If nothing else — and that’s indeed the case — shot-on-video titan J.R. Bookwalter’s production of Chickboxer resolves a question that has baffled mankind for decades: “How long is too long to lace a pair of shoes?” The answer, per the activity sloooooowly happening underneath the insufferable opening credits, is 4.5 minutes. Now you know.
In a needless fourth-wall demolition that’s like the Cryptkeeper in a Dress Barn sweater, a sour lemon wedge named Kathy (one-and-doner Julie Suscinski) intros her own small-town story and promises a real doozy: “You can keep your Knots Landing!” And in hindsight, you really should, because compared to this, the infamous High Kicks is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
A good-girl student at an Ohio high school of maybe four or five people, Kathy enrolls in a $41 karate class after hearing about the video store’s recent stickup, in which Bookwalter cameos as the unfortunate clerk. Her tight-ass mother (Barbara Katz-Norrod, an on-the-reg Bookwalter player) is aghast at her daughter’s decision: “They karate people in there!” Uh, hardly. In a class of six, Kathy proves a natural in (this movie’s idea of) martial arts, despite participating in a Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirt — Chicago, in case you were wondering.
Meanwhile, the robbers (Maximum Impact’s Ken Jarosz and Ozone’s Tom Hoover) are actually full-blown criminals who blackmail Mayor Cornblatt (one-timer Dennis K. Murphy) into picking up a suitcase filled with $5 million in cocaine. In an imperfect storm of clubfooted plotting, their felonious follies tie into the disappearance of Kathy’s karate classmate (Melanie Todd, Robot Ninja) and the accidental overhearing of nefarious plans by Kathy’s effeminate BMOC crush (James L. Edwards, Her Name Was Christa).
Luckily, Kathy has the solution: Only Chickboxer can help!
Oh, looks like I failed to mention Chickboxer, the TV show within the movie. It’s Kathy’s fave; she’s obsessed with it to an unhealthy degree. So she calls Chickboxer actress Greta Holtz (scream queen Michelle Bauer, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, showing her comedic chops in the movie’s best scene and showing her other attributes on its cover art). Now, if Kathy isn’t supposed to be touched in the head, I’d like to know what frequent Bookwalter collaborator Scott P. Plummer, in his directorial debut and death, was thinking. Someone made a choice and committed to it; whether said someone told anyone else remains a mystery. (What’s not a mystery is why so many characters wear shirts emblazoned with the logos of various Bookwalter titles.)
With Greta too busy trying to keep her breasts contained within her skimpy outfit, it’s up to Kathy to become, in her own words, “a superhero.” Although her karate experience amounts to one class — and her kickboxing experience unquestionably nil — she nonetheless chickboxes murderous adults twice her size into submission. The end.
Shoelacing included, all this occurs within a pat 61 minutes. Also crammed into that hour is an unrelated coda with a fully nude Bauer — but not as Greta — in bed, grinding on some dude’s crotch as guest director David DeCoteau (who footed Chickboxer’s $2,500 budget) can be heard telling her to cover the lucky guy’s penis. She must not have heard — and DeCoteau must not have wanted to purchase another blank Maxell — because the unit is unobstructed and, befitting of everything else in the movie, limp. —Rod Lott