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In this follow up to The Naked Civil Servant we see the final years of Quentin Crisp's life in New York. John Hurt is again Crisp (come on who else could play the part?) and its a role he inhabits to the point of disappearing. For me Hurt is Crisp and I've always found it very hard to take the man himself because Hurt was more him than he was himself. Its masterful performance. His equal is Denis O'Hare as Phillip Steele, Crisp's long time friend and confidant.
Unfortunately outside of the performances the film has little to recommend it. To be certain the film gets the details right. Filmed in and around New York the film the film looks and feels like New York and its environs, but dramatically its kind of inert. Its Crisp talking to people being witty,trying to come to terms with the world as it is (he ended up regretting some poorly chosen words concerning AIDS) and dealing with the infirmities that old aged thrust upon him. Quentin the man is always interesting, but his life as portrayed is really not.
I am disappointed by the film. I've always admired the man and his unique point of view. I just wish he was better served by this film about his life.


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I saw this last night at the Tribeca Film Fest and holy god was it bad.. From the script to the editing to the acting to the cinematography-- none of it worked. Not to mention the set design/costumes were so distractingly wrong for the time period (it spans the years from the late 70s up until 2006 or so). Even John Hurt, who's usually an amazing actor, was so over-the- top ridiculous. Granted, Quinten Crisp is an over-the-top guy to begin with, but Hurt was given nothing to work with here. I don't know much else to say except the audience I saw it with absolutely loved it.. so maybe it's just me. But audiences love anything at film festivals when they're sitting next to the director and all the actors. It's not a very accurate test of how good the movie is or how well it will play. Personally, I thought this movie was terrible. On the other hand, it was so terrible that it was hilarious. Get drunk and give it a shot when it's on HBO in 2 years, if it ever makes it that far.


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This must be the most boring film I ever saw. The only positive I can say about it is that thankfully I didn't pay to see it. We were given a free showing in school and everyone in the audience just sat there embarrassed wondering when the fun would start. This piece of junk is a badly filmed, way too long film. The actual idea on why making the movie took about 10 seconds to present. The only ones who can be interested in this film are those who lost their jobs and want to know why. They might find some of the interviews interesting. A different edit might have made an interesting documentary of this, but I doubt it, the interviews shown were not engaging in any way. As it is, it is just a tragedy, both to behold and to be a part of. AVOID THIS FILM AT ANY COST!


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Can you people please stop believing everything this man says. Get
your facts straight before you start praising this liar. He's not even
from Flint. He just says that to keep his "blue collar" look. He's
from a rich suburb next to Flint. I mean he went to a private school.
His parents paid for him to go to school. Wow, that sure does seem
like they suffered a lot from Flint going to the dumps. He was also born in Canada. Oh wait, that makes him a Canadian citizen. I wish he would just move there. Instead he lives here in his 1 million dollar New York apartment. Thats working class right there. I sure can't wait for his DVD set to come out. I want to here him talking about how big corporations are bad. Where will I get those dvds? Oh yeah, at Target and Wal-Mart. The two biggest corporations in America, which were also the only two stores allowed to sell them.


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Leni Riefenstahl would be embarrassed by the disgusting propaganda Moore tries to call "humor". That this movie, and Moore's other prevarications, actually attract admirers proves that, alas, it's possible to fool some of the people all of the time.
Let's see if we can bait foreigners. Let's see if we can extol obsolete factories. Let's see if we can add to the sum of hatred in the world. Let's see if we can pretend we're funny. Let's see if we can out-isolationist Charles Lindbergh. The only thing Moore lacks in comparison to Lindbergh is a medal from Göring.
Admittedly, in this film, Moore had a bit of self-deprecation to his schtick. In this film, Moore mocks Roger Smith, CEO of General Motors, as an aloof, uncaring elitist. Moore could do that in 1989, but now that Moore has surrendered himself to aloof, uncaring elitism, this characterization of Roger Smith has an ironic twinge. Who really wouldn't rather be Roger's buddy than Michael Moore's?


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During university, our Philosophy professor, Mr.R, played us "Roger & Me" in its entirety. This was at a time when the obese misfit was still pretty much unknown; a charlatan-in-the-making, a soon-to-be-household-name who was still busy honing his fact-bending skills and still learning how to manipulate the easily impressed, the pathologically paranoid, the mentally ill, the sexually frustrated, the illiterate, the semi-literate, the clueless, and the laughably gullible among ye.
As we finished viewing it, I thought: "Yeah, it was somewhat entertaining - in a totally daft Bugs Bunny kind of way - but what an ultra-biased, anti-Capitalist propaganda turkey that has no objectivity whatsoever this is; its sole purpose being to take cheap shots at people and ideas which the film's creator has pet-peeves for. This isn't a documentary by any stretch of the imagination." However, our beloved Marxist professor was absolutely thrilled with R&M, and we ended up not only NOT criticizing any aspects of it, but Mr.R actually spent the remainder of class praising its "qualities". Just so we understand each other, the words "propaganda", "viewer manipulation", "left-wing Extremist", or "selective fact presentation" never exited his perpetually smiling mouth... And just to remind you: this was supposed to be a philosophy class, not INDOCTRINATE YOUR STUDENTS WITH YOUR OWN POLITICAL B.S. course.
Anyway, now I get to the really interesting aspect: this professor, Mr.R, is now a highly successful screenwriter in Hollywood. He has written several left-wing scripts with A-grade stars in them.
The moral of the story: those are the kind of people for whom all doors are open in Hollywood.
Michael Moore is a talentless filmmaker (which he proved beyond a smidgen of a doubt with "Canadian Bacon"), but being a Marxist liberal opens doors to just about anyone. Tinseltown is teeming with rabid pro-Chavez extremists, hence why political brainwashing through simplistic portrayals of reality has been part-and-parcel of the Hollywood experience for many decades now.
Embrace this demagogue and you've betrayed your own brain forever.


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I was forced to watch this film for my World Reigonal Geography class. This film is what is wrong with America today, instead of figuring out the best way out of hard times or situations we would rather complain about how it is someone else's fault. This film goes through the downfall of Flint, Michigan and blames it 100% on General Motors. In the process of doing so Moore goes to great lengths to make the executives of General Motors out to be villains just because they are doing their job in a capitalist society. Moore films several evictions throughout the film and does not ever even ask once if the person is being evicted because of a GM layoff. Additionally, he never interviews the landlords of the tenants filmed. Moore goes to great lengths to twist historical events to fit his political agenda in this film of pure propaganda.


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That this film has such a low IMDb rating is not surprising. In our post-Enron era, do we really need any more reminders of America's obsession with the greed creed? The topic has become so politically charged that a lot of viewers not only are not going to be entertained by movies of this sort, but will respond with barely concealed rage. It was all I could do to sit quietly through this cinematic memo of corporate corruption without extracting the DVD and smashing it into a thousand pieces.
What's really irksome with these kinds of films, including "Purpose", is their pretense that behind the glitter, there's some meaningful message that makes the film worthwhile. In "Purpose", I found no such meaningful message. What I did find was a story that idolized the materialistic trappings of capitalistic power and wealth. The two main characters, nauseating in their glibness, do very little actual work. Instead, they party, they play golf, they strut their coolness, they sound "hip" with dialogue straight out of MTV-culture-speak: "rock my world", and "Now get back to partying; that's an order". John is smug, self-important, shallow, and smirks a lot. Robert, who wears funky little glasses, is even worse.
The film includes two youthful garage geeks, who look and sound like they're right out of the film "Antitrust" (2001). Stereotypes are played for all they're worth, and in this film also include chic-looking computer equipment, and Barbie doll chicks on hand for those occasions when our can-do future billionaires need some relaxation after all that heavy-duty partying. And with the time-bound images and dialogue that such a story necessitates, can you imagine how dated this film will be in fifteen years?
About the best I can do for this waste of cinematic celluloid is to say that it does have some nice aerial views of San Francisco. The film would have been a lot more enjoyable, a lot more entertaining, if they had ditched those odious characters and that repulsive story, and simply flown us viewers around in that little plane for the film's duration.


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Computer savvy John Light (as John Elias) goes from Stanford drop-out to successful young Dotcom-era tycoon. But, Mr. Light's sneering success could be short-lived, with partners like ambitious Jeffrey Donovan (as Robert Jennings). Mr. Donovan used to bed down with Light's girlfriend, Megan Dodds (as Lisa Forrester). Donovan wants Light to know that binge drinking and casual sex don't have to end in college. After reading a naughty Internet sex session, Ms. Dodds shines Light on. He may lose is "Digital Dreams" Internet empire, too! Veterans unsuccessfully trying to lending dramatic gravitas include red lollipop-sucking Mia Farrow (as Anna Simmons) and quick-drawing, computer-hating Hal Holbrook (as Tom Walker). Ms. Farrow looks sweet with her lollipops.
*** Purpose (2/21/02) Alan Lazar ~ John Light, Jeffrey Donovan, Mia Farrow


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Ham-handed homage to honest hacking. Felt good in a soft-core way about equivalent to its mild pornography, until its vapid lack of technical and economic reality, emotional and moral sophistication became apparent.
Basically a muddled '90s remake of '85's "Real Genius", with fewer and stupider geniuses, and a cynical bad ending.
Perhaps this movie would appeal to someone delighted by the thesis that becoming a billionaire is so easy it's almost accidental. Or perhaps to technical types who like seeing themselves depicted as cool and sexy. Speculating about the reasons someone might like this movie is certainly more interesting than the movie itself. The movies closing credits song is more interesting than the movie itself.


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This film tells the true story of escaped black slaves who found their own mountain-top commune as free men in 17th-century Brazil. The story is interesting and edifying. However, this film -- as a film -- is terrible.
The soundtrack is not period music or tribal music. It is Afro-Brazilian pop music from the early 1980s. Battle scenes are fought to the sounds of cheesy pop rhythms best left to the disco or bad cops dramas. Admittedly, the lyrics are folk-ish tales of the slaves' heroism. The special effects are absurd. Rather than invoke the mysticism of African religion and atavistic beliefs, they merely make the film look cheap. They are completely unbelievable, and I don't mean merely in a sense of verisimilitude.
Life within the commune of Palmares could not have been the way it is portrayed in the film. For this society, as shown in the film, is one-part kibbutz, one-part Afro-pop festival. Moreover, it is almost embarrassing to watch the director play upon the clichés of blacks as talented singers and dancers who simply want to be happy. He portrays daily life as a series of dance parties in which the freed slaves paint themselves bright colors and whirl around to the strains of '80s pop music. On the other hand, they have an abundance of beautiful food, but the viewer hardly sees any work being done. The king inveighs against private property in a hackneyed and clichéd way. When a man complains that people are taking the vegetables that he has grown over many months, the king says, "What comes from the earth belongs to everyone, as the earth belongs to no one. If they need food, they have a right to take yours."
I am glad that I learned about this episode in history, but I am relieved that a film with such low production values and that trades upon such worn stereotypes would likely not be made today.


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Dreadful, stupidly inane film dealing with corruption at the Louisiana Purchase Lumber Company.
Everyone in the state of Louisiana seems to be corrupt and inept. A member of the college's English Department can only sign his name with an X.
When it appears that a straight laced Senator (Victor Moore) is coming to the state to investigate, everyone there tries to blame the innocent but foolish Bob Hope character.
Is it any wonder that Vera Zorina did not get the part of Maria in 1943's "For Whom the Bell Tolls?"
Naturally, the corrupt officials along with Hope try to show pictures of Zorina with Moore so as to ruin him politically. Moore marries the head of the restaurant who he had insulted when he asked for a ham sandwich. He thought the reason that she was upset was because it was a kosher restaurant. This is the extent of humor is this absolute mess of a film.
When Hope tries to defend himself in Congress, he does a take-off of James Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." By then the film is too far gone for any good response.
The music and lyrics are both absolutely terrible. That song praising Louisiana, sung in various ways, is absolutely terrible. Irving Berlin had something to do with the music of this utterly terrible film?


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My wife and I couldn't even finish the film. Truly, it was rather painful.
First, the historical accuracy is compromised not so much by the events themselves as the ridiculous one-dimensionality of the characters. For instance, Augustus takes the "burden" of power only with great reluctance. Indeed, he is portrayed as if he's some sort of great humanist and believer in democracy.
Second, the camp! My lord, the dialog is horrifically bad. I recall the soap opera my mother watched when I was a child having better dialog than this. The constant exposition and pontificating grates upon the ears like fingernails on chalkboard. Ugh. (Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but the dialog truly is bad.) The HBO series Rome is superior for no other reason than that its characters were at least believable, regardless of their historicity.
Rome was also wise enough to know they couldn't stage epic battle scenes. The creators of this film did not. When Caesar attacks Munda, the battle scene is practically farcical.
I will grant that the costumes are perfectly good. The sets are fine, though their CGI backdrops can be a bit jarring at times. The sound is bad, thoughboth in terms of the music, the foley work, and the dubbing of so many of the side characters.
Anyway, it's completely not worth renting. As a history major, I was hoping for an alternative approach to Augustus than HBO's Rome, which, I feel, failed to capture his overall "feel" quite as well as they did Caesar or Antony. Instead, I should have just stuck to my reading.


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This is a voice of a person, who just finished watching the second season of Rome, almost at one go, and grabbed the opportunity to see "what happened next" - this film conveniently takes off where Rome ends. If you find Rome an abomination, a foul mouthed screw-fest of little historical accuracy, then you might enjoy Imperium: Augustus. But, if you feel Rome is a good thing, if you enjoy the complicated intrigue, the ambiance of decadence and the work of the actors, then Imperium will obviously appear to you as an overly timid, superfluous and tedious soap opera with not many redeeming factors.
There are some actors who for my taste look somewhat better than these in Rome. I especially disliked Rome's image of Cleopatra as a drug-soaked sex addict. There must have been a great deal of strength and dignity in that woman, and the actress in Imperium suits the part much better. O'Toole and Rampling are good, and so are some others. But then... If you have come to know - and love - Atia as the super cool bitch, you'll find the depiction of her in Imperium - as a tear-jerking mother goose in an apron - absolutely ridiculous. There are supposed to be some bitchy characters in Imperium, but these actresses rely heavily upon staring at the men and nothing much more. You'll find no interesting female characters in this epic. There's also the painfully comic Maecenas, whom we see as a screeching drag queen, even though there is little historical evidence that he was such (he's once referred to as "being effeminate in his pleasures" in the annals).
The interiors are rather meager and rely on clichés upon clichés. Cleopatra's big hall looks like something out of a computer game or a children's play room in an Egyptian theme park. There's a looooooooot of really poor 3D graphics, not up to 2003 standards.
The action is presented as a series of flashbacks the aged Augustus is reliving. So we get a quick look at some historical events, some of which are presented well, whereas some are not. An disproportional amount of time is wasted to show Livia as the "eternal flame" of Augustus. This affair doesn't sizzle for even a moment, the dialog is superlame and everything is seasoned with tacky tear-inducing musical score. Whatever amount of reality the show aims to capture, every last shred of it is destroyed by the dry synchronized dubbing (most of the actors are non English speakers).
Everything is lukewarm in this epic. True, there are more historical accuracies than in Rome, but dramatically speaking, it's plain boring. The characters lack depth and the dialog sharpness. Camera-work is often reduced to static shots, and lighting offers nothing to please your eye.
There's really no-one to love and no-one to hate in Imperium. Regardless of whether you liked or disliked Rome, there are much better films and miniseries around. Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire would be one thing I recommend.


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In terms of historical accuracy, this is the absolute worst Roman film I have ever seen. The list not only of errors but of plot ideas that are flat impossible would run longer than the three-hour film, but just to give you an idea...
Julius Caesar and Augustus are presented as liberal Democrats, taking the side of "the people" against "the nobles." This is patently absurd. The Caesars were as noble as you could get. Their interest was in consolidating power and stabilizing a country that had been wrecked by 150 years of civil war. There had been reformers, notably the Gracchi brothers, who lived about 100 years earlier, and to some extent advocated for the rights of ordinary citizens.
There are several scenes that are utterly ridiculous, if you know anything about the period. "Cleopatra", with Richard Burton, will give you a much better idea of how events unfolded, fanciful though it is.
Historical accuracy is one thing. Acting and dialogue are something else, and here this film veers perilously close to being a bad junior high school production. I burst out laughing several times, especially when Julia, the daughter of Augustus, meets a lover. They clutch passionately, as she breathes: "My father..." "Ah, your father, your father.... your father would disapprove." Peter O'Toole is at his worst, forced to gnaw his way through some very pompous and silly lines. The actor who plays Augustus as a young man is such a nebbish --- and the character is written as such --- it's impossible to envision him as the cunning, crafty, Machiavellian politician who created the Roman Empire. Here, he's just a whiner who has to be told what to do most of the time.
Charlotte Rampling does manage to emerge from an underwritten role as Livia, Augustus's wife, with dignity. Had she been given a fuller role to play, she might have rescued this production from absurdity.
There is some nice photography and battle footage, helped by plenty of standard issue CGI. Oddly, this was made for British TV (and appears to be a British-Italian co-production) but is labeled with an "R" rating.
The DVD picture is excellent and the Dolby Digital soundtrack is very nice, although you only notice it during the few action sequences, as the movie is mostly talk.
Almost any Roman movie, even "Cleopatra" or "The Fall of the Roman Empire", has more historicity --- to say nothing of compelling drama --- than this bizarre Classics Illustrated, Jr. adaptation. This one gives new meaning to the much-abused phrase, "Based on a true story." In this case they could have said, "Suggested by real events."


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For several reasons, this movie is simply awful. Other posters have listed some of this movie's historical errors. Well, I have a layman's knowledge of Roman history and even I found the inaccuracies flagrant. I usually forgive errors in historical movies because I understand that the purpose is to entertain not educate. And shrinking a long saga down to a two hour feature requires some, let's say, historical license. But this movie goes well beyond mere rounding.
There's worse. To tell a story from a distant period, the movie uses flashbacks which just make the story more confusing. Unless viewers have some prior knowledge of the period, they will quickly be lost. In addition, the movie was obviously filmed simultaneously in Italian and English with various actors being dubbed later. At times, the actors seem as if they were in completely different movies which were then edited together. In fact, this is not far wrong. The actors were obviously pasted onto a cheesy computer generated ancient Rome.
The only reason I give this boring mess any stars is because I always find Peter O'Toole entertaining. But that is no reason to rent it. If you are curious about Roman history, there are much better movies available.


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What a stupid waste of money! 30,000 square feet of rebuilt ancient Rome, 2 millions cubic meters of 50 feet tall buildings, 10,000 costumes, 2 years of works, an International Ancient History Committee (sic!), some first class actors and actresses . The final result? An empty TV-movie for a single-digit IQ attendance.


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What can I say about this? Such a big Prestige-Production - but in the End? Wasted Time, wasted Money.
This work a disaster is historically seen. Only some examples:
* Augustus often is named 'Gaius' - his First name (Pronomen). But the old Romans don't used this Name. Correct would be the Surname (Nomen Gentile and Cognomen) or the 'Octavian', 'Caesar', 'Augustus'.
* Livia was shown as tyrannic Wife. But this historically wrong.
* Iulia was shown as nice young woman - but she wasn't one. Adultery and (maybe?) Prostitution and arrogant behavior was the cause of her banishing.
* She wasn't at the dying bed of her Father. She never was allowed to leave her banishing. And she was at this time around 50 years old! Not as young as she was shown. In the same Year Augustus died she committed suicide, because Tiberius stopped giving her a Pension.
* Augustus was much more scruplesless then in this Movie shown. But Author and Director seems to believe Augustus' own 'Res Gestae'.
What remains? Historically extremely doubtful, bad acting, bad built and equipment - 2 Points out of 10 - one for Peter O'Toole.


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I've seen a few bad action movies in my days, but this one's just plain awful. I feel it's a waste of time to even write this but I'll make it short. Why this movie suck? here are 10 reasons: 1. Very amateurly directed and cut. 2. Bad bad bad acting of the whole cast. 3. Silly dialogs and too many clichés. 4. Too many plot holes, a lot of scenes don't add up. 5. Bad photographing (and a lot of continuity issues). 6. Ridiculously bad performance by the lead female actress. 7. Unreliable action scenes (and not too good, either). 8. Even for a Snipes movie, he shows a big lack of acting materials. 9. Outrageous accents (of all the cast). 10. Last, but not least - too many implausible facts, such as a tournament of soccer in the U.S., CIA needing to do background checks to get new information about their employees, a mattress that is explosion proof and so on. In essence - it's a waste of time, it's not funny, not entertaining, not even as a joke - DON"T WATCH IT!!! Seriously, just don't.


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After an undercover mission in Bucharest to disclose an international gang of weapon dealers, the agent Sonni Griffith (Wesley Snipes) is assigned to protect the Romanian Nadia Kaminski (Silvia Colloca), the widow of an accountant of the Romanian Mafia. However, the CIA safe house is broken in by the criminals, and Sonni realizes that the information was leaked from inside the Agency. Alone, trusting only in his friend Michael Shepard (William Hope), Sonni fights to survive and protect Nadia.
The career of Wesley Snipes is downhill. I have just seen this flick, and it is another disappointing movie of this actor, whose career is presently very similar to Steven Segal's one. The movie has many explosions, shots and car chase associated to an awful story and horrible acting. First, the Afro-American Wesley Snipes is chased by the police of Bucharest, but they never find a black American man. I have never been in Romania, but I believe there are not many Afro-Americans in this country. His character does not like to bath, wearing the same clothes along many days. There is no chemistry between Sonni and the sexy Silvia Colloca, but she freely has sex, falls in love for him and shares her fortune with him. The boy that performs Nadia's son is horrible. My vote is four.
Title (Brazil): "O Detonador" ("The Detonator")


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Unlike some of the reviews written here, I didn't hate this movie. It is a movie that COULD have been much better than it was. Not Oscar material, true, but much better than it was.
I thought the plot had a good hook and through line. Granted, this movie was badly written. And TERRIBLY directed and produced. I mean, how many irrelevant flashbacks can you have? Why were we there? What exactly is the point of the opening sequence? It seems like the producer(s) watched American Beauty a few too many times and thought 'I'll use that in an action movie!' I thought the movie wasn't that badly acted. Wesley Snipes did a credible job, he just ran afoul of some bad direction. And once this movie hit the production room, things just got worse. The main actress, I think, had the same problems. Some of the other acting was suspect, yes, but it was a low-budget flick. Again, I would say it is the director's job to pick that up and correct it.
As an overall recommendation, I would agree with the first review I read that this movie is not worth seeing. Or maybe it is worth seeing, if you are a film student and want to see what NOT to do.
3/10, and that's giving it praise.


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Since Wesley Snipes descended(or Ascended)to the world of DTV action movies the result has been Miss,so-so,and miss.Unstoppible was weak.7 seconds was entertaining.The marksman was the proverbial scraping of the septic tank.
And what of The Detonator?We'll anything would be above suffering the Marksman again.But the Detonator holds a small amount of merit that is hampered by a lazy star and Low budget.
Sonny Griffith is a not-so-by-the-book Covert op who busts illegal arms dealers in Poland.When his latest assignment ends up a bullet-buffet leaving a pile of bodies;Sonny then is ordered to escort a witness; Nadia (the ever-hot Silvia Colloca) to the US.Trouble is; Sonny is being duped by a traitor in his own organization who is keeping his trail hot for Gangsters with Nuclier Ambitions.
Snipes delivers in the action department.He is in half-blade mode here.He actually does well in the first 15 minutes of the Detonator,before descending into pure sleepwalking mode that ruined the Marksman.Colloca does more than look pretty.There is some conviction to her scenes.A lot of the actors look familiar,and have been in the last 3 or 4 Seagal/Snipes movies.Its always good to see Michael Brandon again.
The action is telegraphed here.But never boring.Running,car chases,Fights.Director Po-Chih Leong seems to have gotten better after the Seagal farce;Out of Reach.He does a credible job.But is constantly hampered by the low budget.Enough with the eastern Euro-locations.Its cheapening the movie's look.Vancover cannot be that much expensive can it?
The Detonator ends just average.It does not have the so-bad its fun aspect of Seagal' Mercenary for Justice. But it is nowhere near as entertaining as Van Damme's Second in command.Nor as thrilling as Dolph's Mechanik.Perhaps Dolph should direct Wesley next eh?
Its high time The producers pump a little more money and thought into these DTV titles with the kind of money they are making from them.Its only fair.The result could be a high seller perhaps?
Snipes would be advised to try making this one his last DTV action flick.Its sad to see YET another waste of this gifted actor's Talents.


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to start off, i'm easily pleased. i'm in no way a real critic, and movies that authentic critics, friends, family, and newspapers may find awful may even be fun for me to watch.
not this one however.
i got it since it was the newest wesley snipes movie in my DVD-store. i like snipes, but this was a let-down.
bad story, bad actors, continuity-glitches, crappy sound, depressing locations, a pseudo- cool snipes, i really had to force myself to finish the movie.
they even left some markings in the shots where a car was supposed to come to a stop.
and i'm not talking about "small production company/young director/low budget" kind of bad, where you may ignore some mistakes because you feel sympathy.
a wanna-be block buster action movie that disappoints like no other in a long time.


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Let's get one thing straight: I like much of Snipes' work. Unlike his other high-kicking contemporaries (Seagal and Van Damme) he can actually act. This film, however, does little to enhance his reputation; it's not exactly unwatchable - but I am not in any hurry to watch it again either. In fact, if I never saw it again it wouldn't bother me - there are just loads of better films out there to waste my on! It's a pity because with a bit of imagination and and some subtle changes this could have been a worthwhile film. Instead the director has chosen to almost try and bludgeon his audience into submission with too much over-the-top violence and very little characterisation.
The biggest problem I have is with Snipes' co-star, Silvia Colloca. It baffles me that the producers of this film went to all the bother of hiring a stunning beautiful (for my money anyway) and talented actress like Miss Colloca and then give her such a pathetic one-dimensional character to play with. If she was hired to simply add a bit of "glamour" to the movie she doesn't even do that very well; there's no nudity in the film and also no sex scene worth mentioning. Strange, really. Given the amount of violence in this film it baffles me why the producers have taken such a conservative attitude to sex and nudity. Are we living in 2007 or in 1957? What the producers of this rubbish (and probably the actors as well) have forgotten is that films are meant to be fantasies. Like most of the inhabitants of this planet my real life is very boring. I would love to be chasing terrorists, be able to handle myself like Mr Snipes and hook up with a beautiful young thing like Miss Colloca. This film satisfies none of those fantasies very well. Which is precisely why I am giving it such a bad review!


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I am from Romania ... and for that i apologize if my English is not so good.
i just finished watching this movie and i must say that i am extremely disappointed. I always liked Wesley Snipes's movies but this one is terrible. I regret that I spent over 3 hours downloading this film. There are a lot mistakes in the film. For example, the stadium in the film is not Lia Manoliu. The name of the stadium is Ghencea. The name of the soccer team is called Steaua Bucuresti, not Uli.The scoreboard of the stadium is not capable of showing graphical images: video replays, live images etc. It's a simple scoreboard that can only display letters and numbers. The Uli(Seaua) team's opponents are displayed on the scoreboard as Din ( probably from Dinamo Bucuresti - who are Steaua's main rivals in the Romanian soccer championship). The images from the soccer match are from a match between Steaua Bucuresti and Poli Timisoara (my favorite team and my only love - look it up on the internet and you will see why). The police cars in the movie are not properly made. There isn't a single dark-blue police car in Romania! They are all white! The "mistake list" can go on and on and on ... but i will stop here! In short terms this movie is horrible. It does not worth renting it, it does not worth buying a cinema ticket for it, it does not worth downloading it! I honestly feel sorry that Wesley snipes played in this movie. A previous movie of his ... 7 seconds ... also filmed in Romania ... was OK but this is terrible!


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OK, ill be brief. This film wasn't just bad it was very very bad, with line4s like " if you deal with the devil you expect to get sh*t on your shoes" you know your in hideous film territory. After watching this film i wanted to kill myself and my entire family, it gave me such a vast feeling of self-loathing I wanted to do murder. don't watch this film. i will kill again. but when I do it will be terribly edited with a pathetic soundtrack and stock shot for hire action sequences and bad shirts.
fortunately there is a flipside, its the first action film to feature a three door ford sierra.
unfortunately it ends up trashed on its roof :(
Ps: Worse than the Marksman


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At first sight, I must say already, watch The Contractor, 2007. With Wesley Snipes too. A better action movie and with a more dramatic plot.
The Detonator has an horrendous plot focusing in some sort of atomic bomb, set in Romania and with awful directing for an action movie-- there is no thrilling moments and an action movie is turned in to boredom.
Really, what you expect Wesley Snipes to do, when awful screenplays like this one are offered to him? Don't blame him, he needs the money.
This was the first impression when I saw the movie, 3 years ago. But I won't see it again, no way. Screw it. It sucks. There. I said it.
PS: I don't think I ever said "this movie sucks" on a IMDb review. Thank you, Detonator!


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Meh, Sums it all up for me really. Boring story, bland dialogue, dull action scenes (HOW do you make something like a fight or a shootout boring? Do you actually have to TRY to do that?), no real characters etc. Just dull. Snipes is a gifted actor and physical performer but none of this has come to the surface in ANY of his DTV work, when the opportunity is there to give the audience a much more superior product than they are used to. Imagine a decent script with a few solid characters that you care about and some damn explosive action, fights, shootouts, etc. How can it be that hard to handle? My personal opinion is that the primary players in the productions simply do not care. There is no evidence of enthusiasm for what they are doing. Look at Snipes in the first 2 Blades, Passenger 57, Rising Sun, New Jack City, Demolition Man etc? Awesome, intense performances complemented by decent (if not always outstanding) scripts, good supporting casts and wicked action.
None of that is evident in any of these releases so far which is a tremendous shame. The distributors slap Wesley's face on the cover, knowing the audience will lap them up as they haven't realised yet that they haven't seen him in theatres for nearly 2 years.
I'd love to see Snipes work with somebody like Isaac Florentine who really knows how to make the most out of a DTV production, and work with Alpha Stunts who are simply some of the best action guys out there. Together they would all make an awesome team and a Snipes action vehicle we would all be proud of seeing.
Detonator sucks. It's not as bad as The Marksman, which chews, but it still really sucks.


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Yes it is your typical direct to video action flick. And of course they do their best to change it up a little bit but fail miraculously. Snipes delivers his perfectly bland performance that he always does. Colloca proves that you don't need any talent to star in a film but just sex appeal. The worst part is that it didn't cover my bad movie basics which are: 1  Cheap looking villains. 2  Perfectly timed one-liners. 3  Intense car chases with massive explosions. 4  The hero hooking up with the hot chick. 5  Multitudes of nude or scantily clad women for no reason. OK so I lied, it covers those but does so horribly.


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It seems that all companies that are enjoy with the taxes taken by Romania for picture,grant the image that disappear since 1994 .They are hardly try to get the oldest car the had founded, but they never take pictures of the Lamorghini,Ferrari,Aston Martin and all new Mercedes that are more the you can find in some important countries.
A second problem is that they filmed in some neighborhoods in Bucharest where they had the possibility of clear the streets and put garbages on dressing people with i don't know maybe '90 clothes a making them seem so stupid that you will realize the script was maybe a second hand bought from ebay or worth.
I wist for future to keep making movies in US and to make good money there than to give us a little bit and shame our country.I have no reason to believe that someone will understand the message(beyond my English---:sorry)


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This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I could hardly stay awake. The acting and the plot were horrible. I like B-movies, but this movie has nothing that could make me laugh or think about. OK, there were two or three funny moments at the beginning, so I have to give this movie 2 out of 10. If you really want to watch it, watch the first 10 minutes. After that you will get more and more disappointed while the movie runs.


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I like dark humor and non-PC stuff, but not if it is with no purpose but to elevate yourself. Bashing a group of people without any trace of self-irony is crap.
There are people who could make concentration camp jokes funny, but whoever made this film unfortunately failed even in the VERY easy task of making fun about Turks in Germany. It is a very easy task, but if your are the Germany equivalent of an inbred redneck (=inbred Southerner from a village where virginity is often lost to farm animals) you certainly will fail at this and also at life. I have heard and seen so many funny stuff about minorities in Germany, but this "movie" (this piece of crap being listed here is an insult to the next worst movie) sucks like the calf the makers of this movie met some years ago.


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First of all, let me underline, that Im not a great fan of political correctness. In fact I like satire or dark humor, even if it makes jokes out of minorities. The reason, why Im pretty sure, that this racist piece of work is not worth a look, is that it doesn't make fun of minorities to demonstrate their condition of living, their social circumstances or the way they are treated by society. Moreover it uses every stupid stereotype and prejudice to strengthen xenophobic feelings and reservations. Its really a pity, but not a surprise, that the other comments didn't get that point, cause we all had a cheap laugh. Congratulations.


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Any one who writes that this is any good there kid may have worked on it or put money in to this god-awful college experiment. It was lousy, slow, and painful to watch. Running time of only about 84 minutes, it felt like three and half hours. The only person to blame is the director, who knows nothing on how to direct a scene, where to place the camera! 95% of this dreadful movie was shoot by long master shots. Two or three people in the frame talking or yelling forever( or what seems like forever), No close-ups!! No medium shots!!. There are two so-called fight scenes that any filmmaker with a brain would have shoot some close-ups or medium shoots for them. They looked very amateurish. The scenes with the father and son screaming at each other would have worked better if there was a cut away of just the father or just the son acting,or reacting. Tri-C must be very mortified to show this any where. I have seen a bunch of bad movies in my time some of them are fun because they so bad, this is not one of them.


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I go this game and it is alright I guess. I just expected a bit more. The main problem with this is that the hacking is extremely hard, even if you read the instructions you can't get it. Also the graphics aren't as good as Pandora Tomorrow and Double Agent. This game could do with some improvements, it says that if guards are waling in water and you shoot a sticky shocker in the water the guard will fry up but nothing happens. In my opinion this is the worst out of the three. I haven't played the first one but have played Pandora Tomorrow, this and Double agent. This game deserves a 4/10 though. Could do with some improvements.


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My brother-in-law and his wife brought the movie over one night to watch on video. This should have given me the first clue that it would be horrible. It was. From the very first frame to the last this movie is terrible. It does not even quite register as a "B" movie. Maybe an N or a P. One of the worst 5 movies I've ever seen. From the rubber raptor-on-a-stick to the still-breathing corpses in the car to the beyond horrible closing lines, this movie isn't worth watching if you've received it for free.
Skip this one altogether--unless you want to play Mystery Science Theatre with your friends, it will provide good ammunition.


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