Avengement (2019)

 

Avengement (2019)- * * *

Directed by: Jesse V. Johnson 

Starring: Scott Adkins, Craig Fairbrass, and Louis Mandylor 

When Cain Burgess (Adkins) escapes from prison, he wants to have a talk with his brother Lincoln Burgess (Fairbrass). It's pretty important. So he heads over to the hangout of Lincoln and his criminal crew, the Horse & Jockey pub in London. While there, Cain doesn't let anybody leave the premises until he unravels the whole tale of how he got to be in the position he's in. In a series of flashbacks, Cain explains his pain - and his transformation from low-level, basically harmless wannabe criminal into a hardened, angry, grizzled monster. 

It seems his prison stay was made far harder than it should have been due to the fact of a certain person putting a price on his head. So Cain had to train hard - and fight harder - just to stay alive while inside. Through the flashbacks, we learn that Detective O'Hara (Mandylor) is looking to put an end to Lincoln's crime ring. But Cain ends up having other ideas...ones that involve unrelenting, bloody AVENGEMENT.

From the Comeuppance Reviews dictionary: AVENGEMENT (avenj-mint) - the quality or state of Scott Adkins punching, kicking, shooting, or breaking your limbs until he gets justice.

Avengement is a film that concentrates much more on brutal violence than director and frequent Adkins collaborator Jesse V. Johnson's The Butcher (2009), or even the more recent Accident Man (2018). Here, Johnson and Adkins strip away the fat and deliver a nice, concise tale that moves swiftly along and delivers the sort of tough, strong entertainment we as viewers want to see.

We liked the unorthodox structure of the film, bouncing back and forth between the past and the present as the plot unfolds. We also liked that Adkins gets to show his range here - from a "normal" guy to a terrifying, barking dog that's been put through a very hard wringer of life. The prison beatdowns are fantastic, as is the final pub brawl. But some important later scenes show that Cain hasn't completely lost his humanity. During the prison scenes, his training is intercut with the fighting, instead of one following the other. That was pleasantly different.

There's a certain, very enjoyable London atmosphere to it all, and a lot of slang is used, so for American viewers, putting on the captions might be advised. Lincoln's gang all add a lot of color, and the whole thing makes Guy Ritchie movies look like Mister Rogers episodes. The score by Sean Murray includes some great synthy moments that reference the 80's, but are far from a slavish copy of them. We commend him for that, and all the behind-the-scenes people did a great job - it's shot well, lit well, etc. It all adds up to total entertainment, as strong and forceful as it is.

We hope Johnson and Adkins continue to collaborate in the future. They obviously work well together and if this is the upward trajectory that they're on, we can't wait to see what's coming next.

Avengement is highly recommended. And watch out for the after-credits sequence.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out write-ups from our buddies, DTVC and The Video Vacuum!

Killing Time (1998)

Killing Time (1998)-*

Directed by: Bharat Nalluri

Starring: Kendra Torgan, Nigel Leach and Craig Fairbrass













Reilly (Leach) is an effeminate and super-evil gangster who continually manages to evade the law, so cop Bryant (Fairbrass) hires a hitwoman to kill him in an “off the books” kind of way. The hitwoman in question is Maria (Torgan), and she comes from Italy to England to complete her job. Apparently a lot of British thugs are after Maria as well, and she must use her wiles to dispatch them - but is Bryant behind any double crosses?

There are many types of slogs in Direct-to-Video cinema. There’s the submarine slog, the airplane slog, the jungle slog, and the spaceship slog, just to name a few. But in the later 90’s, a new type of slog emerged: the Tarantino slog. These are Tarantino knockoffs that would not exist if not for that director. They’re characterized by a lot of violence, mainly shooting, and plenty of unnecessarily talky dialogue. Well, Killing Time fits the description to a T. Why ANY filmmaker could think they could replace the all-important character development with a lot of blah-blah-blah jawing from the characters is unknown. This way, when any action does occur, you don’t really care. In this movie, you don’t care about the plight of any of the characters.

Another reason for that is that Killing Time is also a classic case of “style over substance”. There’s almost no substance here, but there is some stylish camera moves, lighting and VHS box art. It just goes to show the old saying about not judging a book by its cover remains true. This movie is just trying so hard to be cool. But because it was the 90’s, it’s trying to be cool in that super-90’s way, and it hasn’t aged well. It uses that Portishead song multiple times and has characters either talking about nothing or doing nothing. Thus the pacing is seriously off. This movie has held up about as well as a commercial for “Buzz Cuts”, “Buzz Jams”, “The Edge” or one of those CD compilations of “edgy” 90’s music that you just can’t buy in stores, so call now.

And the sad part is, we normally love British movies, especially thrillers like this one. But this movie is  the aforementioned Tarantino slog, mixed with a knockoff of La Femme Nikita (1990), so, besides the exteriors and a character wearing a Newcastle shirt, this really doesn’t feel all that British. Craig Fairbrass does what he can here, but it’s tough. He deserves better. In this movie he looks like a cross between Patrick Swayze, Richard Norton and Mel Gibson.

Presumably this movie was for Tarantino fanatics, or younger teens "slammin'" their cans of Mountain Dew and saying “radical, totally awesome 90’s, man”. So sadly we cannot recommend Killing Time.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty