Black Cobra (2012)

 

Black Cobra (2012)- * *1\2

Directed by: Scott Donovan 

Starring: T.J. Storm, Michael Chinyamurindi, Jeff Wolfe, Uri Mafate, and Cary Tagawa 

Sizwe Biko (Storm) is just trying to live his South African life in South Africa, when, under the apartheid government, his father Sipho Biko (Chinyamurindi) is imprisoned. Sizwe makes it his mission to free his father, which may seem like a daunting task, but he has some aces up his sleeve. One, he's a master Martial Artist, seemingly taught by his now locked-up dad, Two, he has a cache of diamonds that he can sell in order to bribe the corrupt prison guards into letting his father out, and Three, he also has some American connections to offload the diamonds quickly for cash. So Sizwe heads to Hollywood, where he meets up with some old buddies.




When his diamond-fencing contact, a sleazy producer named Nicholas Dean (Wolfe) betrays Sizwe and his friends, things go bad. Quickly bad. Now the head of the local Yakuza, Goro Tanaka (Tagawa), the local law enforcement, and seemingly everyone else is on Sizwe's tail. To make matters worse, his wife is coming to L.A. to check up on him. Will our hero be able to illegally sell his illegal diamonds? Well, he's doing it for a good reason, and he IS the Black Cobra, after all...


Not to be confused with the classic Fred Williamson series of films, this particular Black Cobra has nothing whatsoever to do with The Hammer. You'd think the makers of quote-unquote "Urban" films would have been familiar with the fact that a Black Cobra already existed. It's hard not to think of Fred, who will always be first in our hearts, but T.J. Storm performs more than admirably. His fish-out-of-water Sizwe character is a decent person and likable enough. Storm gets to display his Martial Arts moves perhaps better than ever before, because this is his only starring role to date.


To get a sense of what we're dealing with here, some comparison films are: Razor Sharpe (2001), The Ultimate Fight (1998), The Ultimate Game (2001) (also with Storm), or No Rules (2005). If you liked any or all of those - i.e. low-budget fight-em-up flicks of faltering fortunes, you will no doubt like Black Cobra as well. However, unlike those aforementioned outings, Black Cobra could reasonably be described as a "Homie Movie". Interestingly, despite the filmmakers' budgetary limitations, they concocted a stew of different genres here: Heist Films, Homie Movies, Martial Arts, Gangster Films, Fish-Out-Of Water dramas, Foreign (African and Japanese languages are spoken at times), and even dashes of Romance and Comedy come into play. One of the group of Sizwe's pals is named Mpho (Mafate). Because that's not a name we are used to hearing, combined with perhaps some audio issues, characters with accents, or just not the greatest enunciation, it sounds like they're calling him "Info" or "Nympho". I guess it's just all part of the crazy fun.


The whole first section of the film (all the parts before Sizwe gets to Hollywood) is edited with these quick fade-outs and flashes that make it all seem like one big trailer. We were worried this was going to last for the entire film, but luckily it doesn't. Pretty soon, fighting characters are yelling, yelling characters are fighting, or characters are shooting guns and yelling.


We're not exactly sure how you would ever see this movie - it's not currently streaming anywhere but it did get an under-the-radar DVD release from Lionsgate - but if you ever do come across it, just remember this: It's Sizwe or the highway.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

One In The Chamber (2012)

One In The Chamber (2012)- * *

Directed by: William Kaufman 

Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr., Dolph Lundgren, Claudia Bassols, Louis Mandylor, and Billy Murray

Ray Carver (Gooding Jr.) is an American living in Prague. He is known as "The Fixer" because he solves problems between rival gangs in the criminal underworld, usually by shooting lots of their members with a high-powered rifle. A relationship begins to develop between Ray and fellow American abroad Janice Knowles (Bassols), even though it appears as if he's stalking her. But could he have a valid reason for doing so? 

Meanwhile, some of those dastardly baddie gang members have decided to bring in the big guns - literally - when they hire a rival "Fixer" nicknamed The Wolf, a Russian named Aleksey Andreev (Dolph). Now with not just rival gangs, but rival Fixers at odds, Prague (well, actually Romania for the most part) is going to become a battleground. Will the chances for victory come down to one simple thing...having ONE IN THE CHAMBER?

Remember how in Puncture Wounds (2014), when Dolph teamed up with Cung Le, we noted how much Cung Le looked like Cuba Gooding Jr.? Now, ironically, Dolph actually does team up with Cuba Gooding Jr. for One in the Chamber, a rather uninspiring run-through of stuff we've all seen before.

It's yet another bout of Russian gangsters, and we're frankly getting tired of them. While Dolph is by far the best part of OITC (which sounds like something Jerry Lewis might say, i.e., OITC! Nice Lay-dee!!) even he must be getting tired of playing Russian characters, as he did in The Killing Machine (2010) and, of course, The Russian Specialist (2005), which is arguably his best "Russian" role. 

He's charming this time around (as he usually is), and he wears a lot of party-guy shirts and has a cool hat. He brings life to whatever scenes he's in, and that's desperately needed here. There are a couple of fights with Cuba Gooding, which was sort of a novelty to see, but does anyone really believe Cuba could win a fight with Dolph?

That aside, with Cuba Gooding not appearing in any movies of late because of his legal woes, maybe it's finally time now that Omar Gooding could step out of the shadows and into the breach left by Cuba. Idea for a potential tagline: "He's not a wild and crazy kid...anymore." Perhaps he could star with Donnie (now Don) Jeffcoat and they could be cops that go around busting heads. If any production companies out there like the idea, give us a call. We're available to write the script.

Anyway, we get some dudes yelling while shooting their guns, and holding their guns sideways "gangsta" style. On the other hand, when Cuba is shooting his rifle out the window, we get some unnecessary, video-game-esque "bullet time" effects. Not only did Sniper (1993) do it better, Dolph himself was better at shooting a rifle out a window in Silent Trigger (1996). That whole scene just served to remind us all we're in low-budget-DTV-shot-in-Romania land here. It did the movie no favors.

But here's the bottom line about OITC: There's no emotion here at all. It's very hard to care about the characters, because it's all very one-dimensional. We really wanted to care about Cuba and Dolph and all, but the movie made it hard to do that because there was nothing to chew on story-wise. Russian gangsters shooting each other is all well and good, but with no backstory or emotion underpinning it all, it starts to get dour and repetitive after a while. That's why Dolph's character is so important to the film. Without him, we'd be in serious trouble here.

You may have noticed that an actor named Billy Murray is in the film as well. Just to clear up any confusion, this is a different man than Bill Murray. No, Bill Murray didn't slightly change his name so he could appear in a DTV action film with Dolph Lundgren. Though that would have been awesome, and, somehow in character with Bill Murray's personality. But we did want to sort that out. Murray probably gives the second-best performance in the film. 

Additionally, we believe there's a Mandylor lurking around in there somewhere as well. Maybe, as we did, you can play "spot the Mandylor".


Despite the impressive presence of the great and mighty Dolph, One in the Chamber overall is, sadly, typical of the modern-day DTV scene and doesn't have a lot going for it other than him. We hate to say it, but that one in the chamber does not fire on all cylinders.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Act Of Valor (2012)

Act Of Valor (2012)- * * *

Directed by: Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh

Starring: Roselyn Sanchez, Alex Veadov, and Nestor Serrano

When CIA agent Lisa Morales (Sanchez) is kidnapped, the finest in our military service, the Navy SEALS, snap into action. During the course of their rescue mission, they realize a massive terrorist plot is afoot. They have to catch a baddie named Christo (Veadov) and find out what he knows before it’s too late. This will require everything from underwater demolition, to jumping out of airplanes and helicopters, firefights, evasive driving, room clearance, and many other tools of the SEAL trade that, frankly, we’re too ignorant to understand. Will our brave warriors foil the terror plot? Find out today...

As you may already know, Act of Valor is unique in that it has real Navy SEALS, not actors, in the main roles. They mix it up with some professional actors as the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. We thought that was a pretty novel approach, and it has no precedent that we’re aware of. Interestingly, it seems this project started life as a training video, and somehow rolled into becoming a feature-length, narrative film that played in theaters. That might explain the presence of the two directors, as it seems fairly obvious which are the “training video” scenes (glorious shots of aircraft carriers, planes, and men diving out of them) and which are the “added to become a movie” scenes (everything else). Please don’t take that as a negative, however - as stated earlier, we appreciated the melding of the seemingly disparate elements to forge a (relatively) cohesive whole.

Perhaps because of its training video origins, it all looks highly professional and glossy (check out the Blu-Ray for best results), and it has some old-school action standbys that we all love and enjoy - the shooting, blow ups, guard towers, and even some Prerequisite Torture. It’s a fairly simple “heroes and villains” plot, and thankfully there are no kids mucking it all up. Because the plot is so basic, it probably would have helped the movie if it was streamlined down to about 90 minutes or so from its almost two-hour running time. 

Perhaps one of the best things about Act of Valor is the camaraderie between the SEALs. And sure, their acting is a little wooden - but they’re NOT ACTORS. Cut them a break. Besides, you can’t make fun of them, because they’re busy saving our lazy, review-writing butts from the real-life bad guys. Because this was such a surprise hit in 2012, it definitely paved the way for other hugely successful, audience-pleasing films such as Lone Survivor (2013) and American Sniper (2014). Everyone should see all three. Someone in Hollywood probably thought “if this is working so well with non-actors, what would happen if we brought in the pro’s?” The results speak for themselves. The American people have a hunger to see what’s going on in the military, and these three films provide that in a current context, which is important for us to see. 

The whole experience is pretty unusual, and the fact that one of the main baddies is named Christo we took to understand that the filmmakers were saying that pretentious art like wrapping Central Park in cellophane or wrapping tropical islands in cellophane, or, heck, wrapping anything in cellophane is an act of terrorism in and of itself. In the end, though, watching Act Of Valor may leave you with one question: "is joining the Navy SEALs right for me?" For our part we decided we would skip the grueling training and dangerous missions and do the next best thing: support movies like this. 

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty