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).