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Monster Shack Roundtable: "Steven Seagal: A Senior Super Hero"
After finally replenishing our energy after our last round table, Monstrous Musicals, myself, veteran contributor Sean Ledden, and Monster Shack Rookie of the Year, Karl Hoegle (welcome aboard, Karl!), we finally decided to waste, I mean invest, our free time in something that will make our families and descendents proud for generations to come. Yes, another roundtable. After much debate, we finally all agreed on a topic. No, not really 'agreed'. I pretty much strong-armed the two other guys into this one; sorry Sean and Karl, but I had my movie laying around and I really wanted to use it in a round table. (Didn't somebody really smart once say something about absolute power corrupting absolutely?) Anyway, we decided to focus on a great example of a once popular actor getting a bit too big for his britches and falling over his own dangerously distended ego, so without any further ado, I proudly present the latest product of many hours of effort by my two victims, I mean volunteers, and myself: The rundown is as follows: Dennis: On Deadly Ground Sean: Submerged Karl: Exit Wounds We hope you enjoy the show. God knows we sure didn't.
On Deadly Ground (1994) Directed by Steven Seagal Run Time: 102 min Tagline: "His battle to save the Alaskan wilderness and protect its people can only be won..." Review by Dennis Grisbeck On Deadly Ground directed, produced, and starring Steve "Kick Yo' Ass" Seagal, is a perfect example of a movie star's ego gone wild. In 1994 Seagal was enjoying an admittedly well deserved 15-minutes of fame after starring in the successful Above the Law and its sequel Hard to Kill, not to mention a pair of luke-warm formula films Marked For Death and Out for Justice, both of which milked the standard One Good Cop vs. The World of Evil paradigm for a few more bucks...and hell, why not? These were to golden years of action-hero movies with such names as Van Damme, Willis, Stallone, and of course, Schwarzenegger. Seagal hit it big starring as Casey Ryback, an ex-SEAL turned cook (!!) in the entertaining 1992 action flick Under Siege. (And before you ask: yes, I like that movie.) "Under Siege" grossed over $150 million world-wide and propelled Seagal to Super Action Hero status...at least for the time being. Unfortunately for Steven's career, he decided to leverage his stardom with the studios and agreed to star in Under Siege 2 only if he was allowed to direct his "own" action flick: On Deadly Ground. Warner Bros., possible just as intoxicated with Seagal's success as he was, agreed to the deal and that's why you are reading this right now. On Deadly Ground tanked at the box office; grossing little over $38 million compared to the $50 million to make it. Ouch. The movie itself can't seem to decide if it's a Movie With A Message or an Action Film. Steven aimed for both and missed on both counts: There's far too much violence for a family film and too much goofy spirituality for hard-core action fans just wanting to see Seagal snap some arms. (Although there is plenty of violence, there's too many interminable 'Spiritual' scenes sprinkled into the story...you'll see.) Amazingly, Seagal saw fit to tack on an 11 minute (!!!) speech at the end of the film deriding oil companies and Big Business; Warner Bros. was forced to step in and trim the speech to 3 minutes after test audiences kept walking out of the ending...and believe it or not, my father and I walked out of the 3-minute version as well...talk about pain! Co-starring as Seagal's evil Texan antagonist is Michael Caine, who plays Aegis Oil CEO, Michael Jennings. (Seagal wisely provided the viewers with a visual clue as to Jennings' origins: he wears a bolo tie. Otherwise, you might forget where Jennings is from given Caine's tendency to drop his Texan accent and fall back to his normal Cockney dialect throughout the movie.) Caine is in good form in this movie, chewing the scenery as he tends to do when the director won't, or in Seagal's case, can't, reel him in. (Check out The Swarm and Jaws 4 for some lovely examples of Caine's goofiness.) Oh, and keep your eyes open for a (at that time) relatively unknown Billy Bob Thornton. Our film opens with a credit sequence overlaid on top of beautiful shots of the Alaskan wilderness, at least that's where I'm presuming it was shot. (A quick IMDB check revealed that only 1 of the 4 shooting locations where actually in Alaska where the film is supposedly taking place...the others where in Washington State and a refinery somewhere in California...oh well.) The relative serenity of the opening shots is cut short as we jump to an oil-well fire where frantic firefighters struggle in vain to contain the flames. (I had to wonder what kind of an environmentally friendly movie this is when I saw the oil rig mock-up spewing enormous clouds of oily black smoke into the sky for the scene...and this wasn't stock footage, so I can only assume that the fire was created just for Steven's grand entrance...nice.) As the camera pans across the fire we notice a helicopter coming in for a landing. (A rousing blast of trumpet fanfare confirms that Our Hero has indeed arrived.)
The Environmentally Friendly Movie The first man out of the helicopter is, naturally, Steven Seagal who plays Forrest Taft (!!!), the Aegis oil company's #1 Goto Guy when things go to hell. (At least that's what his job appears to be; he's never shown doing much of anything else...you know...like work.) Seagal treats himself to a leisurely camera pan up his back side (so to speak) in order to make the patented Star Turn, as if the audience was intended to say, "Hey...who is that with those black boots...it's...it's...he's turning...it's STEVEN SEAGAL!" Unfortunately the horror is taken up a notch quite early in the film as we immediately notice that gone is Seagal's trademark full-length black coat, and in its stead is leather "Indian" jacket complete with beads, turquoise and all the other accoutrements that screams out Social Awareness With Bad Taste. Forrest's long time friend, Hugh Palmer, rushes up and explains that the fire was caused by faulty equipment purchased by Aegis (Being completely in love with himself at this point in his career, Seagal often includes stomach-turning dialog praising Forrest for being So Damned Good at pretty much everything. A good case in point is when Forrest scans the situation while a smarmy off-camera voice shouts "Forrest's here! That fire's as good as out!"...uggh. For the duration of the film I'll denote clumsily foleyed lines with square brackets, i.e., [ ].) A brief clot of exposition reveals that Jennings forced Palmer to use faulty "preventers" on the drill resulting in the fire. Why would Jennings rig his own drills with faulty equipment? Hell, I don't know, but I Bet We'll Find Out Soon. As the frantic men look own, Forrest grabs a heat shield (made of a piece of corrugated aluminum!...is that what they really use?!), and stomps up to the edge of the inferno. Jennings and a pair of Evil Henchmen look on with bemused interest. After a perfunctory look at the blaze, Forrest orders everybody to back up so that he can extinguish the blaze by detonating an explosive charge. Realizing the danger involved in this last ditch maneuver, the firefighters all run back and hit the ground. Jennings, being a bad ass, stands tall and stares Forrest in the eye as the explosives, well, explode, into a gigantic fireball. (Give yourself a couple of points if you guessed there'd be a shot of Seagal, standing tall, silhouetted by an enormous fireball...It's just this sort of pointless Macho bullshit that makes me cringe in disgust. OK, Forrest, you're a bad ass. Fine. But what are you trying to prove here? And to whom?)
Oh yeah, baby,...I'm bad, I'm bad!
I had to chuckle at the next scene showing Forrest triumphantly sauntering towards Jennings accompanied by a chorus of foleyed cheers and applause...too bad that none of the extras are applauding! Whoops! Well, I guess we needed to see how Appreciative the Common Folk are for Forrest's unparalleled ability to push a button rigged to a pre-positioned pile of pyrotechnics. As you might expect, now that the sides of Good and Evil are clearly drawn, the movie has no other choice but to trudge onward to its predictable climax, and if I have to sit through it, then so are you. Cut to a local dive bar full of oilrig workers. If you guessed that we will be forced to sit through Ye Oulde Bar Fight scene then give yourself two points. As generic country music blares out of a tinny jukebox, a drunken Native American is verbally and physically assaulted by a particularly abusive worker. Forrest sullenly watches from a nearby table until the script indicates that Enough Is Enough. "Whatcha looking at, cupcake?" wisecracks the soon-to-be-pounded ruffian. "Nothing much," Forrest wryly retorts as he strides over to Tough Guy. (TG). ["Fuck 'em up, Forrest!"] Forrest calmly walks by and makes his way to the bar. ["Ya got lucky, Fuck Head!" another disembodied voice remarks from somewhere in the bar.] TG and his drinking buddies return to their seats while shooting insults towards Forrest who has plopped himself down on a barstool. As luck would have it, Palmer walks into the bar and suggests to Forrest that something is amiss with the faulty "preventers". (Don't ask me...I guess they "prevent" fires or something.) "If you still can't figure out why Jennings made me use [the faulty preventers] anyway," Palmer murmurs, "check out the requisition file on Aegis One...check it out...then we'll talk." OK, why can't Palmer just tell Forrest the reason? Oh...then the plot would be short circuited and the movie would be over. (Not a bad idea, actually.) "I left my day pack and some weapons up at your place," Forrest abruptly remarks, "I think I'm going to pick them up and go up into the hills." (A day pack and some weapons? WTF?) "They're in the closet," Palmer exposits, deftly smacking us in the forehead with a Plot Point. Palmer exits the scene as abruptly as he entered, clearly the way for the inevitable Bar Fight that we've been waiting for. (Ok, Tough Guy is named Mike. That will make things slightly easier to type when he gets his ass kicked.) Mike continues to abuse Native American Guy (NAG), culminating with tossing a beer into his face. ["That guy's an asshole!" Female Foleyed Voice #32 trenchantly observes.] I'll just cut to the chase and say that Forrest quickly engages the rowdy workers and starts whooping their asses in that trademark Seagal technique of arm-breaks, body-tosses, and genital-crushing kicks and punches. ["MY NUTS!!!" one unfortunate combatant shouts as Seagal crushes his jewels in a steely grip. I'd just like to point out that, as any male can tell you, the first reaction after ANY type of testicular injury is not to shout "My nuts!"...it's trying to breath, scream, cry, crawl, roll, and vomit all at the same time.] ["MY BALLS!!!" another one shouts literally 3 seconds later after having his precious pair destroyed by a savage kick from Forrest's cowboy boot clad foot.] After dispatching a rather large number of attackers, the scene winds up with Forrest and Mike standing face to face, ringed by a crowd of eager onlookers.
In one of the truly oddest scenes of the film, Forrest asks the bloodied, gasping Mike, "What does it take to change the essence of a man?" Mike, broken nose, crushed nuts, and gasping for breath, tears up (!) and says, "Time...I need time to change." "I do too," Forrest whispers as the silently crowd watches in awe. With Native American-ish music playing, Forrest gives Mike a knowing pat on the shoulder and gives the previously abused NAG a ride home. "You're about to go on a sacred journey," NAG tells Forrest, because, you know, all Native Americans are highly spiritual and in touch with nature. (Oh...BROTHER!) UPDATE Jan 26: Thanks to Spooky from the forums for sending a link to a video of this entire sick hand-slapping game! Thank you so much! Meanwhile, Jennings stalks through the marbled halls of Evil Corp. while a flock of underlings fills him in on the latest news. Due to the recent fire (in the opening scene), the EPA has launched an investigation and a lot of bad PR has been spreading. The remedy? Jennings is to film a quick commercial touting Aegis' concern for the environment and their unremitting devotion to safety, all taking place in front of a forest mock-up. At the end of the piece, Jennings vehemently complains about the "stinking" caribou that adorned the set while the commercial was being filmed, because, you know, he's evil and really doesn't care about the environment. See? He's an Evil Capitalist. Wow, makes you think, doesn't it? Anyhoo, Jennings storms off the set and back up to his cavernous office. When word reaches him that the finishing of the crown jewel of Aegis production, the Aegis-1 oil platform, is going to be 3 weeks delayed, Jennings explodes in a fury and exposits that if the rig is not operational in 13 days, then the oil rights revert back to the Eskimos. Yeah, you try to figure that one out. To further complicate matters, an "unnamed source" within the company has been leaking information to the EPA about "substandard equipment." It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the informant is good ol' Hugh Palmer (otherwise Jennings would have never figured it out), and when he Jennings realizes that the entire Aegis-1 project is at stake (with potential revenues of "billions of dollars a week"...A week?!!), he tasks his hired killer, MacGruder (John C. McGinley), with dealing with the "problem."
Aegis-1...you betcha. I hope a strong wind doesn't come along... The next day Forrest makes his way into the <cough> Control Room to investigate the requisition forms that Palmer mentioned the night before. Using a handy computer terminal already logged into exactly the server on which to find requisition forms, Forrest accesses the information with a total of 7 key strokes: indeed, the Blowout Preventers that Jennings has installed have failed nearly every quality control test.
Oh no!!! Not...Wait for next shipment! As Forrest accesses this putatively important information, an alert goes off informing Jennings of the file access. Since this is a bone-headed movie, the only solution to this "problem" is just as bone-headed: kill him. Now, how about some alternative solutions: 1) Change the access codes. 2) Revoke Forrest's access to the computers. 3) Remove the stupid files from the file server. But no, Jennings orders Forrest to be liquidated. (You really have to wonder how many other CEO's assassinate employees for rummaging around computer files. Seriously, if you didn't want anybody to see them...then don't put them on the computer. Hell, why don't you just fire him?! Sheesh.) Cut to Palmer at home, busily downloading Aegis files as well off the network. I want to take this opportunity to point out that I'm a computer geek, therefore I love taking screenshots of movie computer screens and having a good laugh. Case in point: Here's Palmer's download screen:
Download to the "A" drive?! (Warning: Computer geek talk beginning) It would appear that after doing a video card and file check (...a SuperMac card, no less!), Palmer proceeds to download the entire Aegis data store to the A: drive, which is a floppy disk! Yeah, I guess he'll be disk swapping for the next, oh, 23 years. Anyway, the entire download takes, and I kid you not, 2 seconds to reach 100%. (!!!) Being the smart guy that he is, Palmer quickly initiates a "wipe" of his hard drive. (Hilariously, the prompt reads: "Type password to continue...Any other key to cancel". Now, if you are going to type your password, how does the program discern that the first key stroke is part of the password and not an attempt to cancel? (Or visa versa?) (Sorry all non-computer geeks, this is a long, dull movie and I'm grasping at anything to assuage the pain.) Returning to our movie in progress: Jenning's contract killers, MacGruder and Otto, show up at Palmer's place and try to retrieve the incriminating records that Palmer was planning on handing over to the EPA. Palmer refuses and is gorrated, beaten, and finally tortured to death in a surprisingly lengthy, bloody, and brutal scene (including the charming finale involving getting his leg sectioned with an industrial pipe cutter). (Really, just who did Seagal think the target audience was?) Meanwhile, Jennings is holding a press conference explaining how Aegis is working hard to contain and clean up the oil from the latest spill. The local Eskimo tribal leaders, after years of Aegis abusing the environment, are bellicose and gleefully looking forward to when Aegis loses the regional oil and mineral rights in a mere 12 days. Jennings quickly shoots back that his company will not lose the rights because the Aegis-1 platform will be operational within the deadline. (I'm not sure that mineral right contracts are that simple, but there you go.) Just as Jennings is leaving the press conference up comes a local Eskimo activist (and designated 'cutie') named Masu (played by Joan Chen). As the angry crowd pelts Jennings with verbal abuse (once "The blood of our people is upon you, Mr. Jennings," Masu adds for good measure as the oil runs down his suit. Out in the hallway, Forrest confronts Jennings regarding the substandard preventers. To get to the point, since the shipment of new preventers is delayed 90 days, Jennings is forced to use the crappy ones in order to make the deadline so Aegis doesn't lose the oil rights. "How much money is enough?" Forrest asks, because, you know, making money is bad. Anyhoo, Jennings sends Forrest out into the wilderness to presumably fix another oil leak. Little does our hardy hero realize that he's being lead into a trap. (Jennings accompanies him in the helicopter out into the Alaskan forests. Man, doesn't Jennings, as head of a major oil corporation, have anything, you know, to do during the day?) Forrest hops into a fire-repellant suit and carefully enters the pumping station. As he plays his flashlight beam across the oil soaked floor, he's shocked to discover Palmer's mutilated body along with the bloody pipe cutter used to murder him. Forrest finally figures out what's happening when he spots a bundle of dynamite taped to a nearby pipe. (Well, duh!) From the helicopter, MacGruder detonates the dynamite via remote control as Jennings watches with glee. Assuming that Forrest is fatally fricasseed, the Bad Guys fly back to headquarters. Alas, they didn't notice that Forrest was thrown free of the flames by the blast itself. (A concussion that would have killed any mortal man, but not Seagal.)
You may throw up now. Back in the Eskimo village, Forrest is nursed back to health. Did I mention that Masu, the Oil Throwing Activist, Just Happens To Live in the Village? Oh. Well, she does. Who would have ever thought that? Oh, and her father is the tribal chief. What are the odds, eh? Back at Aegis headquarters, Jennings is holding (yet another!) press conference. ["What kind of crap are you going to feed us now, Jennings!"] ["Just answer the questions, you weasel!"] (...and this is the local press? Man, that's a tough crowd.) As the crowd gasps with disbelief, Jennings explains that the latest oil spills were acts of sabotage carried out by former Aegis employees Forrest and Palmer. ["That's a crock of SHIT!"] Believing that Forrest is dead, and with the blame placed on his and Palmer's shoulders, Jennings leaves the conference room content that there will be no more problems. The only wrinkle is that the cleanup crew hasn't found any sign of Forrest's body yet so Jennings sends MacGruder and Otto out in a helicopter to scan the area. "There's no sign of him yet, sir, and I can assure you we've been over every inch of ground," MacGruder reports from the chopper. (What...every inch of ground in Alaska?) Not impressed, Jennings orders them to continue searching because, er, Forrest's body wasn't found so that can only mean he's still alive somewhere. (A bit of a false dichotomy I'd say, but there you have it.)
The rarely seen Alaskan Man-Bear. Meanwhile, back at the Eskimo village, Forrest has recovered enough to sneak out of the sleeping house (in a perfectly fitting, brand new fur coat none the less!). Without awakening the slumbering villagers, he stealthily sneaks through the doorway and attempts to abscond with one of the dog sleds. In a wonderful scene, the sled dogs promptly attack Forrest. Unfortunately, they do not rip him to shreds and end the movie. (One dog does appear to bite him in the nuts...regrettably Forrest doesn't shout "My NUTS!" like I would have liked. Now that would have been pretty funny.)
My NUTS! The all too enjoyable sight of seeing Forrest being torn to shreds by a pack of viscous dogs is brought to an all-too-early end when the Eskimos rush out and pull the dogs off. Standing up, and with his clothes in amazingly perfect condition after having been ripped up by dogs in the previous scene, Forrest explains that he was just trying to get away because he's a hunted man and his presence in village is a threat to everybody. (Sort of like any movie with Steven Seagal's presence in it is a threat to your mental health.) (I will be fair and point out that some of this movie was filmed in Alaska where the scenery is absolutely beautiful, so there is at least one redeeming factor...but it's far from enough to actually make On Deadly Ground actually worth watching. ) Anyway, the wise Village Elder, Masu, and a bunch of extras decide to accompany Forrest on his journey back to civilization. Hopping into a couple of dogsleds, the gang takes off over the snow and ice. After a day or so (?), they take a break which affords Seagal the opportunity to include an absolutely sickening scene where the village Chief tells Forrest some Eskimo legends. Now don't get me wrong, the legends are cool, but Forrest, so smug in his fur coat sitting in rapt attention, along with the cliche New Age synthesizer Native American music is just too much for my stomach to bear. To make matters worse, the legend revolves around the creation of The Bear and how he is to be the protector of the land. As the tale comes to an end, and I shit you not, Forrest nods in silent understanding of his quest because he is...the Man-Bear! Really. I'm not kidding. Could I ever have made up anything so corny? Oh God...the Chief wasn't finished...he pulls out a feather, taps Forrest on his head whereupon he swoons and faints (!!), and sends him on a, <gasp>... Dream Quest!!!! Ayeeeeeeee! Forrest's spirit flies through some run-of-the-mill special effects shots of water, ice, and other crap, interposed with close ups of a bald eagle. His avatar finally arrives in the midst of an Eskimo ceremony, complete with topless Eskimo babes dancing around and being quite jiggly, if you get my drift. Let me quickly point out that this is not a Gratuitous Booby Scene because it's part of a religious ritual which reveals the sovereign nobility of the indigenous people. (A very perky people at that...heh heh. Ok, I know, I'm going to hell. But really, who did they think they were fooling?) After watching a bit of topless dancing, we cut back to see Forrest's spirit fight and kill a grizzly bear, which seems rather ironic since he's supposed to be the land's protector. Oh, sorry, he only stabbed it once before the bear tosses him into an icy river. (So he leaves the bear behind to bleed to death?) After floating to the end of the river (or floating until the special effects budget ran out), Forrest-Spirit arrives inside a magic hut. Seated inside are 2 women: One an old, wrinkly woman sitting in the middle of the dirt floor, the other a sexy naked woman writhing on a plush bed, beckoning to Forrest with a curl of her finger. Now, anybody who's ever seen any Sword-n-Sorcery type film will immediately realize that the correct choice is the old woman...never, and I mean, never choose the hot babe in a situation like this. Forrest wisely chooses the old woman and begins speaking to her in fluent Eskimo. (Forgive me if I don't know the actual name of the Eskimo tongue. I know it's like saying "he spoke fluent Native American...I know. I know.) Anyway, the old woman tasks Forrest with saving the land and teaching the intruders to "fear the bear". In a shot too corny to describe, Forrest's spirit is "reborn" from the waters as an Eskimo Wise Elder howls (!) and looks on.
<Monster Shack management apologizes for the lack of a caption, but it was not humanly possible to describe how corny this scene was>
Anyway, with Forrest's <cough> rebirth <cough>, he's off to battle evil corporations, protect the environment, and kill a gazillion people in the process. Back at the Eskimo village, MacGruder, Otto and a couple of other Nogoodnicks show up and search their camp. The villagers look nervously on with stone-tipped spears as the M-16 armed bad guys ransack their huts while searching for Forrest. Now really, I know these Eskimos are in Touch With Nature and are noble and what not...but still...stone-tipped spears...in the 20th century? So they've never heard of firearms? Give me a break. I mean, this is Alaska for God's sake, not the middle of deepest, darkest Africa in the 1800's. Blah blah. As you might have suspected, Forrest's upcoming lethal rampage requires some sort of moral justification otherwise Seagal would simply be wasting a lot of people just to show what a bad ass he is. (And Seagal would neeeeeeeever do that, would he now?) The putative source of his wrath is when Otto discovers Forrest's charred protective suit. (Now just why would they bother keeping that around? Oh...so it can be found. Of course.) An argument breaks out...things happen, people say things and viola, MacGruder ends up shooting the village chief. With the angry villagers looking on and shaking their spears (whatever!), MacGruder and the others retreat to the helicopter and take off. Where, oh where, is Man-Bear when you need him, eh? Oh here he comes...racing across the frozen waste in a dog sled. (Where the hell did he learn to control one of those? Oh, that's right, Forrest is now a Spirit Warrior...oh BUH-rother!) Rushing into the dying chief's hut, Forrest kneels at the side of the fading elder. Masu translates her father's dying words for Forrest: "You're the Spirit Warrior, the Gods have already decided your fate...Eagle and Bear are your spirit guides." Yes, you may throw up now. I'll wait for you here. Finished? Ok, good, let's continue. Meanwhile, back at the Aegis-1 oil platform, Jennings (who has decided to be there in order to oversee the final days of preparations) chews out MacGruder for his failed mission: "You didn't find Taft, but you managed to kill an unarmed Eskimo in front of a dozen witnesses." MacGruder blames it on the Eskimos, saying that they "attacked" him...oh blah blah, yes MacGruder, we get it: you're Eeeeeeevil. Forrest will be dealing with you soon. Meanwhile, back at the Eskimo camp, Masu gives Forrest the keys to the tribe's snowmobile..."It's for emergencies," she mentions. (Emergencies like...oh...the village chief being shot? Why didn't you rush him to the hospital with it, you idiots!) Forrest hops on the vehicle and rushes off to Aegis-1 to deal with Jennings and the others. Oh, and Masu tags along because...ummm...you got me. After who knows how long, Forrest and Masu swing by Palmer's house to find it completely ransacked. (You remember, what seems about a million years ago, when MacGruder and Otto killed Palmer and tried to find the computer files he had downloaded?) Forrest makes his way upstairs and digs out his backpack that he had stashed in Palmer's upstairs closet...you remember...the one full of his weapons that he was going to take with him on his trip into the forest. You don't remember? Well, don't bother rewinding. Just go with it. Back outside, Otto is still flying around in a helicopter trying to find Forrest. If you stop to think about it, it's pretty freakin' absurd, isn't Alaska like...oh...half the size of the continental United States??!! Be that as it may, he miraculously manages to find the snowmobile parked at the edge of a snowbank. The helicopter pilot looks around and sagely notes, "It looks like the must have gone on foot from here!" Uh...no shit, Sherlock. Man, there's nothing getting past you, eh? Anyway, Otto deduces that Forrest is probably back at Palmer's cabin. How he figures that? Who knows, but at least it sets up the first of many Justified Showdowns where the bad guys will get their due. So...yes...Otto and a couple of Evil Henchmen suddenly appear outside Palmer's cabin. Just how they got there so quickly, where they got their weapons from, and why there are suddenly more of them than were in the helicopter in the previous scene is beyond me. "Oh, it looks like my friends are here to play," Mr. Spirit Warrior glibly remarks when he spots a bunch of bad guys moving up to the cabin from the forest. I'll spare you the next minute or so of runtime and just say that after a boring Spray-And-Pray gun fight, Forrest manages to kill everybody. It was actually a little disappointing because there wasn't very much of Seagal's, admittedly fun to watch, trademark hand-to-hand fighting in this scene. However, Forrest did ironically dispatch Otto with the same whale-bone item that he (Otto) earlier used to torture Palmer. Man...now that's deep. Back on Aegis-1, Jennings, MacGruder, and an Evil Corporate Hench-Woman are stomping around the corridors of the still unfinished refinery. "Just who the hell is this guy?" MacGruder queries.
Jennings stops short and begins: "Delve down into the deepest bowels of your soul. Try to imagine the ultimate fucking nightmare, and that won't come close to this son-of-a-bitch when he gets pissed." Mr. Jennings, I would agree 100% if you'd been referring to this film. After a brief discussion, Jennings agrees to MacGruder's offer of hiring "outside resources." "You mean mercenaries?" Bingo. Obviously, these "mercenaries" are simply Forrest fodder to fill the remaining runtime until the Final Showdown. I betcha can't wait, can you? (If you go against my advice and actually see this movie, make sure to keep an eye out for young Billy Bob Thorton as mercenary Homer Carlton.) Meanwhile, the wily Forrest stops by a friend's house, Johnny, in order to look at the computer disk that Palmer had stashed in his backpack before he died. You remember? The 3-1/2 inch floppy that holds the entire Aegis-1 document store? Forrest pops in the disk and an odd DOS-based spread sheet immediately pops up on the screen. "These are the pressure readings from Aegis-1...the whole place is a goddamned time bomb!" Forrest expounds. Another page of the spreadsheet indicates that Jennings and his "dog-shit empire" (Forrest's words, not mine) are up to other evil activities involving pumping toxic gases back into dry wells then trying to sell them off as full wells or some crazy shit. Sorry. I've really just about had it with this movie. "It's just like I always say," Forrest says as he makes his way to the door, "we have to blow it...and we have to blow it now." (That's something he always says? Maybe he's referring to his latest movies. <rimshot>) Masu isn't quite in agreement: She'd (wisely) rather let the authorities handle it. "Have you forgotten everything my father has taught you?" she implores. "Do you think that hocus-pocus stuff is going to help us now?" Forrest answers in an incredible about face after his mystical Dream Quest he just experienced early that very same day! "You see," Forrest continues, "I love the spirit world and I loved your father...I didn't want to resort to violence, but I didn't have a choice!" Boy, that's some mighty fine writing there, pardner. As you might have guessed, this is Forrest's BIG SCENE...which, unsurprisingly, falls flat on its face under the burden of its own conceit. After delivering his scene which ostensibly will excuse him from all the violence his is soon to perpetrate, Forrest pushes a hidden button (!) and a wall swings open to reveal a room absolutely full of weapons.
Don't laugh. This is a serious movie. Oh, and here's one of my favorite lines: As Forrest smugly peruses his secret armory he says to Johnny, "Give me this F-8 shotgun with all the magazines and ammo you got...gimme one M-14, a couple of .45's, and the SSG...and...I think that will do it." Gee Forrest , are you sure that will be enough firepower to take out a corporate suit and a few rednecks? Good grief. (I still chuckle when I think of that line.) I digress. After loading up his weapons, Forrest and Masu mount a couple of horses and begin their journey to Aegis-1. "You ride good?" Forrest asks. (Shouldn't that be "You ride well?") "Of course," Masu replies with a grin, "I'm a Native American!" (I included that last line in order to show you just how revolting this film truly is. I mean, what were they thinking when they wrote this script?) And, oh, just why in the hell is Masu coming along? High above, the mercenary leader, Stone (played by R. Lee Ermey...better known as The Drill Think about this for a second: They're flying around in a helicopter looking for somebody in an area the size of ALASKA!!! Granted, they're pretty sure he'll be somewhere around the Aegis-1 refinery, but still...come on! So we're still talking about an area of what?...50 square miles of densely forested, mountainous terrain? Yeah, good luck. Anyhoo, Stone asks about Forrest's background in order to get a better idea of the man they are hunting. MacGruder admits that Jennings and Co. really don't know anything about him. However, one of the mercs has done some research and informs the others that there is no record of Forrest...anywhere. "That means he's CIA...maybe even NSA." (Gasp!) (I never knew the National Security Agency had a military wing, but there you go.) Meanwhile, Forrest rides with Masu to an old, rickety shed out in the middle of nowhere. Inside the shack Forrest proudly reveals a gigantic stash of explosives: land mines, hand grenades, C4...you name it. Just where in the hell Forrest got all this is beyond me. Even if he did work for the CIA (NSA?), it's not like you can opt to have your severance package paid out in explosives...can you? Yes, yes, I know. This is of course a lazy (and Seagal favorite) plot device to give a thin veneer of plausibility for Forrest being able to get whatever material he needs to Get The Job Done. OK, where was I...oh yeah. Seagal. Crap. Movie. Forrest quickly sets up some electronic doo-dad to send out a "signal" so that the mercenaries can find him...so, you know, he can kill a bunch of people. All in the name of the environment, naturally. The Bad Guys immediately pick up the signal on their own Evil Electronic Device and send in a bunch of guys on horseback to the location. (Really now, isn't Alaska, uh...big?...oh, forget it.) Anyhoo, Forrest rigs up a gigantic wad of C4 to somehow explode exactly at the same moment the helicopter is just beside the run down shed. Bye bye, helicopter. (Since my head hurts, I'm not going to even go into how impossibly unlikely it would be to actually time something like that...let alone if it even would have affected the helicopter at all because...ouch...my head hurts.) Forrest and Masu mount their horses and ride off for the Final Confrontation along with enough explosives to level half of Mount Everest. Nevertheless, in hot pursuit, is none other than MacGruder and the Mercenaries now also on horseback, which is odd, because I thought they were on the helicopter that was just blown up. I'll go ahead and give this film the benefit of the doubt and say that I must have blacked out somewhere along the line and missed the way in which these guys magically transported from the helicopter to the horses. Anyway, on the horses now, MacGruder and the others spot Forrest at the top of a ridge and storm off to capture him. Lucky for them, they quickly discover a "I thought this guy was gonna be good..." a Soon To Be Dead nameless mercenary scoffs. (Billy Bob Thorton makes his appearance at this point. Mr. Thorton: If you are reading this review, I forgive you for being in this movie: You are one of my favorite actors...and I loved Sling Blade!) Oh wow. The booby trap was just a diversion. Who woulda thunkit? Scratch a pair of careless Nameless Mercenaries that fall to the real booby traps. Excitement! Forrest and Masu (once again...she's tagging along because...?) ride off with MacGruder and the others in hot pursuit. Give yourself a few more Beer Points if you guessed that Forrest and Masu would be forced to stop short at the brink of a Gaping Chasm. Oh dear. Are they going to jump it? My heart! My heart! What will happen next?
Yes, Forrest lights the fuse on a satchel charge, drops it on the cliff ledge, and hops over the chasm. Masu follows suit because, well, she's so vital to the plot at this point. After Forrest and Masu safely leap to the other side, the satchel charge detonates and blows off the tip of the right-hand ledge, leaving the gap somehow impossible for the horses to leap over now that it's about 2 feet wider than it was before. "This guy is good!" Nameless Mercenary #4 remarks upon seeing Forrest's handy work.
Nope...can't jump it now...waaaayyy to wide now. Nosirree. With that insurmountable gulf separating them from the bad guys, Forrest and Masu magically make their way onto the refinery grounds proper. "You stay here while I blow the generators," Forrest tells Masu because it's just that easy to do. Yeah, well, I guess it is: Forrest manages to sabotage the main generator and the backup generator because...he's just that damned good. Oh, and he's shoots a guard in the head. But he was a Bad Guy so it's ok. Meanwhile, Jennings finds out that Aegis-1 is due to go online in about 3 hours. (Seeing that there's only 30 minutes of runtime left, I'm assuming that's not going to happen.) Oh, and for good measure, Jennings has called in the FBI Anti-Terrorist Unit to bolster the refinery's defenses against "that maniac" Forrest. I gotta tell you, this movie is really dragging right now. (Probably like this review...I hope not.) Moving right along...Forrest continues sneaking around the refinery killing random unlucky henchmen and mercenaries, which seems pretty cruel...Take for example, some random guard goes to take a leak and Forrest strangles him. I mean, how did Forrest know he was one of the mercs? After about 5 seconds of sneaking around finally , Forrest reaches some sort of work area full of, well, workers. (Man..I gotta buy a thesaurus.) Anyway, Forrest simply shouts "Get out of here, it's gonna blow!" and the workers immediately drop their tools and flee. Boy, that Forrest, huh? What an authority figure. Things finally start happening when the generator that Forrest sabotaged finally goes kaput. "The power's out! We'll have to reboot all the computers," a Nameless Nerd reports to Jennings. "How long's that gonna take?" "Four or five minutes top!" (Yep...he's using Windows.) Forrest decides to set things in high gear and starts remotely detonating bombs that he's placed at various key locations around the refinery. If you watch the explosions carefully you'll see multitudes of workers fleeing for their lives which, in my eyes at least, makes Forrest guilty of being an irresponsible asshole and very close to being a murderer. Blah blah. The Mercenaries run around trying to shoot Forrest who busies himself setting up bombs at key points on the refinery structure. This scene gives Seagal yet another opportunity to pat himself on the back about what a bad-ass he is. This time via a pair of mercenaries discussing Just Who They're Dealing With: "He's the kind of guy that would drink a gallon of gasoline so he could piss in your campfire." (Ummm...I'm not sure what that means but let's just go with it.) "You could drop this guy off on the Arctic Circle wearing a pair of bikini underwear and without his toothbrush and tomorrow afternoon he's gonna show up at your poolside with a million-dollar smile and a fist full of Pesos." (That sound you just heard was me retching at the thought of Seagal in bikini underwear...oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.) Initiate perfunctory Gun Fight Scene. Wow...that was exciting. As word gets around that Forrest is on the loose busily rigging the refinery to explode, the Aegis-1 employees and crew flee for the hills. In a charming scene, MacGruder makes his way to a waiting helicopter where Forrest is lurking. MacGruder tries to get away but Forrest grabs him and starts shoving him into the helicopter's rear tail blades. Sensing that this could kind of suck, MacGruder tries to cut a deal, then attempts to attack Forrest, I think, it's dark and I'm sick of this film. Anyway, it results in Forrest shoving MacGruder, face first, into the twirling blades...cut to a lingering shot of blood splattering over the tail of the helicopter. On a side note, Jennings' Right-Hand Evil Corporate Hench Woman tries to make her escape as well and ends up driving a truck directly into a gasoline pipe. Trapped in the cab, she can only watch as the pool of gas spreads to some flames and engulfs her in a gigantic fireball. Now seriously, she really didn't do anything to deserve that. OK, sure, she's part of an Evil Corporation...but being burned to death in a gasoline explosion? Mr. Seagal, I think you need some counseling. Meanwhile Jennings leaves the control room and heads over to Aegis-1 in order to engage in (At this point in the film there is a brief scene with Billy Bob Thorton chatting with another mercenary, and it's just painfully obvious that Thorton is in a completely different league than these other hack actors.) Forrest continues the slaughter by immolating a trio of mercs who were merely standing around by a door. Yes, even though he could have quickly dispatched them with a flurry of bullets, Forrest instead chooses to open a pipe to pour raw gasoline over them, then ignite the hapless guys by making a spark with a bullet. Nice. After killing a gazillion, basically hapless, mercenaries, Forrest and Masu make it to the (unguarded) control room where our hero begins shutting down and/or flooding critical areas of the oil rig. (One scene explicitly shows a pipe spewing huge clots of crude oil sludge out onto the floor and presumably eventually out into the ocean...nice one, Forrest.) Down in some dark contrived set, Forrest covers his ass by noting that he's setting up some sort of doo-dad in order to prevent an oil spill, since, you know, he is an ECO-HERO. (Never mind all the oil pipes his opened i the previous scene.) How he can now prevent an oil spill after rigging the entire platform to explode is beyond me...but then again...he's just that good!!! Oh, and he also kills the main mercenary guy who was hiding in a gigantic pool of oil (Now that just can't be good for the complexion), because he Just Knew that Forrest would be there, at that computer console, out of the bazillion other consoles on the platform. Realizing that things are going to blow, and soon, Forrest and Masu try to escape but are trapped inside a room full of explosive container. (You know the kind.) Obviously, the bad guys can't shoot because, well, the whole room would go up, so they have to try and take Forrest out hand-to-hand. Naturally, this gives us yet another opportunity to watch Seagal beat the living shit out of a bunch of overweight extras, because, you know, you just can never get enough of watching that. (Including a super-slow motion shot of a nerdy looking merc in glasses getting his head smashed with a lead pipe. What a humanitarian that Forrest is.) Finally, and I do mean finally, we come to the (sort of) climax. Forrest somehow magically comes across Jennings (the script said so) and forces him against a wall with a pistol. "You're a piece of shit...You're scum of the Earth!" Forrest trenchantly remarks. [Shakespeare, watch out!] Anyway, Jennings calls Forrest's bluff and turns to leave. Being a man of honor (yeah, right), Forrest somehow whips up a wire lasso (From what?! Where?!) and captures Jennings; leaving him hanging by his feet from a huge crane hook. (Don't ask...it's as idiotic as you're imagining right now.) Jennings, realizing that his goose is cooked, one way or another, shouts insults at Forrest who, after getting fed up with the verbal abuse, shoots the wire that Jennings dangles from, thus dropping him (or a stuntman thereof) into an miraculously convenient pool of crude oil. Oh....the irony. (I'm curious, do oil rigs really have gigantic open containers of oil just sitting around for people to fall into? Apparently so. I mean, this movie has been pretty realistic so far...) More Pyrotechnic Pornography as Seagal runs through gigantic explosions in Super Slow Mo. (Masu manages to keep up as Forrest...er..."makes a path" for her...his words, not mine. Yup, "making a path" through a fireball.) Forrest and Masu steal a truck and zip out of the refinery just as it goes Kaa-blowey. Yeah. What a surprise. And man, that was exciting. I wasn't really sure if they were going to make it or not. Cut to the Alaskan state capitol where Forrest delivers his jaw-dropping 3-minute monologue about the evils of greedy oil corporations, foolish environmental policies, and pretty much anything else you can think of. (Remember, the original version lasted TEN MINUTES!!!) So here you have it in its entirety. I had to watch it all, and you know what...you're going to enjoy it too! "I'd like to start out by saying, thank you to all the brothers and sisters that have come here today representing this cause. I have been asked by Mr. Itok and the tribal council to speak to you and the members of the Press about the injustice that has been brought against us by some Government Officials and Big Business. How many of you out there have heard of alternative engines? Engines that can run on anything from alcohol to garbage or water . Or carburetors that can get hundreds of miles to the gallon. Or electric or magnetic engines, that can practically run forever. You don't know about them because if they were to come into use, they'd put the oil companies out of business. The concept of the internal combustion engine has been obsolete for over fifty years. But because of the Oil Cartels and corrupt government regulation, we and the rest of the world have been forced to use gasoline for over a hundred years. Big Business is primarily responsible for destroying the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat. They have no care for the world they destroy: only for the money they make in the process. How many oil spills can we endure? Millions and millions of gallons of oil are now destroying the ocean and the many forms of life it supports. Among these is plankton, which supplies sixty to ninety percent of the Earth's oxygen. This supports the entire marine ecosystem which forms the basis of our planet's food supply. But the plankton is dying. I thought, well, let's go to remote state or country. Anywhere on Earth. But in doing a little research I realized that these people broker toxic waste all over the world. They basically control the legislation, and, in fact, they control the law. The Law says, "no company can be fined over $25,000 a day" For companies making $10,000,000 dollars a day by dumping lethal toxic wastes into the ocean, it's only good business to continue doing this. They influence the media so that they can control our minds. They have made it a crime to speak out for ourselves, and if we do so we're called "conspiracy nuts" and we're laughed at. We're angry because we're all being chemically and genetically damaged, and we don't even realize it. Unfortunately, this will effect our children. We go to work each day and right under our noses we see our car and the car in front of us spewing noxious poisonous gasses that are all accumulative poisons. These poisons kill us slowly, even when we see no effect. How many of us would have believed if we were told twenty years ago that on a certain day we wouldn't be able to see fifty feet in front of us. That we wouldn't be able to take a deep breath because the air would be a mass of poisonous gas. That we wouldn't be able to drink out of our faucets, that we'd have to buy water out of bottles. Our most common and God-given rights have been taken away from us. Unfortunately, the reality of our lives is so grim that nobody wants to hear it. Now, I've been asked what we can do? I think we need a responsible body of people that can actually represent us rather than Big Business. This body of people must not allow the introduction of anything into our environment that is not absolutely biodegradable or able to be chemically neutralized upon production. And finally, as long as there is profit to be made from polluting the Earth, companies and individuals will continue to do what they want. We have to force these companies to operate safely and responsibly, and with all our best interests in mind. So that when they don't, we can take back our resources and our hearts and our minds and do what's right." The End Dennis Grisbeck (Jan 2008)
Submerged (2005) Directed by Anthony Hickox Run Time: 94 min Tagline: " Under water, under cover." Review by Sean Ledden Like its doughy, stone-faced hero, Submerged is tough. Brutal. Ruthless. It wastes no time before starting to beat the crap out of the viewer with a headache inducing jackhammer montage similar to the one used to torture Malcolm MacDowell's goon in "A Clockwork Orange." All the while some babe (all of the women in this movie are babes – surprise!) talks about controlling your mind. Then it's off to some large dam where a delightfully tacky model of an unmanned reconnaissance plane snaps pictures of a bunch of hysterical bad guys. At the same time a grim-faced power blonde with the U.S. State Department talks, grimly, of tracking down a secret base. This is kind of boring. Thankfully the secret service guys in the room with her go nuts and shoot everybody in the head. There's lots of blood. Like I said at the start: this movie means business. It doesn't even waste time figuring out what happened. We know it's mind control, and so do the characters in the movie, as we see in another U.S. government briefing scene. They even know who's doing it! How did they figure this out? The movie doesn't deign to tell us. It doesn't have time, because we have to catch up with a bunch of buff commandoes riding towards Drop Point Bravo, "Coast of Uruguay," in a helicopter. As they fly to destroy the bad guy place under the dam - I guess - the leader, a hot Aussie guy, talks about how he misses his kid (awwwww), and how he has a "shitty feeling" about the mission. So guess what, they drop into a fiendish ambush involving counter-commandoes, mind-control, and a suicide-bomber goat herd. This scene goes on and on and on as the leader, rendered impotent by mind-control, loses his grip and lets the suicide-bomber goat herd get too close before one of his men shoots & blows her up. Guts splatter all over the place, but at least it's not in slow motion. Then the counter-commandoes open fire and several good guys die visually exciting deaths before the leader snaps to and orders everyone to surrender. The music becomes ponderous and mournful over this, but there is a bright spot: all the goats remain unharmed – thank you for asking. Then we're off again – now to the Dr. Mind Control's evil laboratory. Unsurprisingly, he's a leering, owl-eyed example of evil incarnate. One who bears a striking resemblance to Under Dog's nemesis Simon Bar Sinister! We join him as he's washing the brain of one of the captured commandoes – pretty much the same way Malcolm MacDowell's brutal thug was re-conditioned way back in 1972's A Clockwork Orange. That is, he's subjected, with pinned open eyes, to a flood of intensely irritating subliminal images – the ones in this movie seem to have been lifted from an MTV goth-rock video.
Then it's off to the aircraft carrier USS Clinton where, finally, our hero makes his heavy footed entrance in one of those hopelessly corny slow-mo "walking tough" sequences pioneered by Michael Bay. But what's this? He's in the chains of a prisoner! He was thrown in the stockade it seems. Why? Don't know, because the movie doesn't say. But one thing I do know. Despite the fact that the carrier interiors are underlit and Steven is dressed in dark, baggy clothing, it's easy to see that those stockades were well stocked with cakes, cookies, pies and ice-cream. (America's military is famous for the indulgent way it treats its prisoners!) Then we get some smart-ass tough guy talk as Steven squares off with a frowny-faced officer who loves the cakes, cookies, pies, and ice-cream even more than he does! Although right now he looks kind of constipated. No doubt because of Steven's infuriating wise-ass manner and surprisingly soft, high-pitched voice. Choking down his disgust, Officer Frowny-Face offers Steven and his "crew" a full pardon if they go on a top-secret mission to assassinate Dr. Mind Control. Steven replies, rather surprisingly, that he doesn't do things like that. Not to worry. 10 seconds later he changes his mind and takes the pardon if it comes with $100,000 for him and each of his crew members. This display of ethics over with, we learn that Agent Fletcher is also coming along "for the ride."(He's played by William Hope. He also played the incompetent Marine Lieutenant in Aliens who screwed the pooch for Ripley & Co. Based on this bit of casting, and because Agent Fletcher is an authority figure, I'm going to make a bold prediction here. Agent Fletcher nearly gets everyone killed by being either incompetent or a double agent.) And now we get some sparkling military wit from Agent Fletcher: "I'm just tagging along to make sure you get good coffee, and a change of clothes." The dialogue in this movie is almost as painful as the subliminal torture sequences. And there's plenty more to be had when we meet Steven's "crew." It's in another dimly lit room of the ship, and Steven addresses a surly bunch of constipated-looking touch guys. Jumpy computer screen graphics tell us about some of them – like "O'Hearn" whose "skills" include "engineer" and "dynamic entry." OK, let's just think about that for a moment. Anyway, they're not happy because the last time they followed Steven they all ended up in jail. But he rallies them to the cause, in his slightly effeminate drawl, with this stirring speech: "It's easy, you know. You can come with me. We do it right, we free. Or you can stay in jail and get romantic with your boyfriend." That does the trick, and they come on board. More heavy metal music. More manly slo-mo striding down corridors. (Auuuugggghhhh!!!!!!) Then we get our black female team member, Dr. Susan Chapel, with the "Psychological Unit." She's gorgeous, of course. And thank goodness it's not an all-male party. Because we all know what that could lead to! As if to underscore this point she asks Steven's tough Number 2 Bloke (he's English), "What's in the bag?" He replies, "Apart from me condoms. Probably enough explosives to blow that dam to Kingdom Come." Oh my aching sides! Then it's off to blow that dam – the one housing the secret lab – to Kingdom Come. And I have to thank the movie at this point, because it quickly confirms my prediction that Agent Fletcher is no good. For once he scrambles out of the helicopter at the drop point a puffy-faced Steven has the bird lift off again – to the delight of the other soldiers. Why do they hate him? Who knows, but Steven doesn't give a shit about him, and neither do they. Only Dr. Chapel is aghast. But she's just a girl from the "Psychological Unit" so what does she know. For of course Agent Fletcher really is a double agent. How did Steven know? The movie doesn't waste time on this point, because it has a date with tough commando babe number two. It's a hilarious rip-off of the wonderful scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Marian out drinks some guy who looks like a yak. Only here the commando babe, who looks like a Playboy pinup, wins an arm wrestling match with some long-haired Neanderthal who out weights her by 100 pounds or so. I mean, I'm a feminist, but ye Gods! While this mighty contest is going on they are surrounded by a bunch of hooting, howling cretins who are either supposed to be South American good'ol boys, or the stone-age survivors of World War III. As the Playboy pinup races to meet Steven and his team at the new drop point, we pause, very briefly, for some hard to follow exposition with Officer Frowny Face back on the aircraft carrier. He's pissed off at the new drop point, but defends Steven because it turns out he prevented "another 9/11" out on the Mediterranean Sea. By disobeying orders, of course. And then the U.N. got involved and raised some political bullshit fuss, and well, Steven and crew landed in jail. (Gee, if only Steven had been on the East Coast – then he'd have prevented the U.N. from letting 9/11 happen!!!) But there's no time to dwell on past injustices, for as our playboy pinup leans against a muscle truck and ogles the guys as they stride in manly slo-mo (Auuuggghhhh!!!) from the helicopter, we get our second glimpse of Dr. Mind-Control. He quickly double-crosses, then murders his hysterical South American sleaze bag patron. The only mystery is why he's doing all of this, but who cares, it's almost time for the next action set-piece. It's a loooonnnnnnggggg and very involved assault on the secret headquarters by Steve and his gang. It's night, and camouflaged men sneak around oil barrels, past guarded submarines, and down concrete walls. They sight bad guys in the scopes of their deadly hi-tech weaponry before killing them in a variety of visually exciting ways. This includes the Playboy pinup crushing a guard's neck with her muscular (?) thighs. The bad guys fight back with a small army and a tank, but to no avail. (By the way – almost all of this ruckus is done by the team, with Steven himself either off-stage, or "guiding" the action by standing still and scowling past the camera.) Once in the secret headquarters, they find that Dr. Mind-Control has flown the coop, leaving behind several broken victims swinging forlornly in S&M cages. Freeing the victims, Steve & his crew blow up Dr. Mind-Control's abandoned HQ – and the dam. This no doubt leads to a tremendous loss of life in the surrounding civilian population – but fortunately Steve & his crew aren't weighted down by such bullshit political considerations. They've got a job to do. And that includes stealing the submarine. Don't ask me why. But it's interesting to note that the sub isn't trashed by the flood released when the dam blows up. It's magical realism – Hollywood style! So finally the movie, along with Steve & his crew, is Submerged – in a dark, dank, claustrophobic submarine. But this dreary atmosphere is soon enlivened by a cat fight, I mean face-off, between Dr. Chapel and the Playboy pinup. Seems the pinup is enraged that girly girl Chapel hasn't killed anybody yet. So, breasts heaving with testosterone, she throws herself into a hot, tight, sweaty martial arts show down with the team's psychologist. You might be surprised to learn that this doesn't end in a lesbian sex scene – and thus to a 3-way with you know who. But action movies like this have always been shy around real sex – so it doesn't happen. Let us bow our heads in a moment of profound thanks. Several moments of ersatz tension later the brain-washed victims – all members of the first doomed commando team, attempt to take over and sink the submarine. Amid all the squalid action we finally get a Steven Seagal martial arts battle. Sort of. It's brief, and it's all done with editing and camera angles. In it, Steven easily dispatches his younger, fitter, more limber and athletic opponent. Mostly by standing in poorly lit corners and scowling. He does, however, get some choice dialogue and shouts, in a rather listless manner, "Cocksucker, motherfucker!" Next he kills the remaining brain-washed commandos by spraying them with machine gun fire. Happily, he doesn't hit the members of his own crew who are standing all around the bad guys. Then everyone abandons ship because Officer Frowny Face, panicked that some brain-washed commandos might escape, blows up the sub with a missile attack. That's Standard Operating Procedure – I guess.
The Many Moods of Steven Seagal Then it's off to the shiny corporate evil of the Kelin Dyle Centre, somewhere else in Uruguay, I guess. Dr. Mind-Control pouts menacingly at Agent Fletcher about the money he's owed, but Fletcher brushes him off, saying it's up to his superiors. But before we get any further he's told that Steven and his surviving crew members have landed somewhere nearby. With Dr. Mind-Control smirking at his elbow he plans an ambush. This is to take place at an outdoor protest rally that's been colored corrected in post production to look very, very orange. I think this is meant to express the heat of the tropics and the passion of the demonstrators, but it rather suggests that the sun will go supernova at any moment. And it's contrasted with scenes in Dr. Mind-Control's new lab – which have been color corrected to look very, very blue. You know, because the lab is so very, very cold, and very, very evil. It's all very, very subtle. While in the lab we learn that the evil Kelin Dyle Corporation has kidnapped the young fiancé of the country's president. And she's not the only one being abused, as there are plenty of others who are strapped to seats in little concrete and glass cubicles. Stacked on top of each other they bring to mind a sort of Hollywood Squares from hell. (Note From The Future – later in the movie Agent Fletcher refers to the lab as the Hollywood Squares. I feel so validated!) As Dr. Mind-Control gets to work on the fiancé, humming an evil tune, the evil Fletcher begins plotting with his evil corporate boss to get rid of the evil scientist. Seems Dr. Mind-Control isn't good at taking orders. Boy, Fletcher sure is evil! But the joke's on him, because as soon as he leaves Dr. Mind-Control drugs and disables his sleazoid minion – taking the lab over in earnest. (Interestingly, Dr. Mind-Control, who has money problems, has somehow managed to instantly gain the unquestioning loyalty of his new lab's corporate funded staff. Right.)
Both Simon Bar Sinister and Dr. Mind Control Enjoy Their Work. Inter-cut with all of the evil shenanigans at the lab is a lot of unexplained violence between anonymous protestors and faceless cops at the phosphorescently orange rally. (It's always something when you go down south of the border.) Stuck in the middle, in their array of shiny new taxis and freshly laundered civilian clothes, is Steven & Co. Glowering out at the scene, Steven grows profound, "You can bet your life that somebody close to us is orchestrating this whole thing." Who? God? Nope, for he continues, "And I'm just willing to bet that some of (Dr. Mind-Control's) men are waiting for us somewhere around this plaza." This may sound like the psychotic paranoia of a street crazy, but it isn't. It's the clear-eyed shrewdness of an invulnerable action star. An invulnerable action star who's pissed. At least I think he's supposed to be pissed. It's hard to tell because Seagal's wooden delivery never changes throughout the entire movie. At any rate he mumbles "I say we go for them." And then "If you want to catch some catfish, you have to have some bait." before stepping out of the car. Like, wow. And so begins another loooonnngggg, involved and sometimes bizarre action sequence. This one involving a brain washed sniper. Steven's Number 2 Bloke manages to sneak up on him, but rather than just shoot him, he lays down his gun, sneaks up behind him, then hisses in his ear, "Do you think I'm here to play fucking chess?" This is quickly followed by a brutal, rage filled fight where each of the many, many kicks and punches land with a deafening crunch. Bloody, defeated, and lying on the floor, the sniper tells Number 2, who's standing over him with a gun in his hand, to "End this." Hesitating briefly, Number 2 shoots him dead. What the hell!? Why did Number 2 risk his comrades' lives by not shooting the assassin at the start? If it was scruples that stayed his hand from shooting, why did he beat the living tar out of the guy with such vengeful glee? The whole thing is a roiling mess of neurotic contradictions. As Number 2 works out his issues with the (good looking) assassin, Steven has not been idle. He's been reading an English language newspaper, where he notes that a gala performance of Tosca will be attended by the President and his fiancé that evening. (If you've seen Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, you'll know what's coming.) He also notices when Dr. Chapel, wondering around the square like an idiot, is arrested by the police. Oh well. I guess that's what a college education does for ya! (By the way, how do the police know who she is?) A rare quiet moment ensues as Steven and his few remaining crew members plot their next move in an empty café that's color-corrected a pukey kind of greenish orange. They're joined by another young and super-hot woman operative. This one with an Aussie accent. (Operatives for what, by the way? Masturbation fantasies, I guess. In one way or another this entire movie is a masturbation fantasy.) And though Steven learns that evil double agent Fletcher has already met the new ambassador, he plans to meet the new guy anyway. It's still unexplained how Steven ever figured out that Fletcher is a bad guy, by the way. Before he gets a chance to do that, the new guy drops in on Dr. Chapel, who is in custody. She tries to warn him about Fletcher, but oh no! He's in league with Fletcher, who proceeds to first lecture her on how an undefined "we" do business "down here." Then to threaten her if she doesn't cooperate. But all is not lost, for Steven shrewdly calls Dr. Mind-Control on the dead sniper's cell phone. Dr. Mind-Control called that phone himself earlier, but now he intuits it's a trap, only it's too late. A techie on Officer Frowny Face's aircraft carrier has traced the call. Good work! And it's all so believable. And as the techie and the Officer babble on about signals they discover that it goes to an area kept "off the grid" by agent Fletcher. Ah ha! More manly slo-mo walking (As Steven himself would say, "Jesus Fucking Christ!") as Steven, dressed in slimming black as usual, strides into the U.S. Embassy. Seemingly not knowing that the ambassador's a stooge, he blurts out the bad news about Fletcher, then asks to replace the ambassador at the opera. Back in the evil laboratory there's more tedious betrayal, and Fletcher himself becomes a hostage, along with Dr. Chapel. Then it's off to the opera, only Number 2 Bloke hasn't dressed for the occasion. "In my book only queers and penguins go to watch the fucking opera. If you need to fucking dress up as a penguin so you can get in the front door, that's fine. I've got a reputation to think of, so I'll stick to the back door, alright?" Surprisingly, the movie shows some sexual awareness here, because Luis, the young Hispanic team member he's talking to, and whose dressed in a tux, says, "I know you're reputation. You're a back door man!" I think this means to imply that Louis is gay. Well, that's something. Meanwhile, at the front door, Steven pops out of a limo posing as the ambassador. Seems the new guy, who was in league with Fletcher when it came to kidnapping Dr. Chapel, agreed to his plan. Without even trying to warn Fletcher. Right. And the poor South American boobs who greet Steven at the opera, including the President (!), fall for the ruse – because they don't even know what the ambassador looks like. Right. But at least we learn why the bad guys want the President dead; he opposes the big expansion that the Kelin Dyle Corporation is all hot for. (What does Kelin Dyle do besides brain wash people? I have no idea. And neither does the movie.) Once inside Steven confronts the evil corporate head on his evilness. At the same time Dr. Mind Control calls up demanding the password to the corporate bank account – and he has another brain washed assassin pointing a gun at the CEO to boot. Outside, Steven's crew is being chased by more bad guys in a car. Finally everybody's inside and ready for all hell to break lose as Dr. Mind Control's limitless supply of brash washed drones move into action. These include the president's fiancé, ticket takers, security staff, waiters, and, of course, the orchestra conductor! (He's only just arrived in the country that day – when did he have the time to brain wash and program all of these people?!?) After all the kicking, punching, and shooting is over the President and the CEO are still alive, but Number 2 Bloke is not. Back at the evil laboratory, Dr. Mind-Control, foiled by Steven in getting the corporate cash, prepares to jump ship. And as a farewell gift to Fletcher, has him hooked up to a brain washer that's set on "overload." But before he can board his getaway helicopter Steven drives up and smashes into it. Unscathed, he then drives into the nice big plate glass windows of the HQ building itself. There follows much slow-motion, blood splattered gunplay and a super silly kung-fu face-off between Steven and a large security guard. Then the villains get killed and the lab blows up. Then it's off to a ritzy hotel on the beach to celebrate with Steven and the survivors. Only- ominous music – the recently freed Dr. Chapel starts getting that freaky mind control look in her eyes. The (Stupid) End Sean Ledden (Jan 2008)
Exit Wounds (2001) Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak Run Time: An 101 excruciating minutes. Sigh. Tagline: " What Can Two Men Do Against A Gang Of Crooked Cops? Whatever It Takes." Review by Karl Hoegle
Let me start this review (my first!) out with an astonishing fact: OUR HERO does not repeat not use the patented 'get threatened with a shotgun, flip the shotgun around much to the assailant's surprise, and shoot said assailant with his / her own weapon' move. I couldn't believe it either. This tragedy (Hey, it's my review, I call this a tragedy. I defy you to prove me wrong! ) starts out with the Vice President holding a rally to pass legislation to keep handguns out of the hands of children. Who really is pro- gun enough to want grade schoolers to have guns? Enter Orin Boyd, OUR HERO who shows up fashionably late dressed to the nines in a charcoal grey pinstripe suit, just like in every lone wolf cop movie. On his way to the seating area, he notices through a slow motion zoom in that one of the motorcycle cops is wearing an earring, but ignores it. Way to go, Orin! I can understand that he wouldn't know all of the street cops that work in his precinct, but surely someone in the Secret Service would check I.D.'s for the Veeps security. At least someone in the police department would recognize that these guys are new and check with someone in security. But since this is the beginning of the movie, Steve shrugs all of this off and sets into motion the deaths of a dozen or more officers and Secret Service men. Thanks, Steve! After the insipid
speech spouting obvious lines about "keeping guns out of the hands of children"
and "Let's raise awareness and stop the madness", the Veep jumps into a very
non presidential looking armored limo and speeds off to his next speech. OUR
HERO now uses his useless powers of observation to see one motorcycle cop pass
a silver looking There are at least 3 vehicles in the motorcade (it changes shot after shot) with the Veep in the lead. Two of the motorcycle cops attach the magnetic bombs to the side of the Veeps' limo in plain view of the Secret Service who must be asleep at the wheel, as that sort of thing would raise a flag with anyone, much less a trained professional. A brightly colored helicopter then makes an appearance and hovers over the ambush... I mean bridge in total disregard for aircraft policy with either the President or Vice President. The Secret Service guys think this odd, but take no precautions, as the chopper is after all, brightly colored and all. Hell, it even sports a smiley face! The chopper in question hovers over the bridge just long enough for Orin Boyd to catch up and try to foil the abduction, and OUR HERO shows up in the nick of time®. A bread van pulls up to the other end of the bridge and the two cops on duty rather nonchalantly tell him to move the truck, the Vice President of these United States is using the bridge right now and then turn their backs on him! After I picked my jaw up off the floor, the driver of the van pulls out two pistols and shoots the hapless officers in the back. Orin pulls up and yells "excuse me" and shoots the van driver several times to ensure his trip over the river Styx. Hope your widow had some sort of insurance, dude! The trap is now sprung, one of the evil earring wearing motorcycle cop imposters shoots the others with a fully automatic weapon. Only in Hollywood can one find a plethora of fully automatic weapons available to anyone and everyone! Orin puts on the bread van drivers' hat as a clever disguise and drives to the Veeps' rescue, despite the fact that the Secret Service repeatedly orders all police officers off of the bridge. He runs over one of the fake officers and convinces the Veep to get in the van and go with him, a total stranger who has a badge, just like the ones the fake officers are sporting. Riiight! The remaining Secret Service guys get shot up a bit more, so OUR HERO grabs the Vice President of the United States from the armored vehicle (They shot out the bullet proof glass earlier) and throws him into the 3 foot deep trickle of water. A waiting Secret Service boat is waiting to pick him up, as it was there for just that eventuality. Apparently the bad guys have a taboo against shooting downward at a target that cannot swim. The phrase "Like shooting ducks in a barrel" comes to my mind, but hey. Orin's' gun magically changes from an Uzi to a pistol and back again a few times, and he shoots the chopper while it is an Uzi, causing it to explode. Riiight. Later, Orin's boss Fitz tries the "Bad cop, mad cop" schtick and fires him, but then relents and demotes him to the dreaded 15th precinct. OUR HERO scowls even more than usual, and speeds away in his brand new truck bought off screen and pulls up into a freshly vacated spot right in front of the front door to the aforementioned15th precinct. Only in movies. He goes in, seeing all kinds of mayhem and asks the Lieutenant Mulcahy (Jill Hennessy from Law and Order) who the ringmaster of this circus is. She smiles letting the audience know that she is indeed the Commander, but OUR HERO misses the obvious and they trot into her office where she tells him the usual " No cowboy antics, no lone wolf tactics" etc. that we just know he will ignore. She sends Orin Boyd off to anger management class, where he meets Henry Wayne, a T.V. talk show host who is flaky as hell. The teacher asks Boyd to share, his scowl deepens, and he tears apart the chair he was sitting in to show his macho side, all the while spouting his freedom from anger. Henry Wayne and the other anger junkies are impressed by this, or maybe his scowl turned them on, who knows. Henry offers to have Boyd star in his talk show, which he declines. Boyd gets fed up, and leaves, only to spy 5 street youths who look like refugees from an 80's MTV video trying to steal his new truck.
I'm going to go out
on a limb here and predict they all get a big helping of scowling whoop-ass.
(Note from future: bingo!) In one unbelievable scene, a punk pulls a revolver
out of his tucked in shirt (Don't ask) and puts it aside Boyd's face to threaten him. Boyd falls
backward, kicks said youth unconscious, and does a one handed pushup and jumps
to his feet in time to pose for the camera. Riiight. The gunshot brings the anger management class out of school, which fawn all
over Boyd for his manliness. Somehow the female teacher of the Cut to a fast shiny car driving up to the new age prison (You can tell it is the prison by the sign on the wall) where Latrelle Walker (DMX) pulls up to a freshly vacated parking spot (Guess where) and jogs in to see a prisoner. We find through exactly one minute of talk that the prisoner is not only innocent, but Latrelle's brother. After his sixty second visit, Latrelle decides he is bored and leaves. Why bother to travel to the prison for a one minute visit? I'll bet that Latrelle spent more time shaving that morning. Enter a yellow Hummer piloted by T.K. Johnson (played very well by veteran character actor Anthony Anderson), who is our comic relief. In the passenger seat is Latrelle, they are on a mission to buy an expensive flashy car, as the one used by Latrelle earlier wasn't good enough. They set their eyes upon a $285,000 Ferrari, and T.K. tosses a bag with $300,000 in loose bills in it to the salesman. They take off in it, letting the extra cash take care of mundane things like name, license, plates, taxes, etc. The sales tax in Detroit is 7%, so that works out to $19,950, and the difference between the $300,000 in the bag and the price of the car was $15,000. I guess that math wasn't high on the salesman's list. Suddenly, night descends upon OUR HERO and he drives past a yellow hummer piloted by a Rasta looking dude, and sees him flick a lit cigarette out of the open window. There is a pile of no less than 40 butts on the ground already. Is this guy on the fast track to lung cancer? Hell, most people don't smoke 40 cigarettes per day. Orin decides that his police sense that has let him down so often in the past is tingling, so he pulls over and spies T.K. in the bushes with binoculars. Using the binoculars he takes from a freshly handcuffed T.K., he spies Latrelle Walker and a shady looking character (David Vadim as Detective Matt Montini) in the midst of a dope deal. Latrelle tells Montini he wants 5 million dollars worth of heroin, and Montini gasps and agrees. Orin pulls his gun and advances upon the two, kicks open a gate, and just starts shooting. Seriously. No yelling of "Police, freeze", "Surrender", or "Put your hands in the air", he just tries to kill them. They are understandably not in the market for an early death, so they dodge his poorly aimed bullets and fight back. Latrelle fights with Boyd, gets in a rather nice face kick, and escapes. The other perp attacks Boyd with a gasoline powered concrete saw! I am sorry, but that thing has to weigh 30 or 40 pounds and he wields it like it was a banana split. Boyd overcomes him, and he shows Boyd his badge and tells him he screwed up a couple of months of undercover work. If Boyd would have identified himself as a cop in the first place, perhaps he would have identified himself as a fellow officer earlier? He probably still would have tried to kill Boyd, though… I know I would have. As a bit of comic relief, OUR HERO is busted to traffic duty in a busy intersection where the streetlights are not functioning. He royally screws this duty up. We then cut to a locker room scene, where the other officers of the law are using a stun gun upon one another to prove their machismo. After Boyd beats up on fellow officer and part time Aryan brotherhood member Useldinger, a fight understandably breaks out and is quelled by Lewis Strutt, played by actor Michael Jai White. He tells Boyd boys will be boys, and smiles a bit for the camera. No way this guy is crooked, right? Boyd then meets future partner George Clark, played by Isaiah Washington. He fills OUR HERO in on who everyone is, and gives him a clue as to where the next scene will be shot. I'm serious, I replayed their conversation 3 times trying to figure out why Boyd goes to the storage facility building, but it must be some sort of cop banter I cannot decipher. Anyhow, Boyd speeds off to the aforementioned storage facility and finds not only can he walk right in with no security whatsoever, but that the janitor, his wife and 2 kids are bound and gagged. Why is the janitor's family there? Bring your family to work and get kidnapped day? Boyd sets them free, which lets them use an emergency door that sets off the alarm. A masked assailant sees Boyd and shoots at him, but the bad guys all escape with the heroin they came for. Boyd stays this time for the competent police to show up, and uses his powers of observation that have served him so well in this movie to spy a wristwatch worn by one of the bad guys on videotape. It is never mentioned again, nor is it salient that the wearer of said watch is black. But Boyd seems to glean something from all of this. Martini shows up out of breath and Boyd tells him that the job was done by amateurs, and was sloppy. I disagree, they got what they came for, got away clean, killed no one, left no clues, and foiled Boyd who could have stopped the thing in its tracks by calling the real police when he saw the hostages. This infuriates Martini, who will use this anger later on in the movie. Sloppy indeed! In the next hilarious scene, a decidedly female Lieutenant Mulcahy walks into the men's locker room to yell at Boyd, presumably (and righteously, if you ask me) for not catching the bad guys last night, and ask why he was there in the first place since he is still just a traffic cop. She knows that she has to do this, at least until the denouement of the movie where Boyd will be vindicated for his suspicions. She pairs Boyd up with George Clark, and they look at each other like they were something found under a rock. Ha ha! Next morning, and we find Boyd's' houseboat is a mess, and we see all his medals and commendations for exemplary police work strewn about. George shows up with Coffee for OUR HERO, who instantly awakes from a deep sleep and pulls a .45 on George. Those are some fast reflexes, as George opened the presumably unlocked door, walked in, and offered Boyd a cup of coffee. I guess Boyd slept in, and most people don't have co-workers show up with a steaming cup of java to help ease them into their day. They get moving and spy the yellow hummer yet again, and George tells Boyd the owner is T.K., and he owns the nightclub called Static. If Boyd would have used his powers of observation earlier, why couldn't he jot down the plate number and use the DMV data base to tell him the exact same thing? I am sure that competent cops do that sort of thing all the time. Night descends with breakneck speed, and our dynamic duo show up and park where else, but right in front of the club. Seriously. Either their timing is world class, or they were filming a bad movie. Boyd tells his sidekick I mean partner to watch the back, he will go in and stir it up. A few gratuitous hooter shots to ensure an "R" rating and we proceed to find T.K. acting like an ass. We find out through some truly atrocious dialog that Latrelle bought the nightclub for T.K. He spies Boyd, and sets his two huge bouncers upon him. After a few improbable punches, the bouncers are sleeping peacefully on the dirty floor, and Boyd chases T.K. and Latrelle escapes out the back. He is halted by some strange words… Oh, yes, real cops do yell "Stop and put your hands in the air" to give the suspects a chance to surrender. Boyd likes to dispense with that and just shoot them. I guess the anger management classes aren't working yet. T.K. escapes Boyd, who gets baffled by T.K.'s disappearance and starts looking for clues in the office, knowing that his lone partner in the back can handle those two. T.K. hits George with a foam board that bends when he strikes him with it, and causes instant unconsciousness. T.K. and Latrelle escape slowly. George comes to in time to find Boyd illegally searching the premises for clues. All he finds is a receipt from Latrelle's visit to the prison. He proceeds there as daylight has now risen like a curtain, and talks to Shaun Rollins for two full minutes, double the time his own brother spent with him. Rollins just claims his innocence and tells Boyd no one can get him out of prison. Boyd almost forgets to scowl, but catches himself in the nick of time. Boyd finds out from George that Montini was Rollins' arresting officer, and sluggishly comes to the conclusion that Rollins is innocent, but doesn't know what the connection between Rollins and Latrelle Walker is. Night falls yet again with alacrity and we find Latrelle meeting in a parked car with Montini. They agree that 5 million in heroin will be delivered, and Latrelle gets to see where they store it. Meanwhile, Boyd finds Henry Wayne in a nudie bar with a cheesy fake moustache on, enjoying some of the finer things in life. He asks this civilian to find out all he can about Latrelle Walker and Shaun Rollins. I am sure that police use a variety of informants, but this just seems ridiculous. He is a morning talk show host, for crying out loud. Boyd then magically finds Mulcahy in a restaurant having dinner with some nerd, and he crashes it telling her about his vague unsubstantiated suspicions. Mulcahy tells OUR HERO to bring her something solid, and pauses before saying classic line number1, "Watch your back". As if he was going to walk around like a brainless clod, barging into gunfights and robberies… OK, he needed that. We then proceed at breakneck speed to a scene where a hooded Latrelle is meeting the head of the dope operation, and gasp; we find out that it is Lewis Strutt! In a scene directly stolen from James Bond movies, he spins around in a chair and reveals himself. Actually, he says "I always wanted to do that, I swear to God I wish I had a cat" which was far and away the best line in the whole movie. And although you can't see him, you just know that somewhere out in the darkness Boyd is scowling. Latrelle asks to see the 5 million dollars worth of heroin, and the bad cops agree. They take him to the back of the garment shop they are using as a front, and say that they soak the t-shirts in a heroin solution, dry it under infrared lamps, and package it up and ship it. "Dogs can't even smell it through the plastic". I call BS on that one, as I know just how sensitive drug sniffing dogs can be, but since I didn't write this turd (thank God) I guess I'll have to live with it. The exchange will happen there at midnight, totally negating the precautions that the dirty cops took by placing a bag over Latrelle's' head so he wouldn't know where the drugs are kept. He leaves, and Boyd meets up with Henry Wayne to find out that Latrelle Walker is really Leroy Rollins, Shaun Rollins' brother. Aha! That doesn't explain the one minute visitation, but hey. Also, Leroy / Latrelle is a gazillionaires, having made millions from the internet, as all gazillionaires are wont to do. Latrelle / Leroy puts on a spiffy suit, showing both the cameraman and soundman in the background in the reflective shiny door, and goes off in his new Ferrari to meet his destiny. Meanwhile, Boyd is kidnapped rather easily by a van full of bad cops, including Montini and Useldinger. They handcuff him to a pole running lengthwise, and show him a needle full of bad stuff they intend to use to kill him. Boyd declines this painful death, and jumps up, grabs Montini's wrist with his feet, and uses it to inject the driver with the hypo. Riiight! The driver refrains from pulling it out immediately, as that might endanger the film. He keeps on driving, careening off of parked cars instead of, oh, I don't know… I personally would take the poisoned needle out of my neck, pull over, and shoot Boyd.
There is a flurry of
kicks, punches, and general mayhem going on in the back of the van, all the
while it flies down the street causing thousands of dollars worth of collateral
damage to parked cars, and Boyd manages to kick one bad cop out the side door,
where he instantly dies by getting both himself and the door peeled off of the
van by a parked truck. He enlists his former boss, Fitz played by Shane Daly, and his partner George who was sleeping as night fell yet again with its usual speed. Telling them he will find out where the final scene will be, he then goes to Latrelle / Leroy's home ( I guess he used that pesky white pages thing) and starts fighting with him, as the bad cops told him that Latrelle wanted him dead. Those cops who wanted to kill him certainly wouldn't lie to him about that, would they? After a few half hearted punches, jabs and kicks, they agree to join forces and Latrelle shows Boyd his "operation" that he is using to gather evidence on the crooked cops! No one mentions that that is not something that civilians are supposed to do, and Boyd never follows the law anyway, so that point never arises. Latrelle tells Boyd that they are going to take the stolen drugs and al the videotaped evidence they have to the cops, about the other cops… I think that there is a flaw there somewhere. How do they know who is crooked and who is honest? They further say that they will post the tapes on the internet, and as we all know there is no duplicity on the web, it will be believed instantly. Latrelle tells Boyd off camera where the T-shirt / heroin shop is. Boyd proceeds to meet with Mulcahy, and tells her all of this. She disbelieves him until Useldinger and Montini show up and fire at them with fully automatic weapons. This convinces her, and the patented Chase Scene® ensues. The thin sheet metal of her vehicle is impervious to automatic weapon fire, and protects both Boyd and Mulcahy who try to escape the ambush. They then drive through a concrete barrier in the second floor of the parking garage they were at, (skipping the exit and not paying for the parking fee, by the way) and since this vehicle was manufactured on the planet Krypton, it survives the smashup of the concrete barrier, (no airbag is deployed) the subsequent fall of say 15 feet to the ground below, and drive off with the suspension intact. This infuriates the bad guys, who all agree that her escape defied the laws of physics she must be stopped, so they continue the Chase Scene®.After a series of shootings, Mulcahy dies in a crash that still fails to set off the airbag and bites the windshield rather graphically, kudos to the special effects people on that one. Boyd doesn't even give her a second glance and steals a convenient motorcycle and drags the Chase Scene® on even more. A few more improbable events later, Boyd crashes the motorcycle, gets up, and with his back to a brick wall, he jumps over the onrushing vehicle and leaves the car with two dead cops and a car full of fully automatic weapons for anyone to find. I guess he is the reason that the Veep was at that particular city complaining that kids are getting and killing each other with. Boyd, armed with new guns and this information, grabs Fitz and George and storms the heroin shop. Fitz admits he is bad as well, and points his gun at Boyd, who frankly didn't see that one coming. Strutt orders Fitz to shoot Boyd, but seeing as how he is the lead actor, Fitz hesitates long enough for George and Chief Hinges (played by veteran actor Bill Duke) to blow up the door and storm in. This allows OUR HERO to beat a brave retreat, and he chases Strutt, while Latrelle goes after Montini. Both Boyd and Strutt run out of ammo at the same time, and so they use some fabric cutting blades like swords and fight for a bit with them. Strutt at one point actually catches Boyd's' blade, calling into question both Boyd's' strength and the sharpness of the blade. Latrelle and Montini fight a bit, but Latrelle being a bit smarter than Boyd, saves his ammo for actually shooting at the bad guys instead of the scenery and in an improbable move, uses his belt to fire the shotgun by tossing it in the air over the sandbags that are conveniently stacked there for him to hide behind. This actually works and some bad guys snuff it. Montini is winged however, and continues to fight Strutt escapes Boyd rather easily with the money, and flees to the roof where a helicopter awaits him. He tries to get away, but falls off after Boyd ties the rope ladder to a vent pipe, so he falls and impales himself on a different pipe. At the same time, Latrelle impales Montini on a rack of razor sharp needles used to store thread. The similarities are uncanny. This is Academy Award caliber writing, in my humble opinion. Finally, mercifully, the credits begin to roll, we begin to realize we wasted both time and money on this, and Boyd gets his old job offered back to him which he declines. Shaun Rollins is granted a pardon by Chief Hinges, ( I didn't know that they could do that) and all is well, except of course that 30,000 bullets have been expended upon the city of Detroit, a few dozen cops and secret service men were killed, and Lieutenant Mulcahy died in the chase scene. Everyone has a few laughs as Henry Wayne and T.K. do a little show at the end, talking about all manner of disgusting bodily functions, ranging from excretion, penis size, and ending up in racial epithets. Karl Hoegle (Jan 2008)
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CEO
Michael Jennings (Michael Caine). In a fairly hamfisted "Gotcha" moment, Jennings throws open the helicopter door as Palmer continues to berate him...oops! Hoo hoo! I bet Palmer is embarrassed now! 
"We're going to play the Hand Slapping Game," Forrest says. (The "Hand Slapping Game" is simply a testosterone-rich , brutal version of "Bloody Knuckles": you miss, the other guy gets to punch you, and vice versa. ) Needless to say, Forrest sadistically pummels the crap out of Mike after only 3 rounds. 
again, you have to wonder how any company could remain profitable with that much local opposition), Masu glides up and tosses a cup full of crude oil on Jenning's chest. ¨
As luck would have it, a group of Eskimos happens to see the smoke from the explosion and rescues our frightfully wounded hero. "The spirit of the Man-Bear lives in the smoke," the tribal chief exclaims. Yes, Forrest is the "Man-Bear." 
Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket), MacGruder, and some other Bad Guys are flying around looking for Forrest.
booby trap the Forrest had hastily constructed.
some sort of process so that he can officially claim that Aegis-1 is "online", thus keeping his mineral and oil rights by beating the deadline. 
device to another and speed off to escort the Veep to the
ambush. I mean his next speech opportunity. Boyd finally puts 2 and 2 together
and you can almost see the light bulb go off above his head when he realizes
that those guys were Nogoodnicks. He hesitates long enough to give them the
time to get the Veep to the ambush site, a concrete bridge over a mere trickle
of water.
class resists
her primal urges and yells at Boyd for his anger, instead of ripping off her
clothes and jumping him there. Boyd seems nonplussed by her steadfast
resolution and pauses long enough to handcuff one youth's foot to another
youth's wrist. This will certainly stop these 2 from getting away, but the
other three could just up and walk away! Boyd then leaves the scene of the
crime, something I'll bet anyone else in
America
would be arrested for. The pistol and knives are lying in the street, where
anyone can take them. But OUR HERO has better things to do than his job. 
Magically in the next scene, the door repairs itself
along with a side mirror and we're treated to even more fisticuffs. The van
hits a strategically placed ramp, flips over, and catches on fire, all the
while the driver labors to keep the poisoned needle in his neck from falling
out while driving. Boyd spies a .45 on the roof of the van that now serves as
the floor, as it is skidding down the street on its roof ablaze. He picks it up
with his dexterous feet, and tosses it to his hands as Montini and Useldinger
beat a hasty retreat out of the rear door. He uses the pistol to miss the chain
of his handcuffs, and it parts obediently so he can escape a fiery death and
fight the bad guys in the final showdown.