HEIST SCHOOL (2006) *

I can honestly say I haven’t seen very many Turkish movies.  That’s not a slight against the country or their cinematic output.  It’s just that their films aren’t the sort of things that pop on my radar.  Unless they have Captain America and El Santo teaming up to fight an evil Spider-Man (as was the case with the Turkish classic, 3 Giant Men), I don’t usually intentionally seek out Turkish cinematic delights.

Heist School doesn’t sound like a movie I would watch, even if it was in English.  It’s basically the Turkish version of The Perfect Score.  Five teenagers panic when they learn the government are rolling back college scholarships.  They then set out to steal the answers to a big college entrance exam in order to get accepted to a fancy college.  

Granted, it’s not the worst idea for a movie.  It’s just that it’s extremely slow moving (the long scenes of the kids sitting in class seemingly play out in real time), there’s way too many characters, and the heist scenes lack anything approximating suspense.  The faux film breaks, and random use of filters quickly get annoying too.

Great directors would struggle to keep us engaged for ninety minutes of this.  Unfortunately, this one clocks in at a whopping two hours.  The editor could’ve cut whole chunks out of the picture and no one would’ve noticed.  It also doesn’t help that none of the young performers are particularly likeable or memorable either. 

The only reason I watched Heist School was because Jean-Claude Van Damme was in it.  Unfortunately, you have to wait till the last twenty minutes before he shows up.  He makes a big superstar entrance deboarding a private plane, which makes me think the production company just filmed him arriving at the airport.  Basically, his character, a supposed master criminal who—get this—looks like Jean-Claude Van Damme (that’s the level of humor we’re dealing with here) is only there to help the kids plan their heist and give them a pep talk.  Van Damme does give the movie a brief shot in the arm, but he’s given too little to do in too little time to make much of a difference.  (The lame part where he intimidates a bully is as close as the film comes to having an action scene.)

Awhile back when I was on Ty and Brett’s Comeuppance Podcast, we talked about our Top 5 Best and Worst Van Damme movies.  This would definitely go on my list of Top 5 Worst list.  I guess I could cut it a little slack because it’s not exactly a Van Damme vehicle as his role is little more than an extended cameo.  That said, his participation (however brief) is the sole reason anyone would want to watch it to begin with.  Whenever he isn’t on screen, Heist School flunks out.

NINJA TERMINATOR (1986) ***

Richard Harrison and his two Ninja buddies steal “The Golden Ninja Warrior” (it looks like a fucking paperweight) from their power-hungry master.  They split the golden knickknack into three parts and go their separate ways.  The master then sends out a bunch of Ninjas to get the trinkets back. 

Since this is a Godfrey Ho mix ‘n match movie, there’s another plot from an entirely different film going on.  In this part of the flick, a guy named Jaguar Wong (Jack Lam) goes around Kung Fuing the crap out of anyone who gets in his way.  Eventually, he is also tasked to retrieve the piece of Ninja bric-a-brac.  

Because this is a Ho film, the plot is really secondary, and rarely makes sense.  Ho does deliver on the Ninja action though.  There are scads of scenes of Ninjas hopping around via jump cuts, tossing out Ninja stars, and getting into swordfights.  There’s even a nutty bit where one Ninja shoots flames out of his hands while his rival combats the blast by shooting freezing spray from his fist (it looks like someone stuck a fire extinguisher up his sleeve).    

Lam has plenty of opportunities to kick ass throughout the picture.  He’s always running into guys in parking lots or on top of parking garages who want to kill him for some reason or another and he more than gladly takes them down a peg.  Among Lam’s highlights are the scene where he uses a baseball to beat some thugs up and a part where he fights a guy while keeping his hands in his pockets.

It’s Harrison though who makes the movie.  Whether he’s fighting guys in his camouflage Ninja outfit or saving his girlfriend from a random crab attack, he’s always a blast to watch.  His best scene is when he delivers a stern message while talking on his Garfield phone!  Nothing to me says “deadly Ninja” more than a guy who uses a Garfield phone.  (This scene was so iconic that Ho had Harrison use the phone again in Diamond Ninja Force.) 

God, and I haven’t even mentioned the hilarious sex scene that’s framed so poorly that you can’t tell whose body is whose.  Or that when the woman climaxes, the camera cuts to a blooming flower!  I didn’t even bring up the jaw-dropping scene where a kid’s windup toy robot enters a room under a cloud of ominous smoke to deliver a message from the evil Ninja empire.  Or the villain who wears a hilarious blonde He-Man wig.  

On top of all that, there are even more gratuitous sex scenes, unrelated action, and random fights.  Other subplots that involve drug dealing and torture are also tossed in there, although by that point, the movie has started to feel overcrowded.  I don’t presume to understand what was going on half the time.  Then again, it didn’t really matter when you’re getting three movies for price of one.  Sure, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but let’s face it, you’d be disappointed in a Ho flick if it did.  

Ninja Terminator just may be proof you can have too much of a good thing.  Just when you think it’s over, it keeps going.  Ho pitches the movie at such a frantic rate that it quickly becomes numbing.  Still, with so much awesomeness packed in one place, it’s virtually critic-proof.  You’re either the kind of person who wants to see Ninjas that use Garfield phones, or you aren’t. 

HAVE A GOOD TRIP: ADVENTURES IN PSYCHEDELICS (2020) **

Have a Good Trip:  Adventures in Psychedelics has an interesting premise.  Celebrities (mostly comedians) describe what it was like (for them) to trip on acid and mushrooms.  We then see animated re-enactments and/or live-action recreations of their hallucinations.  While this could’ve been an intriguing look at casual drug use among celebrities, it quickly reveals itself to be a half-baked idea.

The best stuff is the clips from old anti-drug films from the ’60 that occasionally pop up, usually as a counter to what is being said by the celebrities.  Some of the interviews are enlightening.  The scenes with Sting, Carrie Fisher, and Ben Stiller are particularly memorable.  In fact, the film would’ve been fine if it was just the interview segments.  

It’s when the movie goes for cheap laughs that it completely falls on its face.  The scenes of the various trips feel like something from a shitty sketch comedy show.  Nick Offerman’s host segments (which are a parody of the old government films) land with a thud, as do the After School Special parodies starring Adam Scott.  It’s also unfortunate that some of the most entertaining guys (to me at least), like Will Forte, Marc Maron, and Donovan don’t get their own segment and only appear briefly, which is frustrating.  

Ultimately, the big problem with Have a Good Trip:  Adventures in Psychedelics is that it all feels kind of square.  I mean why spend ninety minutes listening to people TALKING about doing drugs when you could go out and do them yourself?  (Please don’t, at least not on my account.)  It’s kind of like being stuck in a room with a hippie.  By about the fourth time you hear, “Hey man, did I ever tell you about this time I was high on acid…”, you start wishing the ‘60s never happened.  

MANOS RETURNS (2018) **

If it wasn’t for Mystery Science Theater 3000, the 1966 low budget horror oddity, Manos:  The Hands of Fate would’ve faded into obscurity.  Thanks to a pair of wisecracking robots, Manos was resurrected and brought back into the pop culture consciousness.  Well, at the very least, the pop culture consciousness of people who like bad movies (like me).  

Manos Returns must set some kind of record for the longest gap between a movie and its sequel, especially for one that stars the same cast members from the original.  (Fifty-two years, to be exact.)  The good news is it looks exactly how you would expect a fifty-plus years later sequel to Manos to look.  It was shot on video, features minimal location work, and is packed to the gills with bad dialogue and amateurish acting.  It also cannily reuses the same music from the first film (including some covers), and recycles a lot of the same dialogue and situations.

I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun seeing the old cast again.  It’s also kind of neat to revisit this world and seeing how things have changed in the years since the original.  Like the old saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. 

This time out, it’s four friends who get lost on the highway during a vacation, instead of a family.  They make a wrong turn and wind up at a rundown old house where they meet the weirdo groundskeeper Torgo (Steven Shields), who “takes care of the place while ‘The Master’ is away”.  Eventually, after a lot of stumbling around the house, the friends find themselves in the grips of the dark power of Manos.

Manos Returns is at its best when its following in the original’s footsteps.  It’s kind of refreshing to see what a halfway capable director (in this case, Tonjia Atomic, who also has a supporting role as one of the Master’s wives) can do with the material as there are moments here when the whole thing threatens to actually work.  (It’s certainly more competent and watchable than the original, that’s for sure.)  It’s less successful however when it's making its own (unfunny) comedic commentary on the proceedings.  There are times when the characters make jokes at the movie’s expense; almost as if they’re trying to beat Mystery Science Theater to the punch.  (There’s even a thinly veiled reference to one of the riffs from the MST3K episode.)  The discussion the characters have about bad movies in the beginning is a bit too on-the-nose too. 

It was good seeing The Master (Tom Neyman) again.  Unfortunately, he died before it was released.  At least he had one more opportunity to wear the Manos robe.  Debbie (Jackey Neyman Jones) and her mother (Diane Mahree Rystad) also make a welcome return, although to say any more about them would get into Spoiler territory.  It must be said that the new Torgo isn’t a patch on John Reynolds’ definitive interpretation of the character in the original film.  I did find it refreshing that the Master added some plus-sized girls to his stable of wives though. 

There are some odd new touches to the Manos lore that feel a bit half-baked, like the lost souls (I think that’s what they are) who are still stuck inside the house.  The ending is okay, I guess, and we get one decent bloody scene.  On the plus side, it’s only an hour long.  I can’t quite call it “good”, but I admire the fact that it knew when to quit. 

Overall, Manos Returns is better than the original.  That wasn’t difficult to do I’m sure, but still.  It may have its share of flaws, but it’s about as good as a fifty-two years later sequel to one of the worst movies of all time could be.

EXTRACTION (2020) * ½

If you’re wondering why this movie is called Extraction, it’s because the filmmakers have somehow managed to extract all the charisma, charm, and personality from Chris Hemsworth.  That’s no small feat, let me tell you.  He stars as a merc who gets sent to rescue a crime lord’s kid.  It’s based on a comic book I’ve never heard of, but it feels more like a video game I’ve never played.  There’s no real “plot” either.  Just a series of objectives.  The dialogue scenes are more like cut scenes from a video game that set up action too.  It also doesn’t help that Hemsworth is totally miscast as a burned out alkie commando. 

Produced and written by the Russo brothers (who also made the Avengers movies with Hemsworth), Extraction is a joyless, generic, and forgettable affair.  It’s especially dire whenever first-time director Sam Hargrave tries to get arty.  The one-take Children of Men-inspired scene is particularly forced, and the obvious seams in the action only call attention to the fact that it’s a series of smaller shots held together with some not-so clever editing tricks.  If anything, it’s only purpose is to reinforce the “Let’s make an action flick that feels like a video game” aesthetic.

I guess I have to bring up the fact that Hemsworth’s character is named Tyler Rake.  That really wouldn’t matter except that there’s a scene early in the movie in which he kills someone with a rake.  I guess this would’ve been cool if he had said, “That’s why they call me ‘Tyler Rake’” afterwards, but he doesn’t.  It just takes you out if the scene when you realize the filmmakers are too dumb to acknowledge this bit of symmetry with a quip or a one-liner.  Also, why would a rake be in a living room?  If this scene happened in a garden or shed, I could understand why a rake would be there, but a living room?

Another thing that took me out of the movie was the scene where the bad guys bribe the police into closing all the bridges in the city so Hemsworth can’t escape.  I mean, isn’t that the same exact plot of 21 Bridges, which the Russos also produced?  Are they already running out of ideas for their non-Marvel films?  

The villain is really bland too.  The only memorable part is when he sends a bunch of street kids out to kill Chris.  If you always wanted to see Thor kick the shit out of some snot-nosed kids, here is your chance.  

David Harbour shows up late in the game in an extended cameo as Hemsworth’s pill-popping compatriot, but he doesn’t stick around long enough to resuscitate the movie.  Oh, and the ending really sucks too.  I can’t go on record by saying Extraction is the worst flick of the year, but it’s definitely the most forgettable. 

AKA:  Tyler Rake.  AKA:  Out of the Fire.

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.

DANGEROUSLY CLOSE (1986) ** ½

A group of fascist hall monitors called “The Sentinels” rule their school with an iron fist.  They claim they’re reducing crime and vandalism on campus, but in reality, they’re targeting lower class, minority, and punk students in the name of vigilante justice.  Randy (John Stockwell, who also co-wrote the script), the leader of The Sentinels, reaches out to Danny (J. Eddie Peck), the editor of the school newspaper, in hopes he will write a favorable article about the group.  Danny, a lower-class kid (who also cleans Randy’s pool), is lured by the promise of popularity, and is drawn into the world of The Sentinels.  When students begin turning up dead and/or missing, Danny discovers The Sentinels may be the ones responsible, and he sets out to bring the group down.  

I’m not sure why this was called Dangerously Close.  Maybe because it was one of the few Albert Pyun movies that came dangerously close to being good.  It’s far from perfect, but as far as Pyun’s work goes, this is one of his best.  (Although let’s face it.  He’ll never come close to matching The Sword and the Sorcerer.) 

I’ll admit, it’s a little clunky in the early going.  Once the film finally unfurls its premise, it slowly begins working.  Think Class of 1984 Meets The Lords of Discipline by way of John Hughes.  However, the wheels start coming off as it enters the home stretch.  While the twist ending is decent enough, the editing in the third act is often choppy, with the final shot being especially perplexing.

Despite its flaws, the film certainly has a strong cast for this sort of thing.  Stockwell (who also was in Pyun’s Radioactive Dreams) is solid as the slick, persuasive preppie villain.  Peck (three years away from starring in Curse 2:  The Bite) makes for a likeable lead.  It helps that he has qualities of both a cool guy and a dork, which kind of makes it uncertain what side he’ll remain loyal to.  Carey Lowell (three years from starring as a Bond girl in Licence to Kill) makes a memorable impression as Stockwell’s bored girlfriend, who naturally begins to have eyes for Peck.  It was also fun to see Pyun regular Thom Mathews and Miguel A. Nunez being reteamed once again a year after they starred in Return of the Living Dead.

AKA:  Campus.  AKA:  Campus ’86.