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If you frequent many of the other review sites that
deal with low-budget cinema (not that you need to, mind
you -- aren't all your needs getting fulfilled here?),
you've probably run across a write-up of this one
already. And if you haven't, you will soon. Divergent
Thinking Productions has been carpet-bombing the
cyber-critic community with screeners. If nothing else,
it'll make Google searches rich and plentiful.
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I guess he's not taking anybody home to
Mother
anymore. | Now,
let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. The plot
is negligible at best. The acting often rises to the
heights of adequacy. And some of the dialogue these
people are given to say would sound awkward coming from
the best of mouths. Nevertheless, I can still give this
movie a solidly positive recommendation, because it is
overflowing with one commendable ingredient: Panache. It
may not be a great movie, or an especially compelling
movie, but it is very determinedly a fun flick to watch.
As I said, the plot is
nothing to write home about, and probably would be best
served by summary: Hitman/gangster Jack (Frank Prather)
has his wife and son snatched from him by the
wheelchair-bound Mal Locke (Andrew Hewitt, doing his
best to look like an aquatic Nazi zombie), and his army
of blank-masked goons, who look and act like nothing so
much as the "putties" from Mighty Morphin' Power
Rangers. (Jack is informed of this by two goons who
stayed behind -- one who thinks he's Rick James, and the
other a silent kung fu-fighting version of Kevin
Spacey.) Locke wants to get his hands on the hitman who
tried to kill him yers previous, but instead left him in
his wheelchair: Savitch (credited as "Cash Flagg, Jr."
-- and given that cult director Ray Dennis Steckler
always billed himself as "Cash Flagg" when he acted in
one of his own movies, it's a good bet that Flagg, Jr.
is actually director Ecarma). Jack is Savitch's business
associate and companion; it's his job to reel Savitch in
so that Locke can grab him. And just to prove how
serious he is, Locke has Jack's wife killed
execution-style right in front of him.
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It's Pulp Fiction meets Jacob's
Ladder! | As
you may have noticed, the story idea's not exactly
stunningly original. It should be familiar to even the
most casual action-movie viewer, and even more so for
anyone familiar with mid-'70's Italian crime dramas, or
any of a couple dozen Hong Kong action films. But that's
okay, because Ecarma knows he's treading ground familiar
to his audience; hell, he's counting on it. And he plays
with it and makes it fun. It's a homage/parody -- not an
outright spoof, as the slasher genre has generated for
itself in recent years, but with one foot across the
line into fun-poking comedy.
With such a focus,
Ecarma can dispense with some of the "redeeming"
qualities you usually see in such films, the deep and
abiding message about inner honor and male brotherhood
and knights in tarnished armor and so forth. Sure, Jack
feels bad about bringing in his friend -- but with his
son's life on the line, hey, he quickly gets over his
qualms. And Savitch, well, Savitch is the ultimate
hard-ass son-of-a-bitch, and he doesn't end up revealing
a heart of gold either. He does give Jack the benefit of
the doubt once, based on their history together (as
exhibited by black-and-white stock footage of Viet
Nam... I think), but in the end he also has no real
problem with hunting down the friend that betrayed him.
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"Busy? Uh, yeah, you might say
that..." | All
of which may sound like it belies the "fun" which I
promised. Trust me, it's there. In the opening scene,
Savitch attacks government agents protecting a witness;
the shot we see is of his feet approaching the agent's
feet, then leaping in the air -- then the sound of
rapid-fire kicking for roughly fifteen seconds before
Savitch's feet land and the agent topples over. This was
the point at which I settled in for a fun ride.
And those wonderful,
memorable throw-aways continue throughout. Savitch kicks
a putty in the head; blood spurts from his mask's
eyehole. (Blood spurts quite a bit around here, actually
-- not just spatters, but sprays like a punctured
high-pressure hose.) Savitch punches a crooked-toothed
henchman in the face -- and to the henchman's delight,
it straightens teeth that had defied "some of the final
orthodontic specialists in Europe." (Then Savitch kicks
him in the face and knocks them all out.) Savitch gets
run over and dropped from a four-story parking garage --
and limps away stoically. All of this, plus a child
molester shot in the crotch, and a fat woman who laughs
maniacally while wearing a fez. The denouement involves
crucifixion to a chair, power drills to the cranium, and
a five-year-old trying to aim a .44.
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Ever heard the phrase, "His hands are
lethal
weapons?" | With
the visual flair and simple filmmaking joie de vivre
exhibited here, I'd be very surprised if some Hollywood
type didn't pick up on Ecarma and his alter-ego and
start throwing money at him for his next feature. And
I'd love to be able to tell you that you heard about it
here first -- that is, if the reviewing community hadn't
already been carpet-bombed.
 Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 95 (about half of whom come from a
single stock-footage flashback), plus 1 Canada goose
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 3
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who've appeared on Star Trek:
0
Nathan Shumate
11/14/01
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