Crisis (1997)

 

Crisis (1997)- * *1\2

 Directed by: Jalal Merhi

 Starring: David Bradley, Tony Milne, Cameron Michell Jr.,  Thorsten Nickel, and Pavlo

An idealistic young man named Tony (Milne) is part of a group named Greenworld (occasionally called Greenworld 2000). They're kind of like hippies, but because it was the 90's, they wear plaid flannel shirts. They decide to target Dr. Tom Ross (Mitchell Jr.) They want him to use something called Toxin Retardants. Or maybe they desperately want him to NOT use Toxin Retardants. It's never made completely clear. So the merry band of do-gooders invade Ross's house to get what they want. This doesn't put them in the most sympathetic light.




Things go from bad to worse when a terrorist named Simon (Nickel), his Evan Lurie-esque henchman Snake (Pavlo), and some other baddies take control of things in the Ross household, holding Ross, his wife, daughter, and maid hostage. They want missiles (prounounced in the Evil dialect: MisSYLes). Thankfully for the Ross clan, and Tony, Tony's brother Alex (Bradley) came along on this mission. He goes under the cover of being a shoe salesman, but he's actually a bagman for the mafia. At one point he describes himself as a "cleaner". Despite his job title, Alex must snap into action, stop the terrorists, save the Greenworlders, and the Ross family. Can he do it? Or will there be some sort of CRISIS?

When the first credit onscreen for any movie you decide to watch is: "Jalal Merhi Presents", you can do one of two things. You can either run screaming from the room, flapping your arms wildly, vowing to never enter that room in your house again because the "bad thing" in the room gave you PTSD from the last time you saw it. Or, you could roll with the punches and see what silliness and stupidity is on offer and take a slightly more relaxed approach. Thankfully, we opted for the latter in the case of Crisis. And yes, it's VERY dumb, but it's so darned stupid that you can't really hate it. It's like a not-very-intelligent puppy that follows you home.


It's yet another home invasion movie. They must keep churning these things out because they're inexpensive to produce. Even up to today, as in The Gardener (2021), baddies are still invadin' homes like there's no tomorrow. What keeps Crisis afloat are the constant hilarious line readings - just the way people talk in this film is really funny. There are tons of face-palmingly stupid situations and you just have to laugh. Probably to keep from crying.



We get some nice 1997 phones, TVs, and computers. The score by action-film mainstay Varouje has some pleasantly jazzy moments. At the outset of all this, there are some exterior, possibly stock shots of New York City, including the Twin Towers, so we're led to believe the story takes place there. Then we're treated to cars with Saskatchewan license plates, emergency workers with jackets that read "Saskatoon EMTs", outside the house is a vast, snowy expanse that decidedly does not look like NYC, and there's even a box in the house that simply reads "Saskatoon". If the filmmakers were trying to hide the fact that they were in Saskatoon, they didn't do the best job.


Perhaps distracting from all this is the presence of one Thorsten Nickel as Simon, the lead terrorist baddie. Maybe after the original Die Hard (1988) was such a success, it was written somewhere that every action movie must contain an evildoer with a thick accent, preferably German. Thorsten Nickel could be the new Werner Hoetzinger. And we don't use that phrase lightly. Maybe Christoph Kluppel wasn't available. In any case, he makes his own presence known. There's no counterfeiting THIS Nickel.


And all of this is before we get to David Bradley. He spends a lot of the film tied up to a weight set in the basement. He also doesn't do a ton of Martial Arts. He's disrespected further when, in the end credits under fight choreography, his name is spelled incorrectly ("Bradly"). Bradley does what he can in the face of all this, but he's faced with a tide of low-budget silliness that's easy to get washed away in.



The whole thing is 80 minutes pre-end credits. It COULDN'T have been longer. There's only so much of this stuff anyone can take. We're only human. (Well, maybe Thorsten Nickel isn't, but that's another story for another day). Adding insult to injury, the Platinum Disc DVD promises a quiz as a special feature. We were looking forward to testing our knowledge about weak-looking muzzle flashes, maids that look like Rosanna Arquette, or typing your computer password into Microsoft Word. Alas, there is no quiz. They out-and-out lied. Don't promise a Crisis quiz if you can't deliver.



Okay, now I'm so mad I can't continue. I can't do this anymore (walks out of room and slams door).

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, DTVC!

Raw Courage (1984)

 

Raw Courage (1984)- * *

Directed by: Robert L. Rosen

Starring: Ronny Cox. Art Hindle, Tim Maier, and M. Emmet Walsh

Man, Pete Canfield (Cox) really likes to run. Running being the driving force in his life, he and his buddy Roger Bower (Hindle), and a young runner-in-training (i.e. a RIT), Craig Jensen (Maier), decide to do what any normal trio of dudes with a lot of time on their hands would do: go on a 72-mile whisk through the New Mexico desert. Armed with only their fanny packs and their disturbingly short shorts, the men start their traipse promisingly enough. But there's something lurking in the scrub brush that's really gonna slow down their time: a militia group called the Citizen's Brigade has flown in from Colorado for some reason and really doesn't take much of a shine to our running-obsessed pals. Led by the sinister Col. Crouse (Walsh), the situation quickly devolves into the runners versus the gunners as the battle ensues. Will Canfield, Bower, and Jensen dig deep to find their RAW COURAGE?




Written by Ronny Cox and his then-wife Mary, seemingly their intention with Raw Courage was to combine the "Friends have to combat a threat in a rural environment" film like Deliverance (1972), Rituals (1977), or Southern Comfort (1981) with the "Nerd finds his strength to fight" film best exemplified by Straw Dogs (1971), with the "running" film such as On the Edge (1985) or Personal Best (1982). Fitness trends, including running, were on the upswing in the 80's. Apparently the Cox family felt now was the time to put all this stuff in a blender and serve it up to the viewing public.

Or, to put it another way, the Coxes could have just exclaimed, "Hope ya like RUNNING!" because boy do you get a lot of it in this film. So-called "Weekend Warriors", or war games, were also something that was a bit more relevant and on people's minds back in '84. Soldier of Fortune magazine was a hot seller on newsstands, so, as other films have used as well, these groups made a quick-and dirty baddie troupe that filmmakers evidently felt didn't require much character development. They're just bad, that's all. They note that they're preparing for "The Crunch", which is not explored but it's hinted at that it's a cashless society/New World Order future. So maybe the Citizen's Brigade are just ahead of their time, who knows?




Raw Courage does boast some impressive and novel cinematography by Frank P. Flynn, who especially excels with hand-held work. There's a nicely synthy score by Johnny Harris and some standout editing by Steve Polivka. But here's the problem: once the main conflict is established between the runners and the militia, the film doesn't change, grow, or arc. It hits that wall, and then it's just "run, chase, run, chase, a militia guy dies, run, chase..." and so forth. There's no development beyond that, or surprises, or twists - and that's the vast majority of the film. It's more or less an 82-minute chase scene.




Your tolerance for that may vary. Further upsides include the heroes using their running skills to defeat the baddies, and the runners facing real-life running hazards such as dehydration and cramps. Presumably this is the favorite film of the staff of Runner's World magazine. The big party planned for when the runners eventually were to cross the finish line was sponsored by Capri-Sun and features a Capri-Sun blimp. We could have used more of that blimp. We really could have.




Raw Courage, AKA simply Courage, is the only directorial effort for Robert L. Rosen to date, although he has done other jobs in the film industry for a long time now. The New World VHS could be found in many video stores, and the tagline "Find It Or Die" (referring to your raw courage, presumably) is a memorable one. That's really the point in the end: Raw Courage is a tape that you'd see in your local video store. Maybe you'd rent it, maybe you wouldn't - they sure did their best to make runners running away while on the run an appealing prospect, assuming the film doesn't give you motion sickness - but it was THERE. It was almost a comforting part of our video store landscape. So, almost beyond the qualities and merits of the film itself, it was part of that beloved video store world. Is that enough? Probably for a one-time watch it is.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty