Mudwig is a twit Pound Shop Movie Reviews

Thanks to the miracles of modern design, Matt LeBlanc is on the cover twice.

Eddie Izzard, how do you choose film scripts? While I may never know the answer to that question, I am willing to guess it’s not by reading them. From The Avengers to Circle, Ed can’t get enough of being… but Eddie Izzard was pretty good. In All The Queen’s Men he doesn’t even achieve that, but it should have been so right! Men in dresses, WWII era cabaret, Nazis, it’s got it all and Eddie should have fit right in.

However, it all goes wrong, and it does so from the very begining with a voice over that could induce cringes right through the armour on a shiny new Sherman. Immediately afterwards we’re treated to Matt LeBlanc, as the last-name-only-agent O’Rourke, engaging in a daring (for some definition of the word daring) escape from a German base, complete with an Enigma machine. This includes a tank chase, one of those rare cinematic entites that would take an exceptional amount of skill to make unenjoyable (though it’s no GoldenEye). This cannot last, of course, and we are rapidly brought into the movie proper after enjoying the sight of an incompetent British office destroying the Enigma.

One of the interesting artistic choices that the opening indicates, and is repeated throughout the movie, is the lack of subtitles on the sections conducted in german. O’Rourke doesn’t actually speak german (because, you know, he’s a hero) to be fair, but usually in these kind of situations the german speaking sections are quite brief. This is not so in All The Queen’s Men.

Anyway, we quickly reach the movie proper, where, obviously, O’Rourke is asked to go back to germany and get another Enigma machine. To aid him a crack team is put together, consisting of Temporary Major Archie, an administrator sent to keep O’Rourke in line, and played by the vastly over qualified James Cosmo, Johnno, a young (and shockingly, naive!) codebreaker who speaks 27 languages (including german) played by David Birkin, who was the kid that played the young version of Captain Picard in that one episode that time, and finally Eddie Izzard, playing the cross-dressing, bi-sexual former lieutenant Tony, who also speaks german. The target is the the source; the very factory that builds enigma machines.

So far, so mediocre, but now is the time for the movie’s big punch. Y’see the war machine has sucked the fatherland dry of its chaps, so all the staff at the factory are women. In order to blend in O’Rourke and his team are going to have to go disguised as women. Comedy uranium. Once the undercover pongos parachute in to Germany, they quickly realise the factory was a fake, but decide to meet up with their local contact and try and find a way out. Their local contact turns out to be one of the best bits of the film, the very lovely love-interest Nicolette Krebitz as Romy, a librarian and allied agent who keeps copies of all the banned books in her loft.

Of course, the forward thinking appeal of ATQM would not be complete without a love interest for Eddie Izzard’s Tony as well. It seem that Tony’s ex-wife, Paloma, is in the country performing a little opera to uninterested german troops, which means that her driver, Tony’s lover and the cause of his seperation from Paloma, is there too. Franz, played by german action Oliver Korittke, is a fairly inconsequential character, though well performed, who mostly sustains interest though a rather spiffing punch that at various times gets applied to most of the cast.

At least one of the four writers must have had a real dedication to the soldierly arts of the screenplay though, as All The Queen’s Men comes with a full clip of clich?s, from the secret agent who always works alone to the pompus commander, all drawn from the great hollywood clip-art character file. The jokes don’t fair much better, with some quality drag classics finding their way in, such as during O’Rourke’s encounter with the marvelous, though only in the film for two scenes, Udo Kier, as General Landssdorf.

Udo can’t hold a candle to Matt. BOOM BOOM.

Having received an invitation to one of the General’s famously wild parties, Matt LeBlanc, disguised with the finest plaster board make up and wig, and Romy ditch their (well, Romy’s) dates and make their way over to the General. Landssdorf turns round and is presented with a very attractive woman and Matt LeBlanc in a dress. I wonder who in the class can guess which one he has the hots for? Of course, Udo spirits O’Rourke upstairs to his boudoir, and decides to show off some naughty pictures from his safe, the one containing the very secrets that Our Heroes require! Matt punches him in the face, and rifles through the papers. When the general wakes up, he looks as if he’s about to call the guards, but instead just asks Matt to hit him again! Ah S&M, what classic japes haven’t you given us.

The movie is not devoid of plus points. The production is very nice, there are some decent locations and a very nice title sequence, but then again this is a movie with a proper star, not your average B fare. There are some amusing moments, especially with Eddie Izzard, such as his remark after Franz describes him as bi-sexual in a thick german accent: “Yes, I’m bee-sexual, I have sex with bees”. The love story between O’Rourke and Romy is actually quite effective, though the one between Franz and Tony feels somewhat flat. At one point, James Cosmo is captured and tortured in front of Romy, in a suprisingly effective scene. Of course, it doesn’t last long, but it’s that hint of the daker side of the film that adds real colour, from the bombed out city much of the film takes place in to the motherless child that latches on to Archie.

Disappointingly though the performances of the two main names, Izzard and LeBlanc, is not really up to par, in a movie that sorely needed a strong lead. Eddie seemed less relaxed in the role than even in Avengers, and that was much more of an embarassment. Matt puts in a Joey standard performance as well, really not seeming to look far beyond the character that he was, at that time, playing every week. In fact, the movie would have probably worked better with more Tony than O’Rourke, with Tony fulfilling the role Johnny Depp dominated Pirates of the Caribbean with. That’s a comparison I wouldn’t have predicted making just after watching this film.

The very ending scene sums things up well though. It’s a weird, static shot of LeBlanc and Krebitz leaning against a door way discussing getting their nasty on with reference to whatever they are staring at. It’s not very funny, and is a decidedly dull shot, but Nicolette looks fantastic in a WWII uniform with a skinny tie, and vague innuendo is Matt’s fort?. All The Queen’s Men is no Kelly’s Heroes; it really doesn’t work at all. Eddie Izzard completists will probably want to give it a viewing, everyone else should probably give it a miss. The DVD on Amazon has a making of feature and it is possible that the one I got from poundland did too, but I certainly didn’t feel like checking.

In many ways, a precursor to Passion of Christ.

There is nothing more irritating when watching a crap movie than suddenly realising that you are actually watching it for the second time, as I recently experienced while enjoying 1990′s Cover-Up. One of the few things that can offset the creeping realisation that you have thrown precious life-minutes into the pit of despair that could otherwise have been used to read the latest musings of the internet’s lively blogging community is the presence of Dolph Lundgren in the film. Big Dolph has had some classy roles in his time, He-Man, The Punisher, GR-13 in Universal Soldier, and a guy who’s scared of milk (though not chocolate milk, so that’s something), and Tarrantino started his career as a production assistant on Lundgren’s fitness video, but this role, as investigative reporter Mike Anderson, is not his finest hour.

Mike, formerly a marine himself, is investigating an attack at a US army base in Israel and getting nowhere fast with base commander Lou Gossett Jr. who plays a character imaginatively called “Lou”. As the title may have given away, something is being Covered Up, and when Mike tries to investigate with the somewhat reluctant help of his best friend Coop (John Finn) and ex-girlfriend, but now Coop’s fiance, Susan (Lisa Berkely) all he finds is Danger and Death (for Coop at least). Mike learns that the attack was just a front, and that a deadly new form of poison gas was actually stolen from the base and that someone is planning to use the gas… TO KILL! Thanks to the opening scene, the audience knew most of that a lot earlier, but we’ll let them pass on that one.

The thing about Cover-Up is that it’s not an action movie, which is certainly what the big D was known for at this point in his career. Unfortunately, it’s not much of a political thriller either, and so the action scenes are relied upon to hold up the movie at several junctures. While the few explosions in the movie are nothing special there is a lone, fairly well put together car chase, and some good one on one combat with an assassin, among others, but outside the inital heist the action, what there is of it, doesn’t really kick in till well in to the movie.

Disappointingly the intrigue part of the movie is a little ropey as well. While Lou Gossett Jr. and female lead Lisa Berkley both put in acceptable performances they don’t get the A for extra effort, and are matched by some equally lack lustre work from Lundgren. Only in the occasional scene, such as a paranoid walk around his hotel room after realising his phone is tapped do you really see he has a level of acting ability greater than the average action star. Even the shower sex scene, which had the potential to be a steamy chunk of cinema is more steamy in the water vapour sense than revealing.

The real gems of moviemaking in this picture are the requisite ending twists. The first is in character, and works pretty well, while the second or “unnecessary” twist makes the effort to truly annoy the audience. This is probably not helped by the weird run through Jerusalem that a wounded Mike makes, mixing the religous imagery surround him with the ending of the movie in a way that undermines whatever effectiveness the location may have provided. The whole ending sequence is one of the best shot parts of the movie, but also one of the most fractured from the rest of the film, in terms of feel. It draws the film to a close effectively, and with a visual flair, but not satisfyingly. To be fair, the film does deserve some credit for the use of the locations, which do give the movie a distinct Israeli feel that must have taken some effort on the budget, and the location is related, if not integral, to the plot, rather than an attempt at an atomospheric add-on.

Many of the problems with the film are abetted by the sheer mountains of clich? that fill the movie. The villian’s generic monologuing, to borrow a term from The Incredibles, to a captured and disarmed Mike and Lou tops the list, but there is plenty of generic fodder crammed in. The script does have some originality between the formulaic scenes, but it is sometimes hard to tell that the movie was written by people and not some kind of script generation program for the BBC Micro. Director Manny Coto doesn’t help matters particularly with a lethargic style of direction, and no apparent interaction with his actors, which is a suprise given his work in horror movies up until then, a genre where pace is particularly critical.

This isn’t to imply that the film is without entertainment value, Lou and Mike banter back and forth with an easy chemistry that showed up first in The Punisher, and their scenes are generally entertaining. The action is quite focused when it occurs, and in general the film seems like one tough editor away from being a decent channel 5 saturday night film.

In the end, unlike one of Dolph’s later thrillers, Silent Trigger, Cover-Up doesn’t even give us a ludicrously huge gun to provide amusement through the more tepid sections of the film. This is probably the better movie of the two but there are many other options in the genre that aren’t so reliant on clich?, and are directed with more flair and pace. Still, the package is fairly slickly put together, and as a late night watch Cover-Up might just suffice to provide a gentle lead in to a sound nights sleep. Worth a watch at least once for Ludgren fans, everyone else will probably want to pass.

Why I keep putting these Amazon links up I don’t know, but I just would hate for someone to suddenly realise they needed to see Cover Up and by unable to.

Mickey Rourke in smoking shock.

Inspired by Unknown Movies’ comments at the start of the recent Local Boys review, I feel I should attempt to bring some balance to these pages by talking about a pound shop movie that you might actually want to watch instead of, say, a Simpsons episode that you’ve only seen twice. While Shades might not be perfect, it is significantly better than most of the crop, and anyway, how many Belgian movies have you watched recently?

The plot revolves around the making of a movie in Belgium, by a Belgian producer, but in English, with an American director and star, played by Mickey Rourke and Andrew Howard respectively. The movie they are making is also called Shades, and focuses around the actions, and memoirs, of serial killer Freddy Lebecq, who habitually wore sunglasses and is still alive in prison. Of course the shoot is plagued with problems: the star, Dylan Cole (Howard), goes increasingly off the rails as the film progresses, identifying more and more with Lebecq and attracts a lot of bad press because of it, the money pulls out, the families of the victims are protesting, and the director starts receiving death threats. On top of this the lead actress is an ambitious young woman who also happens to be the producer’s girlfriend, and a documentary is being made on the film by a noted TV critic.

Mickey Rourke plays a superb almost-parody of himself as director Paul Sullivan, and Andrew Howard’s tempremental star is just on the right side of believable, but the local talent of Jan Decleir as Lebecq, and to a lesser degree Gene Bervoets as the producer who will do just about anything to get the film finished, Max Vogel, steal the show. Vogel’s single minded determination is suprisingly endearing, despite his near constant attempts to manipulate everyone around him and Lebecq’s ambivalance over having his story told, his potential upcoming parole and his understated but evident sickness is equally compelling.

Story wise it’s immediately clear that we’re in the kind of territory plumbed by The Player or Swimming With Sharks, among others. The setting makes a world of difference though, with the attentions of the media and the nature of the process being quite different to the Hollywood variant that is most often presented. That said, the film is presented in a Hollywood style, which does disguise quite how influenced this film is by its home country. Lebecq is modelled on real life serial killer Freddy Horion, and I wouldn’t be suprised if the film contains some recognisable characters for those in the Belgian film industry. The picture painted is a dark one, but the fundamental message of an industry full of Machiavellian characters will not be a revelation for most; it’s almost the standard view of the industry for the more cynical cinemagoer.

Still, films about film are strange territory. Yes, there is certainly room for the kind of clever, satirical writing which pops up in Shades from time to time, but there’s also a danger of using the opportunity to riff on, or slate, people in the industry while forgetting about the audience, a trap that Shades seems sometimes to be teetering on the edge of. It’s good for writers to write what they know, but as John August said: “If screenwriters only wrote about subjects they knew intimately, most screenplays would be about Tetris, television or getting picked last for team sports”.

It’s clear that the producers of Shades wanted a mainstream sheen to the film, as much to reflect on the project the film centered around as for commercial reasons, and Danny Hiele certainly did a good job as DP. Add to that some excellent music by one of my favourite bands, Hooverphonic, and the package works very well . In the end, as commercial reasons go the film didn’t justify them, with a quite significant amount of hype in Belgium evidently causing somewhat of a backlash on its release. This is not to imply that the film is without issues. It tapers out towards the end, with a few fairly contrived and forced scenes that may leave viewers cold. The direction is slightly clumsy, and at times the film can feel a little heavy handed with regards to it’s fairly well trod subject matter. The pacing can also get bogged down, which doesn’t quite gel with the US feel, but that is a fairly minor complaint.

Overall, this is an intelligent, darkly humourous slice of film, and is worth a watch. Given a decent DVD release, and perhaps a new edit, I get the feeling that Shades could have had some kind a second chance. As it is the budget market is the only place you’ll find it for the time being, but it is definitely the kind of discovery that makes it worth digging.

* Again, for the pound shop deprived, someone on Amazon seems to be selling it for 79p on the marketplace.

Cynthia Rothrock has a license to blonde.

According to the font of movie trivia that is the IMDB this film was known in the USA as Blonde Justice, which is a far superior title on the grounds that “Sworn To Justice” means not a lot, and that the concept of Blonde Justice is generally amusing. The blonde in question is of course the legendary Cynthia Rothrock, 5′ 3″ of high kicking action wonderfulness, but in this film she’s not just a martial artist she’s also… psychic. A psychic psychiatrist specialist witness, to be precise, called Janna, who goes on a restrained rampage of reasonable revenge after her family are killed by Criminals.

Being the family member of a martial arts star seems about as sensible as being Bond’s girlfriend. In this case Janna’s sister and niece were housesitting for her when they were killed in a robbery – the villians having assumed the house would be empty. Why, exactly, they were robbing the place was a little beyond me, but the punch bags were probably worth something. Janna is haunted by their deaths, not helped by the fact that she sees the events replay in her mind whenever she touches a small amulet her sister was holding during the deed. Determined not to let herself by overwhelmed she goes back to work, but now her abilities seem to be manifesting themselves everywhere. As she sees crimes occuring she steps to stop them, while at the same time searching for the villians that did in her sister, who have not been idle themselves. It seems they all fall under the purview of a recently released gang boss who is taking over with the help of an anonymous Official. During one shakedown at a chop shop, the boss uses the persuasive technique of the heated nail clipper under the nail, which showed flair and innovation in the field of inducing cringes from the viewer. Suppported by the man known only as The Man, they find that the only thing that stands in their way is an unknown vigilante. And her heels.

The cast is nothing special in the main, with some of the most recognisable figures turning up in almost cameo roles. Walter Koenig brings his experience as B5′s amoral psychic Bester to bear, and sports a ridiculous accent, as a psychology professor investigating psychic phenomemon that Janna consults about her burgeoning abilities. Still on the trek tip Voyager’s Brad Dourif has plenty of experience playing nutters (starting with Billy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest of course) and pops up in court putting in a top notch performance as a defendant whom Janna is providing expert testimony for, but who was also involved with the gang that killed her sister and niece. Of course, this is a martial arts movie, so we’re going to need a few asians, and the go to guy is clearly the voice of Aku himself, the mighty Mako, as a wise, blind, news-stand owner.

On the subject of martial arts, it would seem appropriate to mention that the fight scenes are pretty durn good. The movie ranges in tone, on the lighter side is a brilliantly comical bit of vigilantism in the storeroom of a shop against some hoods who are attempting to rob it, which features sarcastic and quite random comments from the clerk (“oh, I remember the combination now!”), cheesy latino music, and a beautitful bit of duct tape imprisonment to put Jet Li’s Romeo Must Die plastic tie scene to shame. On the other end of the scale Janna’s fight against her sister’s killer is short, violent, and fatal. It’s so different it could be from another movie. Even during the relationship between lawyer/tai-chi boyfriend Nick their inevitable bout of sparring is played with a light touch by both actors, leading to a remarkably good scene that feels like nothing else in the movie.

That said, whichever angle the film approaches the fight scenes from they work well. Outside of her Hong Kong movies Sworn To Justice features some of Rothrock’s best scenes, martial arts wise. The problem is that there are simply not enough of them. The film drifts by on a sea of melodrama, not entirely helped by soap opera like plot twists, and soap opera level acting by some of the cast. It features two sex scenes, both of which were pretty good, and fairly revealing, but neither of which was really necessary, and mostly served to bog down the already slow story. Janna’s psychometric abilities were entertaining, and could have formed a core part of the plot, but really served as little more than a vehicle for getting her to the crimes, which could have been done by more conventional means. This is the kind of film that it is easier to be kind to in hind sight than at the time, as the bland sections are simply not worth remembering, so you don’t. This doesn’t mean the dramatic sections are all bad, Brad Dourif’s scene in which his character is interrogated by Janna is fantastic, and one of Rothrock’s finest performances, but this is the exception, rather than the rule.

Sworn To Justice is a hard film to recommend. Rothrock fans should watch it for sure, but then again Rothrock fans already will have. Fans of martial arts movies, especially those of the American direct-to-video/Chuck Norris vein should get a kick out of it, and it’s better than your average B. Edit out the cruft though and you have the core of a really good quality action movie, and that’s probably what makes it an overall disappointment. Through the movie Cynthia’s skirts get shorter and shorter, until the sex scenes appear and they come right off. But it’s the long one at the end that she looks best in, and if the producers had realised that, they might have made a better movie.

*Amazon have it, but it looks like no particular improvement over the pound store version, for an extra five quid. If you can find the 2 films on one disc version, the flip side is Gen Y Cops, an extremely silly but extremely entertaining movie that makes the package more than worthwhile.

You can tell this is an old poster as the big names on the front are actually the leads.

Most of the movies that find their way onto these pages are of the action variety, partially because of the fact that there exists a market for direct to video action movies, and partially because action movies can often skate by on a particularly thin veneer of acting ability. To kick off 2005, we have 1992′s Spotswood, or The Efficiency Expert in the US, an Australian comedy that follows in the Aussie tradition of telling solid stories and producing entertaining, clever films with great attention to detail.

Thankfully, given the nature of the movie, there are some decent actors in the mix. First and foremost is Sir Tony Hopkins as efficiency consultant Errol Wallace. The next most-likely-to-be-credited is Russell Crowe, but this is one of Russell’s earlier movies and his part is a fairly small one. Other Aussies fill up the majority of the roles, of course, including Toni Collette, who debuted in Spotswood, Ben Mendelsohn as the engagingly awkward Carey, Bruno Lawrence, Alwyn Kurts and a whole host of notable australian stand bys. The film was directed by Mark Joffe, who most recently helmed Billy Connolly’s The Man Who Sued God.

Spotswood is a good, if not spectacular movie. It’s not a great film, I suspect it will make very few people’s favourite movie lists, but there is nothing massively wrong with it, which is a distinct achievement. It is a comedy, primarily, but with enough drama to satisfy someone who’s not particularly interested in a chuckle. It takes it’s time to let the characterisations mature, but does so with a reasonable feeling of pace, and it’s a local movie, but one with international appeal. You don’t have to be from Australia to appreciate this movie, you just have to be from somewhere that has experienced modernisation, and that’s pretty much everywhere.

The conflict in Spotswood is the modern versus the traditional, with the representation of each being a mantle that is shifted between several characters throughout the run of the movie. The film is set in the early sixties, and Anthony Hopkins and John Walton are business consultants in the final stages of streamlining, via the sacking of several hundred workers, the running of an Australian factory as part of a condition of sale to an American company, with part of the proceeds of the sale as an incentive. They are hired to consult on a small moccasin making business by the owner, Mr Ball, which Errol Wallace attends to, leaving his partner to finish up. Despite Ball’s assertions, Wallace (Hopkins) soon discovers that the business is surviving only by selling off chunks of property around the factory. His efforts to modernise the production process meshes poorly with the relaxed, eccentric methods and expectations that the workers have developed, apart from with the bratty and ambitious executive Kim Barry (Crowe). In contrast to the factory being sold to the Americans the workers do not respond militantly to the changes, doing their best to make Wallace welcome. While all this is going on, young second generation factory worker Carey (Ben Mendelsohn) attempts to use his new position as Wallace’s temporary assistant to woo the boss’s daughter, Cheryl, who is far more interested in Kim, while being completely oblivious to his friend Wendy’s feelings for him. As the staff start to feel this pinch of Wallace’s changes they see the Carey as an implicit part of this, and of the break up of the extended family that the workers had formed.

One of the strengths of the film is the singular feel it creates. The browns and yellows of the set design and lighting, the 60′s wardrobe, hair and makeup, and the writing all create a fantastic image of the world of Mr Ball’s shoe factory, and its conflict with the cold environment of Wallace’s home and his relationships with his wife, and consultant partner Jerry Finn. The two threads of the story line, following Carey and Wallace respectively, weave in and out smoothly, both struggling with the same central message of change, but change for the better. The main problem with the plot is the predictability. There is little chance of anything in this movie suprising you, which dampens the pace, nullifies any possibility of suspense, and hurts the tension between the key elements.

Overall, other than a superb slotcar racing scene, the memorable moments in Spotswood are all character driven. Hopkins’ performance is mannered, subtle, and everything you’d expect from an actor of his stature, but what is perhaps more suprising is the depth of quality in the cast, as there is hardly a badly delivered line or misplaced gesture to be seen. Spotswood is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, it’s probably a little too gentle in it’s humour for some, and a little too contrived for others, but I think it’s at least worth a watch. I’m fairly sure that you can get this one on a two-films-on-one-disk with Wet Hot American Summer, which is an absolute steal. Of course, if you can’t find it it is on Amazon for slightly more.

Actually only features a single raging angel.

I really hope that this movie was paid for by a church somewhere, Ed Wood style. At least in that case you could say that some sort of misguided sense of evangelism was behind it, and write it off as The Passion Of Moloch, but I suspect it was simply a misguided sense of film making that wrought this particular Heavy Metal parable.

Young Indiana and Boondock Saint Sean Patrick Flanery stars as Chris, our angsty rock hero. Chris’ girlfriend, Lila, is played by Monet Mazur, as seen recently in Ice Cube-em-up Torque. The other “name” in the movie is oscar nominee Diane Ladd, playing the preacher/faith healer, and of the cast she is the only one to give the appearance of really putting in any effort at all, turning in a fair performance in the face of distinct mediocrity. Behind the scenes, the director is a mystery, as he Alan Smithee’d himself before the film’s release, perhaps after the studio butchered his creative vision, or perhaps after someone with creative vision butchered him. One interesting credit is Chako van Leeuwen, who also worked on class James Cameron flying fish of doom picture, Piranaha II.

The villians of the piece (outside of the devil, of course) are a group known as the Coalition For World Unity. Through the powers of possibly the least charismatic man on the planet, rock legend Colin Grammercy (though I only realised he was a rock legend about two thirds of the way into the film) the Coalition is converting The Youth with the power of Heavy Metal. Evil Heavy Metal.

The coalition envisions peace through a one world government, and they’re willing to kill to get it. However, unlike regular conspiracies, their killings are carried out by Demons. Or a Demon, to be precise, called Moloch. On the side of the forces of good is Chris, who gets kicked out of his band for being drunk, and if his later performances are any indication, for being crap. His girlfriend is also musical, and when her day job as a waitress is ended in a hail of drive by bullets, she decides to audition for the job of a backup singer with the dastardly Grammercy. Chris’ Grandma dies, pushing Chris back to drink, and causing Lila to leave him. Of course, Chris tries and fails to get her back, eventually partnering up with Diane Ladd’s feisty southern preacher Sister Kate to get his girl back from the CWU, and save the world for Jesus, and for Rock.

Outside of this outline there are several elements of the plot that serve little purpose apart from annoying and irritating the viewer. The most cardinal of these sins is committed by Shelley Winters, as Grandma Ruth. Anytime you see anyone credited as Grandma anything it’s a warning sign, but in this case blazing klaxons and flashing neon signs could not prepare you for the amount of annoying that this woman can bring to bear. See, Grandma Ruth has visions, visions of doom for those around her. After Chris ignores a portentious vision she had concerning Lila, she goes to Sister Kate for help, hence introducing her to the picture. Why she goes to see her is fairly unclear since Sister Kate is a faith healer, and Lila was in a rock band, which is not one of the traditional complaints. In fact, why Grandma Ruth does anything is fairly unclear. I suspect that at some point during the rehearsals (if there were any) someone used the word “doddering” with regards to this part, and it was clearly taken to heart. Winters takes doddering to a whole new level, including a scene where you discover she owns a gun, which adds a dangerous edge to the dodder, until finally, during one of the film’s high points, she falls down the stairs and dies, after croaking out her Final Thought. She was, as one may expect, killed by a demon. Since she was approximately as threatening to the Coalition as a boiled turnip, I suspect Moloch simply got the wrong address.

Looking at the rest of the film, it would be easy to make the assumption that it was created in the heady days of the 1980s, when most of the music was at least vaguely current. In fact it hails from 1995, and as such utilises the powers of space age computing machines to render the demonic effects. Unfortunately, the space age computing machines seem to have had coffee spilt down them as the effects are somewhat less than the horrifying hell beasts that one would hope for. Demon heads wobble about, swoop through cars, and do some poorly superimposed crawling around on the ceiling, and a distinctly lo-fi crackle of blue lightening regularly pops up as a signal of Evil Forces At Work, especially effective when it is shot from the end of a sword up to distances of literally inches. Unfortunately the analog special effects aren’t much better. Apart from some quality pushing-through-a-rubber-wall type bits, the film features a deadly fridge skidding across the room, a light-the-paper and stand well back car explosion, and some fantastic outfits. Outside of the metal bands who presumably brought their own wardrobe, Moloch is a masterpiece of visiting the local fancy dress shop for a mask and having the props department knock up some high quality bat wings. While he gets to dominate the proceedings, costume wise, near the end of the movie we are treated to a bronzed, blonde, coiffured and backlit Angel who sports a look somewhere between a professional wrestler and an extra from a porn version of Gladiator.

Of course, we can’t forget that outside of the demonic elements this is a movie about music, or more specifically about the glam-er side of heavy metal. From the wails of Chris’ former bandmates during the opening to Stryper’s stirring lyrca wearing hit over the end credits, this film is more rock than Tommy Vance in a quarry. The Coalition For World Unity’s big event near the end of the film features a fairly decent performance by such a band, before Colin Grammercy takes the stage for some sub Billy Idol rockin’, which is far less popular with the formerly enthusiastic extras in the crowd than the previous act. The good guys fare no better, having left their heavy metal past behind Chris and Lila are seen recording a new wave/goth-y kind of track at the end, which was sure to set the charts alight in Finland.

Overall, Ladd puts in a decent performance, Miss Mazuro is extremely fetching, and there are several moments when you don’t want a rock to fall on Sean Patrick Flanery, but they just can’t make up for the unpolished drek that is the rest of the movie. The credits indicate that this film is dedicated to the memory of some poor individual, presumably as a form of post-mortem final insult. There are worse things to do with your time than watching Raging Angels, but unfortunately almost all of them involved making Raging Angels.

The one review of Raging Angels on Amazon is very positive, so this film is presumably selling somewhere. Maybe they’ll make a sequel.

This movie is not, in any way, cyberpunk.

Shadow Run a crime thriller without much in the way of thrills, or a gangster movie without much in the way of characters. Michael Caine plays Haskell, a suav? but amoral criminal who has been hired by the aristocratic Landon-Higgins, played by James Fox, to steal some specially made paper. The paper is used for printing money, and is the key element in making undetectable forgeries. Of course, the security is rather tight, with the weakest point being an armoured van that follows a computer controlled route from the factory. The van is still no easy pickin’s, and Haskell’s initial attempt fails, leaving blood pouring from the van, but no way in to get at the ?100 million worth of paper inside. This is where we come in.

To be precise, this is not where we come in. We come in with a fat kid. Now, I have nothing against fat people, or kids, or even fat kids, but the sight of a large-and-in-charge pasty skinned 13 year old huffing his way across the country side in his PE kit and NHS glasses is just not the way to open a movie. I simply could not imagine, say, a Bond film opening with a pumping David Arnold theme over elegant visual effects involving guns and curvaceous ladies being overshadowed by the cinematic value of a puffed out salad dodger. The name of the jogging giant is Joffrey, and he’s played by a young actor called Matthew Pochin who did not manage to spin his performance in Shadow Run into a career, so far at least.

Joffery happens upon Haskell just after the failed attempt on the money van. To keep him quiet, Haskell gives him fifty quid and tells him to keep his mouth shut, presumably because he was a little tired and couldn’t be bothered to hide, or move, the body. Joffery immediately goes back to his public school and tells any and everyone he can find about the incident. Luckily for Haskell it seems that Joffery is as fond of telling porkie pies as he is of eating them, and is believed by no one. Through out the rest of the movie the kid pops up occasionally in a fairly unnecessary way, but most of his screen time is based around a sub plot, if it can be called that, about his fairly unhappy life. See, Joffery’s father was a criminal of some kind, and he is picked on by the rich kids at his school, partially because of that, partially because he is fat, and partially because he can sing better than them, as they are all choirboys. At this point, everyone with some level of higher mental function has given up on caring, but we still get to experience the boy’s highs and lows as he journeys through life, surrounded by his equalling annoying child co-stars. Moving on…

Back at the ranch, Haskell’s plate is full. Landon-Higgins doesn’t exactly trust him, and the feeling is mutual, he’s had to kill an old friend for something or other, and he still doesn’t have a way in to the van. Various people proceed to pop up in the plot, first TV’s Rae Barker as Julie, a hooker that serves to be an attractive female with some lines. Next, the ever so experienced Ken Colley appears as a driver for the paper plant who has been retired off due to health complications, named Larcombe. With a bit of fiscal persuasion and a night with Julie, Larcombe spills the beans on the van’s systems. It seems that the computer that controls the van’s route, and sets off the alarm bells if anyone tries to rob it, communicates with HQ via the mobile phone network, and it just so happens that theres a large patch of no signal very close to its route. So close, in fact, that on occasion road closures have forced the van to go straight through it. This area is known to the drivers as “The Shadow”, and hence their trip through it “The Shadow Run”. Haskell seizes the opportunity, and quickly assembles a gang. The gang mostly consists of some people that don’t have any lines and craggy faced villian Leslie “Dirty Den” Grantham, playing Liney. Together they plan, and execute, a predictably violent heist and pretty much everyone dies. Apart from the fat kid.

This film is quite disappointing for a number of reasons. It lacks pace, but in a way that still involves a lot of things happening. The problem is that the vast majority of those things simply don’t matter, especially the entire Joffery storyline, and they just bog the movie down. Still, that could have been excused if there was a quality to the writing that made it worth taking your time, but it simply isn’t there. Caine, Grantham, Colley and Fox all put in good performances, but it’s just throwing rocks against a tide of torpid boredom. Haskell, particularly, is a massive missed opportunity. Michael Caine can play a gangster, we’ve seen it numerous times, and that experience is evident is his performance, but the shallow, violent nature of the character just doesn’t gel with it. How such a man would still be operating acting as he does is hard to imagine, and it is impossible to integrate his actions throughout the movie into a believable whole.

Possibly even more disappointing is the treatment of the core plot elements. The heist itself should have been a good one, a decent target, an interesting solution, and the kind of value that causes a lot of fractious thoughts on the part of the individual thieves. The relationships between the characters had some value too, primarily that between Julie, the hooker, and Haskell. There was a sense of understanding between the two characters that was wasted in service of the film’s tone. Finally, the tension between Haskell and Landon-Higgins, while not exactly an original bit of writing, had the potential for some great screentime with James Fox and Michael Caine sparking off each other, but Fox was hardly in the movie and so apart from some brief scenes it just didn’t happen.

If you want to watch a British gangster movie in this mould then try Get Carter, The Long Good Friday, or one of a hundred others. Shadow Run doesn’t have the laughably bad special effects or true incompetence that could make it enjoyable in an MST3K kind of way; it is simply leaden, heavy handed, tat.

If you’re insane, or an excessively dedicated Michael Caine fan, the movie is on Amazon, as well as at the finer pound shops.

If this cover was accurate it would contain more Hawaiian shirts.

Christopher Walken is in this movie. So is Michael Ironside. Its release caused the Simpsons to use Rainier Wolfcastle instead of McBain for a couple of seasons. It has possibly the most ludicrous plane to plane combat scene in cinema history. This movie should be taught in schools.

It starts, as most things do, in ‘Nam. Christopher Walken is a POW, and is being forced to fight in some form of home made Tina Turner-less thunderdome. Just in the nick of time a passing chopper-full of troops, having just been told the war is over, decide to quickly assault the POW camp. McBain wants to say “thanks” to his rescuers, but instead a man by the name of Santos hands him half a hundred dollar bill, as part of a Pact Of Honour. If McBain receives the other half, he’ll know he has to come and help Santos move, or feed his cats while he’s on holiday.

Years later, McBain is mostly into welding, while over in Colombia Santos and his rag tag rebel band are trying to stage a coup against the corrupt government that is being run by German drug dealers named Hans (all german drug dealers are named Hans). Santos’ rebellion does not succeed, and he is executed. His distraught girlfriend takes the only option she has left, and goes to America to find a iron worker. Moved by her story, and his debt, McBain then proceeds to round up his former unit, purchase some hardware, and take over the entire country.

What makes this film a classic is not the quality of the film making. The direction is rubbish, and cuts between many, many things you care not a jot about. Neither is it the quality of the plot, as it makes the average first person shooter game look like a masterpiece of shakespearean proportions. No, what makes this film a classic is the genius of scenes that it sets up. My top five from the movie follow, I wouldn’t worry about spoiling them since I do not think mere words can truly convey there majesty.

5. Christopher Walken IS Mossad: McBain borrows $10 million off a new york gangster by hanging him of a roof and pretending to be an isreali agent. Walken gives the distinct, unshakable impression of being completely unhinged, which to be fair is probably an accurate reading. The scene finishes with a quick 1-2 of comedy gold; McBain tells the gangster that his brother in law is ripping him off, which the gangster is all too ready to believe. As they’re leaving, one of the McBain Posse asks hims how he knew. He replies “Everyone’s brother in law is ripping them off”. Zing.

4. The Flashback: About fifteen minutes into the film it quickly flashes back to McBain’s rescue in Vietnam, in case you were asleep, got in late, or were in the gents shooting up. The editor had no faith in his audience.

3. Not all drug dealers are bad: The boys need money, and since they’re going to free a country from the grip of drug barons, where better to get the cash than from the people that push their products? One quick assault and about twenty dead dealers later, McBain and Co. demand some loot from head dealer Luis Guzman. He explains that he only deals to addicts, never kids (Mr. T would approve), and that he is providing minority employment. When they question as to where he got the army jacket he is wearing he replies “The same place as you”. Deciding that Luis is a sound geezer, they decide to hit up the aforementioned local mafioso for ten million instead. OBVIOUSLY.

2. The best doctor in the world, ever: A little girl is dying, hit with a bullet during an exchange of gun fire between the government forces and our heroes. The doc proceeds to take the only chance he has, opening her up in the middle of a field, using a pen knife. He manages to reinflate her lung, fix her flux capacitor or whatever he was doing, and sews her up. Pretty much instantly she smiles, and sits up. Bupa have nothing on this.

1. Air to Air Combat: During their less than stealthy infiltration into SouthAmericanLand, McBain’s plane is spotted by enemy radar, who quickly dispatch two elite pilots in their state of the art drug powered fighter jets. One is dealt with by the patritotic mercenary the guys have brought a long in a jet of their own, but the other quickly demonstrates it’s superiority to McBain’s passenger plane, and pulls up alongside. The pilot gestures, and calls for them to them to land. Faced with a tough situation, McBain pulls out a titchy little pistol and proceeds to shoot the enemy pilot in the head, through the window of McBain’s cockpit, the canopy of the pilot’s, and the pilot’s helmet. This is approximately the second most unexpected thing to ever happen in a movie (the first of course being Ralph Fiennes eating the painting in Red Dragon).

“Pilot: Charlie Seven Zero Four, put the plane down! Do you read me? Charlie Seven Zero Four, put the plane dow… ARRGH!
McBain: We read you loud and clear. “

It’s the little details that cement McBain’s position in the heirarchy of crap movies. For example, while galavanting happily through their generic south american country, McBain and his crew wear… Hawaiian shirts! And stupid hats! The villian is known only (well, mostly) as El President?, which is about as much spanish as is spoken in the entire film. The south american extras are all Filipino’s, most of whom seem to have no idea what on earth they’re supposed to be doing. And, of course, an absolutely phenomenal number of people die, something like 240 accord to reputable sources*. I would seriously suggest no one ever tries to play a “drink every time some dies” type game with this film. It is up there with Commando as a film that trying such a game with is likely to put you in hospital.

This film is now in one of those two films on one disc that Hollywood DVD have been going for recently, and depending on your local pound shop you might be able to pick it up for 50p, which would work out as paying just 25p for McBain. To be honest though, I think this film is actually worth paying the full pound for, and I’m sure the people over on the McBain’s House Of War forum agree.

* See McBain’s House Of War
** McBain [1991] is on Amazon if you are pound shop deprived.