Detonator (2003)

Detonator (2003)- * *1\2

Directed by: Jonathan Freedman

Starring: Randall Batinkoff, Elizabeth Berkley, Stan Shaw, Gregory Scott Cummins, Will Stewart, and Bokeem Woodbine

Beau Stoddard (Batinkoff) is a Postal Inspector on the Edge, or PIOTE. A former FBI agent, he now has to work with his ex-co-workers Robert Brickland (Shaw), Jack Forrester (Woodbine), and Jane Dreyer (Berkley) to find a mad bomber (if I may reference the great Chuck Connors film) who has been blowing people up all over the L.A. area. Most people don’t seem to approve of Stoddard’s bad attitude and unorthodox ways, but he gets results that they can’t deny (these days, we pretty much just cut and paste that sentence from our old reviews, with a new name filled in). Will Stoddard find the mad bomber before he explodes again? Will he unravel a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top? Will he do it all before the big hockey match that’s single-handedly supposed to repair U.S.-Russian relations gets blown to kingdom come? Who will press the…DETONATOR?

Detonator is a relatively decent example of what you can do if you’re planning on building a feature film around explosion footage from other movies. You won’t get Blown Away (1994) by it, but the cast makes it work the best they can. Evidently, the filmmakers took the blow-ups from Sudden Death (1995), The Glimmer Man (1996), and End of Days (1999), and, like the way cotton candy wraps around its handle while it is being made, fashioned a movie around said blow-ups. 

Detonator might not have come onto our radar if it wasn’t for the presence of Elizabeth Berkley in one of the main roles. Like with Showgirls (1995), but to a far lesser degree, it seems she’s still working hard to shed her Saved By The Bell image. However, it doesn’t help matters that co-star Batinkoff looks a lot like Zack Morris. Sorry, Mark-Paul Gosselaar. He even has the same devil-may-care attitude to life that Zack had. So, if nothing else, when and if you should decide to watch Detonator, you can make plenty of Saved By The Bell jokes.

We’ve also got on hand Stan Shaw, who seems to be the guy low-budget filmmakers get when they can’t afford Ernie Hudson. This isn’t to denigrate Shaw in any way, as he is a fine actor in his own right, but let’s be realistic here. Bokeem Woodbine has a great voice and does well as Stoddard’s sidekick, and Gregory Scott Cummins has an almost-nothing role and appears primarily as a picture other cast members look at. However, the true standout of the cast has to go to one Will Stewart as Van Wilson, one of Stoddard’s co-workers. He truly steals the show with his Kato Kaelin-like performance*.

While we give the movie credit for making the lead character a postal inspector, which we thought was different – disregarding fellow postal-inspection movies The Inspectors (1998) and its inexplicable sequel The Inspectors 2: A Shred of Evidence (2000) – in the end, the whole thing is really just more early-2000’s shelf filler. Like many movies of this type, it runs out of steam towards the end. What the movie should’ve been was Batinkoff and Berkley shooting a bunch of terrorists. Or, barring that, shooting a bunch of people who commit mail fraud. We’re surprised this wasn’t a pilot for a syndicated show, because that’s what it seems like it is. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing – it could’ve been a good show, but, well, such is life. 

Perhaps the moral of the story is, if you can’t afford your own explosions, maybe make a movie with a different plot? That’s just a suggestion, but, disregarding the fine cast, what we have here really is an exercise in editing. If that interests you, by all means check it out, but others may want to proceed with caution. 

*We’re willing to bet that’s the first time that sentence has been uttered in human history.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett 

Sniper: Legacy (2014)

Sniper: Legacy (2014)- * *1\2

Directed by: Don Michael Paul

Starring: Chad Michael Collins, Mercedes Mason, Dominic Mafham, Dennis Haysbert, and Tom Berenger









Brandon Beckett (Collins) returns, and this time he’s not in Africa, as he was in prior installment Sniper: Reloaded (2011), this time he’s fighting terrorists in the Middle East. Now that sniping is his life, he just wants to carry on killing the baddies, helped along by his spotter, Sanaa (Mason). However, just like the previous film’s “The Italian”, yet another rogue sniper is going around killing people, using his top-notch military training against the people who taught it to him. While a man known only as “The Colonel” (Haysbert) is trying to get answers, especially from military brass such as Bidwell (Mafham), the real surprise comes when Brandon is suddenly reunited with his estranged father, the legendary Thomas Beckett (Berenger). Will father and son snipers join forces to stop the rogue sniper? You’ll just have to look through the scope and find out…

Sniper: Legacy is an improvement upon the aforementioned Sniper: Reloaded. It makes a lot more sense that our heroic snipers are fighting the Taliban and other terrorists, and because of that, the audience is more engaged. The subject matter is a lot more relevant than any goings-on in Africa, especially considering that in 2014, the year this movie came out, the very high profile – not to mention excellent – film American Sniper was also released. Hence, the role of snipers in our military was more front-and-center in our nation’s consciousness than ever before. What with the millions of people worldwide who saw American Sniper, the timing must have seemed right not just to make another Sniper sequel, but to bring back the classic character of Thomas Beckett.

So while the movie gets points for relevance – and letting us know right from the first scene that this is an especially trenchant new iteration in the now-long-running series with a Homeland-esque scenario – Thomas Beckett himself doesn’t show up until 55 minutes into the movie, and even then it’s just a glorified cameo. This despite the top billing of Berenger. Other characters talk about Beckett and his legendary status more than he’s actually seen. Even his own son calls him “Master Guns” and not “dad”. Of course, this is probably purposeful to highlight the distance between father and son.

As for returning younger Beckett Chad Michael Collins (not to be confused with the director, Don Michael Paul, or co-star Mark Lewis Jones), he acquits himself well enough, but he’s still just as bland and faceless as he was before. He’s just an empty ghillie suit. His only character arc consists of him being initially resistant to being a sniper, and now he’s an expert and a master marksman. But even after having seen two movies that he’s starred in, it’s doubtful I could pick his face out of a lineup. This time he’s backed up by some quality co-stars, like Jones, Mafham, Berenger, and Haysbert – who at any moment you think is going to ask us if we’re in good hands with Allstate.

Seemingly every couple minutes we’re in a new location and an on-screen title card is telling us where we now are. This seemed a bit much and as audience members we were practically getting jet lag from all the location changes. Couldn’t they just stick with Bulgaria? Maybe they were embarrassed about that, so they tried to distract us with all the changes. Finally, we have to note that we were not happy with the herky-jerky fight scenes, and the CGI smoke, blood, bullets, etc. It would have been much cooler if they toned down – or got rid of entirely – the CGI. That truly would be honoring the Legacy they claim to respect. 

So while the movie does slow down considerably by the midway point, and Berenger is underused, we still say it is an improvement over the prior entry in the series. If you’re interested in seeing every single Sniper movie, perhaps see this one before seeing Reloaded, unless you want to get the weaker entry out of the way first.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty