Mortal Challenge (1996)

 Mortal Challenge (1996) - * *

AKA: Death Game 

Directed by: Randy Cheveldave

Starring: Timothy Bottoms, David McCallum, Vince Murdocco, Nicolas Hill, Jody Thompson, and Evan Lurie

In the far-off future of 2024, Los Angeles is split in two: New L.A., where most of the people fight for survival after a big earthquake, and an island where the rich can afford to live. Naturally, a crazed madman named Malius (McCallum) is the mastermind of a series of underground Punchfighting matches that audiences just kind of sit around and watch. One of the fighters is named Alex (Murdocco).

When a detective named Jack (Bottoms) starts investigating a girl's disappearance, he and some other people, including Hawk (Hill) and Tori (Thompson) are spirited away to a large compound where a cyborg of some sort named Grepp (Lurie) is stalking them. After a lot of running around in the dark, and some fighting, the final confrontation ensues. But who will win the DEATH GAME and be victorious in the MORTAL CHALLENGE?


As Bruce Springsteen once famously sang, "This gun's for hire, even if we're just Punchfighting in the dark". I'm reasonably sure those were the lyrics. If they weren't, they certainly should've been, especially if the subject at hand was Mortal Challenge. Now, 'Challenge doesn't have as much Punchfighting as you might think there would be. Yes, there is some, but it's more of an American Cyborg: Steel Warrior-type affair where people are on the run trying to avoid a killer robot on the loose. It's less The Terminator (1984), and more Shocking Dark (1989). In this case, very dark. Lighting-wise, of course.


Around about this time in the 90's, Roger Corman and his companies became interested in Punchfighting, or fighting of some sort, so they made the same movie over and over again: Future Kick (1991), Bloodfist 2050 (2005), Blackbelt (1992), New Crime City (1994), Alien Terminator (1995), etc., etc. Most of them are set in the future and have minimal lighting so you can't see much. They usually have only a few cheap sets and the audio isn't so hot. We know we're in the world of very low budget films, but that doesn't mean the script, as such, has to suffer and the audience has to lose brain cells. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the situation with Mortal Challenge.



The solid cast is utterly wasted in this tripe. Vince Murdocco is under-used, and it's amazing they were able to get David McCallum to be in this. Evan Lurie seems in his element as Grepp, as he's played robotic or somehow cybernetic characters before, such as in T-Force (1994) or Hologram Man (1995). Timothy Bottoms, who looks so much like former president George W. Bush that he has portrayed him more than once in other movies and shows, is the main hero here. He's no Don The Dragon, if we're going to compare this to the very similar Future Kick, but we do get to see some instances of George Bush-Fu. So, that was appreciated. Interestingly, crooner Michael Buble is credited with a bit part. Could that possibly be true?


Now, much like the movie itself, that leaves the best bit for last: the title song by Mike Dolgy and Curtis Lee. The fact that the filmmakers left this song for the end credits is a shame and a waste. It should have played during the movie itself. The lyrics and vocals are wonderfully ridiculous, and the music is very reminiscent of the main theme to Mortal Kombat (1995) - as if the name "Mortal Challenge" wasn't an obvious enough reminder that they were trying to cash in on the popularity of that classic game. (One of the other characters is named Freeze - not Subzero, mind you - and the "Centurion" named Rogius is MK on a budget).


Despite the solid cast and maybe a few decent moments, Mortal Challenge is so dumb and stupid, it seemingly doesn't even try to engage the viewer. It's hard to imagine anyone with the intelligence level over that of a turnip actually ENJOYING Mortal Challenge. Were the filmmakers trying to insult the intelligence of the audience? Probably not, but it feels that way. So we cannot in good conscience recommend Mortal Challenge. Just listen to the song on YouTube.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Ripper Man (1995)

Ripper Man (1995)-* *1\2

Directed by: Phil Sears

Starring: Mike Norris, Timothy Bottoms, Bruce Locke, Sofia Shinas, George "Buck" Flower, and Charles Napier












Mike Lazo (Norris) is a former San Diego cop who decides to try his hand at becoming a nightclub hypnotist. The club manager where he works, Harry (Napier), is sympathetic towards him, as is cocktail waitress Gena (Shinas), but for Lazo his act just isn’t coming together. One day a mysterious man named Charles Walkan (Bottoms) asks Lazo to hypnotize him. While under hypnosis, Walkan seemingly becomes a man named George Chapman, a man thought to be Jack the Ripper. Soon, Walkan/Chapman is off on a killing spree, but all of Lazo’s former buddies on the police force don’t believe the “he became a serial killer under hypnosis” theory, and to boot, they blame the killings on Lazo! So now Lazo must clear his good name and take down Walkan. Or Chapman. Or whoever he happens to be that day. Can he do it?

Ripper Man is a bit of a different role for Mike Norris. It’s a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, it’s good to be different every once in a while. But on the other hand, it seems like certain things are missing. There’s almost no Martial Arts (but we didn’t expect there to be any in a movie called Ripper Man) - but there are some cop movie cliches. Probably the movie highlight was the shootout in the hospital. That was an action scene. The rest of the movie is pretty much your standard mid-90’s thriller, despite the fact that it tries to be a little more intelligent at first. Despite, at the outset, trying to inject some smarts, it soon devolves into a standard cat-and-mouse kind of situation and all the pretenses are out the window.

As for the rest of the cast, Timothy Bottoms, sporting a sillier-than-usual haircut, looks like a cross between Kevin Kline, Steve Guttenberg and George W. Bush. And normally he just looks like George W. Bush. He’s even played “W” numerous times. His Lone Tiger (1999) co-star Bruce Locke - yes, Kurenai himself! - appears as a San Diego cop and friend to Lazo. It was nice to see him again. It’s funny to think he did this and Lone Tiger back to back. Charles Napier is under-used, as is George “Buck” Flower. It’s director Phil Sears’ only film to date. It’s almost a shame, really, because our guess is that video store patrons in the mid-90’s didn’t really give this movie much of a chance. Not that they’re missing all that much, but somehow this got lost in the shuffle and we feel just a tad bit bad about it. No one ever talks about Ripper Man (and how they never saw it). It should at least go in the cultural lexicon. Maybe somewhere towards the back.

Maybe it was the title, maybe Mike Norris scared people off, but no one seems to have seen Ripper Man. We can’t suggest you expend really any effort on finding this VHS, but if you happen to see it cheap somewhere, it can’t hurt too much to add it to your collection.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Lone Tiger (1999)

Lone Tiger (1999)- * * 

AKA: Tiger Mask

Directed By: Warren A. Stevens

Starring: Bruce Locke, Richard Lynch, Matthias Hues, Timothy Bottoms, Stoney Jackson, and Robert Z’Dar











Lone Tiger  is proof that having a great B-Movie cast filled to the brim with fan favorites doesn’t mean the movie is going to be any good.

Bruce Locke stars as Kurenai , a Japanese Karate man who moves to America and lives in an abandoned warehouse with some runaways. His goal is to defeat the American fighter “Dark Tiger” (Hues) because he thinks he killed his father many years ago. But Kurenai has a “Tiger” mask of his own that he wears when he fights.

Lynch plays Bruce Rossner, an unscrupulous fight promoter who hires Jane (Barbara Niven) to act interested in Kurenai, but really wants dirt on his background. She finds Kurenai and gets Rossner’s right-hand man King (Z’dar) to train him to be a killer in the ring, but it goes against his moral code of honor. However if he doesn’t fight, the runaways that he cares for will go into foster care. The underground matches run by Rossner are in an underground pool with no water. Rossner primarily bets with Marcus (Bottoms) on the outcomes of the matches. It is not punch-fighting, it’s pool-fighting.


Twice Rossner forces Kurenai to kill his opponent and he refuses. Unfortunately, the hobo he’s fighting dies accidentally and Kurenai begins to sour on the whole enterprise.

It all comes a head at Rossner’s birthday party and the truth is finally revealed.

Stoney Jackson is constantly commanding one of the runaways to “Get me my money!” Jackson looks like Dave Chappelle as Rick James and gets the most cringe-worthy line in a while: he exits the bathroom in one the first scenes of the movie and proudly and un-ironically announces “I love to pee!”. The viewer will then realize this will be a tough sit.

This movie is overlong at a punishing 105 minutes.

Matthias Hues is seen next as the wrestler “Dark Tiger” doing his thing in the ring. What seems to be going on is some sort of “Punch-Wrestling”. Hues looks like Fabio more than ever here. However, Hues brings considerable and much-needed charm to the proceedings.

Robert Z’Dar’s presence is always welcome and he does what he can in the role as Coach King. There is a training sequence where King inexplicably just drags Kurenai on his dirt bike. In most states this is a crime. There’s also some other slapstick which feels forced and Kurenai trains while wearing the tiger mask. Apparently it's not for the crowds, it's for his own personal use. From a filmmaking standpoint, the mask is useful because it could be any number of fighters or stunt men at any time. Or better fighters for that matter.


When’s Rossner’s moll Jane states “We are having fried chicken for lunch.” King angrily yells at Kurenai: “GO TO LUNCH!” This is the most inappropriately shouted line since Glenn Ford bellowed “I LIKE FLOWERS!” in Raw Nerve (1991)

Timothy Bottoms joins his Total Force (1997) castmates Lynch and Z’Dar as Marcus, manager of the wrestler “Mr. Mexico” and “Dark Tiger”. Bottoms seems glum and would probably rather be making a something better, like the Total Force sequel “Absolute Force” which also stars the director of Lone Tiger himself, Warren A. Stevens.

Super fan favorite Richard Lynch is enjoyable as Rossner, but far from his glory days as Rostov in the classic Chuck Norris fight-fest Invasion U.S.A. (1985) He always makes a good baddie. Rossner prays to a strange altar so that his men will win his fighting matches.

Sad to say, the fight sequences and choreography are laughably inept and totally inane. They are slow, stagey and lifeless. They seem to be in slow motion, but aren’t. It’s all very ham-fisted. Just look at the scene with the bum and his whip for the worst example. The biggest injustice is that this is just another waste of Hues’ fighting abilities. Ugh. Speaking of ugh, King appears to have been eating a least one jelly donut when he gets kicked in the face at the climax.


Bruce Locke’s broken English and clumsy martial arts moves are another detriment to a production whose crud already runneth over.

Leave this one a "lone" and avoid this one tonight!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty & Brett

Total Force (1997)

Total Force (1997)-Zero Stars

Directed By: Steven Kaman (AKA: Sven Nuvo)

Starring: Timothy Bottoms, Frank Stallone, Oleg Taktarov, Richard Lynch and a special appearance by Robert Z'Dar













Total Force is a total mess.

The plot, if you can even call it such a thing, involves Dr. Edmund Wellington (Lynch) who has a super hi-tech Military weapon. Drake (Bottoms) is a tough soldier who only wants to drink beer and watch football, when he is not kicking and punching dudes. Frank Stallone joins the fray as Jack O'Hara, the swarthiest Irish gangster ever. O'Hara has his own reasons for pursuing Drake and it all comes to a head at a marina.

Confusing, baffling, amateurish, incoherent, disjointed, irritating, and unexplainable are the nicest things we can say about this cinematic sludge that came directly from the sewer and into your VCR. Even the unannounced and sadly too brief appearance from the great Robert Z'Dar (as "Test Subject", doing his best "Incredible Hulk" impression) can't save this dreck.

Timothy Bottoms, a dead ringer for George W. Bush, so much so that he was cast as the former prez in the TV Movie D.C. 9\11: Time Of Crisis (2003) AND in the short-lived sitcom "That's My Bush!" phones in his performance as Drake...but then again, wouldn't you? Frank Stallone should stick to his music career if he is going to appear in roles like this.

Of course this is a movie that would be directed by a Sven Nuvo. You got to admit, it’s a great cast, but they are under the shoddy direction of Nuvo, they are under-utilized.

Most people couldn't sit through the whole thing. Total Force is an insult to moviemaking.

Amazingly enough, there is a sequel!: "Absolute Force". I guess the story wasn't complete...and it may never be.


Totally force yourself to watch this tonight!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty & Brett