|
 - If ever there were a case of having to have
a bad to appreciate the good, “Lethal Force” is it. And
honestly, if everything bad were as entertaining as
this, the film world wouldn’t be in as retched a state
as it’s been in the last few years.
Taking only the worst
elements of everything ranging from 70s blaxploitation
flicks – Rudy Ray Moore’s infamous Dolemite and
The Avenging Disco Godfather come to mind -- to
John Woo-style overdramatic interludes, where actors
gaze longingly into each other’s eyes over cheesy Hong
Kong slow jams, “Lethal Force” is a raucously funny
over-the-top confirmation of the stereotypes plaguing
bad B-movie grade action films.
Shot -- as
director/producer Alvin Ecarma describes it -- “guerilla
style” in the gritty streets of D.C., “Lethal Force” has
the unmistakable look of a very low budget production,
yet still manages to remain entertaining. Suffering from
some laughably bad dialogue (“You should have died when
he killed you!”), stiff acting and about as generic a
plotline as one can find, Ecarma somehow manages to make
due with what he’s got. From digitally inserting
semi-convincing gunfire and not-so-convincing explosions
to using the same three masked extras to represent
dozens of bad guy cronies, Ecarma pulls out every low
budget trick in the book. B-movie auteur Roger Corman
would be proud.
Even if you’re not a
big fan of the B-movie genre “Lethal Force” is still
enticing in much the same way as the great Kentucky
Fried Movie skit “A Fistful of Yen” was.
Borrowing from the tried and true formula that
mass-produced hundreds of painfully forgettable action
flicks of the 70s and 80s, there is a crippled,
wheelchair bound bad guy, a kidnapped son, a resident
badass hitman, and a friend’s betrayal. But thankfully,
there are also Swahili-speaking Minnesotites, jerry-curl
dripping bad guys and an S&M scene involving a
pretty hot asian chick. The film is laced with
hilariously bad one-liners (“You’re like a broken
pencil, POINTLESS.”), wild action scenes and a
ganked-straight-from-John Woo flashback sequence
involving a burning one hundred dollar bill lighting a
cigarette played over said Hong Kong slow-jam.
Let’s put it this way,
every college kid should have a “Lethal Force” in their
film library. After showing the film to my friends, we
couldn’t stop talking about the film –- yes, we still
find ourselves repeating those cheesy one-liners. Is
“Lethal Force” a bad film? Yes. But more importantly, is
that a good thing? Hell Yea.
For more on the film and how you can bring it to
your town, drop filmmaker Alvin Ecarma a line at the
official “Lethal Force” website, http://www.lethalforcethemovie.com/.
Stephen
Wong
|
