Never heard of this movie? Neither had I! But as I mentioned in my review of the Last Stand I was sick recently and spent time watching shit on Netflix while lying in bed.... not that I need the excuse of sickness to do that.
So what the fuck is this movie? Well you probably know who the guy on the left is. Yup Samuel L. Jackson. Wtf is he doing in some direct-to-video throw away flick you've never heard of? He's being an evil Mastermind!
Plot:
As mentioned above, SLJ have taken to being an evil mastermind, more specifically he, and his crew, have decided to abduct guys off the street and force them to fight to the death gladiator style so they can film it, put it on the internet, and make tons of money by having people pay to watch and bet on the fights. Blondie up there on the right is their latest unlucky fuck who gets nabbed in bar while drinking to forget the death of his wife. David lord (blondie) is a fireman but conveniently also an ex-marine so they can sweep the existence his amazing combat skills under the rug. He's force to fight some guy named Ripper and tries not to but has to defend himself when Ripper won't stop attacking. After killing Ripper he attacks a couple of the guards trying to get free and is brought before ringleader Jackson. Jackson offers him a deal; if Lord can win ten fights, he'll let him go. Lord, thankfully, promptly calls him on this bullshit saying there's no way in hell that he would be released. After being forced into a second fight to defend the wife of his new friend/cellmate he accepts Jackson's deal on the condition that his tenth fight is "the executionor" a black hooded fellow who cuts the head's off the losers, that Lord has found a special hatred for.
As I was considering watching this I looked at a handful of the reviews on Netflix and they compared this movie to deadliest warrior, and I do see where they made the connection. Each of the staged fights has a theme and they are to the death. Overall this movie is okay but it's not great. There's nothing it really does wrong it just doesn't do enough for me to really want to recommend it. Despite the obvious draw of the movie being the arena fights, they actually seem to be a minorty in therms of screen time. There's only 5 real fights in the whole movie (Yes Lord does ten of them, but six of his are quickly skipped with little flashes showing him being the winner.) There's one right at the start between ripper and some faceless guy who he kills. There's the fight between Ripper and Lord which last about 3 minutes and isn't particularly enthralling. There's his second fight, which exists more as a story point than a spectacle. There's his ninth fight, which is the best of them, where he fights some massive, convict cueball. And the big finale between Lord and the executioner is literally just a punching match. The pair of them standing in a sand pit punching each other in the face for like ten minutes repeatedly inter cut by scenes of everything else going on at the time.
In addition to the main draw of the film taking a back seat, the sub plot of his wife being killed in a car accident a couple months before he was abducted is totally unnecessary. I would have thought it was meant to make you feel bad for Lord being placed into this position. The thing is this doesn't make sense when the (not terribly shocking but at least unexpected) twist is revealed. I'd rather not spoil it but it makes Lord into much less of a victim in all of this.
All in all this movie isn't terrible I just think it could have worked out better. I've seen a lot of these people forced into a deathmatch style movies and everyone of them always leaves me a little disappointed.... maybe someday I'll find the one that did it right.
6.5 decapitations out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment