Hijack (1998)

Hijack (1998)- * *

Directed by: Worth Keeter

Starring: Jeff Fahey, Brent Huff, Patrick Kilpatrick, Beth Toussaint, Ernie Hudson Jr., Robert Miano, and Ernie Hudson

Eddie Lyman (Fahey) is an ATF agent with a burning desire to take down a domestic terrorist organization called the Firebird Action Network, or FAN. He has so much dedication to his job, in fact, that he goes rogue and gets suspended from the force. When his wife (?) Valerie (Toussaint), a PR flack for Senator Douglas Wilson (Hudson the Elder) is called away to accompany him on a train trip through the outskirts of L.A., trouble follows. FAN baddies David Anderson (Huff) and Carl Howard (Kilpatrick) HIJACK the train and arm it with a nuclear bomb and direct it towards a high-population area so it can blow up and do maximum damage. 

Thankfully, Lyman is also on board the train. Back at HQ, fellow ATF agents John Gathers (Miano) and Frank Jennings (Hudson the Younger) are holding down the fort. Will Lyman keep things on track? Or will the FAN fan the flames of terror? Will you be interested in finding out?

Another day, another train slog. As if Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), Derailed (2002), and Death Train (2003) weren’t enough, along comes Hijack. To be fair, Hijack is better than those latter two entries in the Train Slog canon, but it’s very similar. It will feel familiar to anyone who watches DTV action movies, theatrical action movies, train movies, TV movies, or pretty much anything. It’s a train-slog-by-numbers that doesn’t offer much new to a well-worn subgenre of Die Hard-esque escapades.



The cast is very good, however, and fan favorites like Fahey, Hudson, Miano, Huff, and Kilpatrick do their best to sustain interest, but it’s hard when there’s nothing to work with. It’s a testament to these professionals that they did what they did with the material. 

Fahey is always a quality hero (or villain for that matter) and as Lyman, the jigsaw puzzle-loving ATF agent, he doesn’t snap into action nearly quickly enough. He should have been busting heads sooner than he does. Ernie Hudson is typically terrific as the senator (he wouldn’t get to be President until Stealth Fighter), and here we also get two Hudsons for the price of one, as Ernie Hudson, Jr. is also on board. Huff and Kilpatrick, as the baddies, spout a lot of amusing political dialogue which marginally helps to sustain the viewers’ interest. Toussaint looks a lot like fitness star Jillian Michaels. 

Michaels should have been the heroine in at least one action movie. Maybe that will happen someday. 

In the end, Hijack is not exactly essential viewing…unless you really, really, really like train-set action movies. That’s action movies set on a train. Not a train set like the toys. You know what I mean. Anyway, if you want to see something like Hijack but done much better, check out Militia (2000).

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty 

Death Kiss (2018)

Death Kiss (2018)- * * *

Directed by: Rene Perez

Starring: Robert Bronzi, Eva Hamilton, Richard Tyson, and Daniel Baldwin






A mysterious man known only as K (Bronzi) is cleaning up the streets. While he remains a stranger to everyone he comes into contact with, he looks oddly familiar. Maybe it's the face. Maybe it's the hair or the mustache. But something about him rings a bell. After he blows away the criminal scum that are polluting our streets, he gives money in an envelope to a woman named Ana (Hamilton), so she can help raise her wheelchair-bound daughter. While K tries to give them the money in anonymity, Ana tries to forge a relationship with K. But he's not exactly the chatty type.



Meanwhile, an evil baddie named Tyrell (Tyson) and his goons are on the loose. K faces one of his biggest challenges to date as he goes after them. Throughout all of this, a talk radio host, appropriately named Dan Forthright (Baldwin) electrifies the airwaves as he lays down truism after truism (we would definitely listen to the Dan Forthright show if it was in radio or podcast form). Remember, it's not a Death Wish, it's a DEATH KISS...which is, you know, pretty close.



By now, you may have heard of a man named Robert Kovacs (AKA Robert Bronzi) - a man who looks exactly like Charles Bronson. It must be hard for Bronzi to walk down the street, because if there's anyone out there who didn't know that Bronson passed away, you'd really think it was him. If he wasn't doing movies like Death Kiss, he could make a lot of money on the lookalike circuit. Maybe he could do parties with women who look like Marilyn Monroe and such. Just watching Bronzi walk in the movie is incredibly entertaining. Never mind when he starts shooting the baddies. Now, we always say that low-budget filmmakers get actors that resemble other actors (case in point when Counter Measures needed a Christopher Titus lookalike), but this is ridiculous! Ridiculously fun, that is. 

We applaud everyone involved with Death Kiss for making such a labor of love. Their love for the original Bronson (something we have to say now) and the Death Wish series in particular is evident, and infectious. Stylistically, Death Kiss is comparable to recent "throwback" DTV offerings like the similarly-themed Skin Traffik (2015), or Instant Death (2017). Those were also low-budget tributes to the 70's revenge genre. The bullet hits in Death Kiss are certainly over the top and ridiculous, with cascades of Kool-Aid exploding at every turn, which gives the film a certain comic-booky feel. Hopefully that's what they were going for. It's certainly quite unlike the original Death Wish film in that respect.



It was nice to see Baldwin and Tyson reunited for the first time since the underrated The Pandora Project (1998), although they don't share any scenes together. Tyson's look in the movie is quite different from most of his past work that we've seen, with his long dark hair and dark beard. He must have been proud of the project, as he's listed as an associate producer. This is also one of Baldwin's best roles in years; his very well-delivered monologues are very enjoyable and are the glue that holds Death Kiss together.



One of the biggest assets that Death Kiss has on its side is the wholly cool and highly appropriate synth score by The Darkest Machines (AKA director/writer/cinematographer/editor Perez). This is exactly the sort of score a movie like this should have. We were really happy they went in this direction for the score - an old-school style revenge movie with a man who looks uncannily like Charles Bronson topped off with a synth score is what the world needs now, and thankfully Perez and his cohorts gave it to us.



What's not to love about Death Kiss? We absolutely are looking forward to anything Bronzi does in the future. He very well could be one of the brightest stars of modern-day DTV.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty