LION STRIKE (1995) ** ½

Don “The Dragon” Wilson returns as everyone’s favorite Kung Fu doctor Johnny Wu in the third installment of the Ring of Fire franchise.  This time out, an international crime organization joins forces to sell nukes to terrorists.  Naturally, through a set of dumb coincidences, Johnny winds up in possession of a vital computer disc the gangsters need to get their plans rolling.  They then set out to kill Wu and get the disc back.  Can a global conglomerate of mobsters stand a chance against a Kung Fu doctor?

The best scene in the whole movie has nothing to do with the main plot.  A surly biker gang barges into a busy ER room and demands medical treatment.  (One guy even runs through the hallway on a motorcycle!)  Don tells them to take a number and a brawl ensues. 

I also liked his Kung Fu forest ranger love interest, played by Bobbie Phillips.  Lion Strike maybe a dumb title because there are no lions in it, but Phillips does rescue a cougar.  There’s a hilarious moment when Wilson’s kid sees it and says, “Nice cougar!”

Don then looks at the camera and says, “I’ll Say!” I’m not an expert on colloquialisms, but I think this might be the first use of the word “cougar” to mean a hot older woman.  If not, it’s certainly one of the funniest.

Some laughs can also be had from seeing various explosions and shootouts from other PM movies acting as placeholders during the action sequences.  These moments help give the illusion the movie’s much more expensive than it really is.  However, after the silly and entertaining first act, things quickly become more generic as it goes along.  It pretty much loses a lot of its nutty charm in the third act when it just becomes a series of interchangeable scenes of Don Kung Fuing bad guys in the mountains.  It somehow was more fun when he was getting into unrelated action scenes and dodging stock footage from other movies.

Action fans will enjoy seeing a pre-Spawn Michael Jai White popping up in a small role.

AKA:  Ring of Fire 3:  Lion Strike.  

STIFF COMPETITION (1984) ***

You know all those movies about the underground kickboxing circuit?  The ones where people gather in a dingy garage or basement and bet on who will be left standing in a mano y mano Kung Fu battle?  The kind where a young fighter gets plucked out of obscurity and works their way to a fight inside the ring for a big money prize?

Well, Stiff Competition is the first underground cocksucking tournament movie.  Instead of two guys fighting, it’s a guy standing there while a women races against the clock to see how fast she can make the dude cum.  In fact, it predates many of those kickboxing films I was talking about, which in a way makes it a trailblazer for not only one genre, but two.

When a cocksucker quits in the middle of an underground “suck-off”, a young newcomer named Tammy the Tongue (Gina Carrera) takes her place.  Jeff (Kevin James) sees she has real talent and coaches her to be the best dick-licker on the circuit.  She quickly works her way up the ranks of the cocksucker elite, which spells doom for the former pro Cynthia Silkthroat (Cyndee Summers) and her attempted bid at a comeback.  Eventually, they settle their differences in the ring at the “Super Bowl of Suck-Offs” for a $50,000 cash prize.  

Stiff Competition has fun playing up the usual sports movie clichés, which is where a majority of the amusement comes from.  It takes a lot of its cues from the Rocky series (there’s a dick-sucking montage instead of a training montage) and the final match is rife with drama.  It’s also kind of like The Hustler in that the hero’s mentor takes them out on the road in preparation for the big match.  

If you’re mostly concerned with the XXX action, you may be dismayed by the heavy concentration of oral scenes.  (Unless that’s your thing.)  Director Paul (Bodacious Ta-Ta’s) Vatelli, perhaps sensing his overreliance on oral, mixes things up by sticking a great anal scene with Bridgette Monet smack dab in the middle of the flick.  

Carrera is kind of forgettable in the lead, but the supporting cast is amusing.  We have Ron Jeremy who plays “Don Head”, the promoter of the big Suck-Off, delivering another sleazy performance.  John Leslie brings his typical intensity to the role of Summers’ slimy manager, Jake the Snake.  It’s also fun seeing Kitten Natividad turning up for a nice little lesbian scene with Carrera.   

A sequel followed ten years later.

NIGHT OF THE SHARKS (1990) **

Night of the Sharks was a late era entry in the first wave of the Killer Shark films that were released in the wake of Jaws’ success.  (It was made in Italy a year after Jaws the Revenge and released in America two years later.)  It was made at a time when the country’s exploitation output was in a gradual state of decline.  It’s not up to snuff with something like Great White, but if you’re an undemanding fan of Italian shark movies, it’ll be an OK way to kill 90 minutes.

Treat Williams stars as a beach bum who is out to kill a one-eyed shark named “Cyclops”.  His brother gets mixed up with some unsavory characters and comes to the beach to lay low.  Naturally, the bad guys follow him and kill him.  It seems he was blackmailing some pretty powerful people and was in possession of an incriminating disc.  Treat winds up with the disc and soon, they come after him too.  

Let me be honest.  I’ll pretty much watch any Blood in the Water movie.  That of course is any film that features a shark attacking someone as the waters slowly turn red with blood.  As far as these things go, it’s tolerable, although it comes up way short in the exploitation department.

I’m also a big Treat Williams fan.  He’s fun to watch and gives a charming performance.  His charisma shines through, even if it’s obvious he only took the job so he could hang out on the beach all day.  

There are some amusing moments to be sure.  I liked the scene where the shark steals Treat’s boat, and the big bar fight scene is kind of funny.  I also enjoyed seeing Antonio Fargas popping up as Treat’s right-hand man.  I even got a chuckle out of the electronic suspense music, which sounds less like a rip-off of John Williams’ Jaws theme and more like music from the boss level of a video game.  Italian exploitation vets John Steiner and Chris Connelly also turn up, which fans of this sort of dreck will appreciate.  

Sounds like a walk on the beach doesn’t it?  Well, despite a fair amount of good points, Night of the Sharks (there’s only one shark, by the way) just never works itself up into a frenzy.  At one point, the movie forgets all about the shark as it turns into your typical jungle actioner.  After that, it just never recovers.  It goes without saying that the scenes of blackmail, political intrigue, and Treat tangling with assassins is far less entertaining than the scenes of the shark eating people. 

Treat fared much better ten years later with another aquatic horror flick, Deep Rising.

AKA:  Jaws Attack.

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3: PARABELLUM (2019) ***

John Wick:  Chapter 2 ended on such a perfect note that John Wick:  Chapter 3 quickly became one of my most anticipated movies.  Who could forget when John Wick (Keanu Reeves) broke the sacred rules of committing murder in the hitman hotel, thus declaring open season on himself, allowing every hitman on the planet free reign to take him out?  It was an awesome set-up that suggested all hell would break loose in Chapter 3.  Other than a sterling opening twenty minutes or so, this uneven, sometimes frustrating sequel never quite lives up to the promise of its predecessor.  However, there are still enough moments of badassery here to keep fans of the series happy. 

Things kick off with an excellent fight in a library as well as a tense scene set in a doctor’s office.  Then along comes a sequence that will go down in history as one of the all-time greats.  John Wick is chased by a gang of killers into an antique weapons warehouse where they match wits in a hallway full of knives.  It is a jaw-dropping display of martial arts choreography, action cinematography, and sheer kinetic filmmaking.  I haven’t even brought up the horse fight.  

Then, as the film enters its second act, it does the unthinkable.  It gets boring.  It’s almost as if the first flurry of non-stop action winded the movie and it had to sit down and catch its breath.  It eventually rights itself as the action in the third act is frenzied and fun (though lacking the kick of the early sequences), but that whole middle section of the flick is downright turgid.

I always hate it when a movie feels like it’s making up its rules as it goes along.  I mean the second film ended with everyone in the world gunning for John Wick.  Then, all of a sudden, the flick is like, “Oh, wait we lied.  He’s got a Get Out of Jail Free card he pulled out of a box of Crackerjacks.”  Then when it feels like the action is about to ramp up again, there’s a longwinded scene where Wick finagles his way out of ANOTHER scenario by invoking inane obscure hitman bylaws at the last minute.  The original film’s world-building was one of its most intriguing aspects.  Here, it just seems like the screenwriters are just pulling new “rules” out of their ass to keep the stuntmen on the sidelines.  

It doesn’t help that the second act is chockful of scenes of brand-new characters that bring absolutely nothing new to the table.  The scenes of Anjelica Huston, Halle Berry, and the terrible new villain “The Adjudicator” (Asia Kate Dillon) are dull and stop the movie on a dime.  In fact, it seems like Halle is only there to set up her very own a spin-off as Reeves takes a backseat to her for a chunk of the movie.  Remember when they tried to pull that shit with James Bond on Die Another Day?  It didn’t work out so good, did it?  I won’t even tell you about the shitty Lawrence of Arabia part. 

Luckily, the stagnant second act is redeemed once Mark Dacascos and his Ninja buddies try to kill John Wick.  There’s even an extended cameo by one of my favorite badass Kung Fu stars that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.  These fight scenes help to solidify the film’s shakiness somewhat, even if they lack the breathlessness of the opening moments. 

The ending sets things up for yet another sequel.  I can honestly say its not nearly as inspired as the previous cliffhanger.  Hopefully, the next Chapter will be a bit of a course correction for the series, but if it has at least one sequence as exhilarating as this one’s “Hall of Knives” fight, it’ll still be worth watching.

AKA:  John Wick 3:  Parabellum.  

X-TREME FIGHTER (2005) **

Don “The Dragon” Wilson stars as a widowed martial arts instructor who’s growing apart from his teenage son Brad (Dan Mayid).  Don’s dad (Aki Aleong) works in a computer lab perfecting virtual bad guys for cop Lorenzo Lamas to practice shooting during computerized simulations.  He turns the simulator into a video game which he gives to Brad as a birthday present.  When his virtual reality helmet short circuits, Brad’s mind gets trapped inside the game.  Don then straps in and sets out to find his son before he becomes permanently trapped in the game. 

The set-up had a lot of potential.  It could’ve been Mortal Kombat Meets Tron.  However, X-Treme Fighter is just kinda cheap and cheesy.  The low-tech graphics in the video game are good for a chuckle (they look like something out of a kid’s movie from the ‘90s), but some parts look like they were filmed during a Kung Fu convention that Don and Cynthia just so happened to attend.  It also doesn’t help that the video game fighters are mostly generic and unmemorable.  The fights are also way too brief and suffer from ho-hum choreography. 

Even though director Art (Half Past Dead 2) Camacho never really takes advantage of the premise, X-Treme Fighter remains watchable due to the capable cast.  I mean, how can I not watch a movie starring Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Lorenzo Lamas (sporting one of his most impressive coifs in his entire career), and Cynthia Rothrock (who pulls double duty as Wilson’s love interest and the “White Dragon” video game fighter)?  Don, Cynthia, and Lorenzo always remain likeable even in the cheesiest of surroundings.  I just wish Rothrock and Lamas had more to do (Lamas literally bumps into Wilson at one point, which is about the extent of their interaction) and that the fights were longer. (The final showdown ends abruptly.) 

Still, it’s hard to hate any action movie in which the actors are listed in the credits alongside their Kung Fu credentials.  Seeing them listed with titles like “2^nd Degree Black Belt” and “Master of Kata” underneath their names put a smile on my face.  I love shit like that.  

AKA:  Sci-Fighter.  AKA:  Dragon Battle:  Evolution.  

SWORN TO JUSTICE (2001) ** ½

Cynthia Rothrock (in a spunky, likeable performance) comes home to find her sister and nephew murdered by burglars.  She tries to fight off the intruders, hits her head, and winds up getting… amnesia?  NOPE!  An ordinary movie would use this plot device.  Sworn to Justice is no ordinary movie.  No, she actually hits her head and winds up with… are you ready for this?  

ESP!!!

She then uses her new gifts to find her family’s killers.  In the meantime, she dons a dark hoodie and goes around like a pint-sized Punisher, beating up the various thieves, gang members, and criminals that terrorize the city.  Eventually, her quest leads her to a ring of car thieves who have been working with the help of a crooked cop (God Told Me To’s Tony Lo Bianco, who acts like Ben Gazzara).

Sworn to Justice is goofy as fuck.  It suffers from an uneven tone, but then again, that’s where many of the (unintentional) laughs come from.  In one scene, Cynthia is mourning the death of her loved ones, and in the next, she’s getting into a goofy fight scene that’s so corny and cartoonish that it would embarrass Jackie Chan.  (There are birdie sound effects when she punches a guy.)

The supporting cast is fun.  We have Star Trek’s Walter Koenig who sports a terrible accent as Rothrock’s mentor.  No Retreat, No Surrender’s Kurt McKinney also turns up as Rothrock’s love interest.  Their Kung Fu courtship scene is downright nutty and predates the similar scene in Daredevil by a few years.  Then there’s the one and only Mako as a blind newspaper vendor who dispenses life-changing wisdom.  Just when you think it can’t get any better, Brad Dourif shows up for an extended cameo (acting over the top as usual) as one of Cynthia’s attackers.

Parts of this seem like it was edited with a machete and then put together with duct tape.  Some of the fight scenes are too dark to see anything clearly too.  If you can get past that, you’re sure to agree there’s an undeniably quirky charm about the whole thing that helps keeps it afloat.  I can’t quite call it a “good” movie, but there’s enough oddball touches here to make it memorable.  I’m thinking specifically of when Cynthia blows up the bad guy’s brother and he keeps the charred corpse around for sentimental purposes.  I mean, doesn’t that alone kind of make you want to see it?  

AKA:  Female Justice.

THE HIGHWAYMEN (2019) **

Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is one of those untouchable Hollywood classics that is just about pitch perfect in every way.  Penn did such a fine job on it that any film about the subject matter is going to suffer from comparison.  That said, John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen, which focuses on Frank Hamer, the man who brought the pair down, had potential.  

The Highwaymen could’ve been an interesting flipside to the familiar story.  It could’ve been an Unforgiven-style meditation of a man returning to a life of violence.  It could’ve just been an old-fashioned manhunt movie.  Unfortunately, it winds up being none of those things.  In fact, I’m not even sure it knows it wants to be.  

Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) is a former Texas Ranger who is lured out of retirement to take down Bonnie and Clyde.  He partners up with another ex-lawman (Woody Harrelson) and the two barnstorm the Texas countryside looking for the devious duo.  The trail runs hot and cold, but their doggedness eventually pays off and they’re able to finally hunt their quarry down.  

Costner is one of my favorite actors of all time, but he’s squarely set in one mode here:  Gruff Disinterested Costner.  He never makes Hamer someone we can root for, which probably is more of a shortcoming of the script (which was written by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:  Sword of Destiny’s John Fusco) than of Costner.  Harrelson gets one or two spry moments (like his run-in with some hoods in a bathroom), although his usual charisma is kept in check throughout the film.  

Hancock’s slack direction is ultimately the thing that sinks the flick.  The pacing lacks urgency and the drama is sluggish.  For a manhunt of the country’s most wanted duo, the titular gunmen don’t seem to be in any particular rush.  Like most Netflix directors, Hancock mistakes the lack of studio interference for a license to drag things out far too long.  It clocks in at 132 minutes, and yet it feels like you’re watching a multi-part miniseries.   

The ending is abrupt, unsatisfying, and unglorified, which is the point.  It also happens to be the only part that really works.  In fact, the brief scenes of crowds ogling the Bonnie and Clyde death car are far more effective than anything else that preceded it.  The stock footage of the death car and Bonnie and Clyde’s funerals shown as the film wraps up kind of makes me wish for an entire movie devoted to the car and the fascination that it holds to this very day.