Musketeers Forever (1998)

Musketeers Forever (1998)- *

Directed by: Georges Chamchoum

Starring: Michael Dudikoff, Lee Majors, Sylvie Varakine, and Martin Neufeld










Three middle-aged men with a lot of time on their hands decide to open a bar together. Naturally, their leader is Lee Majors, and after a classic “fixing up the place” montage, they turn an old, run-down building into the tavern of their dreams. The men clearly bonded because of their mutual love of two things: old blues musicians, and Alexandre Dumas’ Musketeers lore. Unsurprisingly, and, in fact, pretty painfully, they identify themselves as the three Musketeers and even will use any excuse whatsoever to use a certain catchphrase (which shall not be mentioned here). 

When the son of one of their old war buddies, a man who just happens to be named D’Artagnan (Dudikoff), comes to town, they give him a job as a bartender and things seem peachy keen. But, predictably enough, an evil gangster, Kenton Crawford (Rudolf Schenker lookalike Neufeld) wants to take some Indian land and build a casino on it. Some local Native-Canadians actually object to this, one of which is D’Artagnan’s love interest Irina (Varakine). Then some barroom brawls erupt and you go to the kitchen to get a snack. Will you get another snack later? Find out today!

This Canadian variant on Road House (1989), or, Road Hoose, sadly, pretty much lacks everything a sane human being looks for when they seek out filmed entertainment. It’s chock-full of dialogue that’s so poorly written it’s cringe-inducing, the plot is trite and boring, there’s a ton of unfunny humor, the bad kind of cliches, and fight scenes so woefully amateurish they make the barfights in Billy Ray Cyrus’ Radical Jack (2000) look like a Jet Li movie. 

It all has a junky look and the stupidity level is so high, you don’t care about the characters or their plight. Dudikoff is reasonably charming, but there’s nothing for him to work with here. He deserves better material he can sink his teeth into, not cinematic empty calories. Even his hair isn’t quite as cool as it normally is. Perhaps it has a sixth sense of its own and decided to hibernate during this long Canadian winter.

Besides, this is an obvious ripoff of Ring of the Musketeers (1992), but instead of the power-team of Cheech Marin and David Hasselhoff, this has Dudikoff and Lee Majors. Not Lee Majors the Second, mind you, but the original one. There are no cool, standout moments to be found in this substandard effort. Because the plot deals with Indians, the name of the town where all of this takes place is “Indian Creek”. This should give you an idea of the level of creative powers going on here. Though, out of the blue, in reference to D’Artagnan (groan), someone says the line “he had to sell his crossbow for gas money”. You don’t hear that sentence everyday. 

That was by far the only worthwhile two seconds in this dud. We truly tried to see the bright side and this was all we could come up with. The remaining 90 minutes remain DOA. (Though, to be fair, local band Too Many Cooks get a lot of screen time - but then again, do they really want this on their resume?). 

Unfortunately, Musketeers Forever is a major(s) disappointment.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

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

The Protector (1999)

The Protector (1999)-* *

Directed by: Bret McCormick

Starring: Ed Marinaro, Kate Rodger, Cyril O'Reilly, and Lee Majors





"When the Law Fails to Protect and Serve, He Takes Over!"








Following in the vein of the recently-reviewed Keaton's Cop (1988), here we have another "elderly actioner" featuring Lee Majors. Thankfully, here he seems to have lost some weight and the subject matter is somewhat less silly.

Following a ridiculous credits sequence that leads the viewer to believe this is going to be a new Lawnmower Man (1992), we are introduced to one John Templeton (code name: "Gabriel"), (Marinaro), a mercenary of some kind whose beloved wife was killed while he was away on a mission. Thankfully he has a talking computer named Gertrude who helps him through all of his troubles, and pretty soon it's "VR Marinaro" as he dons his Virtual Reality sunglasses which look like, appropriately, those big sunglasses old people wear. In true Robocop (1987) fashion, he revisits, through flashbacks, all the good times he had with his wife. After her murder, Gabriel formed his underground command center to help women in trouble from stalkers and scumbags everywhere. Think "super hero" meets Kick Or Die (1987) meets your grandparents.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the relationship drama between Alex Johnson (Rodger) and Tony Angeleno (O'Reilly). Typically, at first Tony seems to be a great guy, but it is soon revealed he is an obsessive, psychopathic mobster. Isn't that always the way? So when Tony begins not just harassing Alex himself, but getting his gangster buddies to do his relationship legwork with Alex - and it spins horribly out of control with the senseless murder of Bob Newman (Christopher Heldman) - only one man in an all-green sweatsuit can come to the rescue - John Templeton of course! So "Gabriel" takes Alex under his wing, and as he's hiding her away in his abandoned warehouse/command center, he's also teaching her self-defense, how to shoot guns, and of course, the ways of love.

But a new wrinkle occurs when the gangsters hire Austin (Majors) to bump off Templeton. It seems they have a history together when they both did missions for the government. So now it's gangsters and former work associates vs. The Protector and Alex. Who will prevail?

Not just the front of the VHS box (a New World/Roger Corman release), but also the SPINE of the box (both sides) tout that ED MARINARO is involved. I guess they were really proud of this fact. Perhaps Robert Blake was not available. Not to disparage the man, of course. He acquits himself well in this low-budget and fairly strange movie. He must compete with Cyril O'Reilly as Angeleno, whose voice sounds exactly like Christian Slater's. Close your eyes and you could pretend Slater is the baddie in this movie. But then you'd miss all the "awesome" VR action. When there's a credit at the end of the movie "VR suit provided by Lone Star Scuba", you know you have a low budget production. Yes, the movie was shot in Texas, and yes, the VR suit looks like a scuba suit bedazzled with bottlecaps and twine, but why call undue attention to it?

He also had to compete against Lee Majors, of whom there is precious little in the film. The filmmakers thought it would be wiser to spend most of the running time on Italian stereotype gangsters.

When we watched the horrendous Digital Man (1995), we thought that would be the only time we would ever use the term "Virtual Ninjas". Well, we were pleasantly surprised when said ninjas appeared in The Protector. Now the phrase to beat is "Movie with a talking computer named Gertrude that has Virtual Ninjas and Ed Marinaro." It's not likely to appear as an answer on Jeopardy! anytime soon, sadly.

Thanks to some funny music stings on the soundtrack, homemade inventions like the VR setup and the "handprint" you need to get into the command center (do you honestly think John Templeton would use something as banal as keys?), A mob henchman that looks like Willard Scott (most of the cast looks like they're going to appear on a jar of Smuckers on the Today Show themselves), and a short 80 minute running time, The Protector is tolerable, but won't knock your socks off.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

To purchase the poster click here

Keaton's Cop (1988)

Keaton's Cop (1988)-* *

Directed by: Robert Burge

Starring: Lee Majors, Abe Vigoda, Art LaFleur, Tracy Brooks Swope, June Wilkinson, and Don Rickles













Seeing as Comeuppance Reviews is a site devoted to all the pulse-pounding, explosion-packed, face-punching, spin-kicking, sword-slashing, machine-gun blasting action you can handle, it clearly was only a matter of time before that true master of action, Abe Vigoda, was featured.

In what I would describe as an "inexplicably Cannon" production, Lee Majors plays Mike Gable, an aging, disgruntled cop who is divorced, has one son, brushes his teeth in the morning with a can of beer, and would really love nothing more than to continue wearing his acid-washed jean jacket and throw criminals out of windows. When there is a shooting at a nursing home, Gable investigates and finds there is a huge conspiracy to knock off one Louis Keaton (Vigoda). Keaton is a former gangster, and, even though he seems pretty close to death anyway (not to be insensitive), Gable and the rest of the Galveston, Texas police force are assigned to protect him.

Naturally, Gable and Keaton don't get along, but Gable is doing his duty because his partner Jake Barber (Rickles) and Keaton were friends from the old days - the really old days.  Meanwhile, Gable's love interest is the nurse from the retirement home, Susan (Swope), and he would like this whole Keaton escapade to be over so he can live in his house on the beach with her, his son Jimmy (Clinton Austin Shirley, whose only other film credit is Robocop 2 - where he also plays a kid named Jimmy), and a really awesome dog, Blue (the credits read "and Blue as himself"). Can that happen - or will trying to protect Keaton - and uncovering the secrets from the past that go along with it - cost Gable his life?

The main question you can't help asking yourself while watching Keaton's Cop is - "why does this exist?" It seems weird that it was ever made and came out on video. But to answer the question to the best of our ability, Keaton's Cop is a cop/action/comedy romance with maybe some thriller elements. The attempts at intentional comedy generally fall painfully flat, but luckily there are some unintentional laughs. But also there are car chases, shooting and explosions.  I guess this goes to show older people can do anything younger people can do (Lee Majors is the "Young Man" of the film).

 Majors is good as the grizzled cop, but looks a bit confused. Luckily for him, the audience is too, so we can relate. Abe Vigoda is lovable, and the kid Jimmy should have been played by JTT. You can probably picture what he looks like - the stereotypical "cute kid". June Wilkinson shows up towards the end of the film as Big Mama. Interestingly, she's in this and Sno-Line (1986), and both are shot in Texas. Maybe she lives there and refuses to do any non-Texas-shot productions. As you may expect, there are the "wacky" characters such as the Gay Gangsters that are trying to bump off Keaton (and continually listen to the anthemic hair metal tune "Wild In the Streets" by a band called Meet Meat), and a gluttonous gangster called "Fat Tony". But by far the star of the show is the dog, Blue. He practically steals the movie.

Yes, the movie is very silly and nonsensical (some might say "bad") from the title right down to the theme song - which features the line "better watch out, Keaton's gonna getcha". Keaton's going to GET ME? He's like 90 years old! I guess that is pretty scary. But anyway, try to imagine Cocoon (1985) but with chases and shooting. For an antidote to the Hollywood trend of young people being in everything, there's always Keaton's Cop.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty