RAVEN (1997) **

Burt Reynolds stars as Raven, the leader of “Raven Team”, a special unit of soldiers who do dirty jobs for the government.  Their latest assignment:  Steal a top-secret decoder.  Raven knows the government is just going to hand it over to the Iranians, so he goes rogue and steals it himself.  His shellshocked second in-command, “Duce” (Matt Battaglia, who also starred with Burt in those Universal Soldier sequels around the same time this was made) calls it quits after their last mission and walks away in possession of a vital piece of the decoder.  Raven will stop at nothing to get it back, even if it means stabbing his former friend in the back.

Raven feels like it might’ve been a pilot for a TV show that didn’t get picked up.  (The action is very reminiscent of those old “Action Pack” TV shows from the ‘90s.)  It kicks off with a lot of action, gunplay, and explosions, but the staging is rather uninspired.  (It also looks as if some of the explosions may have been taken from other movies.)  Unfortunately, it almost immediately settles down and gets pretty dull, pretty quick.  We then have to sit through a lot of talk, plotting, and double crossing.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if the rest of the action was up to the caliber of the beginning of the film.  However, the bulk of picture is light on action, and the finale is a big fat bust.  

On the plus side, Raven does deliver three completely gratuitous sex scenes, which does help alleviate the boredom.  The fact that two of the scenes feature Emmanuelle in Space’s Krista Allen as Battaglia’s hot girlfriend certainly was enough for me to put this in the “watchable” category.  If director Russell Solberg (who got his start as a stuntman, which is probably what put him on Reynolds’ radar) had tossed in a couple more of these scenes, he might’ve had a halfway decent Skinamax flick on his hands.  As is, there’s just not enough action or skin here to make it worthwhile. 

Reynolds is OK as the baddie, but he really needed more to work with if he was going to emerge from this one unscathed.  Battaglia, on the other hand is thoroughly awful in the lead.  He pretty much singlehandedly sinks it with his braindead line readings and laughable emoting.  During his big emotional scene on the battlefield, it’s hard to tell if he is experiencing PTSD or if he’s wondering if he left the iron on.  

AKA:  Raven Team.