Tagline:

There is no substitute.

Can the premise even be articulated?

Oh my, yes.  It’s about a kickboxing fashion consultant trying to save the world from exploding jeans.  JCVD is a cheap knock-off artist in Hong Kong who tries to go legit as a jean manufacturer and unwittingly partners up with an undercover CIA agent.  There is a CIA agent undercover in the Hong Kong garment industry because Russians are planting “nano-bombs” in knock-off merchandise hoping to detonate them once they reach American consumers.  The Russians’ motivation for doing this is…  They’ve chosen to distribute the bombs via knock-offs manufactured in Hong Kong because… Well, look if I was the producer, it wouldn’t have gotten to that point of the pitch before giving a green light either.

“Well, I guess to start off, I’d say it’s Halloween III meets Red Dawn meets Bloodsport meets Prêt-à-Porter.  But before you…”

“SOLD!!!!”

B -list costar

Rob Schneider, who according to my calculations was still fairly popular in 1998, plays the undercover CIA agent.  The atrocious dubbing detracts from the comic timing and boundless charm you are accustomed to, but he still wears Hawaiian shirts.  Seriously, he wasn’t bad.  Paul Sorvino plays his boss.

Homoeroticism:
It’s nice when we review one of these films and don’t have to embellish or creatively interpret anything to find homoeroticism.  Which is about 98% of the time.  During a rickshaw race, JCVD is pulling Schneider and they take a short cut through an alley fish market.  When they emerge, Schneider is holding an eel which he uses as a whip, flogging JCVD’s tightly clad posterior and shouting “Move that big beautiful ass of yours!”  Just the facts.

How Bad Was It Really?

Obviously it was atrocious, but it kept my attention.  I read a couple other reviews and it’s amazing how much people are willing to concede to HK flicks.  The Onion even talked about the contrast between exciting HK action and the dull JCVD.  The HK director has a POV of a stray bullet going through a roll of toilet paper for no reason… Genius!  Kevin Thomas of the LA Times who, admittedly, is grossly incompetent in general, claimed this was “one of Van Damme’s best movies ever.”  Again, it is about a kickboxing fashion consultant saving the world from exploding jeans.  The excess in aimless style does kind of make up for the ridiculous plot and terrible dialogue, in that it gives you something to look at, including cool stunts that would have no place in a rational storyline.  But let’s stop deluding ourselves into believing that the “electrifying” HK action is something other than an entertaining gimmick to cover up coarse scripts for internationally diverse audiences, many of whom can barely read.  There’s a reason that approach is terrible in Hollywood: because people are taking the films at least somewhat seriously.  But the approach does work here because the whole thing is so ridiculous that the pointless shot from the POV of a shoe fits, where it would just be a waste of time if you actually cared what was happening.

Corpse Count:

Um… not that many, but some are deaths by exploding jeans.  Also, the nano-bombs make green explosions for some reason.  Another guy has his safe booby trapped with some kind of rocket intended for shooting down helicopters.  A few other people are shot or crushed by cargo containers.  The total is probably about fifteen.

Novelty Death:

Somehow, JCVD winds up in a karate battle on a moving truck.  In Hong Kong they use huge bamboo chutes to make scaffolding for construction.  I know this because, being a world traveler, I have been to Hong Kong, where I saw this scaffolding all over the place.  I also dined at a Wendy’s.  Anyway, JCVD unleashes a wicked spin kick and knocks one of the Russians  off the truck and he is impaled on one of those bamboo chutes.

Post-Mortem One Liner:

“Yaaaarrrgggghhhhh!”

The unusual thing about this one is that Paul Sorvino screams after the toy dinosaur he is working on has already exploded and killed him.  HK action films are so dynamic and exhilarating!

Stupid Political Content:

The whole thing is set around the time of the handover of Hong Kong from England to China.  And… yeah.

What You Learned:

Even when it’s done by the original actors, who were originally speaking English, Asians will find a way to fuck up the dubbing.

Also, “Counterfeiting happens to be a federal crime.  Whether it’s clothing or whether it’s money, it doesn’t matter.”

Tagline:

“They thought he was dead. They were dead wrong.”

Entire Story in Fewer Words than are in this Sentence:

Russians drink. Russians cackle. Russians scheme. Russians die.

Homoeroticism:

Dolph Lundgren is just shy of 52-years-old, and I’ll be damned if he isn’t shirtless within the first five minutes. He’s ripped, he’s cut, and despite a minor sag or two, he still looks like his torso is slathered in saran-wrap. He’s an undeniable slab of eye candy, even if he’s now more Gordon Ramsey than Ivan Drago. He’s a man’s man, but at this late date, he’s still bored by strip clubs, and seems only mildly amused whenever he’s surrounded by topless tarts. Even after kidnapping a hot oil heiress, it remains about the money – $200,000 to be exact. Right away, he stuffs her in the trunk of his car to avoid looking at her. And hell, doesn’t anyone sodomize kidnapping victims anymore? The gay vibe is blasted away when the pair, now on the run, fuck in some farm house, but I’ll swear on my grave that he was raped. She’s the one who pushed him to the ground, after all. And during their brief make-out session, she’s all squeals and chirps, while he’s indistinguishable from balsa wood. His is the hard-on of the cash nexus, not perky tits and pouting lips. Dolph is also kicked squarely in the nuts to absolutely no effect. I’m not sure how that’s gay per se, but it’s a little odd.

Corpse Count:

A respectable 48 are sent to their graves, most of whom are faceless, nameless, soulless Russians. Thankfully, the filmmaker decided that because he only had about 15 minutes of story, he’d be forced to put each and every death in slo-mo to ensure categorization as a feature film. As densely packed as the violence is, the number should have been twice that, as the Russian army has apparently decided to hire the least proficient snipers on the globe. Even worse, Lundgren and his female companion are chased down a narrow tunnel by a fucking tank, for chrissakes, and nothing – not bullet, not land mine, not grenade, nor heat-seeking missile – so much as singes a patch of forearm hair.

How Bad is it Really?

Let’s begin with the tagline. At no point does anyone think Dolph is dead. Not the Russians, not the CIA, and not even the guy trying to kill him. Even the bad guy funding the whole operation says that Dolph has more guts than the entire army being sent to kill him. Next up, the Russian mobsters and generals are inexplicably dubbed half the time for no apparent reason. Dubbing usually clears up forked tongues and the like, but here, the added voices are impossible to understand in any language. The musical score is also an abomination, providing the usual heavy-handed cues for who is good and evil, and during an opening fight scene, it’s pace is in direct opposition to excitement. It’s moody and slow, as if Dolph were reading Tolstoy by a fire rather than sticking forks in eyeballs, or kicking more groins in a single minute than any action hero in history.

The plot is remarkably thin, even for a straight-to-video action piece, but it’s made worse by Gina May, heretofore the worst actress ever to stand opposite someone I had assumed to be the worst actor. Her stilted delivery, furrowed brow, and dopey grin about forced my hand, but she eventually won my heart by killing a few Russians herself by the final scene. See, she stands to inherit a fortune from her late father’s oil company, only some evil dude channeling Robert Wagner wants it for himself. He has Lundgren kidnap her from a slimy Russian in order to secure her signature on a transfer of ownership certificate he just happens to carry around with him. There are betrayals, hidden motives, and double-crosses, but all occur right before our eyes, leaving no chance for the third act talking killer.

Additionally, Dolph invades and destroys an entire military base all on his own, though it’s not hard when the dippy Russians conveniently leave dozens of barrels helpfully labeled “Explosives” right outside key strategic positions. There’s also a lengthy chase scene through the streets of some city in Belarus, I think, that might be the first to involve a motorcycle and a tank. Oddly, as they blast away what remains of the city, no one in the streets seems fazed by the destruction, continuing to read papers and order lunch as runaway jeeps fly through windows and atomic-level blasts cut away entire blocks. And did Dolph have to walk away unscathed from a gas station explosion that just happened to ignite mere yards from his beaming face? And when did he start talking like Kris Kristofferson?

Post-Mortem One-Liners:

None of any note, though bad dialogue thankfully won out in the end. The bad guy (not him, the other guy), says to his operative, “What if this guy goes AOL and tried to cross the border with her?” I listened to it three times, and yes, AOL it remains. Lundgren, alas, is reduced to spitting, “Look out!” and “Get down!” half the time, though he was given a chance to mutter “Keep quiet!” near the end. Fortunately, he’s given the film’s final line: “God Bless America.” Indeed, Mr. Lundgren. The best line, however, is a subtitle, screamed by a Russian general as he’s executing civilians for no reason. “Search for the Americanskis,” he cries, which is twice as funny in the original Russian, I assure you. Then, near the end, as Dolph and the chick are racing towards the American embassy in a flaming tank, an American soldier roars, “Terrorist attack! Take your positions!” All should hope such brave boys are guarding our liberty as we speak.

Stupid Political Content:

Pretty spare for a film about, by, and for Russians. Still, Russians remain evil incarnate, and not a one of them shaves, bathes, or stops drinking. And so the Cold War marches on. There was some loose talk about not negotiating with terrorists, but we can clearly see that the CIA does exactly that, so I guess that’s a slap at some administration that shall remain nameless. For a movie that has oil politics at its core, it’s surprisingly apolitical, even a bit left-wing in its sympathies. Still, liberalism being what it is, few on that side of the aisle openly endorse laying waste to an entire country to rescue some rich girl who rides away in a gas guzzling limo to end the movie.

Novelty Deaths:

The guy who spit in Dolph’s chow during the opening received a fork in the eye, but there’s no proof he died. The waiter at the outdoor café in Volka, however, most certainly breathed his last, even though his reaction to being shot in the heart was to shrug and slightly grimace, as if he spilled gravy on his shirt. And then there’s the loony gypsy on the train, who is shot down like a dog while executing a particularly difficult leg kick, all while the band plays on. The best death, however, was when the Robert Wagner dude (played with no ability whatsoever by Michael Pare) is thrown out the window by Dolph after having a grenade stuffed down his shirt. The resulting explosion is a feast of blood and body parts, eclipsed in carnage only by the finale of Jaws.

What You Learned:

This is the only movie in history where an actor named Vladimir Vladimirov plays a character named Vlado.

Tagline:

Framed, Forgotten, Furious

Entire story in fewer words than are in this sentence:

Jewish beefcake is almost as sexy as Belgian beefcake.

Homoeroticism:

This is the queen of the series and, considering the constant display of the oiled, male form in Kickboxers 1-3, that says a lot.  One woman shows her tits and has sex with our hero’s sidekick.  In accordance with the laws of 80’s action, she is killed for poisoning his cock with her vile stank.    The plot does revolve around Sasha Mitchell saving his wife, who has been kidnapped by bad kickboxers.  However, she is unattractive and seen only in the beginning, when she is raped by the head bad guy, Tong Po, and then at the end as a hostage/horrible, ugly burden.  Mitchell never deigns to hug or kiss her.  The real action begins when Sasha and his equally buff sidekick are tied up together, chests oiled and glistening. We meet Tong Po, we can see that he waxes his eye brows, has had numerous plastic surgeries and wears make up.  Not movie make up, girl make up.  Sasha  is asked by a woman just how hard he is.  He rebuffs her by saying, “hard enough,” in a reply that can only be meant to establish that he is too much man for a mere woman.    Also, there is a bar fight in which Sasha Mitchell uses two pool cues to grope a man’s groin and, given Mitchell’s poker faced intensity in the scene, we can tell he really enjoys vice-gripping those balls. The climax occurs among picnic tables, where hissing, kneeing, kicking and bludgeoning all take place in the sun so that our hero’s and villain’s muscles glisten, ensuring that we all win.   In other words, I was left with a swollen colon and a broken pool cue.

Pre-Mortem One Liner:

“Darcy Is a beautiful woman!”  Right before Tong Po stabs a hooker, spilling her guts as she’s tied up next to our hero and his sidekick. This sequence is funny, not so much because of the line,  but because Tong Po is playing a mandolin when he disembowels her.

Corpse Count:

13.  Once again there is a lot of gray area because there are many fight sequences that could easily kill someone in real life. A guy gets his head slammed into a brick, for example but fractured skull, schmactured schmull… there were 13 confirmed kills.

Novelty Death:

Tong Po’s main henchman (Played by the guy that killed Jason in Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives) has a gun to the head of Mitchell’s wife.  Mitchell grabs a really dull looking knife that happens to be sitting by a punchbowl.  Before the villain can  react, he gets the knife to the head.   I love it when people get stabbed in the head.

How Bad Is It Really:

This is easily the best of the Kickboxer sequels.  This fucker is watchable (I’ve seen it like 14 times, which is about 11 times less than I’ve seen K1). There is a great bar fight in which Mitchell throws bikers through windows, pool tables, phone booths, picnic tables (there’s kind of a picnic table motif) and stools.  During this scene, a man is thrown through a window, then hit by a van and propelled back into the bar through another window. There was a guy who would slam the head of his opponent into the ground over and over again.   There were tons of necks being broken and, in one memorable scene, Sasha Mitchell actually beats up a guy with a pool skimmer.   So this is better than the previous two Kickbokers and better than most  martial arts flicks in general.  Of course, it is still  terrible.   I mean, whoever did Tong Po’s girlish makeup should have their hands chopped off.  And how did Sasha Mitchell’s character become a DEA agent after being a kickboxing champion in 2 and 3?  And why on earth does Mitchell go undercover among bad guys who already know who he is, disguised only by a pair of sunglasses?   I wasn’t surprised to see that the guy that directed this film also directed the equally surrealistically crappy Cyborg. Thankfully, they know where their bread (and ours) is buttered and any distractions can be forgiven in exchange for the numerous homo-erotically charged fight scenes.

Stupid Political Content:

Mitchell is in prison for doing his job too well, having been set up by his enemy: The System. The System uses Sasha Mitchell’s kickboxing skills to try and take down a drug lord, because the drug lord is also a deadly kickboxer.  He goes too far for the liberal System, however, and they shut him down, which somehow leads to Mitchell’s wife’s abduction.  Only after Tong Po kills a bunch of  DEA agents does The System realize it needs an unfettered hard man to take down a criminal hard man.  Politics and rules are worthless to the bad guys, so the hero shouldn’t have to abide them either.  Finally, when you show criminals mercy, as Mitchell did to Tong Po in Kickboxer 2,  it will come back to bite you in the ass approxomately two movies later.

What I learned:

A pair of sunglasses is an adequate disguise, so long as you have a pool skimmer on hand in case things go south.

Tagline:

He’s not only smarter than the police; he’s doing their job… He’s the Exterminator

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Fragment:

A gang paralyzes John’s pal, he becomes a vigilante.

Homoeroticism:

Well, there’s the unusually close bond between John and his ‘Nam buddy, Michael, to the extent that the attack on Michael sends John on a bloody rampage. There’s the usual masculine palling around at their blue collar job. And, that’s about it.  Oh yeah, there’s the scene where a teenage boy is chained face down, nude and anally assaulted with a soldering iron. Even when The Exterminator rescues him and gives him a towel, the towel keeps slipping off. That boy’s bare ass has more screen time than Michael’s wife and kids, who are supposed to be the chief objects of our sympathy. Don’t pretend you’d have it any other way.

Corpse Count:

13, but a pretty brutal 13. Most of the gore is off-screen, except for this scene where a GI is tied up and decapitated in the ‘Nam prelude. But two gang members are tied down in a rat infested basement and left to be devoured.  A chicken hawk is tied to a bed and burned alive. There’s a lot of scenes in which men tie each other up.

Novelty Death:

Tying a man up (see) and slowly lowering him into a meat grinder will usually score you top novelty death, and this case is no exception. John has abducted a mob boss, suspended him in chains above the grinder and extorted some money from him. When the dago tricks John into walking into a dog attack, John comes back and makes some extra greasy hamburger.

Pre-Mortem One liner:

Before leaving the mob boss, John utters the trailblazing line “if you’re lying, I’ll be back.”  Arnold is nothing but a two bit thief.

How bad was it really?

Well, the critics would give it a low rating, then shower it with praise. Ebert raves, “The Exterminator exists primarily to show burnings, shootings, gougings, grindings, and beheadings. It is a small, unclean exercise in shame.” How is that not good for at least 3.5 stars?

Also, this random guy on IMDB simply must be quoted. “Dark as a panther’s kiss, this top notch killer thriller pops all the right tubes and leaves you dancing like Sullivan. There’s something about a good vigilante film to get the old blood pumping and your mouth salivating. When I watched it as a youth, it made me want to track down Barry Bargeld, the school bully, and grip his coat collar.” Obviously, I simply can’t compete with that.  But I’ll finish the review anyway.

Really, the movie is pretty bad. The story rambles and changes course for no reason. For example, we’re barely introduced to the cop chasing down The Exterminator before we see him involved in a romantic subplot.  This is supposed to draw us in, but instead we ask, “who the fuck is that guy?” Once we remember him as that cop who was on screen for 13 seconds a while back, he completely changes heart for no real reason and decides it’s best to let The Exterminator do his work without police interference. There’s a lot good about The Exterminator.  It has a  higher budget than I expected.  It foreshadows much of what is to come in the world of action.  It’s dark as a panther’s kiss.  Its one flaw is not being a very good movie.

Stupid Political Content:

The film is liberal in that it is pro-euthanasia.  Everyone seems to agree that John pulling the plug at his paralyzed friend’s request, which he can only make by blinking twice, is the right thing to do. It’s conservative in that it is pro-murdering-anyone-you-even-suspect-of-a-crime.  The Exterminator was also at the forefront of the whole notion that we have a crazy, liberal criminal justice system that leaves our prisons sitting practically empty. We are to believe that the state of affairs is typified by the rap sheet of one of The Exterminator’s victims, read off by a cop: “42 arrests for promoting prostitution, assault, rape, white slavery, corrupting the morals of minors. Lately, he specialized in young boys. He was convicted twice and served a total of 18 months.”   I’m not sure that there’s an actual crime called “white slavery.”

What You Learned:

You get 18 months for 42 severe sex crimes?  Time to get bus-ay!

Tagline:

“Muggers who prey on this victim end up praying for their lives!”

Entire Story in Fewer Words than are in this Sentence:

Paul Kersey returns to New York; thousands are butchered.

Homoeroticism:

Paul (Charles Bronson) sends away for a gun he calls “Wilde” (as in Brandon de, not Oscar) which is long, black, and has the power to coat giggly Hispanics in their own blood. There is also a close-up of Paul doing push-ups, which serves no other purpose than to demonstrate that Bronson looks pretty damn good in a sweatshirt. True, Paul makes love to an owlish female public defender, but homoeroticism has a last laugh as she is murdered within fifteen minutes of coitus. Paul also goes on a ten-minute murder rampage with the police chief who first arrested him after he arrived in town. As the two massacre assorted thugs, punks, and black men (one is a dead ringer for H.R., the lead singer of Bad Brains), they give each other knowing glances and come-hither looks. Moreover, each saves the other’s life, which demonstrates that so long as men bond, there will be peace in the land. Every time Paul tries to land pussy, people die.

Corpse Count:

I lost track, but at least 578 people die during the course of this film, the majority in the final twenty minutes. We get to see all types of death — stabbings, gunshots to every possible body part, being burned alive, falling from rooftops, etc. No expense was spared and it is my belief that there is no bloodier movie in motion picture history, and I’m including every other film discussed on this website.

How bad is it really?

Not bad at all [Ed Note: See Matt's full review]. In fact, it is downright hilarious. I have to believe that the director intended his tongue to be firmly in cheek, although there are enough scenes that approach social commentary (one has an obviously liberal cop taking away a defenseless Jew’s firearm while the neighborhood is literally burning down) to allow for a serious approach. I have yet to read a defense of this film that isn’t based on guilt or sarcasm, so who knows. Still, because the film is lacking any real structure (only serving to satisfy bloodthirsty viewers who enjoy watching people die), it isn’t art by any means. Still, how bad can it be when the cast includes an honest-to-goodness Oscar Winner (Martin Balsam) and future Star Trek: The Next Generation star Marina Sirtis? And did I mention Bill & Ted alum Alex Winter?

Post-Mortem One Liner:

Interestingly enough, Bronson doesn’t utter one word after committing hundreds of murders. He is the most efficient, heartless killing machine I have ever seen. The best line in the film, however, comes from the top bad guy (played by Chuck Cunningham from the early Happy Days episodes) as he leaves jail after kicking Bronson’s ass: “Tell you what, I’m gonna kill a little old lady just for you. Catch it on the six o’clock news.”

Stupid Political Content:

As with all films produced by the team of Golan-Globus, there are assorted right-wing themes running throughout — inept police departments, harmful gun control laws, impotent government agencies, silly liberal idealism (typified by loony lawyers who demand protection for civil liberties and the rights of criminals). Murderers and rapists are let out of jail by feminized judges, which requires hyper-masculine action by Ayn Rand types who believe the individual, preferably with muscles and/or a big-ass gun, to pick up where the candy-assed pinko-state left off.

Novelty Death:

A man (or is it a woman?) who looks strangely like Margaret Thatcher, runs screaming from a home immediately after Molotov cocktails have been thrown through the window. Needless to say, she/he is on fire and the whole thing is terribly, terribly funny. A close second is a man pushed out of a window by a screaming woman armed only with a broom.

What you learned:

Only when blood flows in the streets will the violence stop.

Tagline:

100% Pure Adrenaline

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:

Agent Keanu learns to surf to catch surfing bank robbers.

Homoeroticism:

Look, I can’t completely cash in on our running gimmick, as brilliantly revealing as it is, because we’re creeping into the early 90’s
here and certain familiar elements of the (gay) male-oriented action movie were being cast aside in favor of more earthy tones, normalized heroes, and possibly even an effort to reflect a more tolerant society at large. Which means less homo-anticipatory frustration in film, as men wore their hair longer, donned earrings, didn’t take steroids, etc. and those once stigmatizing features no longer got them called a “faggot” by a burly guy who secretly wanted them to pound his butthole.

That’s not to say there isn’t some serious male bonding going on in Point Break. Patrick Swayze’s zoom zen beachmonk, Bodhi, takes an increasingly unnatural liking to so-called lawyer Johnny Utah, played perfectly by the impressionable, indecisive Keanu Reeves. Bodhi’s come-ons to Utah range from the admittedly seductive, “Johnny has his own demons, don’t you, Johnny?” to the bizarre, “you’re a pitbull!” But Bodhi doesn’t look particularly heartbroken either when Johnny succumbs to Lori Petty’s gruesome charms after an impromptu night surf. Maybe that’s only because she is nasty-ass Lori Petty and the only hot chick in the movie belonged to Warchild.

Swayze is continually shirtless but unlike with the staples of the 80’s action movement that’s maybe not meant entirely to make you and your brother swoon as this movie drew in a pretty hefty female audience. And that’s not to say it only pulled in fat girls either. I guarantee that James LeGros’ grin made an oily Sly Stallone look positively troglodytic to any chick who saw this movie.

The guys in these surfer tribes portrayed in Point Break definitely have a tight bond but I’m going to hazard a guess that they’re less interested in glistening beefsex than they are some light bromance over spraying cans of beer and the occasional leap from an airplane while holding hands.

Corpse Count:

10 maybe.
Two for sure during the botched, hilariously unorganized drug raid. Anthony Keidis also shoots his foot off during that part, and an FBI guy gets stabbed in the back but I think those end up being superficial wounds. The real serious deaths occur after Utah is exposed as an agent. A bank security guard gets one, an off-duty cop trying to be a hero takes two to the chest, and young Nathaniel dies in Bodhi’s arms. Then, when Angelo Pappas (Utah’s scruffy partner played by Gary Busey) illegally takes Utah somewhere that isn’t jail after punching his FBI boss in the face, Pappas is shot to death but not before giving Roach a bullet that will later prove fatal. It’s said near the end that Rosie, Bodhi’s henchman, was killed in a knife fight in Baja. And then of course, Bodhi’s tragic demise.

How Bad Is It Really?

The premise is possibly the most insane in movie history next to maybe Iron Eagle. A tight-knit group of surfers don masks of former U.S. Presidents and rob several banks throughout Southern California while evading the law for no apparent reason. Ok, they don’t go for the vault. Which suggests the banks’ losses aren’t that profound. And more importantly, they don’t initially kill anybody while committing their crimes. And so the situation isn’t all that much more crucial than a few held-up liquor stores.

For some reason, the FBI gets involved, and this is where the viewer starts contemplating yelling at the screen. Pappas and Utah’s plan to teach Utah to surf in an attempt to infiltrate the criminal gang is improbably successful and leads to several inexplicable subplots, one of which has Johnny climbing into a small airplane with a group of bandits who know he’s undercover and he knows they know he’s undercover and they know he knows they know. But they don’t even get to kick him out of the plane at 10,000 feet because he goes ahead and jumps out of it, with a dubious parachute on his back that one of the criminals admitted to Johnny that he packed.

Also, undercover agent Utah just leaves his wallet lying around where anyone can find it, and of course just flipping over the fold reveals his ID with the words “F.B.I” written in big letters. In one early scene Pappas, a veteran Federal Agent, just gives up on dealing with bank-robbing methods that have been foiled throughout law enforcement history at one time or another and dismisses the Ex Presidents as “ghosts”. Well, they must be.
Either that, or surfers.

Aside from the entire plot though, the movie is fucking radical. How talented director Kathryn Bigelow managed to stay on and shoot all those incredible action scenes around such a mind numbing plot is anyone’s guess but in doing so, she nearly transformed Battlefield Earth into fucking Die Hard. Make no mistake, this is a fun movie and highly re-watchable even today.

Pre-mortem One-liner:

Nobody really talks shit after someone dies, but one that would have been awesome if it’d been said pre-murder is when Roach says to Johnny, “Johnny, you’re about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane – how do you feel about that?” right before Johnny leaped out of it, but for some reason they didn’t sabotage his chute, even though he stood as the biggest threat to their lives and it was the perfect opportunity to get away with it.

Previous mercy for him didn’t stop Johnny from digging his boot in Roach’s wound later though after Roach complained about dying.
“You’re cold because all of the blood is running out of your body, Roach. You’re gonna be dead soon. I hope it was worth it.” Oh snap! What a dick.

Stupid Political Content:

Actually, there’s some pretty awesome political content. At the end of Point Break, Johnny Utah throws his badge in the ocean because he realizes that working for the FBI is fascist and even though killing people in bank robberies is wrong too one can obtain an existential contentment in traveling around the world surfing every day. As Bodhi once told his crew, they are fighting against, “a system that kills the human spirit.” They’re standing up showing the suckers, “inching their way down the freeway in their metal coffins,” that the human spirit still exists.

Is There a Stupid Chief?

Well, he’s not really stupid but Ben Harp, Pappas and Utah’s FBI boss, is an asshole. And he’s not open-minded at all. I’m guessing Harp shot down all of Pappas’ theories. That the Ex-Presidents are ghosts. That they’re surfers. A bowling team. A circus troupe.

Novelty Deaths:

Despite the story, this is a movie that takes it’s deaths fairly seriously. Bodhi’s is sort of novelty though because when Johnny finally catches up to him a year after everything went bad and people died, at Bell’s Beach in Australia, where Bodhi’s whole life was leading up to the perfect wave, they have a short fight on the beach but then Johnny lets Bodhi go out in the surf before his would-be arrest. Johnny knows Bodhi isn’t coming back, that he’s sacrificing himself to the sea after nailing like an 80 foot wave. The fucked up thing though and what makes the scene completely anti-climatic is that Bodhi doesn’t even stay on his surfboard for more than a couple moments and appears to just failflop into the sea. I expected they’d show him tearing shit up for at least 15 seconds but he eats it immediately.

How Did This Movie Make You Feel?

Terrible. I first saw Point Break when I was living in Virginia Beach the summer of ‘93. I was obviously younger, I had sun-baked, flowing curls, a fearless disposition regarding soaring my bike off ramps, bungee jumping, stage diving, or you know, going to the beach.

Now my knees wobble on a 12 foot ladder and I’m afraid to touch a spider. Watching this film from my couch coffin, my human spirit diminishing in reverse proportion to an expanding waistline, I felt fucking terrible!

Tagline:

His battle to save the Alaskan wilderness and protect its people can only be won… On Deadly Ground.

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:

Fringe-clad Eskimo sympathizer embraces clean energy, beatdowns ensue.

Homoeroticism:

It takes a genuine moment of scrutiny to unravel Seagal’s latent and complicated homosexuality. Erich and I have been at slight odds over the years on the subject, yet I think we can both agree that On Deadly Ground is Steven’s directorial tribute to 80s action. The film was released in 1994 but make no mistake, despite its renegade reformist agenda, this is 80s action through and through, the final languid gasp of an all but dead genre. Seagal’s obsession with testicles has never been more fervid; he kicks, punches, prods, and shoots no less than five pair throughout the movie. After the requisite bar fight, Seagal challenges a mouthy oil worker to a depraved game of hand-slap during which he belittles the poor guy, questions the legitimacy of his “big balls,” and then sadistically punches them. Let’s face it, the dude prefers to be physical with other men rather than shoot them outright. Furthermore, not once does he show any interest in the Eskimo chief’s daughter who is more than fuckable.

The gayest scene, possibly the gayest of Seagal’s career, occurs when he is sent on a sacred journey courtesy of the Eskimo elders. After wrestling a grizzly bear, he finds himself in some kind of candlelit caribou skin enclosure. On one side is a bejeweled and beautiful native woman writhing naked on a bed, heaving her sweaty breasts in his direction. On the other side is a leathery shaman hag holding a rawhide shaker. Seagal takes a long look at the exotic seductress beckoning him to join her, then turns back to the pruned old woman. He shoots a final glance at the come-hither vixen and then we witness something remarkable. We see Seagal put his hands together and literally begin to pray. Not to pray the gay away, mind you, but to pray that the bewitching little harlot disappear and leave him alone forever. And so she does!! He opts to speak with the ancient broad to complete his spiritual transformation and be reborn. That, my friends, is fucking gay.

Corpse Count:

27 bodies stack up pretty quickly in the latter half of the movie, putting it right up there with Marked for Death as one of the bloodiest Seagal flicks in the archive. We see people shot, tortured, stabbed, burned alive, and one unfortunate bodyguard is cudgeled with a whale bone. Moreover, there are plenty of trademark ass-drubbings to be found amid the carnage. Arms are snapped, wrists are reconfigured, and fingers are shaped into various letters of the alphabet.

How Bad Is It Really?

With Michael Caine, John C. McGinley, and R. Lee Ermey on board, it can’t exactly be bad, can it? It’s absolutely ludicrous, yeah, but not bad. Kill Switch is bad. This is actually one of my favorite early Seagal films because the preposterousness is taken to unexplored dimensions. During the first half of the movie you have Seagal shoveling his anti-corporate, anti-oil, pro-environment propaganda down your throat and in the second half you have twenty or so murders, several of them novelty deaths, accompanied by a half-dozen large explosions. It’s all very confusing. The directing and acting aren’t completely unbearable but there are several sluggish and unnecessary scenes that drag the running time to an hour and forty minutes. The dialogue is typically heinous, even laughably self-righteous at times, and Seagal’s acting is, well, rheumatic at best. Sadly, a majority of the action takes place toward the end of the movie so we must first listen to Seagal’s theories about manhood and all the fucking Eskimo platitudes concerning eagles and bears that amount to nothing more than slant-eyed sorcery.

The hilarity revolves around Jennings (Michael Caine), an unscrupulous oil baron who is set to launch Aegis-1, the biggest refinery in the world that happens to look like the control tower of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The problem is that he is using faulty preventers because he is shady and because the land rights will revert back to the Eskimos if he can’t get the refinery running on time. Forrest Taft (Seagal) works for Jennings as some kind of supervisor but when he discovers the truth about the preventers, Jennings has him killed. Or so he thinks. Forrest is saved by the Eskimos who nurse him back to health, teach him to be one with the animals, send him on a mystical pilgrimage, and give him a snowmobile. After collecting all the irrefutable evidence he needs to topple the oil company, Forrest ruthlessly and efficiently butchers Jennings and all of his cohorts before blowing up the refinery. Why take it to court, right?

Pre-mortem One-liner:

Forrest lassos, yes, lassos Jennings at the end and strings him up for a final face-to-face.

Jennings: “Shoot me, you son of a bitch!”

Forrest: “I wouldn’t dirty my bullets.”

Chief’s daughter: “Dirty one for me, Forrest!”

Also, this chilling exchange:

Chief’s daughter: “Who are you calling?”

Forrest: “I just gotta reach out and touch someone.”

Stupid Political Content:

Christ, where to begin? It’s almost too asinine to contextualize. We’re bombarded with the tired notion of the noble savage at every turn. The harmonious, peace-loving Eskimos are at the sinister whim of a diabolical oil company with no concern for the environment. Realizing the error of his ways, Forrest is taken into their tranquil world and reinvented as the man-bear, a spirit warrior, he who will bring peace to the natives. Seagal not only plays the hero but also the role of philosopher, a sort of logician of the last frontier. He’s constantly asking profound questions like, “what does one say to a man with no conscience?” and, “what does it take to change the essence of a man?” These are questions with which I still grapple. Oddly enough, after returning from his enlightening journey to the spirit world, he promptly denounces all the “hocus pocus” Eskimo wizardry in favor of a calculated, murderous rampage.

There’s loads of anti-oil petitioning to be found. The natives suffer because the land is being raped and the water steadily polluted. The wildlife of Alaska is being driven from its natural habitat and Eskimo babies are arriving to mother earth with strange anomalies. Various cancers have stricken the tribe. Hell, even the chief himself is gunned down by one of Jennings’ goons in a supposed act of self-defense when obviously the chief is the oldest living human being on the planet. Steven just completely hurdled off the deep end with this one, which brings us full circle to the preeminent speech. Originally eleven(!!!) minutes in length, the studio demanded that it be condensed to just under four presumably because members of the screening audience had burst into insuppressible laughter, then clawed their own eyes out. We see a clichéd montage of oil-slathered birds, crop dusters, gasses spewing from corroded pipes, decomposed animals— all while Seagal speaks to us wearing a breathtaking fringe jacket flecked with turquoise beads and other hallowed trinkets. “How many oil spills can we endure?” he asks. “The plankton is dying!” On and on we go before Seagal finally breaks down into a meandering tirade about how our children are being genetically damaged. Did I mention Billy Bob Thornton is in this movie?

Novelty Death:

There are several worthy candidates but I’m going with the death of Hugh (Richard Hamilton) for two reasons: first, the absolute hilariousness of the whole ordeal and second, its stupid political content. So John C. McGinley and Thorgrim from Conan break into Hugh’s house to retrieve some EPA files for Jennings. Hugh won’t budge so they flatten his fingers with a whale bone and sever his leg with an industrial pipe cutter. He moans and rolls his eyes in what is possibly the most unintentionally funny bit of acting I’ve ever seen. As this is all happening we’re treated to a slow pan away from Hugh’s face, up and out of his cabin window toward the pristine snow-capped mountains in the distance. This is what courageous people will endure to protect the environment.

Was There An Atomic Blast At The End?

No, but there were a fuckton of big explosions, the biggest of which occurred in my pants.

What You Learned:

Never pass up an opportunity to bang the chief’s daughter. Spotted Eagle, the earth is our grandma.

Mary, Cyborg

Not worthy of a last name, but certainly worthy of
recognition among the elite 80s action one-hit wonderfuls is Mary (Terrie
Batson), pictured here cradling her treacherous little sister in the 1989 Van
Damme classic, Cyborg. We see her
gardening. We see her sleeping. We see her fumble through what few lines she utters
and then we see her die. Though overshadowed by Debbie Richter through most of
the film, it’s our wide-eyed Mary who remains the driving force behind Van
Damme’s blank stares, his murderous intent, and above all, his absolutely
blazing, wildfire gayness. To put Mary’s importance in perspective we must
recall what is arguably the most homoerotic scene in 80s action history. During
an intimate moment by the campfire, Richter reaches into her shirt and presents
JC with one of her tits— a lopsided, leathery thing assuredly, but a tit
nonetheless. Without blinking, as if he were offended by the gesture, JC
reaches over and covers up the cleavage with more conviction than anything he
displays in his fight scenes. After denying Richter (and the viewer) the
pleasure of his taut Belgian ass, he quickly flashes back to none other than
Mary, the woman who persuaded him to give up the life, put away the knives, and
forever put away his cock.

Mary hires JC to escort her and her siblings out of the
plague-riddled wasteland, chock full of bandits, lowlifes, mercenaries, and
some of the meanest mullets this side of the Double Deuce. After finding a quaint cottage in the countryside,
she asks JC in the sweetest of voices to “stay awhile,” and so he does. Time
passes, they get to know each other, settle down, and presumably have sex,
though we don’t actually see any sex
as this is a Cannon enterprise.
Awkward sex is definitely implied though. So of course JC retires his weapons, trims
the roadkill on his head and relaxes his guard. Things appear tranquil for a
time; days, possibly even weeks pass until the “flesh pirates” show up and reduce
JC to a bloody mound of whimpering pulp. Shortly thereafter they tie him to
Mary and one of the children before hurling the trio to their muddy deaths at
the bottom of an abandoned well. JC survives the fall through sheer cast iron
will, emerging from the squalid pit with retribution on his mind, the kind of
retribution that demands swiftness, savagery, and many ounces of baby oil.

Mary’s death, while tragic and gruesome, is necessary to bring
our hero full circle and preserve his rippled abs. As a dutiful woman of the
80s action age she must die or be maimed, because to settle with a female is to
toil in emasculation. Mary pays with her life for her seductive transgression,
thus giving JC the option, the only
option, to reinvent himself in the combative arms of another sweaty, grunting
man. Be it her petite frame, her quiet desperation, or her ability to somehow
slip in and out of a southern accent, Mary must be given credit because, after
all, it is her memory that allows JC to kick through a boat mast and survive
his crucifixion. Mary indeed. From what I gather Terrie Batson has, sadly,
appeared in only three other movies outside of Cyborg as an “infected woman,” a “photo double,” and the all
important “street person.” It is also possible she may have been a background
dancer in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.
Likely saddled now with a throng of ungrateful children, a demeaning job, and a
flabby husband, she can always return to her brief moment as our beloved Mary
in a time of true purpose and sacrifice—a time before the darkened, bottomless,
and boob-filled well of the 90s and beyond.

The first Best of the Best was shat out by God and hit his chosen people like a brown stinky stone tablet. It foretold a future of action cinema where we wouldn’t need the riot-generator main man who could kick a country in half, but instead could field a team of bureaucratically obedient warrior-nerds who would deliver our sense of revenge for us. For as ragingly homoerotic and thick-skulled as it was, it marked the end of 80s (or “Butch) action film, and heralded the dawn of the 90s (or “Bitch”) action film. Think it through; by the time 1993 rolled around, how many necks were snapped without some expansive personal exploration montage? Even Steven “He Who Seeks The Killer of Bobby Lupo” Seagal went from drugs-n-cake masterpiece Under Siege to a lecture on electric fucking cars in On Deadly Ground. Let us also forget for a moment the inexorable adventures of Best of the Best 3 and the surprisingly titled Best of the Best 4; Tommy Lee, one of the only truly Asian-American characters who was actually allowed to be a non-queer adult male speaking at normal volume, simply became so much of a badass that he was able to Turkish-crescent-kick racism right out of people. What matters is that at the turning point between Butch and Bitch, 1993, a torch was passed. A long, veiny torch.

What I’m saying is, Best of the Best 2 is the first awkward teenage grope of action cinema. That is to say, brilliant and thrilling, awkward and wordy, sweaty, thrusting, mad, and basically preoccupied with Wayne Newton’s ageing testicular cameltoe. Our heroes Alex Grady (Eric Roberts), Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee) and Travis Brickley (Chris Penn) return from South Korea having heroically lost the tournament but gained a brother. HE WAS… A .. GOOD.. FIGHTER. Well, he wasn’t good enough to stay alive during a fucking padded sparring session, so Dae Han, you’re in. What do you do when your team returns for a moral victory? You set up shop with a bizarre and vaguely defined fight school in Las Vegas, of course.

Luckily for us, Las Vegas is home to a brutal and fanciful underground fight club, the Coliseum, hosted by a post-Danke Schoen Wayne Newton and owned by a pre-The Viking Sagas (has it really been 13 years?) Ralph Moeller. Newton needs no introduction and he acts here exactly as we know him: the tireless overseer of human depravity, jaded, listless and cruel. Playing the baby-oil producing region and tremendously heterosexual vilian Brakus, Moeller has always had the distant sorrow of a man who knows he is too physically big to be properly famous. Frankly, he owns this film from frame to frame. I could pretend to some high-larious irony where I laugh at the German beefcake at the centre of the Coliseum’s absurd hierarchical fighting system, but there is plenty to laugh at here without taking anything away from the courageous and dreamy Ralph Moeller (starring in the upcoming summer smash, CarPirates!).

The relationship between Newton’s Weldon and Moeller’s Brakus is, to me, the pinnacle of action cinema’s inability to talk about the male body. Brakus is beyond maleness the way a Turducken is beyond a chicken burrito. Weldon manages him and the business of the Coliseum sort of a leashed maniac, despite us seeing Brakus’s depth and intelligence in just about every shot or scene setting up the first third of the film. He is made into a monster not by being different, but just by being a Butch in a Bitch world. That is his tragedy. Weldon is a massive, terrible Bitch. Their business is managing the braying elite of the audience; row after row of hooting trophy wives, impotent men who were a decade out from their first Viagra prescription, and mini Patrick Batemans.

I dare readers to scour film history for a more perfect and vile audience than the blood-stained suits in Best of the Best 2; shot after shot in every fight fills us with dread, hatred and class contempt. Not the gum-chewing yahoos surrounding the pool in AWOL/Lionheart/Wrong Bet who watched Jean Claude elbow someone in the face once, but had it cut together seven times. Not even the fearful gi-clad drones on the island of Mr. Han (“-man, you come straight out of a comic book.”) Not even the wonderfully inappropriately bewildered cronies of Shang Tsung (“YOU ARE NECKS!”) watching Liu Kang’s first fight in the (first and only) Mortal Kombat movie. No. In the town that best represents the salty excesses of American wealth, right at the turning point between the peaks of then and the troughs of now, these people are the best chalk circle in which glistening tweakers have ever fake-fought. These people are always in underlit shadow, always up to no good, and always being prompted by Weldon to remember that “There is one one rule; there are no rules.” They are referenced explicitly as bankers and investors – not just rich, but Finance sector rich. People whose entire existence is ephemeral. What pisses me off about Fight Club, was that it ended up being the Republican right of reply to an entire era of balls-out action cinema like this that got away with making a real political point, dumb as it was, without then holding your hand – literally – to tell you it would all be okay. No conservative impulse here; the poor extract revenge, sweet and juicy. Revenge for what?

Well, for these people, Brakus kills Travis Brickley. Chris Penn, as many of our readers will know, followed the essential rule laid out in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, that if you’re going to go in a cosmically sad and tragic way, be sure to leave about a decade of morbid foreshadowing of that death in your films. So it is with no surprise that I point out that two sentences on Penn’s Wikipedia page contain the following phrases about his film roles; “heavy-set, drug dealing” and “heavy-set, couch potato drug dealing high school janitor.” You may want to laugh at Chris Penn’s death, but before you do, be aware of two things. One, he managed to pretend he knew karate, in two separate films. Two, he had to live everyday knowing that his brother was Sean Penn. Travis Brickley’s forlorn face as he realizes he is so crap at karate that Brakus is snapping his neck as a form of aesthetic critique can now be seen as the most sage precursor to Penn’s fat, tragic death. We won’t include an image of the deceased here, because like many indigenous peoples we understand that mechanical reproductions of the dead can disturb their spirits, but for those of you planning a “heavy-set, drug dealing” marathon will want to pay close attention to the epic and grim poetry happening in Ralph Moeller’s armpit. Who should be watching from the rafters at this point, but Alex Grady’s drama school Walter. Walter is precisely the kind of child that a constantly crying divorcee with a ponytail would bring up, so we can’t blame him. That name again: Walter.

At this point, the film is pretty much perfect. We have two Bitch heroes, who, having lost the only Butch of the original US National Karate TEEEEAMMMM, must now defeat the last of the wild Butch, managed by a real Bitch, to protect one of the Bitches’ progeny Bitch.

The ordering of the first confrontation scene is brilliant: The boys, finding Brickle’s body in the river, get hooped up on goofballs and head up to interrupt Brakus’s improbably massive dinner in a what appears to be the Vegas version of a mead hall. Grady, already crying before he’s been punched, asks if Brakus killed Travis, and gets the response “Easily!” before getting tossed aside and probably putting out his dud shoulder in the process. Brakus turns to Tommy and punctuates with “Care to join him?.” Then, in what I consider to be the definitive breaking point between two distinct action cinema traditions, Tommy (No!) Lee snaps Brakus in the face, sending him flying into a mirror straight out of Snow White, cutting his face, his beautiful face. Ever the narcissist, he wakes from his slumber, and goes from kicked head to kicked head from here on in. The heroes leave with menacing swerves and winks, Weldon’s thugs vow to hunt them down and kill them, setting up the requisite montage-tragedy-montage-triumph. But from this point, not a single frame is wasted.

The sheer greatness of what follows, and the way it overshadows the rest of the film has required of me to give you no foreshadowing. It simply must be said as it happens. The boys escape to very Asian Tommy’s adoptive Very Native Indian family in a desert shack, where the drunk and sweaty Sonny Landham, playing Tommy’s politically-correct Butch half-brother, bears of the scars of a headfirst collision with Brakus. The film, already loaded with tragic figures, gives us at this crucial moment in his life, Sonny “we need a genocide against the ragheads” Landham. Even as a teenager watching Best of the Best 2 in the cinema, knowing the Predator connection, prior to any real gossip website culture, you knew that Sonny was a man who has swallowed a bomb and given a detonator to, according to his very own personal website, a “mentally ill wife and a liberal guided federal government”. Before he would face off against “the fascist women’s abuse groups of Kentucky”, he would have to deal with the scars of fighting the Aryan juggernaut. His character James is part Sagat from Street Fighter, part the ‘gots any change’ guy from Weird Al’s Vidiot from UHF. Landham really is one of America’s enduring images of male paranoia. Just how unstable does a person have to be to become known as ‘the crazy one’ on the set of Predator?

Somehow, this lump of bullshit and bitterness has to train up two hairless jockeys to make a triumphant return to the Coliseum and see off the big fellah. All of Landham comes out in James, the way all of Newton comes out in Weldon. The tragedies which were implicitly fictional in 1993 – Penn (by being dead), Newton (by being the same), Eric Roberts (by being Eric Roberts), and finally Landham (by being Republican/crazy) – are by now complete, real, and beautiful. The experience of watching action cinema punch itself in the balls is nowhere more pronounced, nowhere more farcical.

There’s a whole twenty minutes of greatness that follows the James introductory vomit that requires little explanation. A bunch of sun-baked training montage occurs, some family tenderness, we grow a little, we laugh a little, we fight with sticks. I think Meg Foster is there at this point, but I can never remember where she is in films because her dead, dead eyes are a portal to the land of wind and ghosts. Weldon’s armed thugs rock up before the training is complete (of course), and shoot up the place, killing James by shooting a wig apparently representing the back of his head, but not before he slow-motion stabs a dude in the chest. There’s been a lot of action so far, but really, the last fifteen minutes is a ramp of stupidity. Dae Han is called in to help out Grady mix it up while Tommy has to kick some people around in the Coliseum before he can get to fight Brakus himself, who is basically nursing his scar 24/7. Pretty much everybody cops it in the face and neck for a good while, the audience demands more and more blood, Tommy’s kicks are getting more elaborate and edited together more ferociously. As the floor breaks into chaos, Brakus and Tommy go at it with iron poles.

We don’t want to spoil the ending too much, but I’ll just hint at the fact that Tommy kills Brakus in an eerie echo of Travis, and then shuts down the Coliseum. Okay, we did want to spoil the ending, but that’s to make a point:

Best of the Best 2 is the Citizen Kane of cinema. The narrative spokes open up to reveal a portrait of American self-obsession that goes considerably further than something like Fear and Loathing ever managed to risk. If you think that’s a throwaway sentiment, watch it again with the benefit of hindsight. Maleness dies in the arms of another man, time and again, in the sweaty underbelly of Vegas. Showmen live forever, queer Euro juggernauts preen for our amusement, and the new figures rising out of the ashes are basically dressed up community-minded primary school teachers. Race is forgotten, but failure to acclimatize to it is punishable by death. This film, in attempting to map a shift away from greed and muscle culture to make a quick buck on the new emerging aesthetic, ended up also serving historical critique of the Clinton era’s systemic corruption and family court paranoia. WACO would go down between the close of principal photography and release. On the one hand, what use would America have for the charismatic leader? But then, who wants some dudes in wigs to come and kill your Sonny Landham half-brother?

At the real centre of it all is the lynch mob, with their betting stubs and shit champagne. The sneering, screaming crowd of white West Coast powerdressers had learned nothing from the LA riots, happy to unite in the half-light of the fighting ring and place their bets on other’s flesh. If you don’t remember them being the focus of the film, then you probably think the film is about middle-aged men dealing with getting older. No, even the Romans knew that the ring of battle criticized the audience. Thank God those blood-thirsty vampire caricatures on the edge of the drama never actually ended up running our financial system.

Okay, that’s a lie. At the centre of it all is Ralph Moeller. Acting so perfect, they had to replace his head with a jelly mold for the last shot of the last fight, in an autocritique that precurses Hot Shots: Part Deux (geniflect here, folks) by a couple of months. We love you, RM, you insane man-mountain.

Can the premise even be articulated?

Sure.  Seagal is some mysterious spook type whose cop son appears to have been gunned down by  mysterious spook types in a random gang shooting.  After murdering and beating every ganger banger he can find, he discovers that it was a bad cop who pulled the trigger.  Oh well.

Evidence That The Script Was Written by Paddy Chayefsky:

Compared to other Seagal 90’s Inaction, this is a gem.  It plays to Seagal’s strengths, which is smart on a low budget, because it doesn’t cost anything extra for Seagal to push one of his son’s killers against a wall and just kick him in the balls over and over again.  There is probably the worst car chase scene I’ve ever seen, but that’s not the script’s fault and the dialog is largely pain free.  Probably the worst written part is that, although he kills over 40 people, Seagal keeps saying “I don’t care who ordered the hit, I just want the shooter.”  Why wouldn’t he care who ordered the hit?  I mean, if it were me, and I had to pick one of the two, I’d kill the guy who pushed the button rather than the drone who pulled the trigger.  Still, I actually enjoyed this one.  If you really want a good cringe, here are a couple of quotes attributed to Seagal on his Wikipedia page:

“I was born very different, clairvoyant and a healer.”  (2006)

“I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol.”  (2006)

C List Costar:

Eddie Griffin?  I didn’t know he’d fallen so far.  In any case, his career problems are a blessing unto me, because Griffin is the deciding factor that pushes this film into being a worthwhile addition to the Seagal cannon.  All of the best lines are his.

Expressing disappointment in his crew’s inability to eliminate Seagal:

“Do I have to buy you dresses? Ya’ll want mini skirts, tutus? Dip your motherfucking ass in hot olive oil, put you in roller skates?”

Frustrated and no longer feeling amorous, he tells the young women he has been hosting that he no longer desires their company:

“I haven’t killed a bitch in a week, goddamnit.” (Cocks gun, walks of screen, we here the sound of a gunshot.)

“Fuck Santa Claus. He never got me shit. That’s why I sell dope”

Redeeming Qualities:

At long last I’ve found a DTV Seagal flick without a shit tornado for a plot, that’s not trying to ape the aesthetic of Kill Bill and that has no zombies other than Seagal himself.  Someone kills his son and he spends the whole film beating and killing anybody between him and finding the shooter.  Was that so hard?

VESTIGES OF GLORY

(Elements of 80’s Action)

Tagline:

When revenge is personal, justice can be brutal.  (What?)

Corpse Count:

48, a lofty total for Seagal. And yet he beats and cripples as many people as ever. I have to ask again, don’t the producers know that this is all we want and is it so hard to deliver it?

Novelty Death:

This is one of my favorites, for personal reasons. In fact, it was kind of a comfort kill for me. Seagal’s beaten his man into a stupor. Then he slaps on the Camel Clutch, which happened to be my go-to finishing move when wrestling my friends. Here’s a hint. If one of your friends is a bull necked football player who would rather die than lose to your Hessian ass, a few chops to the back of the neck will soften him up. Another tip, if you’re wrestling with friends, don’t pull back so hard that you break the guy’s neck, as Seagal does here, even though it is awesome and would probably be the highlight of your life.

What You Learned:

Seagal regards himself primarily as a sex symbol. And deep down, you know he’s right.