Tactical Assault (1998)

 

Tactical Assault (1998)- * *

Directed by: Mark Griffiths 

Starring: Robert Patrick, Rutger Hauer, and Isabel Glasser

Col. Lee "Tiger" Banning (Patrick) and Captain John "Doc" Holiday (Hauer) are high-flying Air Force warriors, and they used to be buddies. Seemingly for no reason, Doc flips out - while in mid-flight - and begins harassing, taunting, and firing upon a harmless civilian airplane. Banning is forced to act and he shoots down Doc's plane so he can save all the innocents on board. 

Some time later, while on assignment in Hungary, Banning's actions come back to haunt him. Even though he did the right thing, he still feels bad and questions himself. His wife Jennifer (Glasser) is pregnant with their first child and things generally seem to be looking up for the Bannings. 

However, Doc - who is still a psycho nutjob - makes it his mission to ruin Banning's life. So he begins stalking them and doing all sorts of creepy things. Naturally, it all comes to a head in the ultimate confrontation between Doc and Banning. Which one will be the victim of a TACTICAL ASSAULT?

Tactical Assault is a cross between a Plane Slog and a "...From Hell" movie. You know, like a Babysitter from hell, Temp from hell, Crush from hell, Ex-Wife or Girlfriend from hell, or any person who generally stalks and harasses you because they're crazy. These sorts of movies were huge in the 90's and many were made for TV, specifically Lifetime. (Director Mark Griffiths made a lot of TV movies, so perhaps he was really in his wheelhouse here). If you read this site regularly, you can almost guess what we're about to say next. Well, here it goes: we didn't like the Plane Slog scenes, but we did like the From Hell scenes. 

The From Hell moments worked far better and were massively more entertaining than anything else on show in Tactical Assault, namely the Air Force lingo, people on the ground looking at screens and saying coordinates, and seemingly endless scenes of guys in the cockpits of their planes. Unless you're a plane fanatic, there's nothing much to sink your teeth into as far as those scenes go.

Things begin to fire on more cylinders (we won't say all of them) once the stalking/confrontations begin between Tiger and Doc. The ace up the movie's sleeve, of course, is the fact that they got two heavyweight actors - Patrick and Hauer, of course - to try to anchor the proceedings. It was nice to see two fan favorites like them face off, but in our opinion they could have jettisoned most of the Plane Slog stuff and just concentrated on the From Hell stuff. That would have raised the level of Tactical Assault considerably. 

Of course, Zero Tolerance (1994) remains our favorite Robert Patrick film, and it's hard to go from that to this. We kept wanting to see him shoot Mick Fleetwood in the head. Or something like that. While there are some blow-ups and some plane-shooting, this really concentrates more on the drama of the relationship between Banning and Doc. That's good for the actors, but things only really pick up around the 70-minute mark, when Rutger Hauer begins chasing Robert Patrick around in a stolen tank. Sorry, Doc and Banning, I should say.

The drama is underlined by the Jennifer character, who drops a lot of coffee in the film. There is more than one scene of her being so startled or afraid that she drops her coffee. She should have picked up a sword and stabbed Doc or something to that effect. Multiple coffee-drops just don't cut it anymore.

Director Griffiths is the mastermind behind not just Hardbodies (1984) but also Hardbodies 2 (1986). So since he's so fond of genre mash-ups such as Tactical Assault, how about a Plane Slog/80's Teen Sex Romp? Or perhaps a Romp/From Hell? The possibilities are endless. The whole "Air Force Captain From Hell" idea is not a bad one at all but there's a ton of waste in Tactical Assault. It should have been 90% From Hell and 10% Plane Slog. That would have helped a lot. Instead it's more like 70% Plane Slog and 30% From Hell. That balance should have been corrected.

So, while we appreciate that Griffiths was trying to do something different with the tired Plane Slog template, and that he got quality actors to do it with, in the end it just doesn't come together like it should. For that reason, we can't really recommend Tactical Assault.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

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

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