Cult Classics Revisited: U.S. SEALS II (2001)

U.S. SEALS II: THE ULTIMATE FORCE
(US, 2001)

Directed by Isaac Florentine.  Written by Michael Weiss.  Cast: Michael Worth, Damian Chapa, Karen Kim, Marshall Teague, Kate Connor, Sophia Crawford, Andy Cheng, Hakim Alston, Plamen Zahov, Daniel Southworth, George Cheung, Burnell Tucker, Velizar Binev. (R, 95 mins)

...(whoosh)...

Anyone who's seen the deliriously insane U.S. SEALS II knows the significance of that sound.  Like its predecessor a year earlier, U.S. SEALS II went straight to video and only features two minor supporting characters held over from the first film, so knowing the events of U.S. SEALS is utterly unnecessary.  As the audaciously batshit PUNISHER: WAR ZONE was to the disappointing THE PUNISHER, U.S. SEALS II is a different beast altogether, almost completely abandoning the stale, cliched military plot and instead delivering a cartoonishly balls-out martial-arts orgy that exists on no known level of reality.  This complete shift in tone comes courtesy of director Isaac Florentine, an Israeli-born martial-arts expert who got his start as a stunt coordinator and then a director on the MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS TV series.  Over the last decade or so, Florentine has become a major cult figure in the world of straight-to-DVD action films, based largely on U.S. SEALS II, but also BRIDGE OF DRAGONS (1999), and his two sequels to Walter Hill's 2002 film UNDISPUTED:  UNDISPUTED II: LAST MAN STANDING (2006) and UNDISPUTED III: REDEMPTION (2010).  Florentine's films have a kinetic, unique ferocity all their own, and I'm surprised he hasn't yet graduated to A-list fare.  Usually working with the folks at NuImage, it's possible that he enjoys the relative freedom they give him to do what he wants, especially since he wasn't pleased with the outcome of his one recent film done for others (the 2009 Van Damme actioner THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL).  Sure, a lot of U.S. SEALS II is ridiculous and stupid, but it's so incredibly ridiculous and stupid that surely some of it is meant to be comedic.  Or at the very least, winking.

Michael Worth as Lt. Casey Sheppard

A SEAL raid on a terrorist compound--featuring random backflips and bazookas appearing out of nowhere--goes bad when leader Frank Ratliff (Damian Chapa) disobeys orders and kills the man they needed to keep alive.  Stationed in Okinawa, Ratliff senselessly kills Nikki (Karen Kim), the party-girl daughter of the Sensei (George Cheung) of the dojo where he and best friend Lt. Casey Sheppard (Michael Worth) study martial arts.  Disgraced, the Sensei commits seppuku and his other daughter, Nikki's twin Kimiko (also Kim) turns her back on Casey's attempt to get to the bottom of Nikki's murder.  Three years later, a despondent Casey has left military service and is living in peaceful exile when he's called back into action by Major Donner (Marshall Teague) after Ratliff, also out of the service and now a nefarious arms dealer, and some cohorts (including Sophia Crawford as a lethal femme fatale and second-unit director/stunt coordinator Andy Cheng) kidnap rocket scientist Dr. Jane Burrows (Kate Connor) and take her to an island compound where he needs her to launch two nuclear warheads.  That is, unless the US government pays him $1 billion.  Donner and Admiral Patterson (Burnell Tucker) allow Casey to assemble his own lethal team of ragtag miscreants and ne'er-do-wells (and a vengeful Kimiko) to launch a raid on Ratliff's stronghold (where there's some kind of constant methane leak, preventing the use of guns or anything that ignites), rescue Dr. Burrows, prevent global destruction, and hope we don't see the story elements pilfered from DIE HARD and UNDER SIEGE. They're...THE ULTIMATE FORCE!

Karen Kim in action

If it feels like this has a Cannon vibe to it, it's because NuImage is essentially the staff members of Cannon not named Menahem Golan or Yoram Globus.  Led by such Cannon alumni as Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, and John Thompson, who ran Cannon's Italian studio in the early '80s, NuImage emerged as a prolific supplier of often shoddy straight-to-video titles in the wake of Cannon's early '90s implosion.  As time went on, NuImage set up shop in Sofia, Bulgaria, helping pave the way for much US production activity in Eastern Europe that still goes on today.  Later, NuImage vacillated between that name and their "prestige" moniker Millennium Films when they tried to enter the big leagues with major Hollywood figures like Al Pacino (88 MINUTES), Michael Douglas (KING OF CALIFORNIA), and Brian De Palma (THE BLACK DAHLIA) to name just three, but other than their association with Sylvester Stallone (on RAMBO, and the two EXPENDABLES films), they haven't had a lot of success theatrically.  Some good films, to be sure (BROOKLYN'S FINEST, BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, and the barely-released TRUST), but major flops as well (their remake of CONAN THE BARBARIAN bombed).  Despite Lerner & Co.'s attempts to go A-list, it's still video-store perennials like U.S. SEALS II and the SHARK ATTACK films that many people think of when they hear "NuImage."  And U.S. SEALS II (followed the next year by the unrelated, Florentine-less, back-to-basics follow-up U.S. SEALS: DEAD OR ALIVE) has all the hallmarks of vintage NuImage:  the feel of late-period Cannon; cheap sets; most of the over-the-top action taking place in an abandoned Bulgaria factory; ludicrous dialogue ("Just kick some ass!"); terrible dubbing of supporting actors already speaking English in an American production; and really primitive, SyFy-level CGI courtesy of the same Bulgarian VFX team they used throughout most of the decade.

U.S. SEALS II isn't Florentine's best film, but it's probably his most well-known (his two UNDISPUTED sequels are awesome).  It became a word-of-mouth hit among video store employees and bad movie fans with its constant whoosh sound effects whenever someone moves.  I'm not kidding.  Whether someone's aiming a gun, engaged in a martial-arts battle, signaling with their hand, or simply peering around a corner and turning their head, nearly every physical action is accompanied by a whoosh sound.  This fight scene with Kim and Crawford (includes SPOILERS) is a perfect example.  Even flowing hair whooshes. 

(SPOILERS again) But no discussion of U.S. SEALS II would be complete without addressing the unforgettable demise of Chapa's venal, smirking Ratliff.  Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot's Marty McKee has called it one of the top five villain deaths in all of cinema.  That's really not an exaggeration.  The main issue with its presentation is that its ambitions like beyond any budget or VFX capability that NuImage was willing or able to provide.  The CGI is wonky, but as McKee has said, it works based on sheer intent and outrageousness.  The sequence below is part of a larger one, intercut with Kim fighting Crawford and Andy Cheng, but the YouTube user edited it to just focus on Worth and Chapa, which explains why it's choppy.  But the fight choreography and the action are top-notch and often brilliantly inventive in their presentation.  Florentine is one of the best action directors in movies today.  Why isn't he directing THE EXPENDABLES 2?

Yeah!  You just saw that shit!  And did you hear it at the very end?  Go back and listen again. At 4:09 into the clip.  One final, subtle, beautiful...whoosh.

Bravo, Maestro Florentine.  Bravo.

DTV Oblivion: The 50 Cent/Val Kilmer Chronicles

These reviews were originally published in a slightly different form on the Mobius Home Video Forum in August 2009 (STREETS OF BLOOD), January 2011 (GUN) and May 2011 (BLOOD OUT)



STREETS OF BLOOD
(US - 2009)  Directed by Charles Winkler.  Written by Eugene Hess.  Cast: Val Kilmer, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Sharon Stone, Michael Biehn, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Barry Shabaka Henley, Brian Presley.  95 mins.  R.


I knew this was a must-see after Nathan Rabin's blistering F review at the Onion's AV Club. He called it out for engaging in "Katrina-sploitation," which is pretty accurate. It's bad enough that this is a painfully by-the-numbers cop thriller with stars who have seen better days (Val Kilmer, Sharon Stone), a popular rapper who can't act (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) and a once-powerful producer (Irwin Winkler, producer of marginally successful films like ROCKY, RAGING BULL, and GOODFELLAS) engaging in shameless nepotism as his son (Charles Winkler, who also made the Irwin-produced DTV sequel THE NET 2.0) is behind the camera. That's all bad enough, but the fact that this sleaze-wallowing, incoherent, incompetently-filmed, terribly-acted disaster tries to take the high road by pretending to be a socially conscious look at post-Katrina New Orleans is just stomach-turning. Well, it does only pretend as much at the beginning and in the nauseating closing credits, where Ry Cooder-esque music plays over shots of still-devastated areas. I don't get offended by films very often, so congrats Charles Winkler. Your film offended me.

I'm not entirely sure what the plot involves--Kilmer leads a band of rogue cops in the months following Hurricane Katrina. They're maybe being set up by a pissed-off FBI agent (Michael Biehn delivers the only actual performance) who may or may not be a bad guy. The perpetually mushmouthed, stunningly uncharismatic 50 Cent plays Kilmer's new partner. Character actions make no sense, there's not really any plot to speak of, and Stone turns in the worst performance of her career as a police shrink straight out of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Seriously, what the hell is with her accent? It's worse than Steven Seagal's N'awlins accent. She's embarrassingly bad. Everyone mumbles to the point of incomprehensibility. I'm sure Irwin Winkler (did I mention he produced ROCKY, RAGING BULL, and GOODFELLAS?  Oh, and also THE RIGHT STUFF and ROUND MIDNIGHT)  is a loving father who only wants to help his son, but he should be ashamed of himself for allowing his name to be put on this.



GUN
(US - 2010)  Directed by Jessy Terrero.  Written by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.  Cast: Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Val Kilmer, Annalynne McCord, James Remar, John Larroquette, Danny Trejo, Paul Calderon.  82 mins.  R.


Still basking in the afterglow of their STREETS OF BLOOD triumph, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and Val Kilmer reunite for this Detroit-and-Grand Rapids, MI-shot thriller penned by none other than 50 Cent himself. The results are predictably terrible, which should go without saying considering director Jessy Terrero also helmed SOUL PLANE. Incidentally, Grand Rapids is fast becoming the epicenter of bad DTV: it's where 50 Cent also shot the abysmal CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE, and Kilmer is making his own return trip to the city following the unspeakable THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT.

GUN centers on Rich (50 Cent), a mid-level gun distributor working the Detroit area in the employ of a young mystery woman (90210's AnnaLynne McCord), which also allows Fiddy the screenwriter a chance to write in a gratuitous sex scene for Fiddy the actor. Rich is trying to take his business to the next level, and brings in old friend Angel (Kilmer) to be his right hand. What Rich doesn't know--SPOILER--is that Angel has just been sprung from the joint by grizzled, close-to-retirement detective Rogers (James Remar) and his partner Jenkins (Paul Calderon) to work as a CI after Angel's wife was killed in a Rich-engineered shootout outside a club months earlier.

Coming in at just over 80 minutes, I suppose the best thing that can be said about GUN is that it's short. And it's not as egregiously offensive as the Katrinasploitation of STREETS OF BLOOD, though 50's script does shoehorn in some hamfisted messaging on everything from thug life to the economic state of Detroit to enterprising ghetto crime lords like Rich being used by the rich and powerful. Apparently, we're supposed to sympathize with Rich, a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, when it's revealed that he's an expendable pawn in the moneymaking game of a racist, multi-millionaire owner of a weapons company, played by a cigar-sucking John Larroquette. Larroquette is barely conscious in his two brief scenes, but he's a live wire compared to the ever-mumbling 50 Cent, who still has no screen presence at all. A haggard, tired-looking Kilmer is just going through the motions in one of the 17 films he probably shot that month. The only actor who seems invested in this is Remar, which is shocking considering that he's actually forced to grumble "I'm gettin' too old for this shit!" at one point. Danny Trejo also turns up for about 75 seconds as one of Rich's rival gun suppliers.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the film ends with a shootout at an abandoned warehouse, complete with strategically-placed huge empty cardboard boxes for cars to plow into. I didn't even need to watch this to review it. But I did.

I'm gettin' too old for this shit.



BLOOD OUT
(US - 2011)  Directed by Jason Hewitt.  Written by John O'Connell and Jason Hewitt.  Cast: Luke Goss, Val Kilmer, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Annalynne McCord, Vinnie Jones, Tamer Hassan, Bobby Lashley, Ryan Donowho.  89 mins.  R.

Asinine, bottom-of-the-barrel DTV gang thriller that prominently headlines Val Kilmer and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson--the bad-movie bromance that won't quit--but gives them no scenes together and a total of maybe five minutes of combined screen time. The real star is Luke Goss as Jason Statham as Louisiana sheriff's deputy Michael Savian, who goes undercover (a process that consists of getting a bunch of shitty-looking tattoos that look like a toddler on a sugar high scribbled all over his arms with a Sharpie) and infiltrates the Baton Rouge operation of drug dealer Elias (Tamer Hassan, 50's DEAD MAN RUNNING co-star) to get to the bottom of his banger brother's (Ryan Donowho) murder.

Directed and co-written by one Jason Hewitt, whose credits include being a producer on CABIN FEVER 2: SPRING FEVER, BLOOD OUT is just lazy filmmaking, from the disinterested performances of the cast (the British Goss fails to convince; what kind of Louisiana deputy pronounces the word as "pro-gress"?) to the awesomely crappy CGI throughout. Gun blasts look like cartoon effects. Two CGI bullet holes in a doorway panel are shakily hovering over the paneling in an almost BIRDEMIC-like fashion. And a car rollover near the end has to be seen to be disbelieved. Actually, the last 15 minutes make this whole wretched endeavor worth sitting through. It takes a completely bizarre turn from a standard gangsta flick to a surreal, underground FIGHT CLUB as Goss is, for some reason, forced to fight a hulking brute (pro wrestler Bobby Lashley), who wears a BRAVEHEART kilt and a centurion helmet. This is all overseen by nefarious cartel boss Arturo (Kilmer), who bangs a cane on the ground, summons fire, and declares "Hail, Mars, son of Juno, God of War!" in what's one of his more coherent moments. A disheveled Kilmer first appears around the 50-minute mark of this 89-minute trifle, and has a couple of scenes, obviously improvised in his now-standard Brando mumble. Vinnie Jones also appears, really challenging himself in glaring, wide-eyed, blustery "Fookin' 'ell, mate!" mode. And then there's co-exec producer 50 Cent, in an utterly pointless cameo as a useless Baton Rouge detective who's onscreen long enough to tell a charming anecdote of police corruption that culminates with the poetic "She swallowed the evidence."

HOSTEL PART III (2011)

HOSTEL PART III
(US - 2011)  Directed by Scott Spiegel.  Written by Michael Weiss.  Cast: Kip Pardue, Brian Hallisay, Thomas Kretschmann, John Hensley, Chris Coy, Zulay Henao, Sarah Habel, Kelly Thiebaud, Skyler Stone.  88 mins.  Unrated.


And now the HOSTEL franchise gets demoted to the world of straight-to-DVD, several years after the torture porn subgenre has faded to little more than a horror footnote.  I didn't mind the first HOSTEL, but I have to give it up for HOSTEL PART II, with its affectionate homages to 1970s Eurocult classics like TORSO and NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS, and cameos by the likes of Ruggero Deodato, Luc Merenda, and Edwige Fenech.  PART II had a lot more going on than one might've thought, and it works just fine as a standalone feature.  Eli Roth makes it very easy to find Eli Roth annoying, especially now that he's firmly ensconced in the Quentin Tarantino posse, and much like his hero, feels the need to be a terrible actor.  But Roth brought his A-game to HOSTEL PART II, and if he has a masterpiece, that's it.

As expected, Roth has nothing to do with HOSTEL PART III other than a cursory "Based on characters created by..." credit.  Directing chores have been farmed out to HOSTEL co-producer and longtime cult-movie fixture Scott Spiegel, who gets a lifetime pass for co-writing EVIL DEAD II, but really hasn't had much success otherwise.  He wrote and directed 1989's maniac-loose-in-a-grocery-store cult classic INTRUDER, co-wrote the much-maligned 1990 Clint Eastwood-Charlie Sheen vehicle THE ROOKIE, and later directed the straight-to-video FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY (1999), while getting bit parts in most of his buddy Sam Raimi's movies and moderating assorted DVD commentary tracks.   Spiegel and writer Michael Weiss (himself no stranger to DTV sequels, having written US SEALS 2, I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, and THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2 among others) have fashioned HOSTEL PART III as essentially a torture porn version of THE HANGOVER.  Groom-to-be Scott (Brian Hallisay) is taken to Vegas by best man Carter (Kip Pardue), who used to go out with Scott's fiancee (Kelly Thiebaud).  In Vegas, they meet up with two other buddies--sensitive, disabled Justin (John Hensley), and the obnoxious, loathsome Mike (Skyler Stone), who never stops bitching that his wife has put on 30 lbs since they got married.  It isn't long before Mike disappears with an escort and Scott is drugged, and the next morning, no one knows what happened or where Mike is.  Any chance that all roads lead to a secret Elite Hunting facility where filthy rich gamblers place bets on how much torture an unwilling subject can withstand?

Of course, there's a twist which you'll see coming long before the other characters do, and the gore is plentiful (though not as over-the-top as you might imagine).  But it's all just so tired and stale.  Spiegel is a competent enough director, and might've been able to fashion something if the writing had been a little better.  Weiss' lazy script basically has characters yelling "What the fuck?!" and "You sick fuck!" over and over, and it takes less than ten minutes for someone to say "What happens in Vegas..."  Come on!

The Vegas exteriors look to be second-unit work, as most of the film was shot in Detroit, of all places (Spiegel, like his friends Raimi and Bruce Campbell, comes from the Detroit area).  The Elite Hunting headquarters is played by the imposing Michigan Central Station, a decrepit, vacant landmark visible from I-75 that looks as if the intro to Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" should be played in its vicinity 24/7.  In this shot from the climax of HOSTEL PART III (I could post a spoiler warning, but do you really care?), the famed structure is engulfed in what appear to be extremely unconvincing CGI flames of an almost Sega Genesis-level quality.

As for the rest of the cast, there's no one of note other than Thomas Kretschmann as the sinister head of Elite's Vegas operation.  Kretschmann, one of those journeyman actors who has the ability to bounce from serious, important films like THE PIANIST and DOWNFALL to drek like SUPERBABIES: BABY GENIUSES 2 and KARATE DOG, often in the same year, has little to do in a role that Julian Sands could've played in his sleep.

I imagine the HOSTEL franchise will go the way of HELLRAISER, and we'll get a series of unrelated, increasingly poor sequels that do nothing but cash in on a brand name and give a slumming name actor a fast paycheck.  In that case, I can only hope that the inevitable HOSTEL PART IV gives us guest villain Val Kilmer.  Otherwise, count me out.

IN THE NAME OF THE KING: TWO WORLDS (2011)

IN THE NAME OF THE KING: TWO WORLDS
(Canada - 2011)  Directed by Uwe Boll.  Written by Michael Nachoff.  Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Natassia Malthe, Lochlyn Munro, Aleks Paunovic, Heather Doerksen, Natalya Gustislaya, Christina Jastrzembka, Michael Adamthwaite. 96 mins. R.

Uwe Boll's straight-to-DVD sequel to his 2008 box office bomb has a drastically reduced budget thanks to the extinction of all those great German tax loopholes that the filmmaker and part-time boxing enthusiast took advantage of in the past.  As has been the case over Boll's last several films, he no longer has the cash to corral the big names he once did.  So, where the first ITNOTK had Jason Statham supported by the likes of Burt Reynolds as a noble king and Ray Liotta as an evil and improbably leather-jacketed sorcerer, this has Dolph Lundgren with Boll regular Natassia Malthe (BLOODRAYNE sequels) and DTV mainstay Lochlyn Munro.  ITNOTK was pretty terrible, but it was a fun terrible.  The sequel is just boring, and really tough to get through without a bizarre cast of slumming and/or intoxicated big name actors to keep it interesting. With a sleepwalking Lundgren and some really subpar visual effects, ITNOTK: TWO WORLDS looks and plays like it should be debuting on a Saturday night on SyFy.

In present day Vancouver, ex-military officer and karate instructor Granger (Lundgren) is attacked in his home by a bunch of medieval ninjas in Darth Maul makeup, and transported to a world centuries past.  Elianna (Natalya Gustislaya), sorceress to the King (Munro) has brought Granger back in time because he is The Chosen One, revealed by a prophecy to be the warrior from the future to help them fight the Holy Mother (Christina Jastrzembska) and her army of Dark Ones.  An unimpressed Granger tells the king "You can take that prophecy and shove it up your ass."  But it turns out the Holy Mother and the Dark Ones have spread a plague across the land, which killed the previous King (the character played by Statham).  Now suddenly convinced of the prophecy, Granger has a change of heart: "Tell me where to find this crazy bitch."

As has happened in the past (1968 TUNNEL RATS, his version of a late '80s Vietnam movie; and THE FINAL STORM, a religious-themed thriller that came about a decade after the LEFT BEHIND/OMEGA CODE craze), Boll seems to be ripping off a film years past its sell-by date, in this case the nearly 20-year-old ARMY OF DARKNESS.  There's a lot of story elements pilfered from Sam Raimi's 1993 cult classic, but there's no energy or momentum, and everyone seems catatonic.  Lundgren is clearly bored, Munro starts using an Irish accent late in the film for no apparent reason, and Malthe, as a nursemaid who accompanies Granger on his quest, is simply awful.  There's a plot twist 2/3 of the way through, and a badly CGI'd fire-breathing dragon makes a guest appearance, but there's virtually nothing to recommend about IN THE NAME OF THE KING: TWO WORLDS.  Boll has shown occasional flashes of decency in some of his more recent films (1968 TUNNEL RATS and ATTACK ON DARFUR weren't bad; POSTAL had some genuinely hilarious moments; and the harrowing prison drama STOIC was actually good), but without name actors like Statham, Reynolds, Liotta, or Ron Perlman, or, say, BLOODRAYNE's Ben Kingsley (yes, Ben Kingsley was once in an Uwe Boll film) to raise the MST3K factor, there's little reason to watch something like IN THE NAME OF THE KING: TWO WORLDS, a cheap, shoddy piece of work that even the most die-hard Dolph Lundgren fans should avoid.