Best Of The Best 4: Without Warning (1998)

Best Of The Best 4: Without Warning (1998)-* * *

Directed by: Phillip Rhee

Starring: Phillip Rhee, Ernie Hudson, Jessica Huang, Chris Lemmon, Paul Gleason, Art LaFleur, Sven-Ole Thorsen, David "Shark" Fralick and Tobin Bell







Tommy Lee is back! Not the Motley Crue drummer of course (in the press he’s always Rocker Tommy Lee, and he’s called that so often he should just legally change his first name to Rocker) - It’s Phillip Rhee, and this time he teaches martial arts to police officers. He has a young daughter, Stephanie (Jessica Huang), and life seems good.  All this ends when a gang of Russian-type mobsters, working out of an abandoned warehouse (where else?), begins a large counterfeiting operation. The details of this illegal activity are on a disc, and Tommy inadvertently ends up with it.

Now on the bad side of criminal mastermind Slava (Bell), as well as his many goons, including Boris (Thorsen), he entrusts Stephanie to a priest (Gleason), so he can go off on his own and fight the baddies. But while he has some friends on the force, notably Jarvis (Lemmon), he also butts heads with the hard-line Detective Gresko (Hudson). Can Tommy Lee stop the counterfeiting agents, rescue his friends and daughter from imminent doom, and clear his own name in the process?

Some people might think about the Best of the Best series, “there are FOUR of them?” While it may seem puzzling and hard to justify, this fourth entry in the series was solid fun and worth seeing. Phillip Rhee is a very talented guy - he stars in the film, he directed it, co-wrote it, and he’s a gifted martial artist and worked on the choreography. He’s also likable. Rhee does seem to have well-rounded skills, and because of this, his name should be more well-known outside of die-hard action circles. He’s so badass, he doesn’t turn off his lights at night using a lightswitch like a sucker, he JUMPKICKS his lights off.

Supporting him is an impressive array of B-movie names. Tobin Bell puts in an understated, low-key villain performance, which was a welcome change from the frothing-at-the-mouth baddies we usually see. He pulls off a tricky balance - be subtle but not be boring. He does a great job, and, interestingly, there’s some pre-Saw torture he’s involved with. Coincidence? Or did the makers of the unending Saw franchise see this movie and picture him as the ultimate torturer? And speaking of people who probably saw this movie, there’s an American Beauty (1999)-like fantasy sequence one year before that film. Is it possible the American Beauty people saw this movie and thought, “If we rip this off, no one will know, because we don’t share any of the same audience”?

Hudson plays the BYD (instead of Black Yelling Chief, here he’s a detective) and there’s even a fight scene between him and Rhee where Hudson attempts some Hudson-Fu on him. Chris Lemmon’s not in it that much and resembles Joe Piscopo. It’s no Firehead (1991) for him. Paul Gleason, Art LaFleur and Sven-Ole Thorsen round out the cast of familiar faces, and someone who’s been turning up a lot lately, David “Shark” Fralick (Deadly Reckoning, 1998, Executive Target, 1997 Inside Edge, 1992) is on board as well.

A highlight of the movie is a combination stickfighting/fencing fight scene. We don’t believe we’ve ever seen that before. While the movie falls prey to a cliche we see often “We’ve got to get the disc!” - a movie about a disc - Best of the Best 4 has a lot to offer in the pure entertainment department. Regardless of how you feel about the other Best of the Best movies, you should see this one if you love that implausibly-plotted-but-who-cares-let’s-have-fun action style pioneered in the 80’s.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Digital Man (1995)

Digital Man (1995)-*1\2

Directed by: Phillip J. Roth

Starring: Matthias Hues, Ken Olandt, Adam Baldwin, Chase Masterson, Kristin Dalton, Paul Gleason, Ed Lauter, Susan Tyrrell,  Don Swayze, and a Special Appearance by: Clint Howard












In the future, if there is a situation too dangerous for human soldiers to go into, there is such a thing as the "D-1 Weapons System", or "Digital Man" (Hues). Such a situation arises when terrorists steal the launch codes for some nukes and demand 2 billion dollars in gold. Digital Man spoils their plans, but he uploads the launch codes on to his system. He then ends up in Badwater, Nevada, a small, dusty hamlet in the desert. When it is found out he has the nuclear launch codes, a special, crack team led by Anders (Olandt) is sent to Badwater to "take him off-line". Also there's some sort of stupid intrigue involving Adam Baldwin and Ed Lauter that is impossible to care about. So it's a scenario with a multi-racial team trying to stop Digital Man, Digital Man eluding them, and rednecks and trailer park dwellers such as Billy (the Swayze of the Don variety) interacting with all the high-tech goings-on.

Maybe it's just us, but we hate these low-budget sci-fi future movies. The dialogue consists of nothing but gobbledygook which is completely unrelatable to any audience. Thus they mentally "check out", lose interest and stop caring about the proceedings. Digital Man in particular is guilty of this, with very few, if any, likable characters. The most likable of the bunch is probably the emotionless supersoldier Digital Man. It's a perfect role for Hues. 

In 1995, CD-ROMs were huge, and this movie feels like one long, painful CD-ROM, with all the graphics and silly "morphing" effects that would entail. I've played flight simulators that are more thrilling than Digital Man. Flight Simulators.

Just imagine a mish-mash of Virtuosity (1995), The Terminator (1984), Neon City (1991), Robocop (1987), American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993), Hologram Man (1995), Circuitry Man (1990) and even the Sega Genesis game Vectorman.  The idea of the "sci-fi western" has been tried with everything from Westworld (1973) to Oblivion (1994). While the novelty of Don Swayze in a Chad McQueen-style sleeveless shirt angrily spouting lines like "You can't tell me what to do, robot!" in utter seriousness to such people as Matthias Hues is worth noting, Digital Man is just so dumb and tedious it wears off quickly.

For example, the weaponry the cast uses look like spray-painted leaf blowers, and robots die like the Itchy and Scratchy robots in that episode of The Simpsons.  The "crack team" does hone their craft, whatever that's supposed to be, by fighting "Virtual Ninjas" (you gotta figure the word "virtual" is going to show up sometime). The idea of a virtual ninja is cool and is probably strong enough to support its own movie. Maybe there will be a spin-off (please God not a sequel).

So while the movie does have a professional look thanks to the cinematography, and there are a lot of explosions, the only real reason to watch this is for Matthias Hues. Which is the only reason we watched it. So that works out. The climax does feature some Hues hand to hand combat, which is nice, because Hues walking around a trailer park with a leaf blower for 90 minutes sounds more entertaining than it actually is.

In the end, Digital Man seems like something you'd happen to catch on HBO or Cinemax in the middle of the afternoon sometime in the 90's. Sadly though, the strong B-movie cast cannot save the dire stupidity within.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty