THE EXPERT, starring Jeff Speakman, is the definition of DULL!!!

Dull, characters, dull situations, dull direction, dull actors, dull cinematography, dull music.

I don't really understand this movie. Is it supposed to be an action movie? It's almost as if Speakman wanted to be in a serious movie but the level of acting and writing found in THE EXPERT is below your average TV drama. And there are some typical "Speakman pummeling bad guys" scenes here and there but the main aspect of the movie relies on some sort of believable drama, which is totally wrong for Speakman or is so badly directed that it just doesn't work with the action star. In the end, this confused movie looks and feels very nondescript and bland. The worst aspect of THE EXPERT is the music. The composer is a Jerry Goldsmith wannabe, with his pompous and melodramatic score, which simply doesn't belong in this kind of (dull) movie. It's as if the producers knew they had a very dull product on their hands and they asked the composer to make the film feel more compelling and dramatic with his score, which makes the entire movie look even more confused, goofier and dull.

Don't waste your time watching this, even if you're a Jeff Speakman fan.


This film is a direct copy of the mainstream Jennifer Tilly film "Bound," done in B-movie fashion. The main difference is that the Gina Gershon character is played by a male, Jason Schnuit (see also, Club Wild Side 2). Otherwise, the film is virtually identical in plot. The main character, played by Kim Dawson, lately of the late-night cable series "Bedtime Stories," is not the ditsy showpiece of a mobster, but the unhappily married showpiece of a mobster. Jason Schnuit plays her old boyfriend whom she left at the altar. He comes back into her life and together they hatch the Bound-like plan to get out of the desperate situation and be together. The story is unoriginal, as are the mediocre sex scenes. The film doesn't even have the female-female scenes that made "Bound" so interesting.


We've all seen the softcore pornographic films that are aired on Cinemax and Showtime after dark, and they're terrible enough. But "Hidden Passion" is worse; not only is it terribly acted and horribly written, but the fact that it's a cheap rip-off of "Bound" adds another layer to the disgust. And the film doesn't even do a good job at ripping it off, seeing as how it's cast with untalented actors, so it's crammed with sex scenes here and there to lure the viewer away from the fact that the entire movie reeks.


Clearly, this video is not to be judged the same way a legitimate film would. It is aimed at young children. Still, I have over twenty younger cousins and spend many evenings growing up babysitting them and watching countless kids videos. This one was hands-down the corniest and most awful. Again, no one is going to expect great performances here, but this cast reeks of small town community theatre amateurism. The songs will get stuck in your head and make you want to run head first, at full speed, into a brick wall. Sure, little kids might be amused (although my cousins- even at very young ages- found it lame). But for anyone over the age of six, stay away from this garbage!


After seeing Desire Me, I looked in Lee Server's new book about Robert Mitchum. He was as unhappy as with the film as everyone else was in 1947.

The film is set in postwar Brittany and it has to do with Richard Hart arriving in a small Breton fishing village. He's decided to look up Greer Garson who's the widow of a former buddy Robert Mitchum from a POW camp. He woos and wins her and then Mitchum shows up.

I have to say that Mitchum, Garson, and Hart are about as convincingly French as Barry Fitzgerald. And the story is just something you want to shout to the screen, get it over with, the story just plods along so.

For MGM the film location for Brittany was the California coast at Monterey. Another reviewer mentioned about Garson nearly being drowned with a sudden wave during a scene on the beach. I'm sure that caused her to lose interest in the film.

Mitchum and Garson hated each other. In typical Mitchum fashion for what he felt was Garson's condescending ways, he used to eat sandwiches with onions and roquefort cheese before their closeups. That ain't a look of passion Garson's giving out with when you see this.

Because Cukor got into a fight with Garson as opposed to Mitchum who was in on a pass from that inferior studio RKO, he quit the film. Mervyn LeRoy came on, Jack Conway came on, a few others did who had a spare moment or two and the thing was finished. Not a moment too soon.

And NO ONE wanted to be listed as director. So the film was inflicted on the public without a directorial credit.

My only question is, if this thing had turned out like Gone With the Wind which was another collaborative effort, who would have gotten the Oscar nomination for Best Director?


Frenchwoman Greer Garson (as Marise) tells her psychiatrist about her complicated relationship with two men. In flashback, her story begins (mostly) with the arrival of handsome Richard Hart (as Jean) at her coastal cottage, in Normandy. Mr. Hart has some bad news and some good news for Ms. Garson.

The bad news is that he informs her that handsome husband Robert Mitchum (as Paul) has been killed by Nazis. The good news is that he, Hart, has fallen in love with Garson, through the stories told by buddy Mitchum. Lonely, Garson catches Hart bathing, and invites him to stay. Of course, Mitchum returns

An old storyline, updated for war and psychiatry. This was supposed to be George Cukor's picture, but he left; and, nobody received director's credit. Still, there are some nicely shot scenes, thanks to a nice, albeit too foggy as the film progresses, location. Joseph Ruttenberg photographs Garson and the coast with love.

**** Desire Me (10/31/47) George Cukor ~ Greer Garson, Richard Hart, Robert Mitchum


This flaccid remake of Hitchcock's excellent thriller 'Dial M For Murder' dumps not only that great title but numerous chunks of the clever plot, and replaces them with twists of its own that are either predictable or old hat. Michael Douglas takes over from Ray Milland as a slimy rich chap married to unfaithful Gwyneth Paltrow; he blackmails her lover (Viggo Mortenson) into murdering her, but both his scheme and the movie go chronically wrong. The only good bits here are derived from the original play and Hitch's film, but it doesn't make a lot of difference as they're drowned in a stew of padding, unnecessary additional scenes and needless peripheral characters. Possibly the most visible blunder is that the murder set-up is far from perfect, although that's rivalled by silly plot holes like the one in which Douglas goes to Mortenson's apartment to retrieve his wife's wedding ring, thereby removing evidence of a connection between them, but neglects to do anything about the six-foot-wide painting OF HER FACE. An improvement on the original in no way whatsoever.


Definite Spoilers Ahead. Please don't read if you haven't seen the film yet and want to be surprised.

My biggest question -- why do directors/producers think viewers are stupid? Maybe most people just sit back and enjoy the ride...but why spend so much time and money to make a beautiful-looking movie like this, populated with some fairly good actors, and based on a good, classic story, if you don't care enough about the story to employ a thoughtful writer or two?

Anyway...this movie has too many plot holes to count, but here are the most glaring, in my opinion.

Why would Emily leave a comfortable, hot bath to answer the phone? In such a lushly appointed apartment, it's hard to believe it doesn't have an answering system or built-in voice mail. And even if it doen't, there's been no sign that it's going to ring an annoyingly long time when Emily starts moving to answer it.

Why was Steven so easily dismissed as a suspect -- just because he was "on the phone" during the attack? Of course he didn't commit the attack -- the attacker is DEAD. His having an alibi for the time of the attack does not clear him of arranging it. If he was even considered for a moment, he wasn't a suspect for committing the attack, but for planning it...and his "alibi" doesn't clear him of that.

Steven was so careful about so many parts of his "perfect murder plan" -- why would he so sloppily toss the cell phone out of his car, on his way from the poker game? If it were found (which it never was, apparently) the fact that it was on his return route would be pretty incriminating. There are plenty of places, like the East River, to toss something.

It's obvious the dead man lived in a very scary neighborhood (Emily visits and it's pretty dangerous looking) -- so we're supposed to believe the killer only used one key and had one lock on his door? I live in a nice part of New York and there are four locks between the apartment and the outside world -- but Emily was able to get into that apartment with just one key. Doubtful.

When Steven confronts Emily, it becomes a complication that there's something at the artist's loft connecting him to them: her wedding ring. Steven says he'll go get it. WHY does it matter if that connection exists? There are obviously many others they can't do anything about -- like the negatives to the photos he's just shown her; money that he's confessed to paying the artist; at least one of her friends who knows about the affair. And, he's supposedly a blackmailer, so wouldn't one assume he has some hidden "proof"? Why does it matter that the ring is in the loft? Surely, no matter what, Steven and Emily don't think they're going to be able to pretend Emily never had an affair with David!?

When Steve hands over money in Washington Square Park, David tells him the tape is a "commemerative copy" -- there's been no guarantee (that we've heard, at least) that there's no other copy of the tape. Who would assume that was the only copy??? And of course, we soon learn it wasn't.

If your husband tried to have you killed, and you had the proof (the tape), would you confront him (even with a gun in your pocket) or get the heck out and go to the police?

Of course David was recording the murder plot, when Steven laid it out at his own apartment. Why wouldn't he? If Steven was such a good planner, why would he not "shake down" David to make sure he didn't have a tape recorder? It would be in character not to trust him.

Argh! I want back the time I wasted watching this thing....


A fine cast (Douglas, Paltrow, Mortensen, Suchet) was wasted in this feeble attempt. There were simply too many illogical holes to ignore and at the end you will feel cheated. I'll list just a few as examples. I would encourage you read on, so you may save your money and go rent Hitchcock's original instead.

*****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

1. David was just a con artist, so what made Steven think he could be turned into a hired killer?. Sure enough it didn't work, did it?

2. In fact, David as a con artist was much more likely to try blackmail. Sure enough, David tapped the incriminating conversation. Now that he had the tape, he could easily get $400K (or even more) from Steven. So why bother to kill (or contract out some thug to kill) Emily at all?? This is totally ABSURD. David just wanted to con some money and get out of town as he always did, with no incentive to kill his lover at this stage.

3. When detective Karaman mentioned the missing key, Emily said nothing and went into Latino slum and tried to play detective herself. It just does not make any sense. Emily obviously would not protect Steven at that point since she not only didn't love him anymore but also had a reasonable belief that the thug was hired by her husband to kill her for her inheritance. Moreover, she and Karaman clearly developed a sense of mutual trust, so she logically would show Karaman the missing key and let him do the investigation (after all he's a police).

4. The explanation Steven tried to spin on Emily about the missing key did not make sense at all. He claimed he took the key, put it on Emily's key chain and jammed the door lock because he thought the thug was David getting in with Emily's key and he tried to protect Emily's reputation. Then, he claimed the thug turned out to be just a burglar. Well, if that thug did not use Emily's key and did not pick the lock, how on earth he got in??

5...

I did find one quote to be ironically hilarious. When they met at the ferry, Steven told David that they should wait and carry on business as usual. When Steven started to walk away, David asked, with a deadpan face, "Should I continue screw your wife?"


When I first watched this movie, I thought of it as a "remake" of Dial M for Murder. I thought that it was really bad, seeing as how it's a "remake". But, after I thought of it as the same theme with a similar story, I started liking it more. I actually saw this before I saw Dial M for Murder, but although this was a good story I still found the original better. The acting in A Perfect Murder was very good. It was much better than I would have ever expected. This movie can't even be compared to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Dial M for Murder'. It still has a good plot. But, I wouldn't think of it as a "remake" because I was stuck trying to compare the two movies together, and it made this movie look really bad.


If you are a fan of any of the main actors, you will like this film.

If you enjoy seeing Paltrow pose in refined interiors in expensive clothes, or very few clothes, as she talks through clenched teeth, this is a movie for you.

If you enjoy watching Douglas' subtle mastery of the acting art, and lending depth to a character that in lesser hands would be as flat as wallpaper, this is a movie for you.

If you enjoy watching Morgenstern sporting medieval hygiene and chewing the scenery, this is a movie for you.

If you enjoy lamenting that the always-remarkable Suchet is woefully underused, this is a movie for you.

But...

If you like movies that are intelligently scripted, plotted, cast and/or directed, this is not a movie for you. Save your time and money and rent the original "Dial M for Murder" instead.


Because we live in an age of excess, modern moviemakers seem obliged to reflect this in their overblown remakes of old films. "A Perfect Murder" is an excellent example of this, as the number of devious characters is increased and the body count is higher, and the denouement which in the original saw a wily police detective resolve matters now has one of those endings in which the heroine puts herself in danger. DO NOT BOTHER WITH THIS. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME.


This garbage passes for art! Give me a break! Mickey Rourke plays a disgusting, low-life, club-fighter named Johnny Walker. Rourke's performance shows him spiting on the floor, spitting at people, and generally just waiting to spit. Aside from constant spiting, he blows his nose on the ring canvas and in the dressing room floor. He puts together 5 word phrases and generally struts around waiting to spit or blow his nose. The film has such garbage lines as , " Hey Johnny, you want an apple?" The film is slow moving, dull, and moves at a snail's pace. The fight scenes are overly long and basically show Rourke spiting, making faces, and blowing his nose. There is no romantic spark between Rourke and his love interest Debra Feur. The gist of their interactions is Feur asking Rourke, "Where did you come from?" Homeboy is pure junk. Catch Mickey in the Pope of Greenich Village or The Year of The Dragon.


Horrible movie. After watching it I read that Mickey Rourke wrote it. This makes sense. Actors all want to be writers, and vice versa. Fortunatly, we don't have to see writers trying to be actors. But we do see certain actors take a stab at writing. Some actors do a great job writing films, others do a horrible job. Like Rourke. Rouke took a stab at modern boxing noir, and stabs the audience with cliché characters, and dialog that is trying for Cassevettes but is more fitting to an episode of 'Melrose Place'. Rourke is a good actor, but his acting in this film is horrendous. He proves that even if you don't say a word you can still overact. His character is completely unbelievable. He resembles a comic book palooka, has an extended chin, and walks around like he's trying to be menacing, like he's imitating some real life mean looking guy he knew once who wasn't a rich, trouble actor haunted by natural good looks; Rourke would probably give anything in the world to be a born loser with 'nothing to lose'... but then he'd never be able to write and star in films, would he? The characters around him, all having a kick with Rourke's lame dialog somehow (what else can they do?), attempt to keep things afloat. But you cannot save a sinking ship. How is it that a much lower actor, Sly Stallone, can write a ten times better boxing movie, and can act ten times better. The character Rocky Balboa was believable. Rourke's character was not. Even his name was pretentious: Johnny Walker (get it?) I'll repeat: this movie is horrible. The love story is horrible. The action is horrible. The acting is horrible. The music is good, thanks to Eric Clapton. But everything else stinks.


"Rubber Johnny" begins with you asking yourself "what is going on?", and ends with you asking yourself "what just happened?".

The positive that can be brought out of Rubber Johnny is simply that it is original. Now that being said, it is original in the worst of ways.

A mix of cheap effects (however original), and a very poor foundation make Rubber Johnny a complete bust. One watching this for the first time, would think it was done by a couple of 10 year olds just fooling around and experimenting with a home video camera.

But for the short amount of time it takes to watch it, check it out and see what I mean.


Rubber Johnny is conceptually brilliant but fails on several levels. The first problem is that is runs for a minuscule 6 minutes.... take away the credits and you're left with a 4 minute film. That in itself would not be a problem if the narrative was better.

With such rich material here, Cunningham really could have stretched this out a lot longer... 30-45 minutes would have been excellent. This would have allowed for us to fully understand Rubby Johnny.... it would then be a feast for the mind as well as a feast for the eyes.

Not to mention that there was a big teaser trailer released to promote this film... was it worth the wait? Not particularly. But is good eye candy.


I saw this alleged film when someone on a forum linked to it as "something creepy that will give you nightmares." I knew nothing about it, and when I saw it, my thoughts were: "That's not too bad for amateur internet stuff." Ya know, you see so much random stuff on the internet, I just figure a couple of guys thought:

"Wouldn't it be bitchin' if we took Alien Autopsy, combined it with The Blair Witch Project, and set it to your cat chasing a laser pointer across your old Casio keyboard?"

"Dude, that's so awesome! You ever try tequila in a bong?"

Then I come here and find out this is some kind of professional production by a legit industry professional, and hear words like "genius" being tossed around.

Oh my.

"Rubber Johnny" has maybe 15 or 30 seconds of (marketing hype word warning) "creepy" imagery in it, repeated AD-FREAKIN'-NAUSEUM over a five minute or whatever running time. Those 30 seconds of "disturbing" "creepiness" are examples of two forms of lazy film-making: 1. Our unease at seeing a deformed person, in this case one that's naked, in a wheelchair, apparently in distress; and 2. Heavily filtered, unfocused, shaky camera work and motion blur combined with abrupt editing and the use of noise-bursts to shock you -- a gimmicky cliché more often associated with "reality" shows on the Sci-Fi Network than with, say, something anyone would actually want to watch.

Hitchcock used the shock-audio/abrupt-editing technique to great effect in the shower scene in "Psycho", but he was pioneering it, and that scene lasted only seconds. Just think how much impact "Psycho" would have had with 30 or 40 shower scenes! It positively makes your skin crawl, doesn't it?

Even taken as a music video, it's not anywhere near as (yawn) "creepy", imaginative, memorable or compelling as old Tool videos. And the music is forgotten as soon as the thing mercifully ends.

If you want disturbing imagery and general weirdness, watch David Lynch's "Eraserhead". While it's not the masterpiece some claim, the sophistication and maturity of that nearly 30 year old movie are light-years ahead of this forgettable bit of internet debris.

My final verdict: It's not too bad for random, amateur internet stuff -- but not nearly as good as Retarded Animal Babies.


we have to wait a long time. several delays with funny stories "why". but finally it's released. everybody want to have the movie. so i give three stars for the marketing. that's it. the movie itself is nothing more than a music video for me. even not a good one. while "come to daddy" is one of my favorite, "rubber johnny" is far from that. no story, only eye candy. but, hey, what do expect from a music video. stop  it's not announced as a music video but as a movie. no go! when i saw the trailer the first time i thought "wow", that will be a crazy movie. now i'm very disappointed. "rubber johnny" starts good and than  no ideas anymore. only fx. dear chris, better not try to do a feature!


May or May Not Contain Spoiler.. don't think so though!!

I have never posted a comment about any movie here before, but I felt compelled to post about this little flick.

With all the hype surrounding this movie, I was expecting a terrifying thriller but instead I was treated to a 4 minute long laser show with brief breaks in the 'action' to feature a poor special FX job on Johnny spinning in his wheelchair, and a frightened small dog.

Despite the claims of 'shape shifting mutant', I saw nothing of the sort, other than what looked like a blob of latex with teeth pushed against a photocopier.

Worst money I ever spent in my life.


I have purchased hundreds of movies of the last 10 years and currently have over a thousand in my library. I can honestly say Legions of the Dead is the only movie I yanked out of my VCR and slammed it directly into the garbage. Yes...it is that bad. Most horror movies have at least something that captures your attention. Not this one!!! The movie had no opening, so nobody understood what it was about, no story to follow, no scary parts, nothing. I tried to watch it for almost an hour and I couldn't understand what the hell was going on so I literally yanked it and tossed it ! There were 2 weirdo's walking around in gray suits killing everybody and there was another guy who kidnapped 2 other dudes and the guy kept barfing up yellow chunks every couple of minutes. I think this movie is even worse then Dead and Breakfast. If you see it for sale in a dollar store, don't be fooled into buying it. It's not even worth a penny ! 100 % JUNK


Yesterday I bought this used VHS in a rental without any previous reference first because I am a great fan of horror movies. The very beautiful art of the cover also attracted me. Last but not the least, the reasonable price convinced me to buy it. When I arrived home and saw that Matthias Hues was the lead 'actor', I recognized that I had not made a good deal and I surely believed that this flick would not be good. Indeed it is worse than that, it is a junk! The storyline is horribly plagiarized from 'From Dusk Till Dawn' and is also divided in two parts: the first one tells the 'saga' of two morons hitchhiking and being kidnapped by a psychotic killer. The second one is about a group of persons, including the two morons, trapped in a bar, surrounded by the legion of the dead leaded by Togaio. I believe this flick was supposed to be funny, but it is not. The viewer can only laugh how imbecile a producer can be sponsoring such a crap. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): 'Legião dos Mortos' ('Legion of the Dead')


This could almost become a cult movie. It involves idiots working with and against the powerful demon Tagaio, played by my favorite actor of all time: Mathias Hues. He played in so many bad US movies that his Germanic accent is almost gone.

In this one, he doesn't even fight. He is just the comic relief. The other actors play their parts (of idiots) really well, completely immersing the viewer in the atmosphere of the movie. The end part is an almost exact replica of the From Dusk Till Dawn bar fights, and by exact I mean really funny and completely different.

In the end (spoiler!!) Mathias Hues reveals his real identity: he is also an idiot, and the Legion of Idiots is finally defeated.

Now really, a bad movie, with decent low budget effects and good film editing. But other than that, the script, acting and directing sucked. If you get really intoxicated with something, you might find it hilarious.


`Legion of the Dead' was my first movie directed by Olaf Ittenbach and I can't say I'll immediately purchase his other achievements now. Ittenbach is supposed to be a funky, amateur gorehound who stuffs his films with grotesque violence and cheerfully absurd characters. Well, it is gory all right, but even more stupid and pointless. Legion of the Dead seems to handle about all sort of things, but nothing in particular. And in the end, it'll just feel like you've wasted yet another 90 minutes of your precious life. Two main storylines are presented during the first hour of the film. A couple of retarded siblings recruit soldiers for the `Legion' by killing, and literally blow them back to life. In the other storyline, a madman suffering from rabies hijacks two lowlife-friends. Both stories are cut off abruptly and the characters come together in a setting that looks an awful lot like the bar in `From Dusk Till Dawn' Ittenbach even hired an exact Salma Hayek look-alike for this! The totally ridiculous last half hour is painfully bad and you can consider it an achievement if you sit it through. Every now and then, Ittenbach shows slight signs of ingeniousness through black humor, but the wholesome really stinks. Avoid at all costs!


I bought this film in a small shop not knowing anything about previously about it. However it's reasonable price, cover and back cover overview on the story seemed decent to say the least, How i was wrong. The films starts of with a real stereotypical low rate vampire flick, with a bar, one guy to seems to have a idea of whats going on, and a damsel in distress, what more do you need? However this movie went from poor too terrible, bad to worse, was just awful, everything about the movie made me think to myself is this for real, several times i paused the movie to check on IMDb that this movie was in fact a horror. The movie is just summed up when the i become aware that Satan was in fact just a man, with pure white long hair, which is a key stereotype for a angel, so just from that aspect any one can tell this film was so bad that i demanded a refund, i stronger recommend no one buys this movie and watches it for that matter.


this movie just made me sick to the bone. it is a sick attempt to create a from dusk till dawn kinda movie. it starts of as a road movie with the pshyco killer and then goes to a bar. hmm where did i see that before.? the humor was so bad it became horrible. the guys with two guns raised ready to go out side was just crap. the pretty female being an ugly but good alien ? ohw come on what were they thinking? and the end that it all as a dream ohw please . so if you like to mess up you're day watch this movie. if u like crap that is more crap than crap watch this one and you will have a blast. and to be honest the box is better than the movie and that says enough for me .


This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Everything about it was so horrible that I'm surprised I finished watching it. The acting: terrible. The special effects: terrible. Plot: EXTREMELY BAD!

I don't see how people can like this giant piece of crap. Doesn't the director have enough sense to know that all he did was embarrass himself in front of thousands of people that watched this movie?

I just watched "Alone in the Dark" last night and "The House of the Dead" a few weeks ago. These movies are bad, and I mean REALLY bad. But I rated them both with 3 stars because:

1. The acting was not good in either movie, but still nowhere near as bad as "Leigion of the Dead". 2. The special effects were OK, but not the best. 3. The plot was decent, and with better execution, both movies could be good. 4. At least "Alone in the Dark" and "The House of the Dead" had SOMEWHAT of an action scene in the movie!

What I'm trying to say is never, EVER watch this movie. It is a bigger waste of time than "Alone in the Dark" and "The House of the Dead" put TOGETHER! I could go get my video camera right now, go outside and get a few friends together and make a movie better than Legion of the Dead. Never watch it. Its that bad.


'Arms spread wide, I laugh at you thusly...hah, hah, hah!' This film was decently shot, likely on Super 16mm or 35mm. That is its one strong point. Things really go down hill from there.

****SPOILER****

Two friends are held hostage by a drooling, crazy dude who wants to kill them. They are saved by the sudden arrival of a cousin, who crashes a truck into the maniac. This event somehow ties into the friends being caught up in the middle of a demon recruiting action. And let's not forget the demon girl, who just wants to wait tables and be left alone.

Wanted to be PULP FICTION meets BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER...but it was not. A bad script and awful dialogue could not be saved by fair acting. This movie was horrible in a way that only pseudo-art house German crap can be. Really.


The worst movie I have ever seen. There is no excuse for a low budget flick to be this awful. The comedy only serves to make a bad movie even worse. I want my money back. Do not waste your money or your time renting this movie.


To save people just scanning the first few lines of a review, THIS IS A TERRIBLE MOVIE!! That said, my reasons for it are numerous: the actors either can't act, or have a small grain of talent, which they use to over-act to embarrassing proportions. The plot, such as it is, seems to be the combination of a dozen or so ideas the writer/director mashed together into a senseless heap. Characters appear and disappear at random, and the film is loaded with pointless, confusing cutaways. Dialogue is at best painful, and a number of times comes off as a blatant ripoff of Tarantino's already irritating discussions about nothing (what was with Luke's fascination with mumu's and peepee's? The pair of door-to-door killer's endless discussion of their suits? Who knows?) The makeup effects are average, and the CGI effects (what there are) fall well below average. Being an editor myself, I can confidently say the editing was dismal. And what can I say about the ending? It was all a dream/hallucination/alternate dimension? The best that can be said is that the shots were in focus, and lit well. For the sake of the brain cells you will lose watching this, not to mention the precious hour and a half of your life you will lose, leave this stinkbomb on the shelf of your local video store until they decide to send it off to the video limbo it so richly deserves.


The plot was muddled and unlogical, the acting was terrible, and the editing was poor. I won't even insult low budget movies by calling Legion of the Dead one (it's more like a NO budget movie). This movie was a waste of time. Thank goodness I didn't pay to see it.


The few people below who recommended this tripe need to be dead. This travesty of a movie is the kind of thing that happens when talentless people fail to recognize their shortcomings and start trying to be the next Tarantino or Lynch. The lady who plays Geena is pretty attractive. An hour and a half of film and that is absolutely the only positive thing I can think to say.


This movie is so incomprehensibly bad, it hurts to think about... Coming from a fan of crappy action/horror movies this is the stupidest film ever released. The fact that the version I saw was a screener with the name of the company responsible for this atrocity running across the bottom burned the words "Artisan is satan" into my brain, FOREVER. also there was no plot and nothing that seemed to want to further the plot in any portion of the damn thing...weak, just utterly weak.


This movie is a pile of garbage. Dont get me wrong i like splatter, but hey, I would be nice with some kind of plot. And dialog. The guy who wrote the script should start doing something else. Why the hell does talentless people waste their and my time by producing something as s***ty as this ? The dialog is boring, and free from logic. And the characters ? The last half-hour in the building you get introduced to a lot of characters who just isn't needed. The effects and the camera were ok, all actors sucked bad. I'll give this 3/10


Strongly inspired by Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" and "From dusk till dawn" this movie has none of the qualities of the before mentioned. The acting is _very_ bad, the visual effects are less than average, the story is complete and utter nonsense (which you could forgive the movie if it was funny or action-packed) and characters appear and disappear in the story without explanation or reason. I am so sad I spent 4$ watching this!


This movie is promoted as "splatter action" and compared to "From Dusk till Dawn", but unfortunately it lacks both action and humour. Terrible actors and not to successful attempts on funny splatter gags made this a boring one and a half hour. I had to fast forward the last 15 minutes. It wasn't even unintentionally funny. Rent Peter Jacksons "Braindead" and "Bad taste" instead.


hi folks,

thats the worst piece of movie since ... well i cant remember, i havent seen such dirt for a long, long time. guys i tell u, this flick is a waste of celluloid, time and money. the jokes, the dialouges, the screen play, the acting, the whole movie (well i dont want to call it a movie) isnt worth 1.- normally Mr. Ittenbach should pay us, for viewing this "film".

so folks, keep your eyes open that the legion of brainless won't get u. PS: sorry i forgot to say that the plot was hell, i would prefer to watch duracell rabbit playing the drums for 24 hours than going into this "movie".


Where to begin. Let's start with the story. The story was really cheesy and pretty much badly presented. The movie takes `courses' and `turns' that are totally unexplained. Like for instance how Geena can claim that she loves William after spending, oh what? 2 hours with him. No not even that. She met him 2 hours ago, took an order of burgers and beer from him, helped him clean up a mess on the floor and now she loves him. Very convincing. This is just one of the examples of totally unexplained things in this movie. The effort has been spent on making `cool scenes' with a bit of shoot out and `die hard conversation'. By which I mean `cool' things to say to the cool scenes. The work on combining these scenes have been totally overlooked.

Sure, there are some glimpses and funny moments. But not enough to make up for the one and a half hours the movie tortured my eyes.

The acting is just horrible as well, at least from most of the actors. But then again a director who can make a movie out of a story this bad probably wouldn't give the actors any hints on what to do either. Most of the things are `over done' so bad that it's nothing but cheesy. The bad guy is so very very bad that it becomes silly.

Some of the special effects are pretty good though, which is why I gave this movie 3 instead of 1 (or maybe 2). Nicely done monster masks and life like gore/blood. But that pretty much this movie can offer.

To be quite honest with you, I wouldn't recommend you renting this movie even if it's the last one on the rack. I wouldn't recommend anyone buying it since I think it's a waste of resources clogging up a DVD or VHS-cassette with it. I wouldn't recommend watching it on TV if it's on. What I do recommend is that you stay away from this movie if it's possible.


This is actually one of those productions (I wouldn't be willing to call this a movie) I regret I can't vote a '0' for... The plot (story? What story???) is pathetic nonsense throughout, a script obviously non-existent, acting is ridiculous, f/x are more than poor (even for low-budget standards) - all in all this is a complete waste of time (not a waste of talent though, as there simply is none at all...), nothing more or less than disgusting dreck! Better avoid it if you can. 1/10


Ohh my God, I actually went out and bought this film, the whole saying 'don't judge a book by it's cover comes to mind'. The acting alone is terrible, the storyline has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, These two friends set out on a journey and start hitch-hiking being picked up by some SPACE-CAKE who ends up trying to kill them, they manage to escape and end up in a quite sleepy town meeting a beautiful lounge girl in a bar, she turns out to some sort of demon-like thing that wants to live a normal life, the whole town seem to have demonic sense to them, there's some other guy who I think is mean't to be the Devil, he wears a 3/4 length leather jacket and big massive leather biker boots, he's looks like a bad guy in Blade or something, then there's these two brothers who are sent down to earth to kill and then recruit people for 'legion of the dead', they constantly get into awkward situations, one of the brothers manages to get injured by falling objects, moving cars, and finally getting blown up, that was slightly funny, the guy who plays the devil comes down to earth to find his bride(demon like girl)and then there's a big fight in the film between good and evil, apart from that DON'T get this film out, because it is so bad, everything in it is so far fetched that I think the guy who made it must have been taking some sort of drugs, acid or speed maybe, but anyway the bottom line is BAD FILM, BAD ACTING, BAD PLOT, funny in certain bits because your actually laughing at how bad the film is...


Quite possibly the worst direct to video horror film ever made. The first half is stupid, and the second half doesn't make any sense. Also I have never seen a film with so many unattractive people. Even Leprachaun had Jennifer Aniston. I would unwatch this film if I could.


Despite the full Hollywood treatment (the best sets, color cinematography and actors available), this movie was amazingly ordinary AT BEST. Much of it might be the extreme silliness of the plot and terrible miscasting of Coleman and ESPECIALLY Dietrich as Arabs! If you want to see BETTER similar films of the era, try Kim (with Dean Stockwell and Errol Flynn) or the superlative Thief of Bagdad (with Sabu). Both these movies are MUCH better written and succeed in sweeping the viewer away to a magical world of adventure, while Kismet just seems pretty but dopey--in fact, REALLY dopey. If you don't believe me, look at the pictures of Dietrich and her ridiculous hair styles in the IMDb gallery.

This is one of the few Ronald Coleman films I dislike (the other being the VERY dull Story of Mankind).


This seldom seen non-musical version has Ronald Colman as the beggar who tries to pass his daughter off as a princess in the Baghdad of the Arabian Nights. Colman was not a bad actor and when cast in tosh like "Lost Horizon" or "Random Harvest" managed to bring a touch of class to the daft proceedings, but this is way too camp even for Colman, ("I suppose queens do play around the streets of Baghdad at night", says Harry Davenport's old Agha at one point). His performance is a mixture of urbanity and dullness.

The queen he is in love with is played by Marlene Dietrich with her blonde hair piled on her head like a snake and with her thick Tuetonic accent is even more out of place than Colman. When she moves she is like a drag-queen ill-at-ease in her costume. The young lovers are James Craig, that hunk of beefcake culled from ham, and someone called Joy Ann Page. Charles Rosher's colour photography is a bonus but really, this makes the Minelli version look like a masterpiece.


Whew! Beautiful colors! But that's it. Remember "Ninotchka?" "Garbo laughs"? Well, in this movie, Edward Arnold, as the evil vizier, laughs and laughs and laughs, and he's not nearly as good looking. And the two young lovers? There is a reason James Craig is not remembered, he has trouble speaking English with any clarity, rhythm or sincerity. And Joy Page, in the words of Humphrey Bogart, should "go back to Bulgaria." (Yes, that was her. James Craig was the second loser she picked for a husband.) Dietrich provides comedy relief, sounding exactly like Madeline Kahn in "Blazing Saddles." Thank goodness they at least have Hugh Herbert popping up from time to time...and, well, don't tell anyone but I LIKED Ronald Colman in this one....And we haven't even gotten to the truly jaw-dropping (as in bad) special effects. If you want to feel good about yourself at someone else's expense, watch.


Color was beautiful, Coleman a delight and thats it. I never watched a more ridiculous dance routine that Dietrich displayed. All she did was prancing around in so-called seductive poses, rather than actually dance, exhibiting what was then called Hollywood's best looking gams. Sorry, Betty Grable was still the queen of the legs department. BTW, I was sort of shocked, if that is the right word, where at the beginning of the credits, it said Starring Ronald Coleman in Kismet, with Marlene Dietrich. She didn't even get co-star billing, and the role was not a cameo. The chorus girls had definitely better movements than she. Of course they are professional dancers..not Marlene.


Yep, it was market day. So in I strolled with my 50 pence burning a hole in my pocket, and what should I come across? The VHS of this film, complete with scary front cover, on sale for just that precise sum of money. I thought to myself "This might be worth a go" and handed over my hard-earned coinage to the foreign bloke behind the stall. (Who had maybe just the hint of a devilish smile on his face?) I went home, fed the cats, put my feet up and put the cassette on. And that was when my perfect day ended.

This film is arguably one of the worst ever made. Even among lovers of horrible movies like myself, this flick is too much. It is purely in a class of badness by itself. I have absolutely no idea why anybody: stupid, rich or desperate would have agreed to participate in this farce, but it's safe to say they must have had no dignity whatsoever. I can forgive the child actress, as she was probably lured into it by greedy parents. Everybody else has no excuse and should be throughly ashamed of themselves.

The plot? What does it matter? A priest guns down a teacher and five pupils in an English school somewhere, and a British copper and a Yank detective fresh off the boat from New York get on the case. The only witness to the crime was a little girl cowering behind some bins, and the American policeman starts a relationship with her mother and Blah Blah Blah.. That's all you need to know, apart from the fact that the people in this film make some of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen in my life. For instance: A mad slasher is chasing you, what do you do? Why you lock yourself in the bathroom of course, completely ignoring the open front door!! And I'll eat my hat if the actor playing the Yank comes from the States himself, that has to be one of the most phony, pathetic attempts at an accent I've ever heard. Rory Bremner he is not.

The acting is beyond amateur, the dialogue is risible when it isn't laughable, scenes go on forever despite having already made their point.. the whole experience is beyond comprehension. There's even a nice little interlude with our so-called American and his new girlfriend with child at the zoo, complete with unspeakably awful pop song warbling away in the background, something about 'learning to love again'. PUKE!! Basically the movie is absolute bilge, a shameful waste of money and should never have been released. On the plus side though, I do owe the (completely unscary) chap that plays the murderer a favour. We get so many close up shots of his feet in a vain effort to hide his true identity, that it reminded me: I need a new pair of shoes for the autumn. So thanks for that!! 0/10


The opening of "Goodnight,God Bless" is quite unsettling and memorable:we see a priest with a rosary walking near the school before murdering a young school teacher with a butcher knife and then shooting 5 school children on the playground and wounding countless others.This sequence is shot in chaotic and hand-held style that certainly packs the punch.Unfortunately after this nasty beginning the film quickly goes downhill.First of all it has more to do with dull cop drama than slasher flick.There are a couple of thrills including the scene of the woman chased through the forest,but the acting is so-so and the ending is abrupt and comes out-of-nowhere.It's a crying shame that "Lucifer" is so terminally boring.4 out of 10.


Goodnight God Bless was much better than I expected after seeing the preview that appears before the film on the VHS version. The movie does have quite an intense and shocking (if not bloody) opening sequence. This is a decent mix of religious horror, cop drama and straight-up slasher 80's films with an original premise and some believable acting from unfamiliar faces, namely Emma Sutton in the lead role. A maniac is murdering people and witnesses claim its a priest. Some genuine suspense, not much gore or skin, but entertaining. If you enjoyed Maniac Cop or God Told Me To then check it out. Not the best of B-Movies but worth a look.


Not the best short film out there...but definitely not the worst. It has a very amateur look and style to it, and the pacing is rather slow. At the end, you figure out what the concept of the film is, but by then, it's a little too late to feel invested in the characters and the plot. And while the choice of music at the end was pretty, it really didn't fit at all. So, take a look at this film from a learning standpoint. You could learn some "Do's" and some "Don'ts." DO continue writing, shooting, directing, editing, etc. DON'T get discouraged. Continue to learn and develop your craft. Write, rewrite, rewrite again, shoot, edit, re-edit, etc. Best of luck with everything in the future.


I'm not quite sure why this film has gotten so much hype and attention. It's okay, but I have to admit, I'm confused as to why (as someone stated) it has won so many festivals. And which festivals are they? The film is okay if you compare it to films made by young teenagers. But given the age of those involved in this one, I would've expected more. Rather amateur on most levels except one. The only thing that really stands out is the concept of the film. Not the execution of the story or the film as a whole, just the concept by itself. So, if you put it up against very poor student short films, I guess I could see how it might stand out, with a decent concept that was captured.


Fred Astaire's first forays into the Western genre, the TV medium and moustache-sporting came via this modest "old men's movie" about a trio of retired Texas Rangers who come together to help their old superior who has been wrongly jailed for robbery and murder. Walter Brennan, Chill Wills and Edgar Buchanan reprise their roles from the original THE OVER-THE-HILL GANG TV-movie made the previous year, while Astaire takes on the role of the troubled Baltimore Kid who might not be in jail or lynched (as newspaperman Andy Devine misinforms them upon their arrival) but has fallen on hard times and become the town drunk instead! The thing is that Astaire is unable to accept his growing old and his shooting abilities not being what they used to so, to build up his confidence once more, the trio convince him to accept the badge of town marshal with them as his deputies! However, Astaire deludes himself further into thinking that the roughnecks who come into town eventually leave it because of his notoriety (rather than through the helpful 'armed and invisible' presence of his friends) and even befriends a much younger saloon gal who turns out to be the girl of the robber behind the crime Astaire was supposed to have committed in the first place! The quintet of Hollywood veterans provide the only pleasure to be had from this meager production because whenever they are offscreen things get pretty dull indeed.


Over the Hill Gang Rides Again...Western...74 mins, TV Movie of the week, Circa 1970.

I am sure I saw this movie as a kid, mainly because I am such huge a fan of Walter Brennan, Fred Astaire, Chill Wills and Edward Buchanan. This is a solid *A/B* List cast of actors, all in the twilight of their career at the time this movie was released.

This is a review of the DVD edition released by Gemstone Entertainment and it ain't gonna be pretty!

With regards to plot/script and quality of acting...This is a typical film factory production from Aaron Spelling productions. As I mentioned earlier, all the actors are real pros and deliver solid performances. The script is nothing spectacular and is indicative of TV movie scripts that were cranked out in the 70's. It is filled with tired cliches and predictable plot lines, complete with the hero wearing a white hat and the villain wearing a black hat (It's the only comment I will make regarding costumes/wardrobe).

This DVD movie, having been in release for about a year, deserved better treatment by the folks at Gemstone entertainment. The Film to DVD Transfer is absolutly horrible. I suspect that film students from the University of Southern California would have done a much better job then the alleged industry professionals working at, or for Gemstone. The film appears soft or slightly out of focus during much of the 74 minutes. The transfer has wildly shifting color hues and opacity rates. Several scenes are overly dark and obscuring detail while other scenes are washed out, again, to the point of obscuring detail. On still other occasions, Objects that were supposed to be white appear on screen as being pink. Do not adjust your TV. It is the poor production value of the film to DVD transfer...

There are absolutely No extras on the disc! We, in the DVD collecting public, have come to expect the *extras* normally put on the disc. Would it have been to much to ask that Short Bios of the principal actors be included? How about a teaser from the Film that this sequel was based on (The Over The Hill Gang). The absence of extras can be forgiven. Inaccurate information on the DVD cover is another story!.

When I stumbled across the factory sealed box of this movie, I figured I had uncovered a true Gem (No pun intended). The Box listed a cast that included Pat O'Brien and Jack Elam in addition to the folks I discussed earlier. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I found out that Pat and Jack were not in this sequal.(A quick check of the IMDB showed me that Pat and Jack were in the first movie but not in the second. Thanks IMDB! At least your site is accurate).

I paid $6.99 for the disc so money is not the issue. Is it worth the money? You will have to make that decision for yourself. I wont throw this disc away but I might use it in trade.

On a very thin positive note, the disc was released for world wide viewing so it is not encoded as *region* specific. A real plus for fans all over the world.

Is it possible that Gemstone new this was a horrible transfer and is not concerned about DVD pirates copying the disc for the black market?


Oh, a rugged outdoor adventure that I had never heard of--with Robert Mitchum hunting a bad killer cat ...I was looking forward to it! Well there is a reason few people have heard of it...this movie is terrible! I mean, this is the type of movie where you keep on thinking it's going to get better, but it never does.

Mitchum's family is losing livestock, then lives, to some big cat. The family calls it a "painter". Don't ask. The old dad of the bunch drinks and says crazy things. Mom is old Beulah Bondi with her weird eyes, quotin' the Good Word and hanging out all day and night with her son's corpse in his bedroom as he rots away. (Don't bother ma, she's corpse-sittin'!) Mitchum found the brother's body, no blood, no nothing, even still has color in his face! Hey, couldn't the makeup folks apply just a little makeup? Look closely and you'll see him shift a little bit after Mitchum puts him on his horse, if you can stand getting that far in this movie.

Determined to go get that bad cat, or painter, Bob dons a bright red coat. This is the only color in the outdoor scenes as the director wanted it to look like black and white and shot things in shadows. Don't try to figure that one out.

Late in the movie, there's a scene where Mitchum tries to light a fire and the wind keeps blowing out his matches. Finally he gets one going, only to have snow from a tree fall and put it out. It plays almost like a Laurel and Hardy moment.

But that is right before the best part--and most action--of the whole movie. Right after he loses his fire, the sun starts coming up, and weeeeeee! Mitchum is so elated he starts running down the mountain side. Then he starts "body skiing". Then, all of a sudden, he falls down a big cliff, screaming like a woman, and is horribly killed. I kid you not.

Then handsome Tab Hunter finds his dead body, but hears the cat "growling". He goes behind the bush and kills the cat. We never see that, because this cheesy production must have run out of cash for paying Mitchum so they couldn't afford a fake cat or renting one from a zoo.

At the very end, the families old, nutty Indian worker babbles something very Indian-like about what death is all about. Some people don't realize even then that the old Indian is freaking Alfalfa from "Our Gang" in old Indian makeup.

No, I am not making that up.

One of the worst, slowest moving, dumb "westerns" you will ever see. I think some of the raters here must certainly be offspring of the original dumba%$ producers of this turkey, this rating is way high.


An ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying western that is bound to irritate fans beyond measure, "Track of the Cat" (1954) is an uneasy mix of hunting-the-cat action and sub-Eugene O'Neill playwriting, complete with jarring comic relief and loquacious but indecisive moralizing. Unfortunately, the former is given the short end of the stick in this irritatingly static production which spends an undue amount of time indoors. Mitchum tries hard to hold the film together, but although he plays the main character, he has the least footage. Beulah Bondi and Philip Tonge dominate the action to such an extent, they tend to push the other players off the screen. Only Mitch can stand up to them but he disappears for long stretches. Despite her second billing, Teresa Wright is hardly in the movie at all. Diana Lynn is better served by script and director, but the best performance is delivered by Carl Switzer as an aged Indian.


Brothers Robert Mitchum and Tab Hunter are living way off the beaten path and, every winter, a certain panther starts killing their livestock and is never caught. This winter will be different. I'd like to give this movie the benefit of the doubt, as to what this philosophical drama may actually be trying to say, but this is basically a major disappointment, considering the talent of its stars, including Teresa Wright, Diana Lynn, "Alfafa" (as an Indian), and Beulah Bondi, who said this was her favorite role. I can see why, as her character is more interesting and complicated than her usual kind of motherly types. But that is all really of interest. If you catch a minute of this and are transfixed by its color photography of black and white, you'll find there's not much else to really see. The dialogue is tiresome, with the characters continually saying "That if the panther is black..." "If the panther is black...." "If the panther is black..." I do give it a '4', for some reason. I guess for its stars and intriguing ending, but this is a curiosity piece at best. I will say though, that the panther may be heard, but is never seen. I think it would have been more successful had it had more obvious action with a cat you could see and less talk, and "if the panther was black.". After reading other reviews, I do agree this was more of a mood piece, which centers on Tab's character growing up and standing up for himself. But, overall, you still leave the movie feeling somewhat bemused, let down, and on the whole, dissatisfied with it. "But if the panther was black..."


Domineering middle child Robert Mitchum and his mother holds the rest of the family under their thumb, especially youngest child Tab Hunter, whom Mitchum takes particular delight in brow-beating. Tensions boil over on a snowy Winter, when a dangerous mountain lion descends on the valley and begins to kill livestock.

Not an outdoor adventure, this is instead a depressing, talky frontier drama full of irritating, unsympathetic characters. There's some good performances, especially by the female cast members, though little else to offer the average film-goer looking for escapist entertainment.

Similarly themed and much more exciting, was the low-budget 1949 film The Big Cat, directed by Phil Karlson and starring Preston Foster and Forrest Tucker. In that one you at least get to see the cat!


Early in the film, when Arthur and Curt are out in the snow surveying the dead cattle, snow is falling when the camera is on Arthur, snow is not falling when the camera is on Curt - over and over and over again. This hard to miss goof is only the beginning of a downward spiral for this film. Choppy editing, bad acting and a horrible script await the poor viewer who chooses to sit through this clunker.

And should I mention how when the panther/"painter" attacks and kills Arthur, no blood or wound is ever seen?... Even when Curt takes Arthur's coat off... Even when Arthur's body is draped over the horse. This and the fact that we never see the cat, plus the jarring transition between the outdoor footage and the cheesy studio look of the homestead exterior made the whole film look really low budget.


I found this movie very dreary, distracting, and slow going. Don't know if this was the intent of the production team, but if it was they succeeded admirably. Basically all it was to me was the very depressing story of an annoyingly dysfunctional family with seemingly very little else to offer the world --- not the kind of neighbors I would like near my ranch. Production-wise I did like Robert Mitchum's red coat and the movie did bring out the ultimate dreariness of wide open snow country. Some people like this sort of slow going, dysfunctional-family in the movies stuff. I generally don't, especially when the movie drags on as this movie does. Never thought I would place any Robert Mitchum or Teresa Wright (despite her relatively minor role) movie on my not-to-watch-again list of older movies, but that's where this film goes. One viewing is barely tolerable, any more would be just too taxing. I guess I'm not "sophisticated" enough. It's not why I watch movies. Blah!


Disappointing film is cold, detached with unsympathetic characters and extreme violence. Though David Caruso and Chris Noth are terrific actors, their roles are not given enough depth to evoke any feeling from viewers. The two female roles are even less developed. Altogether a distasteful and distressing film.


Oh, David Caruso, is there any actor more underrated than this guy? I mean he's great in pretty much everything (barring "Proof of Life) and yet I never see him get any accolades. And THAT is a crying shame. So when I ran across this film while channel surfing one late night, it was a foregone conclusion that I would settle down to watch it. Anyways this movie's about a jewelery store holdup that goes wrong leaving Ned (Caruso) hospitalized after his lover/ co-hort in crime Jude (Kelly Lynch) leaves him bloodied and sore after she pushes him out of there speeding getaway car. Needless to say, Ned is a tad POed about this to say the least and goes on a journey of vengeance. Sadly poor David is the ONLY reason to watch this film as the plot is tired, the execution insipid, and most of the co-stars characters insufferable. Not the least being Stacey Dash who has the most awful dialog of the film (and THAT is saying a lot as the dialog of everyone else is no great shakes either) as Bec, a hitch-hiker whom Ned picks up. To say I was disappointment would be a vast understatement.

Eye Candy: Kelly Lynch offers T&A (it's very early in the film, so after that scene's over cut & run...trust me)

My Grade: D-


A 90's Bonnie and Clyde-type flick. This movie is loaded with cliches, inane dialog and lousy acting.

The only saving grace is the always superb John Spencer as the lonely, creepy (but strangely loveable) Uncle Mike


The story is a bit of a groaner, but interestingly photographed, and the young Mifune a pleasure to watch. To Western sensibilities, the characters are maddeningly uncommunicative, that is until pushed to the extreme of emotion or crisis. In this sense, words and 'straight talk' represent the breakdown of the normal process of communication, which for the Japanese is largely non-verbal. This is most evident in the lawyer Hiruta and his family (wife, daughter), less so in the more westernized Mifune character, Aoye.

Clearly Kurosawa (who co-wrote the script) is making some social commentary particular to scandal-mongering in post war Japan, but also returning to a familiar theme, that of urging individuals to step out, speak out, to identify injustice and corruption and oppose it, even if this results in social or personal discord, since often the consequence of not doing so is a silent but soul-destroying evil.


It's instructive to compare 'The Big Combo' with another detective film, 'Mystery Street', filmed earlier in 1950. Both films were shot by the great cinematographer, John Alton. Where 'Mystery Street' features a cool-headed detective finely played by a young Ricardo Montalban, 'The Big Combo's investigating officer is the hot-headed Lieutenant Leonard Diamond (with a stiff Cornel Wilde miscast in the role). Montalban's detective solves a difficult crime with finesse, always doggedly pursuing one clue after another until he arrives at a solution. In contrast, Wilde's Diamond is clueless from the beginning; he has nothing on Mr. Brown in terms of solid evidence and appears utterly impotent each time he has a face-to-face confrontation with the elusive psychopath.

At the beginning, we find out that Diamond has exceeded the police department's budget for investigating a case with no leads. In terms of today's money, the $18,000 would probably be equal to $180,000 and at the very least Diamond would have been taken off the case for mismanagement of police funds.

Like Mystery Street which featured ahead of its time CSI techniques, 'The Big Combo' tries to prove it too is relevant. The first 'gadget' is a tape recorder which Diamond uses to record his statement to the Commissioner about the funds used in the Brown investigation. That goes nowhere so we're then supposed to be impressed by Diamond's use of a lie detector after Brown agrees to be questioned. Brown's responses to Diamond's questions are hilarious (Question: Women? Brown: Expensive!). But more notable is the stupidity of Diamond's investigation techniques. The only clue he has to go on is 'Alicia'--the name Brown's girlfriend blurts out at the hospital after a suicide try. Is Diamond so stupid to believe that Brown is going to tell him who Alicia is and implicate himself in a murder? What's more Diamond is thoroughly unprofessional when he tells Brown at the hospital that he would like to 'cut him open' as if he were conducting an operation and is afraid to find out "what's inside". Even in the 50s, a loose cannon like Diamond would have been reigned in by his superiors.

During the lie detector test, Brown associates 'Spaghetti' with 'Betinni'. One wonders how the always-in-control Brown could make such a gaffe as it's an important clue that eventually leads to the crime boss's undoing. Betinni, an associate of Brown's former boss, disappeared after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Diamond has no idea where Batinni is, but lo and behold, after being 'tortured' by Brown and his minions and dropped off at his boss's doorstep, Captain Peterson, it turns out that Peterson knew all along where Betinni was hiding. As for the torture (some internet posters have laughably likened it to a scene from Tarrantino's 'Reservoir Dogs), it consists of Brown's use of his underling's hearing aid and a bottle of hair tonic (with 40% alcohol) which he manages to force down Diamond's throat.

Still with no clues, Diamond brings in the 96 suspects in Brown's organization for questioning (funny how Brown's 'organization' really seems to consist only of Joe McClure, the gangster wannabe now demoted to gopher, and two gay thugs, Fante and Mingo (more about that in a minute). Captain Peterson quite rightly blurts out, "Diamond, what am I going to do with you?"

The rest of the Big Combo plot emphasizes Diamond's utter inability to pin anything on Brown. Betinni's tip leads Diamond to antique dealer Nils Dreyer who used to be the captain of the yacht in which Brown and Alicia sailed on. Dreyer is murdered before he can spill any beans but leaves a photo in a bank deposit box, a more recent picture of Alicia. This time the CSI unit gets it right and is able to blow up the Alicia photo, proving that she's living in a sanitarium, only a few hours away. Alicia is about to remember who Brown murdered on the yacht but goes back to the looney bin after Brown shows up and says hello to her. Meanwhile, McClure tries to double cross Brown but Fante and Mingo turn on him and Brown blows him away (one can't forget the scene in which Brown takes out McClure's hearing aid and tells him that at least he "won't hear the bullets".) Finally, Brown double crosses Fante and Mingo by bringing them what looks like a box of money but is actually a stick of dynamite. Mingo is devastated when Fante is killed and agrees to testify against Brown, not for Diamond but for his beloved gay lover (the Big Combo does win points for suggesting that Fante and Mingo are gay which is unusual for a movie from the 1950s). Diamond finally tracks Brown down at an airport (where we never see a single plane) and places him under arrest (amazing how Diamond dodges all those bullets Brown fires at him!).

The Big Combo does have a few good things going for it. In addition to the sensational noirish cinematography, there is an undercurrent of dark sexuality running throughout the film's narrative. In addition to Mingo and Fante's 'different' relationship, Diamond becomes involved with a sexy show girl who ends up murdered on Brown's orders. Brown's girlfriend, Susan Lowell, a former classical pianist, also can't seem to shake off her physical attraction to her gangster boyfriend (despite the fact there is not one scene where the two show any good feelings toward one another).

On the other hand, in addition to the overly moralistic and implausible Lieutenant Diamond, the Big Combo is full of histrionic performances (I love how Brown weakly slaps the prizefighter and McClure flinches as if Brown had slugged the guy, at the film's beginning).

The Big Combo marks the end of the film noir anti-hero. Lieutenant Diamond is more the prototype for Sgt. Jack Friday of TV's Dragnet than Robert Mitchum's femme fatale victim in 'Out of the Past'.


1950s crime thriller 'The Big Combo' has some good points: some nice acting in the minor roles (Lee van Cleef's performance among them), an interestingly sympathetic portrayal of some of the lesser villains, and a lively, entertaining pace. But it also has a ropey plot, poor acting from the three leading women (including the beautiful Jean Wallace) and its one leading man, Cornel Wilde, and a suave but unmenacing villain, the blandly-named Mr. Brown. There are also some moments where low production values produce moments that might be from a comic strip: the private airport set identified by nothing (such as an aeroplane or runway) that reveals its function but simply by a sign reading "Private Airport", for example; or the box of labelled dynamite. The ending is also weak, not because the idea (a shoot-out in the fog) is bad, but because it's impossible to believe, while watching it, that you're seeing anything other than one man alone in a studio pretending to be in a fight. It's still quite fun, but if they don't make movies like this any more, there is a reason for it.


To simply tag "Ganja & Hess" with a label of blaxploitation would be a serious understatement, as this is probably THE most ambitious 'black' film of entire 70's decade. The substance of the film covers horror, but you really wouldn't say so, as there's no explicit violence or bloodshed on screen, and the whole production relies on its dark and moody atmosphere. It's a really weird and ultra-slow film, definitely not suitable viewing in case you are looking for barbaric 70's horror. I can't say I liked it very much because, honestly, it's a super-pretentious film that goes on for far too long without actually handling about anything. I appreciate smart dialogs and subtle atmosphere as much as the next guy, but a synopsis claiming to revolve on blood addiction and passionate murder eventually must show something, right? Duane Jones ("Night of the Living Dead") gives a marvelously languid performance as a doctor who suffers from an insatiable desire for human blood, brought onto him after being stabbed with an ancient cursed dagger. Shortly after, when his assistant (played by Bill Gunn, the director) commits suicide, Dr. Hess comes into contact with his widow Ganja and sweeps her along in his strange and depressing 'vampire' universe. The acting performances and filming locations form a potent mix, but the pace of the film is truly soporific. Bill Gunn artsy attempts to disguise the lack of budget with various ingenious camera angles and sound effects, but he still can't hide the fact there's no suspense or involvement in the screenplay. Perhaps the heavily cut version "Blood Couple" is more endurable. I can only imagine some of the dialog is cut in that version, as there's no gore or sleaze to censor. It's an interesting film considering its historical background, but it doesn't hold any entertainment value.


(spoilers ahead) Because Ganja and Hess had shots that are out of focus, male nudity and just about no narrative sense, many are quick to call it a masterpiece. I'm afraid I don't fall into that camp.

Sure, Ganja and Hess is "different," but that doesn't make it good. The best kinds of "different" films are the ones that challenge the norms and conventions of moviemaking while engaging the viewer emotionally in some way. It could be funny, sad,exciting, scary, enlightening, or just plain entertaining. The point is, it should affect the viewer somehow.

Watching Ganja and Hess is sitting for almost two hours waiting for it to end. There's barely a story to follow and the characters are just there. Even Duane Jones, so magnetic in Night of the Living Dead, can't do anything for his role. It doesn't help that the movie is so poorly filmed you can barely ever get a good look at anyone.

The movie makes a crucial blunder from the first sequence. Silly little subtitles tell us that Dr.Hess Greene was stabbed and now has a craving for blood. Did it ever occur to anyone that we might like to see this scene? The scenes of violence that are present in the film have almost zero effect because there's not really a context for any of it. As the movie goes on, the vampirism is downplayed in favor of...something, I'm not sure what exactly. All I know is that the movie frequently and jarringly shifts perspective and different narrators come in and start talking without actually saying anything. Ganja and Hess is a shoddy, ill-conceived and painfully tedious experience.

2/10

So why a 2 instead of a 1? Well, there were brief moments where I liked the soundtrack.


I took a chance on this film after reading a couple of intriguing reviews of it. Ultimately, I thought the film was boring, incomprehensible, amateurish, and almost unwatchable. The cinematography and editing are a mess. The story pointless and the direction varies between arty and overdone to dull and sluggish. The acting ranged from passable (by the lead, Duane Jones) to awful (everyone else). This is supposed to be a landmark in black cinema of the 70's? Avoid at all costs!!!


This movie was not all that great and one that I wouldn't recommend checking out if your a serious vampire flick fan. I thought that sense it had Duane jones staring as the main character that it would have at least a little potential in it but what i saw most of his acting was boring dialogue and not enough enthusiasm in his character. Jones gets stabbed by a man that later committed suicide and left jones a living vampire. Jones then sucks the blood of the man and keeps him in the freezer in fear that if he is caught that he will be found guilty of the man murder. Soon afterward we see visions of an African queen somehow in control of Jones and leads him to kill more and more people. Wee see Jones envisioning being at a church in order to free himself of this curse of being a vampire and his fate is left after that scene. The woman on the other hand is the wife of the man that committed suicide and ends up staying at jones place and finds her husbands body in the freezer and finds out that after she has fallen in love with Jones that there is more to this man than she cares to know about. Jones wants to make her immortal just as he is. This movie is unmemorable, slow and boring it tends to want to sway to fans of such movies as "Blacula" but falls to do so.


While this film does have some interesting ideas (vampirism as an addiction), the execution is horrible. The narrative is practically non-existent (and needlessly overlong and confusing). The acting (except Duane Jones) is horrible...the actors blow lines right on camera! The dialogue is almost impossible to hear. The whole thing comes off as very amateurish. Not recommended.


I think this movie made my eyes bleed. This is a perfect example of bad "art" movies. Dull, incoherent, pedestrian direction, mediocre acting, clueless editing, blind cinematography, and almost certainly no writing (this thing surely couldn't have been scripted). Perhaps Bill Gunn should have made the standard blaxploitation vampire movie he was hired to make. It certainly couldn't have been any worse.


Another from the Shameless stable of exploitation films. They go on about how they've tracked down missing scenes, remastered it all and redone the soundtrack... it's like a kid telling you how they've done an amazing drawing and you then look at it... Oasis of Fear is a bit, well, rubbish.

It's about a young couple who travel around Europe in a zippy yellow open top sports car flogging porn mags to locals (that dates it). But once the movie settles down it hits you that it's just not very good, a bit amateurish. The trailer is the best thing about it.

It starts off okay with a George Beatle type track, but soon becomes irritating. The bloke, all 29in waist and big hair, is from the Cliff Richard school of acting. Actually Cliff was a bit more charming than this. The girl is alright in a Kate Middleton kind of way. It belongs to an age where you had to make your own entertainment, when you only had Dixon of Dock Green on the black and white telly, while going to the movies to see a big colour film - and a woman get her kit off - was a real treat, real decadence.

You rent these films for a bit of sauce and unPC fun - you don't really expect to be so bored by it all. It picks up for the last half hour, but really drags until then.


Un Posto Ideale Per Uccidere is an exploitation thriller which mixes the laid-back hippie attitudes of the 60s with the permissive approach to cinematic sex and violence of the 70s. It comes from Italian director Umberto Lenzi, at the junction where his career was steering away from adventure and thriller movies and sailing into gorier, more controversial waters. Ultimately Lenzi would offend the world with films like Mangiati Vivi! (a.k.a Eaten Alive), and the notoriously sickening Cannibal Ferox. At least Un Posto Ideale Per Uccidere isn't particularly offensive or nasty  it's just a routine thriller with a splash of sex and nudity, obvious plot developments, a fashionably downbeat ending, and a toe-tapping soundtrack that is blissfully unrelated to the events on screen!

Dick (Ray Lovelock) and Ingrid (Ornella Muti) are a young Scandinavian couple travelling around Europe. They pay their way by selling pornographic photos of themselves. Unfortunately for them, their scheme is uncovered by the somewhat unforgiving Italian police and they are instructed to leave Italy at once. On their way to the border, their car runs out of petrol and they are forced to seek help at a large, secluded villa. Here they meet Barbara Slater (Irene Papas), wife of the NATO colonel who owns the villa. Barbara seems edgy and nervous, especially when she finds them attempting to steal her husband's petrol, but nevertheless invites the couple to stay. It becomes increasingly apparent that Barbara is not to be trusted. Her behaviour seems erratic and at one point she seduces Dick. The young couple slowly come to learn that Barbara has an ulterior motive for having them in her home. Seems she recently murdered her husband and has his body stashed in the trunk of his car. now she plans to frame Dick and Ingrid for her ruthless crime.

The film has a few interesting elements and is comparatively subtle by Lenzi's later standards. There is some attempt to set aside time for proper character development, so that the eventual misadventures which befall the protagonists carry a little more weight. The problem is that the characters are rather dull, and the actors aren't really charismatic enough to overcome this. Eugenio Alabiso edits the film quite well, using a variety of flashy techniques to create a sense of atmosphere in several scenes. But again, the central story is too weak and uninvolving  in the end, no amount of flashy editing can overcome the film's pervasive air of dreariness. Once Un Posto Ideale Per Uccidere reaches its glumly depressing climax, one realises that very little has really happened. It is a slow-burning film which doesn't build to anything of note. Collectors of these old Italian exploitation-era movies might find something to hold their interest, as will fans of the stars, but for wider audiences there's not a great deal in the film worth getting excited about.


This is one of those films that plays out exactly as you might expect, almost by-the-numbers. A young couple get arrested for selling 'dirty pictures' (one of the titles for this release) although the pictures sometimes show nothing more than Ornella Muti naked in a photo-me-booth. They end up in the mansion of a rich lady (Irene Pappas giving a performance less lively than some of the furniture and obviously wishing she were elsewhere) because they run out of gasoline, and when she finds them in her garage syphoning off some fuel she realises she has a use for them. Anybody who doesn't realise what she is up to in about five minutes could only have seen ten movies in their lifetime. It plays out like an old episode of the TV show 'Thriller' with some nudity added (though Pappas obviously has a body double) and some hippy/flower-power shtick thrown in replete with cheesy music which is probably the best thing in this predictable yawn of a movie. Only of interest to Ornella Muti fans if they're not above barely-legal leering.


This kept my interest in the early going but almost lost me as it turns into too much of a soap opera instead of a film noir, in which it is classified.

There are some good touches film noir cinematography here and there which I enjoyed. Barbara Stanwyck, whom I usually like to watch, was nothing but a whining hypochondriac and not somebody you root for because of her constant demanding of everything. Yet, I somehow found her character at least bearable.

I did like the ending and I thought it made the film more memorable and credible.


I've never heard the legendary radio broadcast (featuring Agnes Moorehead in what has been described as basically a one-woman tour de force) but it had to be better than the overblown movie version, which today emerges with all the entertainment value of a film noir telemarketing call.

Basic plot rips long arm of coincidence out of its socket--screechy self-centered invalid is accidentally patched into phone call where she overhears two men plotting a murder--her own! (What are the odds?)

Then, to expand this flimsy premise to feature-length, a badly-cast Barbara Stanwyck (who appears so robust she looks like she should be out stringing wire on telephone poles herself) engages in a series of frantic phone calls that all invariably end up with person on other end of line drifting into a lengthy, often confusing, flashback. (Or, even more baffling, flashbacks within flashbacks.) Corny, dated, way over-acted. . .and by far one of Stanwyck's worst--and most over-rated (an Oscar nomination for this hysterical performance?)--roles.

Worse yet, rarely very suspenseful, although some viewers will doubtless be on edge of seats waiting for the annoying heroine to get her come-uppance. On other hand, frequently funnier than a call to Dial-A-Joke, especially when Stanwyck (one of the strongest film actresses of that era) repeatedly, and unconvincingly, bellows "I'm a sick woman!" into the phone at top her lungs.


'Sorry Wrong Number' is an exercise in how to ruin everything that worked in a tightly-written 22 minute radio play, via its transformation into a hideously-padded 90 minute movie. The play was so short as to defy the need for a star but the movie is seen as a chance to sell you Barbara Stanwyck. The idea for the play just didn't have 90 minutes in it.

The play built tension by confining listeners along with the invalid protagonist in her bedroom, which rapidly became a cage. Unfortunately it was expanded every which way until the clean machinery of the play is convoluted beyond recognition with plot, plot, plot as far as the eye can see; and secondary characters of no importance whatsoever talking the life out of things. We cut away from the room dozens of times for equally meaningless developments. There's an nightclub floor show. There's a secret chalet on a beach introduced with a clam-digging scenario. There's a chemistry lab, car trips, intrigue, sub-plots Expanding the play just loused the whole thing up. None of it is of any quality.

It's all pointless elaboration of the weakest variety; it has no effect on the outcome. Stanwyck is just plain wrong for the role. You want to see an excellent confined, single-set movie? Rent Rear Window. This is very confused, very limp movie. A model of efficiency converted into a showcase of deficiencies.


This movie fails to redeem itself, even after that possibility became miraculously available. I was certain that I was wasting my time through the first 80 minutes of gratuitous TV-preacher bashing (which might actually be appropriate if it were not handled with such apparent fiction and superficiality) when suddenly, at the very last moment, it seemed that a story was about to emerge.

I was wrong. The only interesting tension in this film goes entirely unresolved and unexplained. It almost seems like this film was re-written in editing and they lacked the footage to explain the revision. So they released it.

I can't believe I actually bought a used copy of this. I hate that I spent $5.99 for it. But I have to much love for humanity to return or exchange it. Someone else might end up with it.

Only the producer can be blamed fully, but any director that would put his name on this movie deserves a measure of disgust.


As a work of fiction, this is an unexceptional piece of melodrama with a familiar story: the heroine falls in love with a man who abandons her cruelly. Then she does it again, and finally dies miserable and alone. Unfortunately, the main characters in this story are *supposed* to be real people. In the course of presenting Caroline Lamb (played by his wife) as a woman wronged, Bolt rides roughshod over historical facts and turns a blind eye to some of her less noble moments. In particular Lord Byron, her sometime lover, is presented as a poorly researched caricature. (On the bright side, the crippled leg that plagued him throughout his life has miraculously vanished.)

It is true, as depicted in the film, that 'Caro' and Byron had an affair, and that Byron was the one to break it off as she became more and more obsessed with him. But the film completely fails to note that she went on to conduct a vicious campaign of revenge against him that lasted for considerably longer than the original affair, and played a major part in ruining his reputation in England with accusations of crimes up to and including murder. Byron was certainly a flawed human being, but Bolt magnifies and distorts those flaws while ignoring many of Lady Caroline's.

It appears that Bolt is more interested in making a good story than in representing the life of the real Caroline Lamb, which would be forgivable if he *had* created a good story. But there's nothing exceptional about this one, not even the costumes; just a run-of-the-mill "woman ruined by heartless men" tale. If it's 19th-century fiction you're after, a Jane Austen dramatization would be a better choice; if it's historical accuracy you like, you won't find it here.


I tried VERY hard but could never make it through this film without falling asleep. I tried twice but the boredom level of this TOTALLY uninteresting picture was off the charts. How could you make a movie based on a 19th century sex scandal boring?! I don't know, but the studio found a way! At the time, I was very surprised, as I have loved Richard Chamberlain in so many other movies (such as the made for TV MAN IN THE IRON MASK, SHOGUN or COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO). Subsequent to seeing this awful film, I had the displeasure of going to the theater and seeing an even worse Chamberlain film (KING SOLOMON'S MINES). Apparently he is MORE than able to star in crappy films after all!


The story has been mangled. The acting was unconvincing and the dialogue improbable. I can't believe I managed to stay awake through the whole thing. And the costumes ranged from not bad to "which polyester knit fabric was that?" For curiosity value only.


This so-called international thriller was so dreadful that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The team of four writers who wrote this trash should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity. The eight producers who brought it to the market should be tried for conspiracy to cause brain death. It was that bad.

This film was horrible in all regards. The production standards were below TV quality. The photography was poor, the sound was muddy and the music was pure garbage. The premise was interesting; that the U.S. planted atomic bombs in all its embassies in the Soviet Union and Eastern block countries during the cold war to give them first strike capability. Now that the cold war was over the U.S. was disarming all the bombs, but the last one was in an embassy taken over by a group of terrorists. Our heroes (Daryl Hannah and Peter Weller) had to disable it before the terrorists got control of it.

The presentation of the story was abysmal. The dialogue was so bad that I was literally guffawing between eye rolls. Some scenes were so implausible that I had to wonder what the writers were smoking. For instance, our heroes are clanking through the ventilation system, trying desperately to find a way to get downstairs to the bomb to disable it. Terrorists are all around killing one hostage an hour. So, this would be a perfect time to start necking in the air duct, right? The writers thought so.

Daryl Hannah and Tom Berenger did their best to bring credibility to their ridiculous characters with some success. Peter Weller was awful. His character had a batch of very stupid lines, which he was able to elevate to absurdity.

I rated this film a 2/10. Do not see this film under any circumstances. Action junkies might be tempted because of the enormous body count. Resist.


I only watched this movie for two reasons: 1) it was on sat TV v late at night and I was wide awake working on some emails and 2) I was actually working in Bucharest when this was filmed - it was filmed just near my office in fact. I remember taking a pic of my editor walking thru a bunch of security-uniformed extras as we strolled up the hill for lunch....

It really was awful. How could you not make a good action pic when you have: a) a great location. Bucharest post-Cold War (by the way, Romania was not part of the Warsaw Pact - remember the Queen gave Ceaucescu a knighthood - so why plant an atomic bomb there?). There were virtually no scenes of Ceaucescu's mad megalomaniacal city. They may as well not have been on location. Plus they could have shot some scenes up in Transylvania. What a waste. b) Daryl Hannah, still looking gorgeous, but no sexy scenes at all, just farcical groping and snogging, and c) Tom Berenger, a great guy to have in an action movie, and d) Romanian women, the second-best looking women in Europe(after Slovenia).

This could have been a wonderful, dark, atmospheric, sexy spy movie, not just a straight to video idiot's action film.

I suspect they only made this movie because it was so cheap then to shoot movies in Romania. So it was budget-led. Once you start scrimping, you scrimp on everything and you end up with an humungous flop. The director and writers should shoot himself if they haven't already. The errors and lack of attention to detail or credibility are endless. Does the Romanian air force really paint 'Romanian Air Force' on its planes when Romania has a perfectly good language of its own? Do UN peacekeeping troops really guard prisoners at the ICC in The Haque? I think not - there's no peace to keep. And if the UN really did waste PK troops on this duty, would they garrison it with Croatian forces, to guard an alleged Serbian war criminal? (And you wouldn't have a single Croat there in a mixed force because country troops work together, and oh by the way Croatia is not a UN member country).


"Diplomatic Siege" tells of those involved in the siege of the American embassy in Bucharest for the purpose of compelling the UN to release a Serbian officer being held for war crimes. The film is an ambitious project which self-destructs in the process of trying to do too much. An utter failure not recommended for anyone.


I'm usually a sucker for mindless action flicks, but this was an incredible waste of time, both for the actors involved and anybody who tried to watch. The military special effects are laughably fake, with colored smoke substituting for real explosions. I like Weller, Hannah, and Berenger, but even they cannot rise above this horrendous made-for-TV script. In fact, this was easily their worst film -- for all of them. When the actors do stop to give their lines, the result is often unintentionally humorous. There are far too many unnecessary plot elements, making the movie feel like 6 different scripts were thrown into a blender. The scenes stolen from other movies ranging from Mission Impossible to Toy Soldiers are immediately recognizable and come across as gratuitous and weak. It's just a shame. There was so much potential, instead it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen.


Nice production values and potentially interesting premise are wasted on a totally inane script, written by hacks with obviously no interest - or talent - for research. For example, we're supposed to find plausible that the U.S. planted nuclear devices in the Eastern European capitals, as a deterrent to a *Soviet* attack. Or that a 4-star general takes orders from the National Security Advisor who, sorry to inform you guys, is not in the chain of command. Or that an over-made-up Vogue model bimbo is only one of two people who can defuse one of those nuclear devices.

And no, it's not even unintentionally funny.


This is a low-budget film based on poor directing, dumb script and unbelievable story line (after 9/11, but even before that, it is more clear who would blow up a US embassy). Acting is another story - no wonder that the cast has to resort to such projects. If I would have to see this film one more time, I would have to ask for a total anaesthesia.


This movie really sucks. The US anti-terror unit are using German Schmeisser submachine guns from the Second World War.

Absolutely ridiculous!!!

This is probably the worst Tom Berenger movie ever.


(There are Spoilers) Almost impossible to follow hostage drama with so many twists and turns that you feel like a pretzel, twisting and turning along with them, by the time the movie is finally over.

There's this gang of Serbian terrorists lead by US Army trained commando Goran Mladnov, Adrian Pintea, storming and taking over the US Embassy in Bucharest Romania. After a wild and bloody shoot-out the Serbians holding 37 hostages demand the release of their national hero the head of the dreaded Brown Hats Col. Peter Vojnovic, Vwe Ochsenknecht. Col. Vojnovic had been kidnapped by US Special Forces and put on trial at the Hague for the crimes his Brown Hat's committed in the wars in Bosnia & Croatia.

As all this is going on upstairs in the embassy down in the sub-basement computer experts Steve Mitchell, Peter Weller, and his former girlfriend Erica Long, Daryl Hanna, and Sgt. Tim Nakajima, Radman Agana Jao, are busily trying to disconnect an Atomic Bomb planted in the America Embessy in the 1950's during the hight of the Cold War. It also happens that Mitchell's 14 year-old son Chris, Jeremy Lelliott, has hid in the embassy, in Chris' avoiding to go out on a date with a chubby Romnian girl, and causes so much trouble for everyone , the Serbians the hostages as well as his dad, that he almost causes the Atomic Bomb to accidentally go off before it's disconnected!

Things really get muddled when Col. Vojnovic ends up getting murdered by the person guarding him, Constantin Barbulesco, who's not only a Croat but who's family was massacred by the Colonel's Brown Hat's during the savage fighting in his native Croatia! Knowing that there's nothing left, with Col. Vojnovic's sudden death, to bargain with the Srebian terrorists the Pentagon's head military man Gen. Stubbs, Brion James, sends his top commando and anti-insurgent expert Vietnam and Gulf War hero Gen. "Buck" Swain, Tom Berenger, to get the job done in freeing the hostages. The one major problem that Gen. Swain has is not only the uncooperative Romanian police and military but the fact that Gen. Stubb never told him that there's an Atomic Bomb hidden in the US Embessy that's about to go off at any moment!

Mindless but exciting action sequences as well as a number of surprises, one of them has to do with a mole hidden in the US Embassy, makes the movie at least watchable despite not making any sense at all. Gen. Swain and Serbian terrorist Goran turn out to have been classmate at the Ft. Bragg Army Base which really has nothing to do with what their doing, trying to kill each other, in the film. The fact that they know each other has the two able to reminisce about the good times they had learning how to kill people and blow up things which they do all throughout the movie.

****SPOILER ALERT***The almost anti-climatic ending has the mole, who was hidden among the hostages,come out of hiding and after almost having the city of Bucharest, together with the US Embessy, blown sky high has a change of heart giving Mitchell the secret code to stop the Atomic Bomb from detonating and turns from villain to hero in a matter of minutes. It was also the 25 million dollars wired into the mole's secret numbered Swiss Bank Account that had a big hand in him, or her, keeping the lid on the nuclear device and thus keep it from from blowing up a city of over two million people!


This movie is a great Fictional creation (just like, let's say stories made up like in Star Wars or Star Trek) although it lacks in the whole story, characters are clumsy and so on - the movie is OK (3/10). The main subject makes you think about this whole suspended imagination and alteration of reality, for example if the Chinese won't dance the way we intend them to dance, we'll paint them a few movies that will change people's reality regarding the Chinese; great no more wars!... too bad it's just fiction in the end.


Last weekend, I rented Enemy of my Enemy. It had a big image of Tom Berenger on the cover. Tom Berenger should be ashamed to do a picture like this. This movie is a relic from the 80's, when there were thousands of 'cold war' movies. The script is so thin it's remarkable. Poor acting, lousy script. One of the worst movies I've ever paid money to see.


Oh man! This is bad! The acting is awful, the directing appalling and the script even worse!

Everything that happens in this film is so incredibly implausible, ONE (there are several I could provide) example of this is when the two heroes come across a room guarded with laser death rays that can supposedly cut through stone and also flesh. So how do they get past you ask? Why Stupid Darryl Stupid Hannah simply deflects the beams using a mirror! What's that you say? But wouldn't the laser beams melt the mirror? Um....um....hey look behind you! *runs away*

2/10


This movie really hurt me. As in, it felt like my head was about to implode. I'm considering a class action suit against the director for the mental anguish and pain anyone who has seen this movie had to experience.

Save yourself, don't see this movie. Maybe, if drunk, it would be a bit fun because it's so bad, but I really doubt it.

Bad everything, bad story, bad acting, badly cast, bad music and bad ending. What more can you get? Bad credits music. Yes, they have terrible music there too.

Oh and the women aren't even pretty.

So do yourself a favor and rent Trolls2 instead, as it'll be a lot better. Or battlefield earth.

1/10 (cant vote lower, sorry).