Covert operative-turned-family man Derek Leigh (Maxwell Caulfield) leads the good life. Having shunned busting drug cartels, he now spends his time on menial construction gigs, his dorky family and harvesting quite the porn-star mustache. But when Bandera (Trevor Goddard, 1995’s Mortal Kombat), a criminal he helped put behind bars, makes a prison break and slaughters his fam in payback, ol’ Derek again turns to kickin’ villain booty.

The style in which he does so, however, sets Prey of the Jaguar apart fron your standard, direct-to-video revenge thriller. Caulfield consults an Asian kung-fu master (John Fujioka, American Ninja) for training, purchases a crossbow and dart guns, and dons a homemade costume to become a superhero named — pause for dramatic effect — The Jaguar.

Hobbling along in plastic, smeared face paint and ViewMaster goggles, he looks like RoboCop costumed by TG&Y. Sharing a trait with Caulfield’s Grease 2 character, The Jaguar’s also a cool rider, scouting about town on a sleek black motorcycle, even though this film doesn’t have the budget to fill the Kawasaki Ninja with gas so we can see it move.

Caulfield gives an expertly poor performance as the unwitting, yet comfortably quick-quipping crimefighter. When Leigh informs his Remo Williams-esque mentor that (in so many words) his to-buy list will be much, much shorter this Christmas, he hugs a punching bag and collapses into unconvincing sobs. Then there’s the matter of the hard-to-swallow dialogue, too, like when Jag confronts his nemesis’ henchman:

Jaguar: “Tell Bandera he better learn to pray, because now he is!”
Henchie: “What?”
Jaguar: “Prey!”

Prey of the Jaguar trots out all the clichés; among them, the enemy who makes a bullseye in darts just as he vows to kill the hero, and the inevitable good-guy-saved-when-bad-guy-gets-shot-in-the-back-by-surprise-supporting-character climax. It also trots out the inexplicable, like a ponytailed Stacy Keach cameo or an ultra-secret government spy agency running reports on a dot-matrix printer.

In the hands of hack director David DeCoteau (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama), Prey cannot be taken seriously, not even when it offs the protagonist’s wife and kid. The setup and credit sequence scream “syndicated TV movie,” while Caulfield jumping around (subbed in part by obvious stunt doubles with longer hair) like a Ritalin kid on Halloween is the nail in the credibility coffin.

Following other Z-level DTV heroes like Black Scorpion and The Demolitionist, this Jaguar is another dumb-fun example of why superhero movies are tough to tackle without tens of millions of dollars. —Rod Lott

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Remembering the incredible — and incredibly ridiculous — controversy surrounding the 1984 release of Silent Night, Deadly Night, I’m wondering if the nary-a-peep outcry over 2022’s Violent Night is a sign that society has progressed or become desensitized. (I don’t have the answer.)

After all, whereas Silent Night’s slasher was merely a psycho killer disguised in a Santa suit, Violent Night casts David Harbour (TV’s Stranger Things) as the jolly, real-deal Claus. Instead of an ax, he wields a mighty sledgehammer. And ice skate blades. And a stocking stuffed with billiard balls. And candy canes sucked down to sharp, lethal points. You’ll poke your eye out!

No matter the weapon, it’s all for a good reason: With equal parts Die Hard and Home Alone, Santa’s defending a mansion of über-wealthy people against bad guys seeking the contents of the safe on Dec. 24. The have-nots are led by John Leguizamo (John Wick 2), while the haves’ balls-of-steel matriarch is Beverly D’Angelo, no doubt cast to upend expectations of her most visible role as the perfect wife of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

The setup is almost incidental, and Tommy Wirkola (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) directs accordingly. To the film’s credit, it does not take the first word of its title lightly; the punishment Santa doles out is gruesome and graphic. It’d be nihilistic if not for Violent Night also being a self-parody. Having a puking-drunk, public-urinating, F-bomb-dropping, skull-crushing Santa as a hero is no surefire audience-rouser, but with Harbour bringing the slovenly, beer-bellied elements of his Emmy-nommed Chief Hopper character to the table, his sardonic take works like a charm. —Rod Lott

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Dear Santa,

What I really want for Christmas is a new drone. One with a camera and that goes real real fast.

If you get me this drone, I will be very very happy. I will make a movie with it. It will be about an ambulance that gets taken by bank robbers and is chased all over Los Angeles by the police cars and helicopters. I might even call the movie Ambulance. Maybe I will get a big star like Jake Jillinhall Gillinhall Gillenhal G. to star in it. He’s good!

I could use the drone to do lots and lots of cool camera tricks. It could swoop down streets real real fast or hover over their heads. I might even want to use it like in normal shots where the people who make real movies wouldn’t use it. Maybe if I make those shots super duper quick like a split second, no one will know.

But mostly I just want to use the drone a lot! I really really want people to watch my movie and then say “Hey he got a new drone!”

So please please bring me that drone. I gave you half an Oreo.

Your friend,
Mikey Bay

—Rod Lott

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Moonraker is the James Bond movie I hated as a kid because it wasn’t Star Wars enough. Today, I like it for the same reason.

Coming right smack in the middle of Roger Moore’s roguish run of seven 007s, this adventure tasks Bond with locating an American space shuttle reportedly hijacked while in flight. In his way are giant-sized foe Jaws (Richard Kiel, back from The Spy Who Loved Me) and bearded kazillionaire Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale, The Day of the Jackal), who looks like a Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces toy guise come to life; in his bed is the delectable Lois Chiles (Creepshow 2) as CIA scientist Dr. Holly Phenomenalblowjob Goodhead.

The third and final Bond for director Lewis Gilbert, Moonraker has much to recommend, starting with the cold open’s airborne tussle while plummeting from a plane. From there, one can rely on the nauseating centrifuge sequence, the fight atop cable cars, a musical wink to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a boat chase, Bond’s struggle with a massive python and Q’s exploding balls. On the flipside, the film also boasts a ridiculous gondola pursuit that goes too far over the top by venturing out of water, a pointless Magnificent Seven parody and, ironically, nearly all the scenes in outer space.

Famously, For Your Eyes Only was announced as the next 007 outing in The Spy Who Loved Me’s closing credits, until Star Wars’ stellar success convinced producer Albert R. Broccoli to postpone for a cash-grabbing trip to space. While that worked for the box office, it doesn’t gel well in a movie that does just fine on terra firma; a sense of cohesion suffers. Turns out, in Her Majesty’s secret universe, lasers belong in one spot and one spot only: nearing Sean Connery’s crotch. —Rod Lott

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Having worked on both sides of the camera for H.B. Halicki’s pioneering hicksploitation indie, 1974’s Gone in 60 Seconds, perhaps Jack Vacek thought he could do that, too. And he did, editing, producing, writing, directing, stunting and starring as Smokey in Double Nickels (as in 55, which some can’t drive, but you got that).

Smokey and partner Ed (Edward Abrahms, also of 60 Seconds) work as California highway patrolmen. For a while, Double Nickels plays aimlessly, like a slice-of-life account of their day as they pluck ukeleles, play pinball and pursue a speeding motorcycle, dune buggy and truck — the latter straight through a watermelon stand. Then one traffic stop yields a unique opportunity that changes the movie’s course: a side hustle of repossessing cars. Smokey and Ed sign up, leading to more scenes of someone saying, “That’s my car!” than the silver screen has ever witnessed.

What they realize too late is the job isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, legally speaking; they’ve been working for a criminal enterprise! Cue the big chase finale, as Smokey tears through a swap meet, a fireworks stand, a public park and, presumably post-credits, his best girl’s tube top. (Patrice Schubert, aka Mrs. Vacek, plays said best girl.)

From today’s perspective, Vacek exudes big Dax Shepard energy and likability — and looks similar, too, which is extra-ironic, given that the comedian would be behind the wheel of his own star vehicles (literally) some 35 to 40 years later with Hit & Run and CHiPs. As such, Double Nickels coasts on a laid-back, we’re-all-family vibe, even in pulse-quickening, stunt-heavy action sequences that appear to put extras closer to real danger than union shoots would allow. When you have that in surplus, being light on plot matters not.

On the funometer, Double Nickels easily clears 85. Make some “vroom” in your viewing schedule. —Rod Lott

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