Action

Double Team (1997)

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doubleteamHey, 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.

doubleteam1So 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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Horror

Legend of Horror (1972)

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legendhorrorPurportedly based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story, this film is just about as much Poe’s as some scoutmaster spinning tales around a campfire. The Argentine/American patchwork oddity Legend of Horror throws the young Pierre — he of the Elvis sideburns — into a dank prison cell with the wacky-ass, hygiene-neglecting Sidney. This Sidney fellow cackles like a hobo on ripple and has forged an unhealthy friendship with a mouse, predating The Green Mile by a good three decades.

As the two cellmates plot their escape, Sidney entertains Pierre with a story about how ended up in this good-for-nuthin’ place. Switch to a “flashback” (really a dubbed, sizable chunk of another movie altogether, 1960’s Masterworks of Terror) in which a then-strapping Sidney visits his uncle, a clock salesman with a bad eye and a piss-poor attitude toward customer service.

legendhorror1In due time, Uncle Freaky-Eye pushes Sidney to the breaking point, whereupon young Sid smothers the bastard with a pillow. As the cops interview him regarding his uncle’s disappearance, Sidney is driven to a confession by hearing the heartbeat of the corpse. (All ties to Poe begin and end in that one scene.)

Jump back to our prisoners, who have busted out of the joint and seek refuge. Sidney kills a couple of guards who come after them, but to the delight of the audience, does so via the magic of “Magicmation” — a fancy cinematic term for “stop-motion!” At the end, all the people Sidney has killed come back to life and cause him to be impaled in a graveyard. For no discernible reason, the film abruptly ditches the black-and-white format for a splash o’ color. Never you mind — it just makes it that much more of a hoot. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Something Weird Video.

Action

Jack Reacher (2012)

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jackreacherOne fine day in Pittsburgh, a sniper perched in a parking garage fatally shoots five people at a park before driving away. The man hauled in by police, Barr (Joseph Sikora, Safe), enacts his right to remain silent, but does scrawl on a notepad, “GET JACK REACHER.”

Who’s Jack Reacher? A former military policeman for the Army, Reacher (Tom Cruise) is an off-the-grid drifter who just wants to be left alone. He knew the accused from the service, and has no intention of helping the guy get away with murder, but does want to know just what the hell is going on.

Barr’s defense attorney, Helen (Rosamund Pike, Wrath of the Titans), convinces Reacher to be her lead investigator. She also doesn’t want to see Barr go free, but does want to see him get a fair trial. Needless to say, Reacher’s sniffing around opens up an enormous can of worms — plot twists, really.

jackreacher1Based on One Shot, the ninth novel in Lee Child’s best-selling thriller series, Jack Reacher didn’t get a fair shake upon release. For one, the violent pic arrived in theaters less than a month after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, when the nation wasn’t exactly in the mood to see a bunch of big-screen gunplay. And that’s understandable.

What’s not is Reacher fans’ outcry over the 5-foot-7 Cruise being cast as the series’ 6-foot-5 hero. Cruise conveys 100 percent of Reacher’s attitude; he’s intimidating and bone-crunching believable in the ass-kicking department. To his credit, he also plays the role far differently than Mission: Impossible‘s Ethan Hunt.

Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who previously teamed with Cruise by scripting Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, the film chalks up many positives: a truly exciting chase, dialogue that replicates Child’s rhythms to a T, an acidic wit and a real stroke of genius in casting potentially insane German director Werner Herzog (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans) as a villain minus a few fingers because he ate them. Reacher would’ve twisted them off anyway. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Horror

Revenge (1986)

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revengeFour years before Kevin Costner got Revenge, John Wayne’s second son got his. You wouldn’t know it from the title, but 1986’s Revenge is the sequel to the previous year’s Blood Cult, thought to be the first feature film made expressly for home video. Both chapters were shot on the cheap in Tulsa, Okla., by director Christopher Lewis, but rather commendably, he doesn’t settle for a simple rehash. Instead, he tries harder.

Whereas Blood Cult was an out-and-out slasher set partly at a sorority house, Revenge is a follow-up investigation of the murders two months later. Mike Hogan (Patrick Wayne, Beyond Atlantis) returns to town after his brother’s homicide by the sheriff’s daughter. His old farm neighbor, Gracie (Bennie Lee McGowan, reprising her stereotypical Okie-hick role in which “killed” is pronounced “kilt”), is pleased as punch at the reunion: “I ain’t seen you since you was knee-high to a grasshopper and sneakin’ in my watermelon patch!”

revenge1Herself a fresh widow thanks to that dadgurned there blood cult, Gracie joins Mike to take down them there sumsabitches. A few early scenes excepted, the slasher element is traded for a supernatural one à la Scanners, as members of the blood cult can choke a bitch and/or cause a cerebral hemorrhage without using any physical contact whatsoever. The switch in approach aids tremendously in letting Revenge stand on its own two feet.

That’s not the only change. Production values vastly increased (from Betacam to 16-mm film); they shelled out enough money to get Hollywood legend John Carradine in for a supporting role as an evil senator (redundant); and Lewis clearly exudes more confidence in moving the camera. Unlike the last time, Lewis penned the screenplay, resulting in humorous touches such as juxtaposing a girl’s leg being hacked outside against her friend slicing raw sausage for breakfast. For all the improvements, however, the pacing is slower and Revenge doesn’t taste as sweet. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Fortress 2: Re-Entry (2000)

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Fortress2A sequel to one of only three — maybe four, on the right day — good movies starring Christopher Lambert (and no, Highlander isn’t one of them), Fortress 2: Re-Entry really should be called Fortress 2: Re-Exit, right? After all, it’s the escape that’s the thing.

In the near future, giving birth is still a felony punishable by life sentences. John Henry Brennick (Lambert), having survived the first film, is now reunited with his family and living in the wilderness … until the bad guys find and arrest him.

Fortress21The futuristic prison fortress he’s taken to, however, looks totally unlike the sleek, state-of-the-art facility of the 1992 movie, presumably due to a low budget. Similarly, this sequel retains only a fraction of the original’s cleverness and wit — a trade-off I’d expect when you go from a director like Re-Animator’s Stuart Gordon to Geoff Murphy, the guy who helmed Young Guns II. Her Jackie Brown comeback apparently already over, Pam Grier has a senseless supporting role as the corporate owner of the prison.

The third act may be silly and convoluted, but there’s some decent airlock action, camera-equipped cockroaches and numerous shower scenes to compensate. Lambert hams it up as usual, although his voice hardly raises above a whisper. “Why’s he talk like that?” my wife asked.

“Because he’s French and he’s not a good actor,” I answered. I mean, the guy may have a grasp on the English language, but his palms are still greased with Vaseline. —Rod Lott

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