estate developer Lou the Jew (Adam Goldberg, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, voice of Flealick in BABE: PIG IN THE CITY) on his buildings (read the rest of this shit…)
Hustlers
Wednesday, December 18th, 2019
HUSTLERS is a true crime movie with some grit and some emotion and some style. It stars Constance Wu (ALL THE CREATURES WERE STIRRING) and Jennifer Lopez (ANACONDA) as the center of a ring of dancers (they don’t call themselves strippers, according to the source material) who started hanging out with rich guys so they could drug them and run up their credit cards. Wu’s character Destiny tells the story from seven years later, when she seems to have settled down, and is cautiously, suspiciously answering questions for a magazine writer (Julie Stiles, SAVE THE LAST DANCE).
When Destiny starts working at Moves she’s green, rubbing up on guys all day and going home with less money than that’s worth. There’s a great introduction to the place where the camera follows her and the other new girls from the back, out onto the stage to be introduced and down a ramp onto the floor where some asshole gets her attention by calling her Lucy Liu. Reminded me of one of my favorite shots in CREED, when it follows him to the ring and makes you feel like you’re there in his entourage, practically giving you stage fright. This has a similar feeling. You feel like you’re her, as much as a movie can do something like that.
Then she sees Ramona Vega (Lopez) entering the room like a pharaoh, dropping every jaw in the room, leaving the stage looking like it snowed one dollar bills. The Michael Jordan of the pole. Later, Destiny takes a rooftop smoke break at the same time as Ramona, who’s up there laid out like she’s doing a calendar shoot, and introduces herself. Destiny is in lingerie and it’s cold, so Ramona has her come curl up inside her big fur coat. I felt this was maybe a love story, but if so it always stays at or below this level of unacknowledged sexual chemistry. So they might just be friends who cuddle. (read the rest of this shit…)
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