John S. Rad’s Dangerous Men does not tell a story in any conventional manner — not because its Iran-born multihyphenate creator had an innovative narrative approach he was itching to impart, but because he did not know how to tell a story. At least his trash can be branded as one-of-a-kind trash. To see it is to disbelieve it, and that should count for something.
When her fiancé (one-timer Coti Cook) is murdered by her would-be rapist on a public beach in broad daylight, Mina (one-timer Melody Wiggins) dries her tears and immediately befriends the evil deed-doer. Mira’s intention is to get this fat, bald biker named Tiger (one-timer George Derby) alone in a hotel room, which she does only after they share a pre-sex steak dinner. Naked, she insists he rub her knees as he kisses her belly button, and as Tiger complies in ecstasy, she retrieves the fenced steak knife hidden between her butt cheeks and stabs him to death. Move over, Ms. 45! Vengeance, thy name is Mina!
From there, Mina vows to kill — and perhaps even castrate — any male who dare use and abuse a woman. To do this most effectively, she dons the disguise of your common street whore. It’s as if we are witnessing the origin of a feminist vigilante superhero … except that Mina just kinda disappears from Dangerous Men, so the movie morphs into something else — that being the tale of a police detective who would have become Mina’s brother-in-law (Michael Gradilone, Animal Instincts III) out to crack down on a drug-dealing biker gang whose leader is a poodle-mulleted Caucasian named Black Pepper (Bryan Jenkins, 1997’s Riot). Mr. Pepper earns an interminable, Tommy Wiseau-length sex scene with a skank after their strange idea of foreplay: hiring a belly dancer (Roohi — just Roohi, thanks) to perform her hip-shimmying routine while they watch from the living room couch.
It ends with … well, you’ll have to witness this baffler for yourself. Even among all the cinematic detritus I’ve consumed in four decades’ time, I cannot recall a single one wrapping up quite like this!
Rad’s coda should not have caught me so off-guard. It’s not like my eyes didn’t notice the cop’s badge reading “Policeman Police” earlier. It’s also not as if Rad’s own looped-synth score didn’t register with my ears throughout, its plucky mix of Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” and the Seinfeld theme incongruent with the tragedy unfolding onscreen. Dangerous Men is consistent only in that it is woefully incompetent for every second. The conclusion is par for the course, considering Rad’s course clocked roughly 20 years from idea to premiere. The wait was worth it, even if none of us knew we were waiting. Again, that should count for something. Shouldn’t it? —Rod Lott