MonsterHunter

When was it during The Expert that I realized I was watching the “Most Underrated Jeff Speakman Movie I Only Vaguely Remember Hearing About When It Came Out?” Was it when Speakman took his date to the museum with the giant statute of a woman who represented justice or liberty or whatever and proclaimed that he came for the solitude? Or was it when the warden of a prison proudly announced to the gathered media that he had catered that night’s execution? Surely, it had to be that time when Speakman was run over by a car in an alley behind a bar and then proceeded to beat the holy hell out of the four guys inside of it - all while rocking a kick ass jean jacket! Read More »

The third No Retreat, No Surrender film benefits greatly from the fact that no one has ever heard of any of these movies to begin with! When you’ve got a Shrek the Third, a Rush Hour 3 or the third time a guy named George Bush was in the White House, so much of the reaction is along the lines of “what’s the point” and “not again” and the much more succinct “sucks.” But that’s only because people have something to compare it to and come into the project with a set of expectations that can’t possibly be met. (Really - could you ever recapture that Chris Tucker/Jackie Chan magic again?) Read More »

There’s a lot of stuff in Angel Town (directed by Eric Karson of Black Eagle fame) that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Olivier Gruner’s presence at Southern California University is good for about two scenes and nothing else. There’s some talk about Gruner training the Olympic team or something. There’s the flashbacks he has to his youth in France where he was treated poorly. And best of all, there’s the scene at the beginning of the movie when Gruner was still in France and a woman screws him in a cemetery! And he still decided to go to America! Read More »

I don’t talk about it much because it’s pretty sacred and all, but I’m part Indian. And let me tell you, that part of me loved every minute of Desert Kickboxer! The alternately touching and thrilling story of Indian half-breed Joe Mullethawk grabbed me by the hair, threatening to scalp my very head with its doublecrosses, flashbacks, fighting, and yes, it’s loving! Writer/director Isaac Florentine (Savate, Cold Harvest) knows that no man is more manly than when he’s being haunted by the demons of his kickboxing past! Or when he’s using the tale of his haunted past to bang some purty squaw who’s on the run from a drug kingpin! Read More »

They killed his favorite prostitute! They framed him for her murder! Sent to prison where he must learn to survive using only the skills that have made him the single best kickboxer in all of southeast Asia, Jack Dammeron’s life is about to get much worse! His attorney, the very best legal beagle in all of southeast Asia is none other than his wife! Can she put aside her irritation with Jack for screwing hookers on business trips while he’s too self-centered to agree to have children with her to get an acquittal? But her life is about to get much worse! She turns out to be pregnant! And the only way out of this serpentine mess is through the most dreaded of all competitions! Deathfight! Read More »

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped on the street by total strangers and told “Deadly Outbreak is just Die Hard in a chemical plant.” I suppose they’re just trying to be cute or hip or one of the popular kids or whatever, but I’ve never been one to maintain a polite silence in social situations (and I have the lack of friends to prove it) so I always fire back with both barrels. “Die Hard is just Deadly Outbreak in a skyscraper,” I respond and then bring it all home by adding, “but without Jeff Speakman!” Then I go all Kenpo over their ass just like Jeff would do! Read More »

I realize that most of you are expecting to read something marginally amusing about how rotten this movie is. You want to hear me run the Muscles from Brussels, Jean-Claude Van Damme, down for his penchant for staring dumbly about, like a little girl lost in a department store and about to wet her pants. You desire the expected cheap shot about how V.D. croaks out his meager lines like he’s had half his tongue removed while the remaining half is swelled up. Read More »

The Cyber-Tracker (or “CyberTracker” depending on the movie) franchise is brought to an explosive conclusion in this sequel which is positively cybertastic! Three long years after the events in the first CyberTracker film, Eric, Connie, and Jared return to do battle once again with evil cyborgs who are charged with enforcing the law, but have this disconcerting habit of being used to kill innocent people and assassinate politicians. The stakes are even higher though this time around because the Cyber-Trackers come in all sorts of awesome flavors! Read More »

It’s time for another one of those bargain basement action icon team ups that can occasionally nudge a movie like Cyber Tracker from cyber crapper status all the way up to cyber clunker status! Much like the Jeff Speakman flick Scorpio One which had the Perfect Weapon take on Brent “Huffbo” Huff of Strike Commando 2 fame, Cyber Tracker creams the undiscerning action audience’s jeans with the mouth watering showdown between Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Richard “The Kick Fighter With A Mullet” Norton. If it doesn’t stack up to the fight on the space station between Speakman and Huff where Speakman smacked Huff in the head with a fire extinguisher, that just goes to show that when you have such legends brawling, the edge often comes down the intangibles. Intangibles like space stations and fire extinguishers. Read More »

Sometimes I look back on my life and reflect at the amazing and positively fantastical things that I have seen. Mind boggling disasters, assassinations, the collapse of Communism (except in China, North Korea and Cuba), KISS taking their make up off and then putting it back on, and of course the rise and fall of Diet Vanilla Coke. The thing though that causes me the most goosebumps when I sink back into one of my lengthy summer evening revelries is that I actually was alive to see commercials on TV for Michael Dudikoff movies that were coming to actual movie theaters! Read More »