Red Line (1995)

Red Line (1995)- *1\2

Directed by: John Sjogren

Starring: Chad McQueen, Dom DeLuise, Michael Madsen, Jan-Michael Vincent, Roxana Zal, Corey Feldman, Robert Z'Dar, Julie Strain, and Chuck Zito

Jimmy (McQueen) is an auto mechanic and part-time stick-up man who uses the cars people drop off to speed away in after he finishes his petty heists. Despite the disapproval of his boss, Jerry (DeLuise), Jimmy ends up working for crime boss Keller (Vincent) as a driver. 

While doing this, a series of events occurs: He discovers the truth about Tony (Feldman) and Crystal (Strain) – the brother and wife respectively of rival crime boss Mr. Lawrence (Madsen), and he also gains possession of a special Corvette with a surprise inside. Even though Gene (Z’Dar), one of Keller’s goons, is on his trail, Jimmy manages to go on the run with Gem (Zal), who is escaping the clutches of her abusive boyfriend Dick (Zito). Is any of this making sense? Or, when it comes to seeing this movie, will you be drawing a RED LINE in the sand?

The Lone Tiger effect, as we call it, seems to be something we can never escape. Any time we see a cast list of this many B-Movie faces, it draws us in and proves impossible to resist. Yet again, sadly, we were disappointed. Despite the star power involved, Red Line just isn’t that…well…involving. 

One of the bright spots was the brief appearance of Dom DeLuise, who is just too talented to be hemmed in by a dire production like this. The supposed hero, Jimmy, is an unlikable criminal and he’s the guy we’re supposed to be rooting for? Evidently Chad McQueen thought so, as not only was he the star, he’s also credited with stunt driving, casting, and producing. He was really involved with this project, and while, on the whole, it’s probably a better movie than Money to Burn (1996) - produced by and starring a lot of the same people – it’s not as funny as MTB. But it’s about as dumb, so that equation doesn’t really work out well in the viewer’s favor. Most of Chad’s shirts have sleeves this time around, so it looks like our Chad is finally growing up. 

Jan-Michael Vincent’s grotesque appearance – apparently the result of a real-life car accident – only helps his character, but it’s all pretty unpleasant. Chuck Zito’s line readings are pure gold, and the presences of Robert Z’Dar and Julie Strain are always welcome. Even Joe Estevez and none other than Ron Jeremy have cameos. Corey Feldman wears a silly jacket and holds his gun sideways. Roxana Zal plays the inexplicably pretty car wash girl. What drew all these people to be in this substandard movie? Maybe director Sjogren has a lot of charisma. Frankly, we’re surprised Ian Jacklin isn’t involved. 

Ron Jeremy plays a gardener whose name is Gardner. So, that’s the level of intelligence on display here…but did you expect anything else going in? We, as viewers, have to wait a whopping 63 minutes until we get to Michael Madsen to be in the mix of this broth. But really, there are no surprises on show with Red Line. It’s a very long 90 minutes. It’s similar to Sjogren’s Strip N’ Run (2000), also starring Madsen.

There should have been scenes of Chad McQueen beating up the many goons the crime bosses send after him, or some such action setpieces. But aside from some driving stuff and a few mild blow-ups, the action factor is low. Just imagine No Man’s Land (1987) but with no Charlie Sheen, nothing really interesting happens, and there are boom mike shadows on the walls. This could have been a really easy fix: make the hero likable and give him goons to fight. Boom. Better movie. But no, sadly, Red Line opts for the stupider road less traveled (that’s less-traveled for a reason). 

In the end, despite the stellar cast, Red Line stalls out.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Nightforce (1987)

Nightforce (1987)- * * *

Directed by: Lawrence D. Foldes

Starring: Linda Blair, James Van Patten, Claudia Udy, Chad McQueen, Casey King, Bruce Fisher, Dean Miller, James Marcel, Cameron Mitchell, Richard Lynch, and Rambo The Monkey as Pin












Christy Hansen (Udy) is a beautiful equestrian rider who seemingly has the perfect life: she’s about to marry Bob Worthington (King), a member of the prestigious and wealthy Worthington family. (Don’t they even sound rich?) - the only problem is, she’s in love with Bob’s rough-and-tumble brother Steve (Van Patten). She thinks this is the worst problem in her life, until she’s kidnapped and held captive by the San Felipe Anarchist Army. They’re a south of the border terrorist organization led by the sinister Estoban (Fisher) who doesn’t at all resemble any Cuban dictators we might know, and his army of thugs. 

Getting the typical run-around and red tape from the government - which includes Christy’s own father, Senator Adam Hansen (Mitchell) - Christy’s friends decide to become a makeshift mercenary force and go and rescue her themselves. Despite having no experience in the violent arts, the aforementioned Steve, plus Henry (McQueen), Eddie (Miller), Mack (Marcel) and Carla (Blair) attempt the rescue mission nevertheless. Along their treacherous way, they meet the mysterious but extremely helpful Vietnam vet Bishop (Lynch). Will this ragtag band of amateur vigilantes rescue their friend? Dare you find out?

A very impressive B-movie cast filled with fan favorites just kind of wade around in the mush of this colorless outing. It starts off in a very disjointed manner, and steadily becomes a more coherent, but more standard exploding hut/fruit cart chase actioner that doesn’t really offer anything new for diehard action fans. 

Sure, the opening bit has plenty of slow-motion mindless shooting set to the synthesized main theme and you think “this has promise”. but then a certain blandness and repetition sets in. 80’s staples such as the disco scene and aerobics help matters, but not enough to save the movie in its entirety. The movie needed more Cam Mitchell, who basically does a “sit-down” role. Chad McQueen brandishes a rocket launcher, and, after some initial fears, he does indeed maintain his trademark: no sleeves. McQueen’s arms must always be unencumbered by any form of cloth.

Richard Lynch puts in a likable performance, and he even plays the flute and has a pet monkey. Where else but here will you see the movie credit “Rambo the monkey as Pin”? Pin, or should we say Rambo, wears camo pants like the rest of the cast. His performance really stands out. Van Patten also appeared in director Foldes’ Young Warriors (1983), and seems like a young, confused Treat Williams. Linda Blair plays the “tough chick”, playing against the more girly Christy. It could almost be said that her character here could be a continuation of Brenda from Savage Streets (1984). Carla could be like what Brenda would have turned out as later in life. Adding to the positives column is the end-credits song, “I Still Remember”, sung by Linda herself.

Despite its mediocrity, items like Night Force actually did their own little part to make the video stores of the 80’s great. They added their own brick in the wall of mind-boggling choices the best video stores had. Not every movie ever made is going to be an awesome life-changer. Sometimes corraling some familiar names together and having them engage in some mindless shooting and blow-ups is enough. Clearly the filmmakers knew this, as indicated by its 79 minute running time. It was all good enough for Lightning Video to release it (it was produced by Vestron Pictures) - and as long as you don’t expect too much, you might be able to wring some enjoyment out of the rag that is Night Force.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

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

Firepower (1993)

Firepower (1993)-* * *

Directed by: Richard Pepin

Starring: Gary Daniels, Chad McQueen, Joesph Ruskin, Art Camacho, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Gerald Okamura, and James Hellwig












Set in the far-away future of 2007, two cops/friends, Braniff (McQueen) and Sledge (Daniels) are some of the toughest police officers in L.A. Making their job much harder was the creation of areas known as “Zones of Personal Freedom” which later devolved into highly dangerous, lawless areas called “Hell Zones”. In order to break a counterfeit AIDS vaccine ring, Braniff and Sledge must go undercover into the Hell Zone. Ground zero for their investigation is an illegal Punchfighting ring run by the super-evil Drexal (Ruskin). They are fights to the death where competitors take on names and personas, and they are even given certain weapons at specific times, controlled by Ruskin and his lackeys. The unbeatable man-mountain known only as The Swordsman (Hellwig AKA The Ultimate Warrior!) not only is unstoppable in the Death Ring (as its called) but is also a destructive criminal in his own right. Will Braniff and Sledge survive enough death matches to take down Drexel and The Swordsman? Find out tonight!

Chalk up yet another winner for PM. PM always seems to know just the right elements to keep action fans satisfied. And at least there are some ideas at work here, which is more than you can say for a lot of movies, action or otherwise. But it certainly doesn’t skimp in the action department, as there are car/motorcycle chases, gunfights, blow-ups, radically awesome lasers, exploding helicopters, loads of hand-to-hand combat and naturally the PM standby of “car flipping over in the middle of the street”. There are plenty of fun moments and the movie as a whole is never anything less than entertaining.

We always love when movies are set in the future but is now the past. We try to collect those. You’d think the filmmakers, knowing full well their movie would exist on the video market, might last 15-20 years. But they make some surprisingly relevant comments about insurance rates and gas prices that are perhaps truer today than they were back when the movie was filmed. But that aside, The Ultimate Warrior is in this movie as the main baddie! His hair alone is worth seeing the movie for. Too bad this Swordsman wasn’t in the Lorenzo Lamas Swordsman (1992). ‘Warrior’s only spoken (or more accurately, roared) dialogue consists of him bellowing “Raaaaaahhhhhh!!!”, although, to be fair, at one point he diabolically laughs “heh heh heh”.

Chad McQueen is still sleeveless and loving it as the main hero. But without Gary Daniels to brighten things up as his partner, the whole movie might have been a crashing dud. We think this is one of Gary’s most fun and upbeat roles. He truly adds life and energy to the proceedings. Whereas McQueen just seems to phone in his typical Chadditude.

Don’t forget this was around the time of the dominance of American Gladiators, and clearly PM wanted in on some of that action. That would explain why characters are named Viper (played by Art Camacho), The Swordsman, Maniac, Dr. Death (the same Dr. Death from Ballistic, 1995?) and Sledge becomes “The Hammer” naturally, and McQueen becomes the fearsome “Alley Cat”. Plus Gerald Okamura is in an uncredited role as a fighter, and fan favorite Lawrence Hilton Jacobs does an awesome job as the ring announcer, even though he is unseen throughout the film. Also in the movie Braniff plays Super Nintendo with his son. Must be retro gaming.

Not leaving any details out, there’s an end-credits song, “Hell Zone” by Adrienne Heath. While we’re not entirely sure why the movie is called Firepower, as it’s primarily about Punchfighting, we can definitely recommend it. Check it out.

Also check out write-ups by our buddies: The Video Vacuum and DTVC! 

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Martial Law (1991)

Martial Law (1991)-* *1\2

Directed by: Steve Cohen

Starring: Cynthia Rothrock, Chad McQueen and David Carradine











Dalton Rhodes (Carradine) is the leader of a large and growing criminal syndicate. Cop Sean “Martial Law” Thompson and his fellow police officer/girlfriend Billie Blake (Rothrock) are trying to shut him and his cohorts down. When Martial Law’s brother Mike falls under the spell of Rhodes, it becomes personal.

As far as plot is concerned, it gets off to a slow start and then continues on at an odd pace, like an athlete that begins sluggishly and because of that, can’t maintain his momentum or “get his groove back”. Martial Law is unfocused and you don’t really know what’s going on at any time in any clear, defined way. The elements are certainly there, but it doesn’t pull together. Seeing as Chad McQueen (yes, Skylord Harris himself) is an emotionless lunkhead, it pretty much falls on the shoulders of the always-great Cynthia Rothrock to carry the movie. But she’s in a supporting role, criminally playing second-banana to a man with a wardrobe filled with silly shirts. Although, to be fair, he does have a cool, fur-lined coat he wears during the day in L.A. and has a rockin’ motorcycle.

It’s nice to see David Carradine as Rhodes, the classic baddie, looking dapper in his suits. Of course, more than simply an evil businessman, Rhodes knows the “forbidden” Martial Arts Technique “Dim Mak”, or Touch Of Death. Never before has there been such a disparity between attempts at realism during the dialogue scenes, and utter silliness during the fight scenes. Martial Law (the movie, not the clunky, overly-long nickname) could have used some car chases and blow-ups to liven things up. The movie lacked a certain fun element that really should have been there. We blame Skylord Harris, and this is one of his BETTER movies.

When he first appears on screen driving up in his Dominos Pizza car and in full Dominos regalia to trick a baddie, our initial thought was, “that seems about right”. He seems well suited for that kind of work. And while Benny The Jet Uriquidez appears briefly, as does his famous training center (also seen in Death Match, 1994), and the final fight scene is cool, as is a short training sequence, it’s too little too late.

About the music, there’s a scene in a club where 80’s hair metal band Tempest plays, and the score by Elliot Solomon is lively and amusing, but not memorable. But there’s plenty of classic sax to go ‘round. But seeing as the VHS released in the U.S. is in EP speed, both the sound and picture leave something to be desired.

While this first installment in the Martial Law trilogy (the third one is Mission of Justice, 1992) is largely mediocre, this would be rectified in the sequels. Starting with Martial Law 2: Undercover, things improve hugely. Luckily this franchise got a chance to grow - but we don’t know why. WHY are there two sequels? Were audiences clamoring for more Sean “Martial Law” Thompson? How did this come about? But, fortunately he does return later - as Jeff Wincott. So start at part 2, unless you are a Cynthia Rothrock die-hard.

Also check out DTVC's review! 

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Surface To Air (1998)

Surface To Air (1998)-*

Directed by: Rodney McDonald

Starring: Chad McQueen, Michael Madsen, Melanie Shatner, Teri Thompson, and Larry Thomas


 “All this waiting for something to happen is driving me crazy." - Zach Massin









Lt. Dylan “Raven” Massin (McQueen) has just finished his Navy survival training. He must leave his loving wife Clarissa (Thompson) and go live on an aircraft carrier and go on flight missions with his partner Lt. Lori “Dakota” Forrester (Shatner). When trouble brews in Iraq in the form of a guy who looks nothing whatsoever like Saddam Hussein but is in fact the Soup Nazi (Thomas), U.S. forces are marshaled to go fight in that part of the Middle East. But that also includes surly Gunnery Sgt. Zach Massin (Madsen), who is the estranged half brother of “Raven”. Estranged because they don’t get along well and they had a fight over a girl many years previously. They’re the original odd couple! Can the two bickering brothers come together long enough to be victorious in the name of their country? (don’t bother to) find out today!

Surface To Air is one of those movies with more airplane and military jargon than much-needed character development and exciting situations. While characters are spouting some meaningless gobbledygook during some stock footage of aircraft carriers, the audience is bored to tears. Who exactly is the intended audience for this sort of movie? Laypeople will be bored, and servicemembers surely won’t want to see Chad McQueen Chadding it up with some CGI/green-screen plane explosions. It seems movies like this were pretty prevalent at the time: Desert Thunder (1999), Stealth Fighter (1999), later Air Strike (2002), etc. It’s nice that they are patriotic, but they’re not doing patriotism any favors.

As far as Chad McQueen is concerned, Raven is obviously the new Skylord. If that sentence immediately made any sense to you, be afraid. It means you’ve seen at least one of the Chad movies at hand. But it’s hard to take him that seriously. He just has a goofy presence, and Madsen has his usual “I don’t care” attitude, so seeing as they made a bunch of movies together around this time, someone thought they made a good team?

Speaking of slogs, both this movie and Submarines (2003) both use the made-up news station “ZNN” for their news reports. Coincidence? As this is an Andrew Stevens production, don’t expect much. But maybe some people at Nu-Image saw this and loved “ZNN”. This should tell you how little both this and Submarines have going on. But what this movie really needed was a strong, super-evil bad guy for Raven and Zach to rally together against. Charles as the “Wacky Iraqi” (or, given his pedigree, perhaps he’s more of a “Soup Iraqi”?) should have done more to make the audience hate him. Simply having a very familiar-seeming mustache is not enough.

Sadly, despite the presence of fan favorite Michael Madsen, Surface To Air is your standard airplane slog that really has no reason to exist. He can’t save this boring, boring crud that lacks excitement at every turn. If you’ve never heard of this movie - especially mentioned in conjunction with Madsen - there’s a reason why. Avoid.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Death Ring (1992)

Death Ring (1992)-* * *

Directed By: R.J. Kizer

Starring: Mike Norris, Chad McQueen,  Isabel Glasser, Billy Drago, and Don Swayze














From the director of Hell Comes To Frogtown (1988) comes Death Ring, a movie that, despite the impressive B-movie cast, could have used the talents of “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.

In this complete and total knockoff of The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Mike Norris portrays local lunkhead Matt Collins, an ex-Special Forces soldier who can’t find his place in the world. So he spends his time competing in events such as “The Survival Of The Fittest” competition.

In this unexplainably televised event, which is a cross between rock-climbing and Army basic training, bored (really bored) evil rich dude Danton Vachs (great name) (Drago) (another great name) sees Collins and kidnaps him, as well as his girlfriend Lauren (Glasser),  who were trying to spend a lovely day at the batting cages. Luckily, “Skylord” Harris (McQueen) witnesses the whole thing before being knocked unconscious by Vachs’ goons. Did we mention his name was SKYLORD HARRIS? Because his name is Skylord Harris.

Skylord is now on the case trying to track down his best friend Matt. Little does Skylord know, they have been spirited away to a creepy island and Collins is forced to play “The Most Dangerous Game” with a multi-racial group of hunters: a Mexican, an American Indian, an Asian, and an Italian. They all go about hunting Collins in their own ethnic-stereotyped ways. When Collins dispatches a man named Mr. Chin, in a flash of brilliance, he posthumously re-dubs him “Mr. Dead”.

Vachs has a control panel set-up so he can communicate with his minions while they hunt Collins. (Also so Collins can spit snappy one-liners to Vachs while deep in the woods.) Vachs' minions also drink snake blood and the titular “Death Ring” is a real piece of jewelry worn by Vachs.

Exactly one hour into the film, we finally get our first “Swayze Sighting”. Don plays John Blackwell, a leftover from Vachs’ previous hunting party. He and Collins team up to get revenge. After searching one tattoo parlor named “Tattoo”, Skylord sees the design of two overlapping triangles (like they are fast-forwarding their wrists) he remembers at the time of the kidnapping.



We won’t give away the ending, but let’s just say it involves a “fan favorite death” and heads are gonna roll!

Basically playing the same role as he did in execrably fun Money To Burn (1996) with fellow castmate Don Swayze, we can only surmise that McQueen himself is a man dead-set against sleeves of any kind. Including his car, which is a jeep. Doors are too close to sleeves for this guy! It is “death before sleeves!” as Skylord sleevelessly saves the day in his rockin’ helicopter.

This “New generation of action stars” (as the box only lists their last names, as if that would fool potential renters) is really close to “Lone Tiger” syndrome: where a movie that is chock full of B-movie favorites does not guarantee a good movie. That being said, “Death Ring” is basic stupid action fun.

It predates the very similar but more popular Surviving The Game (1994) by two years. Death Ring was first!

The end credits admonish you to not just “read the novel”, but in what has to be a movie first, to “eat the popcorn”. If anyone out there has read the official Death Ring novel or eaten the official Death Ring popcorn, please write in today.


Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Money To Burn (1996)

Money To Burn (1996) -*1\2

AKA: Squanderers

Directed By: John Sjogren

Starring: Chad McQueen, Don Swayze, Joe Estevez, Chuck Zito and Julie Strain






"They have the money and the guts to spend it!" - the tagline (that should indicate the level of intelligence at work here).




"Money To Burn" is dumb...really dumb. It makes Beavis and Butthead look like Masterpiece Theatre.

The plot is minimal: Two mentally-challenged pals named John and Scott (McQueen and Swayze...by that I mean Chad and Don) come across some illegal money from some bad guys. Lt. Ford (Estevez) is watching some surveillance footage of a bank heist and stays in the same room for most of the movie, looking at the same bit of video, which is repetitive and maddening at the same time. Even the presence of the "wacky" security guard can't save these unending sequences.

John and Scott go on a spending spree which takes up most of the movie. They buy guitars at Guitar Center and at least one other shopper stares at them and smiles as they "rock out", as if to say, "you guys are some wicked awesome dudes and you totally rock"...seemingly unaware these are some of the biggest dum-dums alive. 

A further example of this, as if one was needed, is that when Scott's Grandma inquires about their doings, they say, REPEATEDLY, "It's for a school project". It is not explained what type of project, not to mention what type of school, these two sub-literate dirtbags in their mid-thirties were admitted to.

They buy some hot cars, a mansion in Malibu and they naturally do what any nouveau-riche do: ride their BMX bikes in the pool. This scene of bike-pool riding represents their newfound decadence and how blissfully unaware they are of EVERYTHING, not the least of which is that the baddies are closing in and they have guns. The problem is, you don't really care if Scott and John get shot, in fact you're kind of banking on it.

McQueen and Swayze play dumb a little TOO well. I mean, they're supposed to be dumb, but, come on. Is there really any joy in watching a movie with characters and situations that are this dumb? Only the viewer can decide. But watching Money To Burn is a great way to lose brain cells without the use of drugs or alcohol.

The front of the VHS box loudly states "MCQUEEN-SWAYZE-ESTEVEZ", conveniently leaving out the first names in a bold faced attempt to trick the viewing public. However, it could be said that this movie brings shame on these famous Hollywood families. Even the appearance of Chuck Zito and the brief appearance of Julie Strain can't save this disaster of dumbness.

Yes, we ACTUALLY watched "Money To Burn". For all its flaws, and they are many, for some reason, it IS entertaining, and provides some great unintentional "laffs".

Squander your time with this classic tonight.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett