On Blu-ray/DVD: DESTROYER (2018) and WE DIE YOUNG (2019)

DESTROYER
(US/UK - 2018)

Last fall, DESTROYER had some awards-season buzz going for Nicole Kidman, but financially-strapped distributor Annapurna decided to focus their attention on the Oscar-baiting VICE instead, leaving DESTROYER to flounder on just 235 screens at its widest release. Looking what can be charitably described as several degrees south of haggard, Kidman did get a Golden Globe nomination for her performance as hard-drinking LAPD detective Erin Bell, a disgraced ex-FBI agent who's pretty much regarded as a total shitshow among her colleagues and always looks like she hasn't slept in days. Though two other cops have already caught the case, she shows up at a homicide where the John Doe murder victim was shot dead and has dye-stained $100 bills scattered around his body. Back at the precinct, someone mails her an envelope with an identically dye-stained $100 bill. She's convinced it's a message and she knows who's sending it: Silas (Toby Kebbell), the leader of a ring of bank robbers she and her former FBI partner Chris (Sebastian Stan) infiltrated as part of an extensive undercover operation nearly 17 years ago. Going rogue and blowing off her partner Antonio (Shamier Anderson), Erin starts tracking down all of Silas' known associates, none of whom are happy to see her since her cover was ultimately blown. She eventually works her way to Silas' sleazy, money-laundering lawyer DiFranco (Bradley Whitford), who's been holding the take and doling it out as requested in clandestine park handoffs to Silas' drug-addled girlfriend Petra (Tatiana Maslany). As Erin predicted, Silas' money is running out and he's resurfaced to plan another robbery and settle old scores.

At its core, DESTROYER is another saga of a morally-conflicted cop, with Kidman fearlessly diving  into her own TRAINING DAY crossed with a bit of BAD LIEUTENANT, with one shock value scene where she goes to absurd lengths to get info on Silas' whereabouts from one of his terminally-ill former accomplices. But director Karyn Kusama and writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (the trio also worked on 2005's AEON FLUX and 2016's terrifying THE INVITATION), have a few unexpected tricks up their sleeves beyond a cleverly-constructed ending and one incredibly intense robbery sequence. These are doled out slowly in a series of flashbacks to the undercover operation that play as a parallel timeline to the current events. Erin's job, boozing, and pill-popping are at the expense of fractured relationships with her ex Ethan (Scoot McNairy) and her teenage daughter Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn), and as the backstory gradually fills in, you finally get a sense of the extent to which she's gone to numb the pain. Everyone in her life has written her off, with the possible exception of her sympathetic former FBI boss Gil (Toby Huss), who invites her to a Bible study, insisting "It's low-key...nobody's handling snakes," prompting one of the very few times present-day Erin cracks a sort-of smile. In the end, DESTROYER doesn't absolve Erin of her sins and doesn't ask the audience for sympathy, but Kidman succeeds in conveying the humanity underneath an irreparably damaged person who can't stop making terrible decisions. (R, 121 mins)

WE DIE YOUNG
(US/Bulgaria/UK - 2019)

Following the French drama THE BOUNCER, Jean-Claude Van Damme gets another chance to go serious with the earnest but cliched WE DIE YOUNG. Hampered by obvious budget constraints, the film gets off to a clunky start with too many shots of a Bulgarian backlot unsuccessfully portraying the mean streets of Washington, D.C. (no streets have as many mailboxes and pay phones as these do), but it gets better and more compelling as it goes on. Set in a barrio war zone controlled by MS-13 kingpin Rincon (David Castaneda of the Netflix series THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY), who's already reaching "heavy is the crown" levels of paranoia, so much so that he really only trusts teenage drug delivery boy and collector Lucas (Elijah Rodriguez), who lost his older brother in Afghanistan and is doing everything he can to shield his younger brother Miguel (Nicholas Sean Johnny) from gang life. Rincon is preoccupied with the wedding of his baby sister Gabriella (Robyn Cara) and entrusts Lucas to deliver two bricks of heroin to a contact just outside his territory. But Lucas is distracted when he learns that Rincon's guys are planning to initiate Miguel into MS-13, so he never makes the drop and is instead pursued by Rincon's hot-headed cousin and ambitious second-in-command Jester (Charlie MacGechan). Fleeing for safety, they end up in the car of Daniel (Van Damme), an Oxycontin-addicted neighborhood mechanic and ex-Marine who lost his ability to speak when he took some shrapnel in a bomb blast in Afghanistan.

Set over the course of Gabriella's wedding day, WE DIE YOUNG turns into a standard-issue, urban "survive the night" scenario with Rincon's guys eventually catching Lucas and Miguel, forcing Daniel to channel the long-dormant warrior within to mount a daring one-man rescue. Making his narrative feature debut, Israeli-American documentary filmmaker Lior Geller has obviously spent time worshiping at the altar of Alfonso Cuaron, with a couple of reasonably well-executed handheld, long-take chase sequences, both in a car (complete with blood splattering against the lens, as required by law) and on foot. The problem is that you've seen them all before, along with the heavy-handed digital insertion of the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument into the background to remind you that This Is America, and all the hackneyed literary allusions with Daniel trying to get Lucas to read A Tale of Two Cities and Rincon serving as an ersatz Shakespearean figure who even quotes The Merchant of Venice at one point. To his credit, Castaneda tries to bring some complexity to a potentially cartoonish character, and Van Damme (one of 37 credited producers) does a fine job letting his aged face, pinched into an almost constant contorted grimace due to Daniel's chronic pain, speak volumes. But for the most part, there's nothing new here--the kid who's been sucked into the gang life trying to keep his little brother from the same fate, the SCARFACE trope of the powerful gangster being possessive of his little sister, the quiet loner silently suffering in a shell of his former self until he has a reason to take action. In the end, it's a decent enough Redbox rental, as Geller gussies it up with some occasionally effective documentary immediacy, and its three solid lead performances (Castaneda and Rodriguez were both in SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO as well) give it a little more credibility than those early Bulgarian backlot scenes would initially indicate. (R, 93 mins)

On Blu-ray/DVD: AT ETERNITY'S GATE (2018), THE FRONT RUNNER (2018) and THE BOUNCER (2019)

AT ETERNITY'S GATE
(UK/Switzerland/Ireland/US/France - 2018)

Beautiful and ponderous in equal measures, AT ETERNITY'S GATE does have an Oscar-nominated performance by Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh to carry it most of the way. Dafoe is so good--here and in general--that he successfully manages to overcome the major obstacle of being a 62-year-old actor playing someone who died at the age of 37. Directed by artist-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel (BASQUIAT, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY), AT ETERNITY'S GATE focuses on the last few months of Van Gogh's life and his artistic obsession, with a lot of time devoted to his almost sycophantic clinging to his successful contemporary Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac). Financially supported by his younger brother Theo (Rupert Friend), Van Gogh and his work would never be recognized in his lifetime, and while Gauguin sees potential, he feels Van Gogh is too erratic and psychologically unstable to focus and think his painting through ("You're changing things so fast that you can't even see what you've done"). It's at Gauguin's suggestion that Van Gogh leaves Paris to find inspiration in Arles in the south of France, and when Gauguin visits him and has to leave to attend to some sales of paintings back home, a devastated Van Gogh melts down and cuts off his left ear to show his devotion. After a stint in a mental hospital, Van Gogh spends his final days on a furious tear of productivity in Auvers-sur-Oise before meeting a tragic end.

Working from a script co-written with 87-year-old Jean-Claude Carriere, a frequent Luis Bunuel collaborator (DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID, BELLE DE JOUR, THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE) still going strong as he approaches the seventh decade of his screenwriting career, Schnabel often stages his scenes as painterly images, where the screen starts to take on the look and texture of a Van Gogh work, a technique that's reminiscent of but not quite as immersive as Lech Majewski's 2011 film THE MILL AND THE CROSS. Elsewhere, Van Gogh's increasingly fragile mental state is conveyed by the intentional repetition of many lines of dialogue just seconds apart and in a series of distorted camera angles, blurred images, extreme close-ups, and shaky-cam that wouldn't be out of place in a found-footage horror film. Falling on the side of esoteric in comparison to the 1956 Hollywood biopic LUST FOR LIFE, with Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, James Donald as Theo, and an Oscar-winning Anthony Quinn as Gauguin (or even Robert Altman's pre-comeback 1990 film VINCENT & THEO, with Tim Roth as Van Gogh, Paul Rhys as Theo, and Wladimir Yordanoff as Gauguin), but AT ETERNITY'S GATE is sometimes standoffish to a fault, with Schnabel's techniques growing self-indulgent and tedious after a while. Not surprisingly, it works best when he takes a break from the directorial wankery and lets Dafoe work his magic, whether it's a long monologue or in scenes with Isaac, Friend, Mads Mikkelsen as a priest counseling Van Gogh at the mental hospital, and Emmanuelle Seigner as Madame Ginoux, the "Woman from Arles" who inspired Van Gogh's famed series of "L'Arlesienne" paintings. (PG-13, 111 mins)



THE FRONT RUNNER
(US/Canada - 2018)

Hitting a handful of theaters on Election Day 2018, THE FRONT RUNNER didn't really catch on and only got a half-hearted, 800-screen rollout from Sony over the next couple of weeks, its gross stalling at $2 million and the film completely forgotten by December. A chronicle of the three weeks leading up to Colorado senator Gary Hart's withdrawal from the 1988 Presidential campaign over allegations of an affair with Donna Rice, THE FRONT RUNNER isn't very subtle about making connections to present-day issues, particularly in an embarrassingly heavy-handed scene late in the film between two Washington Post reporters. Hart, played here by Hugh Jackman, doesn't think the public cares about allegations and politicians' private lives, but as his campaign manager Bill Dixon (J.K. Simmons, cast radically against type as "J.K. Simmons") tells him, "It's not '72." In the Senate for 15 years and losing the 1984 Democratic nomination to Walter Mondale, Hart's political star was on the rise, and going into 1988, he was posited as the front runner until a Washington Post reporter (Mamoudou Athie) brings up a brief separation from his wife Lee (Vera Farmiga) several years earlier. Already whispered about in political circles as a womanizer, Hart doesn't even mask his indignation and invites the press to "follow me around, put a tail on me...they'll be very bored." Following an anonymous tip, a pair of Miami Herald reporters, Tom Fiedler (Steve Zissis) and Jim Savage (BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD creator Mike Judge) do just that and see Rice (Sara Paxton) visiting Hart at his D.C. townhouse. The senator insists she was there for a job interview, though it soon surfaces that they met a short time earlier in Miami on a crowded booze cruise arranged by Hart's lobbyist friend Billy Broadhurst (Toby Huss), on a yacht prophetically christened "Monkey Business."

A relatively tame preview of the media circus that was the Clinton era, the Gary Hart scandal is generally considered ground zero of tabloid journalism working its way into present-day politics. Director/co-writer Jason Reitman (JUNO, UP IN THE AIR) wants to fashion THE FRONT RUNNER as a rallying cry against the 24/7 cable news coverage that was on the horizon, but the end result is superficial and strangely aloof. It takes neither a methodical, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN approach nor one of satire along the lines of VICE. It's just...there. It gets off to a clunky, plodding start and takes a while to recover and find its footing (it doesn't help that every other character seems to be named "Bill" or "Bob"), and keeps everyone at a distance, never really getting into the heads of Hart or his family, with everything reduced to melodramatic proclamations like "The public doesn't care about this!" from Hart and "I told you to never embarrass me!" from Lee. Jackman does what he can with the shallow script (he's very good in a scene where Hart talks a nervous young journalist through some mid-flight turbulence), Alfred Molina is badly miscast as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, and Paxton has some good moments with Hart's sympathetic top female campaign staffer (Molly Ephraim) who's quietly resentful that Hart is abandoning her to a media that paints her as a bimbo. But much of this ultimately rings hollow if you're aware that Ephraim's character, like the Post reporter played by Athie along with several others, is a composite or an outright fictional creation. There's a few worthwhile bits early on, like Hart and Rice's first meeting during the loud and rambunctious booze cruise, with their conversation barely audible and being drowned out by Boston's "Long Time" (watch Jackson's face when Hart first sees her and immediately turns on the charm), but THE FRONT RUNNER plays like a forgettable HBO biopic, offering about as much insight into the scandal and its impact on future political news coverage as Gary Hart's Wikipedia entry. (R, 113 mins)



THE BOUNCER
(France/Belgium - 2018; US release 2019)

Released in Europe last summer as LUKAS, THE BOUNCER finds Jean-Claude Van Damme in the kind of serious actor mode he's generally avoided since his 2008 meta arthouse confessional JCVD. It comes at the right time, as he's really been skidding in his headlining action vehicles of late, littered with forgettable duds like POUND OF FLESH, KILL 'EM ALL and BLACK WATER in between the rebooted KICKBOXER nostalgia trips. Dumped on US VOD in early January, the French-Belgian co-production THE BOUNCER is a bit different from the film's LUKAS cut in that it's shortened by several minutes and all of the characters have been dubbed into English, where LUKAS had a mix of English, French, and Flemish. Van Damme is speaking both English and French in the overseas LUKAS trailer, but it's all English in THE BOUNCER, and while he's dubbing himself, the obvious revoicing of the French-speaking actors does this version a bit of a disservice. That hiccup aside, THE BOUNCER is Van Damme's best film in years, a surprising departure in a grim, gritty, somber character piece with shocking bursts of violence and some Alfonso Cuaron-inspired tracking shots and unbroken takes by director Julian Leclercq (CHRYSALIS). In Brussels, Lukas (Van Damme) is a bouncer in a club that looks like a Gaspar Noe wet dream. He's tossing out an unruly patron for roughing up a waitress, and a scuffle ensues when the kid plays the "Do you know who I am?" card, ending up with a serious head injury after taking a swing at Lukas, and even though he was defending himself, Lukas still gets fired. He's a widower and single dad with a vague past as a bodyguard in South Africa, struggling to get by and raise his eight-year-old daughter Sarah (Alice Verset). Though he's a loving and doting father, he has no job skills other than beating the shit out of people, and as a result, he ends up looking for work as a bouncer at a strip joint where the job interview consists of six guys locked in a dimly-lit, Tyler Durden-esque basement and the last man standing gets the job. Of course, Lukas gets the job.

The club is owned by Jan Dekkers (Sam Louwyck of EX-DRUMMER), who's known in the Brussels underworld as "The Dutchman" and is running a counterfeiting ring. This puts Lukas in the sights of ambitious cop Maxim Zeroual (Sami Bouajila), who offers to take care of the pending assault charges from his last job if he works as an informant supplying information about The Dutchman and his chief henchman Geert (Kevin Janssens of REVENGE). Story-wise, THE BOUNCER doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but director Leclercq succeeds in creating a bleak and oppressive atmosphere as Lukas gets in too deep, with Van Damme turning in an effective and very internalized performance and using every line and wrinkle in his aged, weathered face to convey just how weary and tired and beaten-down-by-life Lukas has become. During the '00s when he was cranking out some quality DTV actioners and nobody was paying any attention, Van Damme very quietly became a character actor disguised as an action star. Lately, he's been coasting, but THE BOUNCER is a welcome look at the direction his career should've taken after JCVD. That's why it's too bad the only version that's available stateside has all of his scenes with Bouajila and young Verset dubbed into English (quite badly in Bouajila's case) when they were in French in the LUKAS cut. Still, THE BOUNCER is a must-see for JCVD fans interested in seeing him stretch beyond the confines of his usual Redbox fare. He's a much better actor than he's ever gotten credit for being. (R, 87 mins)

On Blu-ray/DVD: BLACK WATER (2018), BLEEDING STEEL (2018) and DAMASCUS COVER (2018)

BLACK WATER
(US - 2018)

A more apt title for this nautical non-actioner might be ESCAPE PLAN: RUN STAGNANT, RUN DULL, as cult action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren reunite once again, though this is really a JCVD vehicle with a glorified cameo from Dolph. Van Damme is Scott Wheeler, an off-the-grid CIA agent who wakes up on a sub that doubles as a secret black-ops detention facility, located in deep waters off the southern coast of the US. He has no memory of how he got there, but he stands accused of traitorous actions against the US, specifically trying to sell classified intel on a drive that's gone missing. He repeatedly professes his innocence, even under the threat of gruesome eyeball injection torture by rogue agent Ferris (JCVD's old DEATH WARRANT nemesis Patrick Kilpatrick). Of course, Wheeler's being set up by former boss Rhodes (Al Sapienza), whose goons (the inevitable Kris Van Damme among them) take over the sub in search of Wheeler after he escapes from his holding cell and finds an unlikely ally in rookie agent Taylor (Jasmine Waltz), who doesn't buy what her bosses are selling her. Lundgren appears briefly in the beginning, as a German detainee named Marco, offering sage advice to Wheeler from an adjacent cell, but he then vanishes for most of the next hour and change before Wheeler springs him and then he finds a way to completely sit out the climax, ample evidence that Lundgren didn't spend more than a day working on this. If you're expecting an enjoyably old-school, throwback Van Damme/Lundgren actioner from the glory days of 1992, then you're better off rewatching UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. Murky and slow-moving, BLACK WATER is an inauspicious directing debut for cinematographer Pasha Patriki (GRIDLOCKED), not helped in the slightest by the fact that passing this tedious submarine thriller off as a JCVD/Dolph teaming is some straight-up Das Bullshit. (R, 105 mins)

BLEEDING STEEL
(China - 2017; US release 2018)

When his Liam Neeson-esque revenge thriller THE FOREIGNER hit US theaters last year, many moviegoers probably assumed it was a comeback of sorts for Jackie Chan, who, other than voice work in the KUNG-FU PANDA movies, hadn't been seen onscreen in American multiplexes since the 2010 remake of THE KARATE KID. Quite the contrary, as the 64-year-old action icon remains as busy as ever, averaging three to four movies a year for the Asian market, most of which get no publicity whatsoever on their way to domestic VOD and Redbox kiosks. Chan's most recent Chinese film to stealthily drop in the US is BLEEDING STEEL, and it's one of his worst, an incoherent hodgepodge of ideas and styles that tries to be everything and succeeds at nothing. It's mostly dour and serious but has slapstick moments that come out of nowhere, and it might make a good kids or at least YA movie, but it's R-rated and far too bloody and violent for younger audiences. Even worse, it's no fun at all, and Chan is uncharacteristically boring as Lin Dong, a Hong Kong special agent whose young daughter XiXi (Elena Cai) is dying of leukemia in a hospital. He's unable to make it to her deathbed when he's called upon by his government superiors to deal with securing Dr. James (veteran Australian character actor Kim Gyngell), a recently defected geneticist whose witness protection has been compromised. Lin and his fellow officers protecting Jones are attacked by a "bioroid" creation of James' called Andrew (Callan Mulvey) and his group of pale, leather-trenchcoated bald dudes who look like they wandered in from a DARK CITY cosplay convention.

Jump ahead 13 years, and Lin ends up in Sydney, Australia when sci-fi author Rick Rogers (Damien Garvey) is killed by the Woman in Black (Tess Haubrich), a ruthless, bloodthirsty underling of a now-ailing Andrew. Rogers' latest book Bleeding Steel shares an alarming number of details that go into specifics on James' experimental work on Andrew, and it turns out the writer was buying the session notes of a witch (Gillian Jones) who's been serving as a quack therapist to confused orphaned teenager Nancy (Nanan Ou-Yang), who feels like her memories aren't her own and she isn't who she thinks she is. That's because she's really XiXi, who didn't die, and was instead treated with a regenerative drug by Dr. Jones. Lin figures this out and teams with younger sidekick Leeson (Show Lo) to protect his daughter from a sickly Andrew, who wants to transfuse her blood to give himself unlimited biomechanical powers. Or something. Chan (one of 50 credited producers) and director/co-writer Leo Zhang take this nonsense a lot more seriously than they should, so much so that it doesn't really gel when the star takes a few lengthy sabbaticals so the film can focus on Show's puerile antics, which include some asinine kung-fu moves while his pants fall down, accompanied by what sounds like someone trying to do the SEINFELD bass line. There's also a wacky food court brawl where an undercover Lin is working at a fast-food joint and wearing a nametag that reads "Jackie Chan." Only Haubrich seems to find the right tone in playing her role, and BLEEDING STEEL comes alive whenever she's onscreen, especially in the one standout sequence, a fight with Chan atop one of the shells of the Sydney Opera House. The film does earn some points for pulling arguably the most shameless deus ex machina in recent memory out of its ass in the climactic battle on Andrew's spacecraft (!) hovering over Sydney (!!), but this is far and away the dumbest movie Jackie Chan has ever made, and not in a good way. (R, 109 mins)



DAMASCUS COVER
(Singapore/UK - 2018)

Based on a 1977 novel by Howard Kaplan but with its setting updated to 1989 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, DAMASCUS COVER is a spy thriller that wants to be both a BOURNE actioner and a methodical TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY-style espionage saga from the John Le Carre school, and definitely landing more in the latter camp with its low-key presentation and slow pacing that's frequently too plodding for its own good. The notion of showing the evolution of the spy game from the Cold War to the eventual War on Terror shows that director/co-writer Daniel Zelik Berk (a veteran producer whose most high-profile directing credit is the 1998 TV-movie SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...FOR MORE) has put some thought into the project, but DAMASCUS COVER never really catches fire. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Ari Ben-Sion, an undercover Mossad agent based in Berlin and posing as a German businessman named "Hans Hoffman." After he botches an extraction of an asset who blew his cover, he tries to redeem himself with his cantankerous boss Miki (the late John Hurt in his final role before his death in January 2017) by volunteering for a dangerous assignment that involves smuggling a chemical weapons scientist and his family out of Syria. He also crosses paths with an intrepid USA Today photojournalist (Olivia Thirlby) while trying to keep her at a distance, and ingratiates himself into the Damascus business world by glad-handing with a wealthy ex-Nazi (Jurgen Prochnow) in a time-consuming subplot that doesn't really go anywhere.

Sir John Hurt (1940-2017)

As expected, the story does some globetrotting, jumping between Berlin, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Damascus, with some attractive areas of Morocco portraying Israel and Syria, and there's the usual double-crosses and people not being who they claim to be, but DAMASCUS COVER just sort of putters along with no real sense of urgency and very little suspense. Igal Naor has a few good moments as a Syrian general, but Rhys Meyers is a bland hero and Prochnow has nothing to do (and I'm pretty sure that's a publicity shot of Prochnow from 1983's THE KEEP serving as the file photo in his character's Mossad dossier). It's competently made and looks nice, but DAMASCUS COVER is a footnote to the careers of everyone involved and it's notable only as Hurt's last film (he was cast as Neville Chamberlain in DARKEST HOUR but his battle with cancer forced him to back out just before shooting began, and he was replaced by Ronald Pickup). He's the old pro he always was in his sporadic appearances as Miki (who isn't too far removed from his Control in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY) and by the end, one gets the feeling that a more intriguing film could've been made about his and Naor's characters. Hurt's final shot near the end, hanging up a pay phone after somberly sighing "Goodbye, my friend," serves as a perfect farewell to a wonderful actor. (R, 94 mins)

Retro Review: BLACK EAGLE (1988)

BLACK EAGLE
(US - 1988)

Directed by Eric Karson. Written by A.E. Peters and Michael Gonzales. Cast: Sho Kosugi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Doran Clark, Bruce French, Vladimir Skomarovsky, William H. Bassett, Kane Kosugi, Shane Kosugi, Jan Triska, Gene Davis, Dorota Puzio, Alfred Mallia, Joe Quattromani, Victor Bartolo, Eric Karson. (R, 93 mins)

Perhaps no actor is more synonymous with the '80s ninja craze than Sho Kosugi. He set the standard of Kosugiology with Cannon's ENTER THE NINJA (1981), REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983) and NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984) and was a key figure in the short-lived 1984 NBC series THE MASTER, where he was the recurring antagonist to aging American ninja Lee Van Cleef. After Cannon opted to wave the American flag in the Reagan era with Michael Dudikoff in 1985's AMERICAN NINJA, Kosugi made the same year's 9 DEATHS OF THE NINJA for Crown International before doing 1985's PRAY FOR DEATH and 1987's RAGE OF HONOR for Trans-World Entertainment. In 1988, he tried to branch out with a supporting role in the Hawaii-set coming-of-age teen comedy-drama ALOHA SUMMER. The same year also saw the release of BLACK EAGLE, another departure for the ninja star, this time as a CIA agent battling nefarious Russians in a late-period Cold War thriller. Kosugi's time as an action star was winding down, and BLACK EAGLE would be his last film as a headliner to hit theaters (he would have a supporting role as a bad guy in the 1989 Rutger Hauer blind samurai cult classic BLIND FURY). It's fitting that it also functions as a symbolic passing of the torch, as Kosugi's co-star in BLACK EAGLE is a young Jean-Claude Van Damme, who had already made an impression as the ruthless "Ivan, the Russian" in the hilarious NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER and was in the midst of breaking out as a major new action star, practically in real time, as Cannon's BLOODSPORT hit theaters just two weeks before BLACK EAGLE. A film that holds on to every moment and is given strength by the breath of life, BLOODSPORT was already in the can when Van Damme took the BLACK EAGLE gig, and the Muscles from Brussels likely had no way of knowing it would become a surprise hit and he was about to become the only thing keeping the lights on at Cannon for the next two years.

Though second-billed, Van Damme isn't even the main villain in BLACK EAGLE. Instead, he's the coldly lethal, Oddjob-ish henchman to the chief bad guy, evil Soviet colonel Klimenko (Vladimir Skomarovsky). Klimenko and some Russian military and KGB goons are trying to intercept three US Air Force F-111s with high-tech laser guidance systems and top-secret defense intel that crashed into the Mediterranean off the coast of Malta. Klimenko and mostly silent right-hand-man Andrei (Van Damme) commandeer a Soviet trawler in the vicinity and Andrei snaps the neck of Steve Henderson (Gene Davis, the nude killer in 10 TO MIDNIGHT), a hot-headed CIA agent they capture near the crash site. This leaves CIA chief Rickert (William H. Bassett) no choice but to send his ultimate weapon, Ken Tani (Kosugi)--codename "Black Eagle"--to Malta to recover the classified intel and keep it out of Soviet hands. This is all complicated since the crash of the F-111s had the bad timing to coincide with the two weeks out of the year that workaholic Tani has with his two sons Brian and Denny, respectively played by Kosugi's sons and frequent co-stars Kane and Shane. The CIA doesn't care about Tani's family time, so they send the boys off to meet him in Malta, accompanied by ambitious agent Patricia Parker (Doran Clark), who's of course relegated to babysitter duty (drink every time she notices they're being followed and announces "We got company"). To get near the site and hold the commies at bay, Tani poses as a marine biologist and teams with Father Bedelia (Bruce French), a former agent who left the CIA to become a priest but is reactivated because, well, apparently no one else was available.

Produced by home video outfit Imperial Entertainment and released theatrically by Taurus, BLACK EAGLE didn't do much business in theaters but became a fixture in every video store in America. It was a popular rental, but fans weren't really interested in Kosugi going the espionage route and channeling his inner Jack Ryan. For a good chunk of the film, director Eric Karson (who helmed the early Chuck Norris hit THE OCTAGON) mainly just shows off scenic Malta (there's also location work in Rome and Afghanistan), which admittedly looks lovely on MVD's new Blu-ray (which includes the 93-minute theatrical version and a 104-minute extended cut), just out as part of their retro "Rewind Collection." There's maybe too many scenes of the Kosugi kids walking around sightseeing with Clark, but Karson also stages a few interesting chase sequences, including one along some Malta rooftops that actually looks like how a real and sudden chase might look. Two guys are pursuing Tani and everybody's sweaty and running awkwardly and nervously along ledges, trying not to lose their balance and footing as they get tired and winded. Kosugi's two throwdowns with Van Damme are nicely done--one on top of a cliff and the other at a waterfront dock surrounded by a bunch of flaming barrels. Young JCVD gets a chance to do his signature splits a couple of times, but he's strictly a supporting player in a Sho Kosugi movie, so much so that when he's killed off, it's not even by Tani.

The main lesson Van Damme seemed to take from his experience working with Kosugi was mastering the art of ensuring his significantly less-talented children were cast in far too many of his movies. While Van Damme would go on to become an A-list action star until the latter half of the '90s, Kosugi's career was beginning to wind down, seemingly by choice. After BLIND FURY, his next film, the shogun period piece JOURNEY OF HONOR, which co-starred legends like Toshiro Mifune and Christopher Lee, went straight-to-video in 1992, and he returned to his native Japan for a few TV guest spots and voice work and to direct his son Kane in 1994's THE FIGHTING KING and its same-year sequel. Other than a fight choreography credit on 2002's THE SCORPION KING, Kosugi was MIA until he was coaxed out of semi-retirement to play the villain in the 2009 Wachowski-produced throwback NINJA ASSASSIN, the now-69-year-old Kosugi's last screen appearance to date. While Kosugi's younger son Shane long ago left the movie industry, his eldest son Kane remains active, splitting his time between Japan and the US, most notably co-starring in 2004's GODZILLA: FINAL WARS and with Scott Adkins in 2013's NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR.

In Theaters/On VOD: KICKBOXER: RETALIATION (2018)

KICKBOXER: RETALIATION
(US/UK - 2018)

Directed by Dimitri Logothetis. Written by Dimitri Logothetis and Jim McGrath. Cast: Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Christopher Lambert, Mike Tyson, Sara Malakul Lane, Jessica Jann, Hafpor Julius Bjornsson, Sam Medina, Steven Swadling, Miles Strommen, Rico Verhoeven, Maxine Saveria, Nicolas Van Varenberg. (R, 110 mins)

The 2016 reboot KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE pulled a CREED by putting Jean-Claude Van Damme, the star of 1989's KICKBOXER, into the mentor role (though not as the same character) while Alain Moussi inherited lead KICKBOXER duties. It was an enjoyable enough actioner that had some good fight sequences and a lot of genuine affection for Van Damme, with Moussi even recreating JCVD's goofy dance from the original. But it was a troubled production that dealt with the death of co-star Darren Shahlavi early in the shoot, then had filming suspended for four months when production company Radar Pictures left the New Orleans portion of the shoot without paying the crew and locally hired personnel. Director John Stockwell then quit and when production resumed in Thailand, co-writer Dimitri Logothetis (SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK) took over directing duties, though only Stockwell was credited. Logothetis is back to direct KICKBOXER: RETALIATION, and while it seems to have been blessed with a more stable production, it lacks the sentimental charm and the financial backing of its predecessor. Stockwell is no auteur, but he's got A-list experience and has directed a number of nice-looking movies like BLUE CRUSH and TURISTAS. Logothetis has logged more time producing than directing and doesn't have the kind of eye that Stockwell has, and as a result, KICKBOXER: RETALIATION looks drab and cheap, with one scene on top of a speeding train that shows off some of the most laughably bush-league greenscreen that the mid-1990s had to offer. Originally intended to be released last year, KICKBOXER: RETALIATION was shot quickly and was already in the can when KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE bowed, and it shows. It's perfectly watchable but utterly average and it looks like the very definition of "straight-to-DVD."

Moussi is back as Kurt Sloane and he's introduced winning an MMA bout in Vegas, after which he's confronted by federal agents wishing to question him in connection to the death of Tong Po (Dave Bautista in VENGEANCE), the Muay Thai champion who killed Kurt's brother (Shahlavi) in Thailand. Of course, Kurt killed Tong Po (hence, VENGEANCE), and of course the agents are impostors, tazing Kurt and taking him back to Bangkok. He's thrown in a jail run by evil fight promoter Thomas Tang More (Christopher Lambert sighting!), who's understandably pissed that Kurt killed his top fighter and demands revenge. He wants Kurt to fight Mongkut (Hafpor Julius Bjornsson, best known as "The Mountain" on GAME OF THRONES), an undefeated, roid-raging giant and state-of-the-art killing machine who's enhanced by regular adrenaline injections and spends his downtime strumming an acoustic guitar. More is prepared to let Kurt rot in jail until he agrees to fight, which he finally does when More's goons kidnap Kurt's wife, former Bangkok cop Liu (Sara Malakul Lane), after she arrives to find him. Kurt preps for the showdown with the help of the other Muay Thai fighter inmates, including Briggs (Mike Tyson), who tells him "I keep my fist fast and hard, ready to break anything that it hits." Additional guidance and training comes in the form of Kurt's old mentor Master Durand (Van Damme), who's also been imprisoned--and blinded--by More.

Veteran stuntman Moussi isn't much of an actor but he's pretty good in the action sequences, and Logothetis pulls off a couple of reasonably well-executed single-take throwdowns in the vein of the OLDBOY hallway fight. Tyson pretty much sits out the second half of the movie and has little to do, and Van Damme is pretty subdued throughout, going for the "old and wise" act with the now-blind Durand. There is one nice bit where Durand gets his Zatoichi on during a sword fight with More, and Bjornsson's Mongkut is a truly imposing villain. The best part of KICKBOXER: RETALIATION is the enthusiastically hammy performance of Lambert, who's got a gravelly-voiced Nick Nolte thing going on and appears to be having a lot more fun than everyone else. He seems fully aware of how dumb this movie is and there's occasionally some bit of inspired dialogue where Logothetis uses Lambert to comment on the genre cliches (the way More tells Kurt "It's time to defend your title...in another fight to the death!"; and when Liu is kidnapped, Kurt sternly warns More "If anybody hurts her..." as More cuts him off with a derisive, eye-rolling "I know! We all die!"), and More joins the long list of evil martial arts tournament masters who, for some reason, have a random hall of mirrors on the premises, this one inexplicably blacklit. Who is More anyway? We know he's a fight promoter, but when Liu arrives in Bangkok and asks her special agent friend Gamon (Jessica Jann) for info, the only intel she can offer is "I know he's got more money than God!" Is he a promoter? A crime boss? A warden? He seems to be running the prison, and somehow lets Kurt, Durand, and others come and go as they please. And how is everyone in this prison a master of Muay Thai? Wouldn't some of them be well-known? Wouldn't there be an investigation if a bunch of Muay Thai dudes from all over the world went missing and were being held in an off-the-grid Bangkok prison run by a corrupt fight promoter? And these tournaments are always jam-packed with people. Certainly someone would blab at some point, right?

Throw in a ludicrous, adrenaline-based deus ex machina straight out of PULP FICTION, and KICKBOXER: RETALIATION sounds like goofy fun, but at some point, it stops winking at the cliches and just starts embracing them. At 110 minutes, it's way too long, the final fight is drawn out to around 30 minutes of screen time and grows repetitive, and the funny lines eventually become groaners (Kurt to Mongkut: "The only way I'm going down is if you ugly me to death!"). In the end, it's a routine kickboxing movie with little to differentiate from all the BLOODSPORT and KICKBOXER knockoffs that flooded video stores in the early '90s, but an engaged, spirited Lambert provides a spark whenever he's onscreen ("DO SOMETHING!" he frantically yells when Kurt gets the edge on Mongkut). If you're a fan of Lambert, he single-handedly makes this worth seeing, even if Logothetis completely drops the ball by not having More begin the fight-to-the-death showdown by announcing "There can be only one!"

On DVD/Blu-ray: KILL 'EM ALL (2017) and ENTER THE WARRIORS GATE (2016)

KILL 'EM ALL 
(US - 2017)

Jean-Claude Van Damme's DTV action films have historically been a cut above most of their ilk, but he stumbles badly with the arguably career-worst KILL 'EM ALL, a dull and uninspired Biloxi, MS-shot waste of time that sees fit to shamelessly rip off THE USUAL SUSPECTS two decades after the fact. KILL 'EM ALL jumps back and forth in time over the course of one day, opening with the aftermath of a massacre at a soon-to-be-closed hospital that's abandoned except for the emergency room. Nurse Suzanne (Autumn Reeser) is being questioned by FBI agents Holman (a ludicrously miscast Peter Stormare, looking like an aging rock band's tour manager) and Sanders (Maria Conchita Alonso) about Philip (JCVD), the mysterious stranger who took on a crew of hired killers and kept her safe during the hospital siege before vanishing. The agents, especially Holman, are skeptical about Suzanne's story and seem convinced that she's withholding details. In a brief detour that borrows a lot from EASTERN PROMISES, it turns out Philip infiltrated the Serbian "Black Hand," a crime outfit that rose from the ashes of the former Yugoslavia, and led by war criminal Dmitri Petrovic (Eddie Matthews), the man who assassinated Philip's activist father in front of young Philip 35 years ago (among other implausibilities, we're asked to believe that craggy-faced, 56-year-old JCVD is playing someone who was a little kid in the 1980s). A shootout starts at a nearby hotel and ends up at the hospital, where each of Petrovic's goons, including Radovan (Daniel Bernhardt, looking like a DTV Jon Hamm), Dusan (the mandatory bone thrown to JCVD's son Kristopher Van Varenberg, who's finally cut the shit and just decided to go by "Kris Van Damme"), and Almira (Mila Kali) not only get introductory captions but also momentum-and-time-killling flashbacks showing how lethal they are. Battling a knife wound and a concussion, Philip takes on each of them in the abandoned hospital as he fights to keep himself and Suzanne alive.

JCVD has maybe the fewest lines he's ever had in a movie, and while he has several fight scenes here, he looks tired and seems like he's going through the motions. First-time director Peter Malota, a veteran stuntman and fight coordinator who's regularly worked with JCVD going back to 1991's DOUBLE IMPACT, relies on dizzying quick edits that render every brawl a tiresome blur. A lot of is certainly used to cover the understandable fact that the aging JCVD isn't as agile as he once was, but he's at least showing up for work, unlike his contemporary Steven Seagal. But KILL 'EM ALL is cheap-looking and slapdash enough that it's too close for comfort with Seagal-level quality, and it's probably not a coincidence that co-writer Jesse Cilio wrote the recent Seagal dud THE PERFECT WEAPON. By the time the final twists start coming, each one more ridiculous than the last, KILL 'EM ALL just gives up and doesn't even attempt to be subtle about how much it's ripping off THE USUAL SUSPECTS. Even a dipshit like Fenster could've made a better movie than this. (R, 95 mins)



ENTER THE WARRIORS GATE
(France/China - 2016; US release 2017)

If the gamer/wuxia fantasy ENTER THE WARRIORS GATE seems like it should've been made ten years ago, that's because it pretty much was--when it starred Jackie Chan and Jet Li and was called THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. Produced and co-written by Luc Besson, the $48 million ENTER THE WARRIORS GATE was given a huge 3-D release in China in November 2016, but was banished to VOD when it debuted in the US in May 2017, a couple of months after Zhang Yimou's expensive THE GREAT WALL underperformed in US theaters. It's not without its moments of KARATE KID-like retro charm, but at the same time, it feels awfully late to be jumping on the CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON bandwagon, making you wonder just how long Besson and regular writing partner Robert Mark Kamen (TAKEN, THE TRANSPORTER) had this one stashed away before Besson got around to assigning it to someone (in this case, COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES director Matthias Hoene). Jack Bronson (Uriah Shelton, most recently seen on Netflix's 13 REASONS WHY) is a bullied gamer who lives with his busy-single-mom-too-distracted-to-notice-all-the-shenanigans-going-on-in-her-house Annie (Sienna Guillory). He blows off his homework for video games and works part-time at antique shop, where his Chinese boss Mr. Chang (Francis Ng) gives him an ancient crock that turns out to be a portal to another time. He's visited through the crock by Zhao (Mark Chao), the chief guard to Princess Sulin (Ni Ni), who he leaves in the care of Jack, believing him to be the fabled "Black Knight," confusing him with his gaming avatar. Zhao has brought Sulin to the present day in order to escape Arun the Cruel (Dave Bautista), a despot who has murdered Sulin's emperor father and intends to claim her as his bride as he takes over the land. After Jack takes Sulin to the mall for some ice cream and some tired culture clash/fish-out-of-water comedy, some of Arun's men get through the time portal and end up trashing Jack's mom's house. This sends Jack and Sulin fleeing through the portal back to her time, where she's abducted by Arun, forcing Zhao and Jack, who's definitely not the Black Knight that Zhao was expecting, to set aside their differences and work together to rescue Sulin...if they don't kill each other first!

There's a nice '80s vibe to some of the early scenes, with Jack trying to avoid a bullying asshole named Travis (Dakota Daulby, really oozing that loathsome William Zabka prickitude) and a resulting reckless mountain bike chase through the streets (cue reaction shots with befuddled old people looking confused and scared). Jack even has the required overweight, obnoxious, comic relief best buddy in Hector (Luke Mac Davis as Jonah Hill as Josh Gad as Dan Fogler as Zack Pearlman), who tries to fistbump Sulin and rightly gets his ass kicked in the process. There's also some laughs to be had from a running gag involving Arun's incredibly stupid henchman Brutus (Zha Ka), but while it occasionally amuses, ENTER THE WARRIORS GATE never reaches beyond the level of merely OK. The action sequences are nothing special, and Shelton is as irritating here as Michael Angarano was in THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. There's too many easy, predictable jokes about Jack trying to get Zhao to loosen up, like when he provides human beatbox and club sound accompaniment to teach Zhao to dance (do they have time for this?), or sheltered, demanding Sulin learning contemporary slang ("You're the shit!" is her favorite).  A Robert Zemeckis or a Richard Donner probably could've made this a lot of fun 30 years ago, but it isn't retro enough to be completely funny and it isn't imaginative enough to be anything other than a run-of-the-mill knockoff of all the Zhang Yimou epics of the early-to-mid 2000s, like HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. (PG-13, 105 mins)

Retro Review: NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER (1986)

NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER
(Hong Kong/US - 1986)

Directed by Corey Yuen. Written by Keith W. Strandberg. Cast: Kurt McKinney, Jean-Claude Van Damme, J.W. Fails, Kathie Sileno, Kim Tai Chong, Kent Lipham, Ron Pohnel, Dale Jacoby, Peter "Sugarfoot" Cunningham, Tim Baker, Joe Vance, John Andes, Dennis Park. Ruckins McKinley, Roz McKinley. (PG, 84 mins/99 mins)

A minor cult classic for 12-year-old boys who saw it in the 1980s, NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER is an ingratiatingly goofy KARATE KID ripoff produced by Hong Kong's Seasonal Films and helmed by veteran martial arts coordinator and future Jet Li collaborator and TRANSPORTER director Corey Yuen. NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER was significantly retooled by New World for its US release over the spring and summer of 1986. The running time was chopped from 99 minutes to 84, a few scenes were juggled around, and a major character was redubbed. In addition, Frank Harris' score was tossed and a new one was composed by Paul Gilreath, who also penned a new theme song, "Stand On Your Own," performed by Joe Torono, that was commissioned to replace "Hold On to the Vision," performed by ex-707 and future The Storm frontman Kevin Chalfant and a then-little-known Joe Satriani on guitar. Filled with enough WTF? elements and bad acting that I'm surprised it never became a fixture on the midnight movie circuit with movies like TROLL 2, THE ROOM, and MIAMI CONNECTION, NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER was a modest success in theaters, grossing a then-OK $4 million (it had the second highest per-screen average the week of its release, bested only by Richard Pryor's autobiographical JO JO DANCER: YOUR LIFE IS CALLING), and was a big hit in video stores and in heavy rotation on cable. It also spawned two in-name-only Loren Avedon-starring sequels--1989's NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER II and 1991's NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER 3: BLOOD BROTHERS--the only common thread being that all three were written by Keith W. Strandberg. But 30-plus years later, the original, recently released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber with both the US theatrical cut and the original international version, is an enjoyably dated '80s museum piece (caution: gratuitous breakdancing) usually remembered today thanks to the presence of a pre-BLOODSPORT Jean-Claude Van Damme as "Ivan, the Russian," a character in no way modeled on Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago in ROCKY IV. "Ivan, the Russian" is a maniacal henchman for a crew of dojo-acquiring New York mobsters who's repeatedly referred to throughout as either "Ivan," "the Russian," or "Ivan Kruschinsky," but the closing credits show JCVD playing a character named "Karl Brezdin." Yeah, NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER is that kind of movie.

Karate-obsessed Jason Stillwell (Kurt McKinney) trains at a Sherman Oaks dojo owned by his father Tom (Tim Baker). After Tom's leg is broken in a throwdown with Ivan after he refuses to sell out to the NYC gangsters who are trying to take over the apparently lucrative Sherman Oaks dojo market, Tom caves and the Stillwell family relocates to Seattle (yeah, this is also the kind of movie that features an establishing shot of the Space Needle yet still feels the need to include the caption "Seattle"). Tom takes a menial job as a bartender, while Jason tries to join a local dojo owned by karate champ Ian Reilly (Ron Pohnel), but is picked on by the douchebags Reilly's hired to run the place in his absence. That includes acting sensai and William Zabka stand-in Dean (Dale Jacoby) and the dojo's most unlikely student, Scott (Kent Lipham), an obnoxious Bluto Blutarsky-type who eats cheeseburgers by the fistful and makes it his mission to ensure the lives of Jason and his new best friend, breakdancing and moonwalking R.J. (J.W. Fails), are miserable. There's also some conflict between Jason and Dean over Kelly (Kathie Sileno), a girl Jason dated a year ago, even though the Stillwells just moved to Seattle and she's Ian's sister. First, how could they have known each other a year ago? And second, if they've been dating for a year, how does he not know that she's Ian's sister?  Yeah, NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER is that kind of movie.

If you think that set-up is improbable, then wait until Jason, at his wit's end and ready to quit karate, is visited by the ghost of Bruce Lee, who decides to spend some of his infinite free time in the afterlife to inspire Jason and become his ghostly sensai. The "Bruce Lee" seen here is played by a dubbed Kim Tai Chong, who doesn't look any more like Lee here than he did several years earlier when he doubled the martial arts legend in new scenes shot for 1979's GAME OF DEATH, a film haphazardly constructed around roughly 30 minutes of footage Lee had in the can at the time of his death in 1973. In true KARATE KID fashion, "Sensai Lee" is the Mr. Miyagi to Jason's Daniel LaRusso, with some added help from the wisecracking R.J., who looks like he just wandered in off the set of BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO. All of this leads to a showdown at a high-profile martial arts tournament taking place in what looks like a high school gym, where the same New York mob outfit is trying to strongarm Reilly into giving up his dojo and selling out to them, which begs the question: what exactly is the endgame for these powerful NYC gangsters establishing a monopoly on the strip-mall martial-arts education industry by incessantly hoarding small, privately-owned dojos on the west coast? Ivan ends up beating the shit out of everyone in Reilly's dojo at the tournament, prompting spectator Jason to leap into the ring and take down "Ivan, the Russian" (or, if you go by the closing credits, "Karl Brezdin") himself, using all the karate skills taught to him by the spectral Sensai Lee. Van Damme doesn't get a lot of screen time, but you can already see in his moves and his confident screen presence that he was a star in the making. Indeed, he was the only cast member who went on to any significant success afterwards, though McKinney did enjoy a long run on GUIDING LIGHT starting in the late '90s. NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER is so dumb that's impossible to dislike. Nothing makes sense (why are 1980s karate kids constantly being picked on by everyone? And is everyone in Seattle taking karate classes?), and some of the more head-scratching elements--no doubt brought about by a cultural disconnect between the American setting and the Asian filmmakers--were cut by New World, including a YouTube favorite that shows an extended Jason/R.J. workout montage (seen in full in the 99-minute international version) that gets way more unintentionally homoerotic than anyone was looking for in a cheaply-made KARATE KID ripoff. Yeah, NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER is that kind of movie.

In Theaters/On VOD: KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE (2016)

KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE
(US/UK - 2016)

Directed by John Stockwell. Written by Dimitri Logothetis and James McGrath. Cast: David Bautista, Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Georges St-Pierre, Gina Carano, Sara Malakul Lane, Darren Shahlavi, Cain Velasquez, Fabricio Werdum, T.J. Storm, Matthew Ziff, Sam Medina, Hawn Tran, Daneya Mayid, Steven Swadling. (Unrated, 88 mins)

A remake/reboot of KICKBOXER the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme favorite, KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE is passable action fare that's tailor-made for a long life on cable and streaming, even if it doesn't quite match up to its inspiration. Taking part in the illegal underground fight scene in Thailand, Eric Sloane (the late Darren Shahlavi) is mercilessly killed via neck-snap in the ring by unstoppable Muay Thai master Tong Po (Dave Bautista). Of course, as the title of the film already indicates, vengeance is nigh as Eric's little brother Kurt (veteran stuntman Alain Moussi) vows revenge on the ruthless Tong Po. After infiltrating Tong Po's training stronghold and getting his ass handed to him, Kurt seeks the guidance of legendary, fedora-sporting trainer Master Durand (Van Damme). Endless training sequences ensue as Kurt grows stronger and more agile under the tutelage of the wise and outwardly laid-back Durand. As has been the case in every other kickboxing and martial arts fight movie ever made, the sworn enemies meet for the final, fatal showdown in the ring.

It doesn't get much more formulaic than KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE, a film that may set some kind of record with 43 credited producers. The story offers zilch in the way of surprises and character development is kept to the most shallow minimum. A romance between Kurt and local cop Liu (Sara Malakul Lane) comes out of nowhere. She's obsessed with nailing Tong Po's balls to the wall over his illegal fight operation, but she's thwarted at every turn by her own corrupt police force. She ultimately arrests Kurt and Durand for their own safety, and after they improbably escape from jail and go to the fight, she shows up and is right there to cheer Kurt on as he and Tong Po beat one another into a pulp. The fight scenes are mostly well-done and effectively brutal, if a bit too reliant on the shaky shots and quick-cut editing (one sequence involving Kurt and some bad guys parkouring and fighting atop two elephants in a parade had some bizarre potential, but is ruined by some far-from-seamless editing between fake elephants and cuts to close-ups of real ones). Moussi has some credible action star potential, though he's about as expressive as Van Damme was at that age, and Bautista, despite not being the first person who comes to mind when one hears the term "Muay Thai," makes a formidable, imposing villain. Thai model Lane is stunningly beautiful, UFC champ Georges St-Pierre doesn't have much to do as a hapless, drunken Tong Po stooge who joins Kurt and Durand, and MMA legend Gina Carano (HAYWIRE, DEADPOOL) is wasted in a nothing supporting role as Eric's unscrupulous manager and scheming fight promoter. Why hire Carano for a movie called KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE and not have her fight? She's not about to advance her movie career based on her acting skills.

The real selling point here is the presence of Van Damme. He didn't appear in any of KICKBOXER's four forgotten sequels, where Sasha Mitchell played another kickboxing Sloane brother. It's always nice to see the iconic Muscles from Brussels in action and his turnaround into a beloved pop culture figure who has a sense of humor about himself is a look he wears well. As he was quietly putting together a strong DTV resume over the last decade and a half when no one was looking, I've often said he would make a terrific Bond villain if anyone gave him the chance. He seems to be opting for the self-deprecating, self-aware William Shatner career approach, which is fine, too. When the closing credits play over a split-screen comparison of JCVD's goofy bar dance from the original KICKBOXER and Moussi recreating it in the present day, you know it's done out of genuine affection. But KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE doesn't take full advantage of having JCVD around. It's a great idea to have him graduate to the wise mentor role a la Stallone in CREED, but wouldn't having him play an older Kurt Sloane, instead of an all-new character, make more sense? There's also some hiccups throughout the film involving JCVD, like some scattered shots where he's clearly doubled (back turned, face not seen in shots with Moussi) and the second half of the film has some extensive relooping of his dialogue by a bad impersonator as Jean-Claude Van Dubbed comes perilously close to Steven Seagal territory. Much of this is indicative of a troubled shoot that saw the New Orleans crew revolting during production in December 2014 when they weren't paid, followed closely in January 2015 by the unexpected death of 42-year-old Shahlavi from an undiagnosed heart condition (preliminary tabloid reports indicated a prescription drug overdose). These incidents cast a dark cloud over the proceedings and may have led to the departure of director John Stockwell (a specialist in lush travelogues in the guise of action thrillers like BLUE CRUSH, INTO THE BLUE, and TURISTAS) after the US portion of the shoot. According to Impact's Mike Leeder, Stockwell bailed before the production headed to Thailand, where directing duties were assumed by co-writer/co-producer Dimitri Logothetis (SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK). Only Stockwell receives credit, but perhaps the whole thing would've turned out better with a guy like Isaac Florentine at the helm (and while we're at it, why isn't Scott Adkins starring in this?). There's nothing here you haven't seen before, but KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE is a case study of "It is what it is." It's diverting and entertaining, even if its flaws and Band-Aids are plainly visible. Moussi, Van Damme, and Logothetis already have the sequel KICKBOXER: RETALIATION in the can for 2017, with new cast additions Christopher Lambert and Mike Tyson.

On DVD/Blu-ray: POUND OF FLESH (2015); THE FORGER (2015); and SWORD OF VENGEANCE (2015)

POUND OF FLESH
(Hong Kong/Canada/China/US/Monaco - 2015)

In a solid performance, Jean-Claude Van Damme does his best to salvage this overwrought, heavy-handed actioner, but he can't overcome a terrible script by Joshua James, uninspired direction by Ernie Barbarash that relies too much on quick-cuts and shaky cam in the action sequences, and some embarrassingly bush-league CGI and greenscreen work that's inexcusable in 2015. JCVD is Deacon Lyle, a former kidnap-and-rescue black ops specialist who arrives in Manila, is promptly roofied by the seductive Ana (Charlotte Peters) and wakes up in his hotel room the next morning with an envelope full of money and a fistful of painkillers, but minus a kidney. This poses a problem since he was in Manila to donate a kidney to his deathly ill niece Isabella (Adele Baughan). Deacon and his widower brother George (John Ralston), a minister having a crisis of faith, have some bad blood between them, the cause being something the filmmakers think is a big reveal later on but is obvious almost instantly. Desperate to save his niece's life, Deacon goes on a rampage across Manila to recover the organ, almost like TAKEN if Liam Neeson's kidney was abducted instead of his daughter. He gets help from former enemy and now trusted friend Kung ('80s Cannon stalwart Aki Aleong, credited as "Leonard Gonzales") as well as Ana who, being your typical Hooker with a Heart of Gold, isn't really a bad person but was forced into it by her vicious pimp (Philippe Joly), who was paid off by Drake (the late Darren Shahlavi, who died during production of his next teaming with Van Damme, a KICKBOXER reboot due out in 2016), who orchestrated the kidney heist at the behest of his rich and powerful employer.

With JCVD gouging out someone's eye with the corner of a hardcover Bible and shouting things like "Last chance...where's my kidney?" this could've been goofy fun if James' script wasn't so awful. An action movie with a crazy Belgian in search of a missing vital organ shouldn't be this depressing. The film really gets bogged down with George's endless, melodramatic hand-wringing over taking a life to save a life. POUND OF FLESH is the kind of film where it's not enough for George to question if taking part in Deacon's ruthless pursuit of his kidney is for the greater good and saving Isabella at the expense of the person who had it stolen. No, he has to pause and look at his hands--which literally have blood on them--as a cross dangles from his necklace, forcing him to ponder What I've Become. It's also the kind of film where George has a clandestine meeting with a computer hacker and they have to speak in clumsy exposition that laboriously lays out their shared history that the characters should already know ("You testified on my behalf...if I'm caught near a computer, I go back to prison!") despite the urgency of the meeting. It's the kind of movie where the protagonists are on the run and have nowhere to go, only to have George chime in with a convenient "I have a cabin near here," and when Deacon and Kung desperately need to scrape money together to get the information and weapons they need, only much later, after the Hooker with a Heart of Gold throws in her own $20,000 to help Deacon, does George say "I have $50,000 in this account...here's the password," and no one says "Thanks, asshole...we coulda used it earlier." The climax involves Deacon somehow planting explosives all around the exterior and interior of Drake's employer's fortress-like mansion--it's never explained how he gets around an army of bodyguards patrolling the perimeter. And the film has so little use for Ana that while gunfire and explosions that look like they came from apps on Barbarash's iPhone are going off inside and outside of the mansion, she just patiently waits in Kung's van, right there in the driveway. It's a combination of idiotic plotting and ham-fisted seriousness that derails the cheap-looking POUND OF FLESH. Less George angst and more Bible eye-gouging by Deacon would've been a good thing. Though the 54-year-old Van Damme is relying on obvious stunt doubles a little more than he did as a younger man (he does do his signature splits move while being dragged by a car, which is pretty cool), as an actor, he gives it his all and is quite good, especially in the closing scenes. It's too bad he's stuck in a badly-written and very ugly film that often appears to be unfinished. JCVD deserves better. (R, 104 mins)



THE FORGER
(US - 2015)

THE FORGER finds John Travolta in one of the frequent lulls of his notoriously up-and-down career and is his second consecutive film to both a) go straight to VOD, and b) feature him with ridiculous facial hair. 2013's little-seen KILLING SEASON was hardly worthy of pairing a chinstrap-bearded Travolta and a slumming Robert De Niro for the first time, and while THE FORGER isn't terrible, it's also not even remotely noteworthy other than for the sight of 61-year-old Travolta sporting a velcro dot of a soul patch and a flowing, rock star wig that looks in danger of sliding off at any moment. Ray Cutter (Travolta) comes from a long line of small-time Boston criminals. He's also a master art forger ten months away from being paroled. He has neighborhood crime boss Keegan (Anson Mount) get him sprung from the joint early so he can be with his cancer-stricken Will (Tye Sheridan of MUD and JOE), who has an inoperable, stage IV brain-stem tumor. Will's spent the last four years living with his crotchety but tough-loving Irish grandfather Joseph (Christopher Plummer) and Ray wants to be able to spend what little time he can bonding with his son. Keegan has other ideas, especially since Ray owes him a favor: forge a Monet painting and plot a heist to swap it with the real thing at the Museum of Fine Arts. Ray's also being hounded by an ambitious FBI agent (Abigail Spencer) who's looking to bust Keegan, who needs the Monet to satisfy a debt to a ruthless Latin American cartel boss. In between working on the forgery and plotting the heist, the three Cutter men bond as Will gets sicker by the day.

Directed by British TV vet Philip Martin and scripted by Richard D'Ovidio (THE CALL, THE DAMNED), THE FORGER is uneven, to say the least. It tries to be a gritty crime drama, low-key character piece, crowd-pleasing tearjerker, and One Last Job heist thriller and doesn't fully succeed at any of them. The heist itself is ludicrous and the broad performances by Travolta and the usually infallible Plummer don't help. Travolta's cartoonish accent isn't really Baaah-ston and instead sounds like he opted to dust off his Vinnie Barbarino voice, while Plummer seems on the verge of breaking into a gravel-voiced rendition of "Danny Boy" at any moment and falls into the trap that so many geriatric actors do in modern cinema: hamming it up and dropping a ton of F-bombs. Jennifer Ehle, a great actress who should be much better-known than she is, does some good work as Ray's drug-addict ex-wife, who walked out when Will was a small child. She briefly re-enters the picture when Will wants to see her one last time, and the day they spend together, with Will awkwardly but politely going along with her obvious lies about being successful and living in NYC instead of popping pills in a trailer park. It's one of the rare instances when THE FORGER feels genuine. The other is at the very end, with the empty look in Ray's eyes showing the kind of pain and heartbreak that Travolta knows all too well offscreen. In that moment, Travolta brings his own personal grief to the forefront and, if only briefly, manages to overcome the soul patch and whatever it is on his head. (R, 96 mins)


SWORD OF VENGEANCE
(UK - 2015)

A sluggish GAME OF THRONES and VIKINGS-inspired look at the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, SWORD OF VENGEANCE is a dull, dreary sword & splatter epic with a story credit for Matthew Read, who wrote the equally drab HAMMER OF THE GODS and helped Nicolas Winding Refn script the Viking saga VALHALLA RISING. SWORD has tyrannical William the Conquerer flunky The Earl of Durant (Karel Roden) and his two sniveling sons Romain (Edward Akrout) and Artus (Gianni Giardanelli) ruling the Saxons in their region with an iron fist. The Saxons are given hope in the form of corn-rowed, nomadic, lone-wolf warrior Shadow Walker (Joel Kinnaman lookalike Stanley Weber), who helps lead their depleted forces in revolt against the Durant reign of terror. Loaded with desaturated cinematography that looks sepia-bordering-on-black & white and copious amounts of CGI and slo-mo battle scenes, SWORD OF VENGEANCE is about as forgettable as they come, with lifeless direction by Jim Weedon, tired action sequences that are almost entirely presented in ultra-stylized, 300-like slo-mo, and absolutely no character development or chemistry among its mumbling cast, especially Weber's Shadow Walker, one of the most boring and charisma-deficient heroes in recent memory. Roden, a veteran big-screen villain, is sleepwalking through his performance, hindered by some really unconvincing burn makeup stretched across his face. An empty and incoherent mess with nothing to recommend other than an occasionally interesting electronic score by Steven Hilton, SWORD OF VENGEANCE also features Annabelle Wallis, the late Dave Legeno (best known for SNATCH and as Fenir Greyback in the HARRY POTTER films), who was found dead from heat exhaustion in Death Valley in summer 2014, and Ed Skrein, one-time Daario Naharis on GAME OF THRONES (he was replaced by Michiel Huisman) and star of the upcoming reboot THE TRANSPORTER: REFUELED. (Unrated, 87 mins)