Product Description

Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 04/13/1999 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: R

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46587 in DVD
• Brand: Lions Gate
• Released on: 1999-03-09
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Customer Reviews

Worse than death itself!!!
Wow. This movie sucked the big one. But before we get into the gritty details, a quick plot summary. Daniel Berndhart, a washed out bum of an actor, stars as a mildly retarded former fighting champion scouring the strees of America (which look mysteriously Russian) for an escaped prisoner, Shrek. Danny ends up in jail himself as an undercover agent, who then is launched into a plotless chase after a crime syndicate. I couldn't tell you any more if I wanted to, there is no story!
This hunk of sweaty turd ruined two hours of my life. This is honestly the worst movie I have ever seen crawl out of a toilet and onto my TV screen. It is simply horrible.
To begin with, the plot seems to develop naturally for the first ten minutes, until Daniel Berndhart decides to shoot two of his fellow policemen for no apparent reason. Quickly followed by a demented scene involving a riduculous closeup on the face of a chubby courtmaster, I suddenly knew how terribly low budget this Russian horror flick was going to progress.
The director's idea of a special effect was zooming in way to close for comfort on the actors and making nasty noises. For example, after the prison warden speaks with a crime boss, his nervousness is expressed through fogging up the camera lens with his panting gasps. Besides just special effects, the horrendously low budget showed itself through the fact that every scene occured in one building that looked strikingly familiar to the Kremlin. The police station, prision office, and gangster's hideout, all have short clips showing the aforementioned before cutting to the action.
Now to the actors themselves. The only redeeming quality of this cast is the coincendence that one of them looked exactly like Benjamin Franklin (the gangster). However, he had some distinctly un-colonial personality traits, such as his fetish for positioning 20 scantily clad women around his throne, all of whom seemed to serve no purpouse beyond decoration.
Lets move on to the unique wardrobe feautured in the film. Costumes ranged from victorian era dress suits to 1920s striped jail uniforms to industrial era clothing reminiscent of Oliver Twist. As a bonus, the prison guards dressed like members of the Gestappo and travelled in packs to boot. Most suprising of all is the fight uniform of one of the "kumite" (which never really happens) participants, a speedo swim suit.
Before closing, I would like to point out how random and worthless the majority of the scenes were. There are to many to include, but my personal favorite was when two gypsies performed before Ben Franklin for 5 minutes, adding nothing to the plot but more senslessness. This makes "Jaws III" look like a classic. Simply stated, I cant evin express the pain watching this movie put me through, I would rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty grapefruit spoon than watch it again. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!! UGH....

Horrible
This movie is one of the most boring and horrible films I have ever seen, (with the worst being Captain America). The plot revolves around a corrupt prison warden who makes his prisoners fight to the death to feed the sadistic hunger of some wealthy lunatic. While the plot sounds interesting and has the potential to be interesting, the way the movie was carried out is incredibly slow. The fight scenes in the movie are pathetic. In the original Bloodsport, we were treated with action packed, and lengthy fight scenes. In this movie all the fight scenes are extremely short, a minute, two or three, with the exception of the last fight scene (which definitely does not make up for the rest of the movie). In this movie, most of the fights are all to the death, with the fight sequence going something like this: Martial arts punch, kick, roll away, break opponents neck, next fight, repeat. While it is up to you whether you want to rent this movie or not, I would advise you to rent a second movie to fall back on.

Detour to Daniel
Daniel Berhardt saves this connect the dot kung fu wannabe from total disaster. He has the presence and lead to carry off the hero role. Maybe he acts with conviction because the bouncer job was already taken and this was it. Maybe he acts with conviction because those Eastern European payments may devalue before the film is finished. Who knows. But all the other characters are cardboard walk ons waiting for their next commercial or extras scene. One laughable scene is the one with the extras of young girls lying on a staircase. Did they too miss out on the cheerleader tryouts?

The fight scenes are predictable as is the runny ketchup from the wounds. Filmed in some Eastern European country one would expect more accents, but the producers wisely spared no expense to try to give us more Western accents. Yes, they too know the audiance that may watch this minor masterpiece of the superberb mediocre.

Being performance challenged in the action scenes, the director wisely shows us the woman agent in a breathtaking chairlift scene as tourists ski below. Brilliant! I must get that resort name to book my next vacation there. If only James Bond would use the chairlift instead of the helicopter to get to the top of the mountain.

Yes, yes, yes........Daniel! You are too good for this. But still can you really make Matrix 2 a success?