I’m glad that New World Pictures gave Blade Runner baddie Rutger Hauer a legitimate shot at becoming a Stallone-sized action hero. I only wish he didn’t have to do it in a mullet and purple silk shirts. A better vehicle would have helped, too, for Wanted Dead or Alive is lacking in spark. If not quite DOA, it’s arguably more D than A.

A contemporary rejiggering of the same-named Steve McQueen television series of the late 1950s and early ’60s, the film focuses on Los Angeles bounty hunter Nick Randall (Hauer), the kind of loner who pockets a harmonica at all times and lives on a boat part-time, but uses both possessions to woo a med student (K-9‘s Mel Harris, in her movie debut).

After terrorist Malak Al Rahim (KISS kommander Gene Simmons, first seen disguised as a rabbi) blows up a theater screening Rambo: First Blood Part II, Randall is given one week and $250,000 to bring the guy down. He will, natch, but damned if it doesn’t feel like a real-time viewing. Action arrives in too-brief bursts, and to the tune of one of the worst scores the synth-soaked ’80s offered.

Wanted Dead or Alive often looks like a made-for-TV movie, which is weird when one considers how much grit director Gary Sherman was able to bring to Vice Squad four years earlier. Further holding it back from feeling cinematic is the third-billed presence of TV staple Robert Guillaume, who at least gets to fire off something he’d never be allowed as Benson: “The next time you decide to fuck me, Lipton, kiss me first!”

So inert is the story that I found myself more engrossed in a recurring restaurant location’s sign of “TRY OUR TASTY GRILLED BREAST OF CHICKEN.” I will give Sherman credit for the movie’s great ending, in which Randall blows Rahim’s noggin clean off with a stuffed-in-mouth grenade, then walks a few steps to sit down and play a few bars of “You Are My Sunshine” on the ol’ mouth organ. —Rod Lott

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Seven establishes many of what would become Andy Sidaris’ established trademarks, yet it’s evident this is an early effort, given that at one point, Sidaris shows us a pre- and post-sex scene, but not the sex scene itself! The Helen Reddy joke dates it, too.

In this crackerjack crime film, a syndicate is running rampant, resulting in six murders before the opening credits are even finished, including death-by-flaming-spear and homicide-via-crossbow-shot-by-passing-skateboarder. The cops call in noted hit man Drew (William Smith, Invasion of the Bee Girls) and assign him to kill seven mob figures (hence the title). Drew wants $7 million dollars (again, hence the title) to do so and rounds up various pals until he has his own team of seven (do you spot a trend here?) to take the bastards out. His team includes a cowboy, a professor, a stand-up comedian, a race car driver, a hot chick and a rotund Hawaiian with mad kung-fu skills.

Each of these characters is assigned his or her own miscreant to off, which they do in purely Sidaris ways, whether involving a helicopter, a rocket launcher, a motorcycle or an inflatable doll. Of particular note is when the Hawaiian busts his karate moves on several villains. “Hi-ya!” shouts one, to which our hero replies, “Hi-ya, my ass!”

But that’s not even the funniest bit of dialogue. No, that honor goes to a throwaway scene in an Orange Julius as a random fat guy approaches the counter:
Random Fat Guy: “I’ll have one!”
Orange Julius Employee: “One of what?”
Random Fat Guy: “One of everything!”

While Seven is far from the most polished of Sidaris’ efforts (the boom mike makes three cameos), there’s no denying its pulp pleasures from frame one. Plus, it contains the only Silly-String-as-foreplay scene I’ve laid eyes on, and two Playboy vets in its cast: H.O.T.S.’ Susan Kiger, who gets naked, and Terminal Island’s Barbara Leigh, who doesn’t — say what?!? —Rod Lott

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Barely released in theaters, 2009’s 12 Rounds was, like 2006’s The Marine, one of WWE Films’ well-intentioned but ill-fated attempts at turning John Cena into an Arnold Schwarzenegger for the aughts. Directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger), it was a serviceable vehicle largely ignored. For the redundantly titled sequel, 12 Rounds 2: Reloaded, the WWE subs another fan-favorite wrestler, Randy Orton, yet aims straight for the home-video market.

With a voice that sounds eerily like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Orton is paramedic Nick Malloy, who becomes an unwilling pawn in a dozen-round game. It’s masterminded by a madman named Heller, your standard-issue villain (Brian Markinson, Shooter) who sets up an entire Best Buy showroom worth of high-dollar equipment in a dingy tunnel full of steam and puddles. If Malloy refuses to play, his kidnapped wife (Cindy Busby, American Pie: The Book of Love) will die. (It’s a wonder she isn’t crushed by her hubbie during lovemaking, being a twig to his trunk.)

Round one involves a guy with C4 explosives stitched into his stomach, so you know Heller means business. (Another clue: his douchey Bluetooth earpiece). Heller has Malloy run all over town like Domino’s drivers back in the era of the 30-minutes-or-less guarantee. During an early round, Malloy acquires a sidekick of sorts in Tommy (Tom Stevens, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome), a substance abuser with a wise mouth, a parole anklet and a butt cut.

Steering the race-against-the-clock proceedings is Roel Reiné, who specializes in DTV sequels, including the Death Race and Scorpion King franchises. He keeps things moving, sometimes so frenzied he calls too much attention to his showiness. Heller’s motive is a lot to swallow, so Reiné throws so many things at viewers as distractions: a coke whore, a bulldozer, an overwrought finale. It’s all very silly, yet more or less diverting. —Rod Lott

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I hate that someone as talented as Wesley Snipes has alienated and tax-evaded himself into direct-to-video hell (not to mention federal prison), but at least Game of Death is a pretty damn decent paycheck project, as far as pure paycheck projects go.

Our former Blade plays Marcus, an undercover agent/assassin for the CIA who, after confessing his sins to a priest (token black Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson) sets his sights on an arms dealer (Robert Davi, Licence to Kill) being financed by a Detroit hedge fund manager (Quinn Duffy, this movie’s Very Loud Business Prick with Brian Grazer Hair).

As you can imagine, that doesn’t sit well with said dealer, so Marcus finds himself in a do-or-die, kill-or-be-killed situation for the bulk of the picture — a Game of Death, if you will, but one not to be confused with Bruce Lee’s 1978 partly posthumous epic of the same name.

Or should it? That old Game of Death found its star kicking his way up a building, floor by floor; this new Game of Death finds its star shooting his way through a hospital, floor by floor. The facility is the kind of movie hospital where the entire second floor not only houses a loony bin, but one that goes unsupervised and whose patients act like Romero-esque zombies.

Thanks to Snipes, the movie generally works in spite of director Giorgio Serafini’s dabbling in needless STV tricks, i.e. switching to black-and-white and skipping frames, both for no discernible reason. —Rod Lott

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Hey, remember Dennis Rodman? No? An NBA star for 15 minutes, he made his name partly through athleticism and far more through “outrageous” hair colors, various body piercings and dating Madonna.

The makers of Double Team believed Rodman’s brand would last eternal. How else to explain the plethora of basketball-related puns despite basketball having nothing to do with the story? Rodman shoves a gunman through a window and exclaims, “Two points!” The Rod throws another henchman through the air and yells, “Nothin’ but net!” There’s a bizarre parachute shaped like a basketball. What does it all mean? Nothing.

The galling thing is, there’s plenty of cheese on display to enjoy. A sometime-clever riff on The Prisoner, Double Team stars B-movie legend Jean-Claude Van Damme as a superspy abducted to a mysterious island where spies long considered dead work in solitude on world affairs. After nicely MacGyver-ing his way free, he tracks down Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2), the baddie who has insinuated his way into JCVD’s wife’s life.

So far, so good. Asian director Tsui Hark (the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy) never got a fair shake in Hollywood, but he brings flair and verve to admittedly ridiculous action scenes. Rourke was in a career death spiral at the time, but he at least hams it up amusingly.

JCVD is JCVD, meaning energetic-but-wooden acting and putting balletic fight moves on anyone in his path. Unlike fellow man-kicker Chuck Norris, Van Damme never forgets it’s his fighting skills that made him a star, not his talent at holding guns in his hands (although there’s a goodly amount of that as well, usually in tandem with a spiral death blow of some kind). There’s also an ending involving a coliseum, a minefield and a tiger that must be some kind of classic.

And there’s Rodman, the arms dealer named Yaz who aids JCVD. It is not a performance; it is simply putting a camera on him and hoping the audience will never forget he was once a shining star in the firmament. It is a sad reminder of one of our first reality stars, a ballplayer with ego far bigger than talent.

Double Team is goofy fun, but Rodman is a foul shot, a missed free throw. See, I can make sports puns, too. But in context. —Corey Redekop

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