FORMAT: DVD
Strike Force opens with an action scene with such rapid-fire editing, I thought for a second it was the trailer for the movie and not the actual movie. Now, there’s not nearly this much action in the rest of the film (the finale is a similarly rapid-fire affair), but it does set the tone nicely.
It also has a pretty incredible cast. In fact, neither the DVD box nor the opening credits even tell you some of the biggest names in the movie. William Forsythe is front and center (and deservedly so), but there’s no mention of Ed Lauter, who plays the guy who gives Forsythe his mission. There’s also Michael Parks (who basically appears in what nowadays would’ve been a Zoom call) as the guy who hires Forsythe. Best yet, Burt Reynolds appears briefly as a character called “Irish” (although sometimes his accent sounds more Cuban). None of these guys are advertised anywhere (even IMDb hides Burt as the last name in the credits), so it was fun whenever a great star unexpectedly showed up.
Heck, even the stars that we know up front are in the movie are pretty sweet. We have Daniel Bernhardt as Forsythe’s right-hand man, the Wishmaster himself, Andrew Divoff as the villain (who in one scene attends a luau wearing a Speedo while holding his dog), Mattias Hues as Divoff’s kickboxing champ, Christopher Atkins as one of Divoff’s slimy associates, and Erika Eleniak, who gets to prove she’s more than just arm candy as she has her own kickboxing scene. The movie itself is solid, but the cast almost makes it more than a sum of its parts.
I guess I should tell you about the plot. Forsythe (who co-wrote and co-produced) is the leader of a team called “The Librarians” who specialize in extraction. They are hired by Parks to go down to Miami to find a missing girl, and learn she’s run afoul of some white slavers led by Divoff.
Strike Force feels like one of those “Action Pack” TV movies from the ‘90s, and I mean that as a sincere compliment. It has a lot of guest stars, a simple plot, and solid action, all befitting a TV movie and/or pilot. I also liked the subplot where Divoff holds underground kickboxing matches, which gives Bernhardt and Hues a chance to show their chops.
The movie really belongs to Forsythe though. He looks like he’s having fun in a rare hero leading role. Seeing him playing off the spectacular list of co-stars doesn’t hurt either.
AKA: The Librarians.
No comments:
Post a Comment