Air Rage (2001)

Air Rage (2001)-*1\2

Directed by: Fred Olen Ray

Starring: Ice-T, Cyril O'Reilly, Kim Oja, Alex Cord, Jack McGee, Steve Hytner, Gil Gerard, and Glynn Turman




"Altitude gets Attitude."






During a court martial, Col. John Sykes (O’Reilly), and his cohorts as well, are dishonorably discharged. The Chief Judge Adjutant, General Harlan Prescott (Cord), throws out their initial plea agreement, probably so he could bellow at them and then give them the maximum punishment. Later on, Prescott boards a plane with his assistant that looks exactly like Eugene Levy. Sykes and his disgraced army men board the same plane and take it hostage. Now with complete chaos on board, only one man can come in and save the day: Matt Marshall (Ice-T). But because he gets wounded in a firefight, he isn’t as active in day-saving as he should be. That’s when spunky flight attendant Kelly Young (Oja) gets into the act. One minute she’s serving drinks to obnoxious passengers like Morton (Hytner), the next minute she’s killing baddies and flying the plane. Will everyone on board make a safe landing…or will they be overcome with their AIR RAGE?

First came Executive Decision (1996). Then came Strategic Command (1997). Now comes Air Rage, an overlong, unnecessary addition to the plane-hostage movie canon. Over its 100-minute running time, you won’t see anything you haven’t seen before. Another plane is taken hostage, another strike force is brought in to save the day, another terrorist wants yet another CD-ROM filled with information, and it all seems very, very familiar. The only actual air rage is felt by the viewer as he takes in this repetitive muck. 

After we were watching the movie for a while, we noticed Ice-T was nowhere in sight, so we went on Ice-T watch. Despite appearing very prominently on the box art, Ice doesn’t show up until exactly 40 minutes in. And even after that, he’s not a forceful hero because he’s injured and in pain for a good amount of time. If there’s a main hero here, it’s Kelly the Stewardess. We were happy to see Oja not be put in an ineffectual stewardess role and instead get in on the action. But she’s not on the box art. Could it be sexism? Maybe because he was fresh off of fellow plane flick Stealth Fighter (1999), where he was the baddie, perhaps Ice-T was sick of planes and he doesn’t care as much this time around. And is it just us, or is it racist that Ice-T of all people leads a Black Ops team where the code name is Blackbird?

Pretty much the only bright spot in this air disaster of a movie is the presence of Alex Cord as the General. His presence is great and his voice is fantastic. He should have narrated the movie. That might have fixed things. As seems to be standard for Fred Olen Ray, while the movie itself is substandard, he gets a lot of great character actors to shoulder the weight of the project. This seems to mitigate the cruddiness of the proceedings somewhat. Jack McGee, Glynn Turman, and Gil Gerard are all welcome faces and they do their best. Even Steve Hytner, immediately recognizable as Banya from TV’s Seinfeld, is here and he plays an unlikeable jerk very well. But it’s just not enough to overcome the lack of originality here and the boredom that ensues from it.

Pro tip: If you want to watch something like this, but want to see a movie that’s actually good and very entertaining, watch Passenger 57 instead.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Fatal Blade (2000)

Fatal Blade (2000)- *1\2

Directed by: Talun Hsu

Starring: Gary Daniels, Victor Rivers, Kiyoshi Nakajo, Seiko Matsuda, LoriDawn Messuri, Jack McGee, and Cuba Gooding Sr.












LAPD cop Richard Fox (Daniels) finds himself caught in the middle of a Yakuza war as he tries to get to the truth about the death of his partner. While crime boss Bronson (Rivers) is able to run wild with his drug business because he has some dirty cops on the take, Japanese swordmaster Domoto (Nakajo) comes to town for his own reasons. At a certain point, those reasons intersect with Fox’s, and the two men from different worlds suddenly find they have more in common than they originally thought. Caught in the middle of all this are the women - Saemi (Matsuda) and Fox’s wife Linda (Messuri). Will Fox come out victorious - or will he end up on the wrong end of Domoto’s FATAL BLADE?

Fatal Blade is trying to be like a PM movie. This isn’t a criticism, necessarily; we wish more productions would at least try to hit the heights of the Gary Daniels three R’s of awesome: Rage (1995), Riot (1996), and Recoil (1998). The only problem is, PM doesn’t do “FM” - fast motion - and this movie does. So while it tries to do some car chases/car blow-ups in classic PM fashion, it commits the no-no of speeding up what fight scenes there are. You don’t NEED to speed up Gary Daniels. This was really annoying. There should have been more un-sped-up Martial Arts fights and less gun-shooting. Daniels even disappears for decent chunks of the running time. But when he is on screen, he has classic 90’s hair which we all love and enjoy.

While the movie is competently made, it doesn’t really reach the heights of other “East meets West” actioners like Red Sun Rising (1994), Sword of Honor (1996), American Dragons (1998), and especially all-time classic Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991). That’s because this came out in 2000, a death-time for DTV product. It even brings to mind the dud Double Deception (2001) at times. Things were just better earlier on in our nation’s history. Sure, it has a classic “Final Warehouse Fight”, some casual racism, a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, and a guy screaming his head off as he shoots a machine gun, but we were somehow hoping for something that tied it all together a bit more.

We do give the movie credit for the good amount of scenes that are spoken in Japanese and have subtitles. This showed to us that they were serious and it helped things along. However, most of the English dialogue consists of people shouting “what am I paying you for!??!” The Gary Daniels revenge plot should have been streamlined and more hardcore. Just a few years on from The Quest (1996), we have a very different-looking Jack McGee doing not very much  and not being used properly...and is that Cuba Gooding SENIOR in a nothing role as a pawn shop owner? Not that we’re not happy to see him, but...WHY?

It also should be mentioned that a common phenomena in low-budget DTV product happens here: smaller-time actors are hired that look/behave like other actors (or should have BEEN other actors). For example, the guy that played Bronson also could have been Robert Patrick, Judd Nelson, Dean Cain, Frank Stallone, or Charlie Sheen during his “Charles Sheen” period.  And the guy that played Mitchell, the police Lieutenant, could have been James Russo, Ed Lauter, or...or maybe we just watch way too many movies. 

But we’re clearly addicted and can’t get enough - and we do it all for YOU, our lovely readers. We live to inform you about movies like Fatal Blade. If that’s a crime, then call Richard Fox and have us arrested. (See, the fact that we think Richard Fox is a real person pretty well proves our initial point).

Gary Daniels is credited as Associate Producer, as is frequent Daniels collaborator George Cheung, and it features the West Coast gangsta rap track “187” by a rapper known as G-Sleep. Despite all this, Fatal Blade really should have been better. To be fair, there are some threads of the movie that stand out, but it was lacking in other areas. This Blade should have been sharpened to a finer point.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

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

Malevolent (2002)

Malevolent (2002)-* * *

Directed by: John Terlesky

Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Kari Wuhrer, Jack McGee, Edoardo Ballerini, Carmen Argenziano, and Steven Bauer











Jack Lucas (LDP) is an LAPD cop on the edge. Putting him even closer to the edge of the edge is the fact that a psychotic criminal mastermind is trying to frame him for a series of murders. The obnoxious and annoying Oliver “Ollie” Chadwicke (Ballerini) has it in for Lucas and is going to slyly and shrewdly send him up the river. Fighting for his life against the bogus charges actually perpetrated by Chadwicke, Lucas must use his wits to defeat him at his own game. Teaming up with a stripper with a heart of gold, Jessica (Wuhrer), as well as his father, Warren (Argenziano), Lucas must not only defend himself against Chadwicke, but from the mistrust growing amongst his co-workers. Especially with Captain Pruitt (Bauer) breathing down his neck. Will Lucas get justice?

Malevolent is a surprisingly solid and entertaining cop drama/thriller. It was smart putting LDP in the lead role, because he can easily carry a movie like this with his charm, charisma and acting ability. You could even say this is the continuing story of Jeff Powers from Extreme Justice. This isn’t really an action movie, in fact all of the action was edited in from The Corruptor (1999) and Marked For Death (1990). Anyone who has seen those movies will surely recognize the footage. But at least Malevolent is open and honest about it, in its own way: both footage sources get large, easy-to-read screen credits at the end of the movie. Other DTV items don’t do that. They try to hide their patchwork nature. So we give the movie credit for its openness.

You have to take this movie for what it is, it’s not going to change the world but it’s really not bad either. In its quest to be gritty, or perhaps different, there are some horribly (intentionally horribly) edited sequences that are trying to be “cool”. If the movie was just edited normally, that would have helped. Plus there are some highly cliched, even stereotypical characters, such as Lucas’ partner Carla, played by Gwen McGee. But Ballerini did a great job as the baddie, he really makes you hate him. It’s always nice to see Kari Wuhrer, we were happy she was on board. It was also cool to see Jack McGee, of The Quest (1996) fame as the bartender. Steven Bauer should have had more screen time as the captain. Also, Simon Rhee is credited as one of the stunt players.

LDP even wrote the lyrics for the movie’s most memorable song, “Pray For Dawn”, a bluesy-type number. He should get more credit for being multi-talented. Fans of any of the cast members involved, DTV cop dramas, or fans of stock footage (we know you’re out there), or anyone with some spare time on their hands might want to check out Malevolent.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

The Quest (1996)

The Quest (1996)-* *1\2

Directed by: Jean-Claude Van Damme

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Roger Moore, James Remar, Janet Gunn, Abdel Quissi, Louis Mandylor, Aki Aleong, and Jack McGee









Set in the 1920's, Chris Dubois (Van Damme) is a street performer who wears clown makeup, a funny hat, and walks on stilts for a living. Adventure finds him when he ends up a stowaway on a boat heading to mysterious Muay Thai Island. There he learns martial arts, and, later in Tibet, meets the charming Lord Dobbs (Moore) and his assistant Smythe (McGee). It is around this time that Chris seeks to be involved in Ghan Geng, a secret underground fighting tournament. The winner gets a huge golden dragon, so Dobbs has a stake in Chris winning, as he wants the Dragon. 

Fighters are invited from all over the world , and America is represented by boxer Maxie Devine (Remar). Chris must take his place in the tournament and defeat the sinister Khan (Quissi) to win it all. Also, there's some mild romance with the prerequisite female reporter Carrie Newton (Gunn).

 Van Damme does a solid, professional job with his directional debut. Having co-written the film with Bloodsport (1988) dude Frank Dux, you pretty much know what to expect - but this movie is rated PG-13, so it was clearly trying to bring the Punchfighting genre some mainstream acceptance. With its slick Hollywood look and booming, sweeping score by Randy Edelman, the final product is perfect for 13-year olds, presumably its target demographic.

Interestingly, the movie is a period piece, and plays like a prequel to Bloodsport. Instead of The Kumite, It's Ghan Geng. Van Damme tries on a number of personas  from "Old Man Van Damme" to "Van Damme The Clown" and many things in between. The presence of Roger Moore adds class and respectability to the proceedings, and James Remar of Quiet Cool (1986) fame stands out as Devine. He's always worth seeing. Janet Gunn from Night Of The Running Man (1995) and The Sweeper (1996) is the eye candy but not much else.

 It's important to remember this was when video games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter were at the peak of their popularity. So when the Ghan Geng section of the movie begins (pretty much the last half) - the plot just STOPS. It's just one fighter from one country facing off against another fighter from another country. It gets repetitive and pretty numbing after awhile. Other Punchfighters don't do this. 

They vary the Punchfighting scenes with other plot-based stuff. Not so here. Plus the fact the movie is kind of on the long side doesn't help matters. What The Quest should have been is an 80 minute R-rated Punchfighter. Simply cutting the length but adding more violence would have helped immensely. But they weren't going for that audience, unfortunately.

The Quest is more of a big "adventure" film where characters are seeking a "lost city" and many countries and time periods are represented. This might be a good way to start younger viewers on a career of watching Van Damme movies\action movies\Punchfighters but only Van Damme or perhaps Roger Moore completists need apply. 

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett