Chokehold (2019)

Chokehold (2019)- * * *

Directed by: Brian Skiba

Starring: Casper Van Dien, Melissa Croden, Kip Pardue, Corinne Van Ryck de Groot, Gianni Capaldi, Ilona McCrea, and Lochlyn Munro

When a Calgary-based fight trainer named Javier (Van Dien) gets involved in the world of all-female underground Punchfighting, things go bad fast. Russian mobsters believe he owes them money, so they shoot him. His daughter Zoey (Croden) has a career of her own as a more traditional MMA-style fighter in Las Vegas, and her trainer is the by-the-book Uncle Ray (Pardue). After being told what happened to her father, she returns home to Canada to sort out what's going on.

On top of everything else, it turns out Javier was in debt, but not to the gangsters; he is behind on mortgages to both his house and his gym and he was in dire financial trouble. His last employee, a fighter named Renee "The Blade" Hansen (Van Ryck de Groot) is there to console Zoey, but when a shady fight promoter known only as Jones (Munro) enters their lives, things get even more complicated. He wants her to Punchfight, but Renee at first doesn't want her to. But, as you might guess, Zoey wants to enter the underground fight world so she can get to the truth about what happened to her beloved dad.

So she works her way through all the Boxcar Wilhelminas, only to run up against Natalia (McCrea), part of the Russian crime underworld, and a Scottish fight promoter named Feodor (Capaldi). Naturally, even though Uncle Ray disapproves of this more brutal and unregulated fighting style, it all comes to a head in the big, final fight. Will Zoey get to the truth? Or will she be caught in the ultimate CHOKEHOLD? 

Here's the most surprising thing about Chokehold: they're still making movies like this in 2019! Don't get us wrong, we're happy about it, especially when it's done well, as it is here. But seeing as it's in the wake of Bloodsport (1988), Bloodfist (1989), Bloodfist II (1990), and, perhaps most aptly, Lady Bloodfight (2016), it's also surprising they didn't decide to call it "Blood Choke", or something like that.

While we didn't approve of the CGI bone-breaks, or some of the stupider bits of dialogue, we thought, overall, that Chokehold is a good example of the age-old Punchfighting story and it has a lot going for it in the win column.

For example, you can see everything that goes on and it's well-lit. That's no small thing in this era of poor lighting. So it gets points for that. Fan favorite Van Dien is great in his role, brief as it is. He looks grizzled (in a macho way, of course) and he isn't just a trainer; he gets in on some fight action as well. But the filmmakers found a way to cleverly intersperse him throughout the film even after he's supposedly "gone". It provided some welcome emotion to it all.

Another thing we hadn't seen before was, during the Punchfighting matches, there were live DJs playing music while the ladies fought it out. Even more impressively, during one of the fights, there was a live metal band playing. This hybrid of music and punching must have been highly entertaining for the enthusiastic patrons in the audience. If you get bored of the fighting, you can rave it up to the techno and dubstep from the DJs. Or if metal is more your speed, you can bang your head. It was pretty novel. 

When it comes to Melissa Croden as our heroine, Zoey, it's a classic case of what we talked about when we were recently on the Direct To Video Connoisseur's podcast. Namely, that it's preferable to get a fighter to act than it is to get an actor to fight. Clearly she's a real fighter, which went a long way as far as the beat-em-up scenes are concerned. Her flat affect is almost at Don "The Dragon" Wilson-levels, which was charming. Physically she's reminiscent of Julianne Nicholson and she definitely has a future in DTV if she wants one. 

Chokehold does not deviate at all from the formulas of the Punchfighters of yore. There's nothing wrong with that. If anything, its stubbornness in holding fast to the old ways is commendable. Some well-staged fight scenes and B-Movie names add polish to this well-made entry in the underground fighting canon. Fans of the genre (especially of the sub-subgenre of all-female Punchfighting) will want to check it out.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

High Voltage (1997)

High Voltage (1997)- * *1\2

Directed by: Isaac Florentine

Starring: Antonio Sabato Jr., Amy Smart, William Zabka, Lochlan Munro, James Lew, George Cheung, Antonio Sabato Sr., Mike Mains, and Shannon Lee

Johnny (Sabato Jr.), Larry (Munro), Molly (Smart), and Sam (Mains) are a bank-robbing gang and they sure do love their guns. Their luck runs out when a particular bank that they rob is a front for the Vietnamese mafia. Now Victor Phan (Cheung) and Harry (Lew), among many other goons, are after them. So is a biker named Bulldog (Zabka). Of course his name is Bulldog. The final showdown occurs at a run-down hotel managed by Carlo (Sabato Sr.) – who will come out on top in this gang war?



In 1998, we were all living in a post-Tarantino, post-John Woo world. Director Isaac Florentine seemingly decided he should try his hand at a mélange of the two directors’ styles, but complete with his own trademark “whoosh” sound effects. Thanks to fight choreographer Koichi Sakamoto and Florentine himself, the fight scenes are well-done and fun to watch. Hence, High Voltage shouldn’t be classified as a Tarantino slog, necessarily, but in the non-action scenes, it gets fairly close.



Yes, there is a lot of inconsequential, post-dubbed dialogue in between the action scenes that viewers probably won’t really care about. But then a, frankly, High Voltage action scene will arrive and things perk up a lot. Thrill’s Antonio Sabato Jr. not only flies sideways while shooting two pistols, he flies frontwards while shooting two pistols as well. There’s plenty of top-notch stuntwork going on and the action setpieces are very enjoyable.



Thankfully, William Zabka screams while shooting a machine gun. The movie overall could have used more Zabka. He sports a very 90’s “grunge” look throughout the film, as it was the 90’s after all (though if memory serves, grunge was fairly well out the window by ’98. That didn’t preclude the inclusion of a song called “Trashgrunge” on the soundtrack, however). 

Also helping things are the presences of fan favorites James Lew, George Cheung, and an uncredited Donald Gibb as a bartender. It was also nice to see Antonio Sabato Sr. join the fray. Interestingly, Amy Smart, as you probably well know, was in Crank: High Voltage (2009). Surely this must mark one of the few, if only, times an actress appeared in an action movie, then, over ten years later, was in another film with the same title (although, granted, it’s a subtitle in the latter case). Still, worthy to point out, I think. 

Featuring a “greatest hits” recap before the credits, not during them as certain Jackie Chan films do, High Voltage has its flaws – pretty much the plot and dialogue department – but makes up for it in the action department. That being said, it was probably one of the best things coming out on video store shelves at the time – the late 90’s/early 2000’s being a notoriously fallow time for quality DTV product. For the action scenes, we say give High Voltage a watch.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

The Package (2012)

The Package (2012)- * * *

Directed by: Jesse V. Johnson

Starring: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Keenleyside, Monique Ganderton, Darren Shahlavi, Mike Dopud, Lochlyn Munro, and Jerry Trimble









Tommy (Austin) and his partner Julio (Dopud) are Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who work for big shot mob boss Big Doug (Keenleyside). They go around collecting debts for Mr. Big and everything seems peachy keen. One day, Tommy is entrusted to deliver THE PACKAGE to rival crime lord The German (Dolph). Seems simple enough, but Tommy’s life is about to get a lot more stressful, because hordes of baddies start chasing him because they want what he’s supposed to deliver. 

Devon (Shahlavi) commands a gang of highly-trained assassins, including token female gang member Monique (Ganderton), and others, such as Carl (Trimble) fight Tommy every step of the way. Tommy just wants to get back to his wife Darla (Kerr) but it’s going to be a battle to get there. Will Tommy survive, or will The Package be marked Return to Sender? Find out today...

We enjoyed The Package. It had an old-school vibe that we could really get into. All the movie really consists of is a series of fights between Stone Cold and various other characters. For us, the highlights naturally were the fight with Darren Shahlavi, who was so memorable as the baddie from Bloodmoon (1997), the fight with none other than Jerry Trimble, who we thought looked and sounded great, time has been very kind to him and we hope this revives his movie career, and of course the Dolph-Stone Cold battle that the whole film leads up to. Dolph is known only as “The German” - it seems he plays a lot of Russian, American, and now German characters, never any Swedish ones it seems - and it was nice to see him as a baddie after a long string of hero roles. It seems his last bad guy role, or at least the only one that comes to mind, was way back as Ivan Drago.

Not to be confused with the Gene Hackman vehicle The Package (1989), this particular The Package makes for entertaining and pleasant DTV action viewing, and has a different look and feel than another Anchor Bay-released Dolph outing, The Killing Machine (2010) (which interestingly also featured actress Monique Ganderton) - so if you’re worried that Anchor Bay is just pumping out a mindless, samey stream of Dolph movies, have no fear, that’s not the case. Besides, where else will you see Dolph extolling the virtues of a good fruit salad? That alone makes The Package worth at least one viewing. 

Of course, the classic cliches are also delivered (pun intended?) - the Prerequisite Torture of the hero, the wife of the hero who wants him to quit his dangerous job/lifestyle, and a favorite of ours, when the baddies find a place where they know the hero is, then break out at least one machine gun and proceed to shoot up the place from outside, in an extended shooting scene, rather than go inside, giving the hero ample time to survive.

It was comforting to watch a solidly-made modern-day actioner - it always helps to know you’re in capable hands (speaking about the writing and direction, and all the other technical aspects, which were all pretty much right on target). Director Johnson had previously made Pit Fighter (2005), so we were familiar with him from that. The Package gets our stamp of approval.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Final Move (2005)

Final Move (2005) -*1\2

Directed By: Joey Travolta

Starring: Matt Schulze, Lochlyn Munro, Amanda Detmer, David Carradine, Daniel Baldwin and Rachel Hunter










Final Move is a disappointment, especially considering the B-movie cast and director. I have very low standards when it comes to flicks like these.

The plot is: The chess piece killer is at it again. After his last victim, he is caught and sentenced to death. After his execution, the killings don't stop. Which is weird for detective Marlowe (Schulze) who has psychic vision. He teams up with Roman Krieg (Munro) to stop the madness.

Final Move tries hard (too hard) to be a slick mystery-thriller. The opening credits are snazzy, but the opening scene is downright horrible: after the killer murders some woman, he takes off his mask and starts laughing for about ten minutes. You'll see.



David Carradine and Daniel Baldwin don't have a lot of screen time despite their faces on the cover. Schulze is alright, but his best role is in The Transporter (2002) . The explosion near the end is faker than Milli Vanilli's Grammy Award-winning performances. 

Comeuppance Review by: Ty