No.210 : The Victim (2011)

The Victim at the IMDb

Michael Biehn, who you’ll know as Hicks from ‘Aliens’, wrote directed and starred in this offering, which I thought was terrible, but on reading up on it that may have been the intention.

Filmed in 15 days the film is Biehn’s attempt at a grind house film and although it doesn’t hit all the marks, it was good fun as a piece of disposable trash. At the start a ‘Based on True Events’ caption came up. Having seen the film that seemed an outrageous claim, especially as you’d ask who’s telling the story?, but a rewind showed that the word ‘Not’ flashed briefly in front of the caption. I was glad to have watched it thinking it to be a true story as every unlikely twist made it seem even more outrageous.

The film opens with a nice POV walk in the woods…what’s this we find? A cute kitten? Some pixies? No it’s a man doing a hooker doggy style over a tree stump. She’s not being raped but not particularly enjoying it either. Her committed lover doesn’t like her lack of engagement in his dirty talk so he breaks her neck.

We then cut to Biehn getting his shopping and his trip home. This drive takes forever and it is either to demonstrate how far out into the woods he lives or to pad the run time which only amounts to 82 minutes in total. He barely gets his coat off when a woman in hooker gear appears at his door, begging for his help. He’s a bit of a hermit, but a gullible one too, so he lets her in and lets her tell her tale in flashback.

She tells him that she and her friend went to party with two policemen friends in the woods. The friend is the one from the opening scene, so we know it doesn’t end well. Anyway the murderous policeman calls his friend to help with the body whilst he gets it on with the door knocking lady, and amazingly he goes! The lady then overhears their plans for her and flees, ending up at Biehn’s cabin.

Back in the present and the two renegade cops are at the door and Biehn manages to shoo them away. The lady, Annie, who is a stripper, refuses to call the cops as this goes way to the top - the murderer is in line to be Chief of Police so she suggest they go and look for her friend’s body. Amazing Biehn agrees and after not finding it, the stripper and the aged hermit have gratuitous sex in many positions. Annie was played by Biehn’s real life wife so fair play to him for sharing. The murderer cop breaks in to the love shack, but is subdued and tortured into a confession. The happy couple then go to the promised location of the body but Biehn and Annie get captured by the cop‘s accomplice. 

Who will escape next and who will survive? - and what relevance are those serial killer reports we keep hearing?

This was a cheaply made effort that had some risible acting and dialogue but to be honest I quite enjoyed its honest rubbishness. Biehn shouts a lot, presumably because he has been watching the daily rushes. His wife was a terrible actress and I can only assume she got the job because of two things - that she was his wife and was punctual.

The ‘happier times’ flashbacks were pointless but good fun as the two stripper friends tried on a variety of skimpy costumes and watched seemingly irrelevant news reports.

The two cops lacked any menace or personality but to be fair they were given all of the worst lines of dialogue and the most ridiculous situations to try and make believable.

The violence was quite graphic with one head smashing particularly gruesome - at least his face healed up in time for the burial! Lot’s of clichés were in attendance such as the dirt thrown in the face during a fight. Old and hackneyed or a grindhouse tribute? You decide! 

I did like that the ‘victim’ of the title wasn’t the dead stripper but the idea that “you take life by the balls; don’t be the victim”. Fair enough, but coming from the murderer it can hardly be seen as sage advice.

It was clearly not a film to be taken too seriously which was just as well as it made no logical sense whatsoever. It was competently made for the most part, so it’s not on a par with ‘The Room’ but you will have to go far to see a more trashy and ridiculous offering than ‘The Victim’

The Tag Line : If You Go Down to the Woods Today…   51%

No.177 : The Goods (2009)

The Goods at the IMDb

Given the stellar cast on show I was surprised that this film passed me by on its original release. As it neared it’s end it dawned on me that I had seen it before but had largely forgotten it. Either that or I have suddenly become great at guessing major plot twists!

The cast is excellent with at least a dozen of recognisable faces on show. It could be a case of less is more however as lots of them get very little to do.

Anyway, we follow the fortunes of Don ‘The Goods’ Ready (Jeremy Piven, unshaven) who, along with his crack team, shakes up used car lots and sells the stock. In this case it’s James Brolin’s ‘Sellick Cars’ that are getting the treatment. The sales force, who include Ken Jeong, Buster Bluth and Charles Napier, haven’t sold a car in weeks and James is close to selling the business to his idiotic son in law, Ed Helms. Helms is engaged to James' daughter and runs a rival lot which he advertises with his boy, sorry, man band.

Don takes the call and, after a party flight in which he convinces the stewardess of his patriotic right to smoke they arrive at the lot. Their shock and awe tactics work too well when another patriotic speech sees the sales force attack Ken Jeong over Pearl Harbour despite him being Korean. “We participated in a hate crime”.

The plan includes hiring strippers and Craig Robinson’s ‘DJ Request’ who refuses to play anything that is asked for. Day one goes well with 70 of cars sold from the lot of 214. Obviously things need mixed up so Don takes a mad bet from Helms that he can sell every car, failing which Helms takes the lot. There is also a go nowhere subplot of a possible offspring for Don and a couple of romantic turns for the rest of the crew, including a stripper for Ving Rhames (Fresh from ‘The Tournament‘!) and a suspect youthful pursuit for Kathryn Hahn “The rug matches the drapes”.

Will the cars be sold? What happened in ‘Querque and will the insufferable Helms get the lot and the girl?

I enjoyed this film despite it lacking much in the way of substance. The first half hour is best when they set the scene and there are a couple of cracking un-PC moments that I doubt they’d event attempt these days.

It slowed down once the previous gung-ho Don started to reevaluate his life, but it was a funny touch that resolved the parenthood of his ‘son’. His romance seemed a bit unlikely with the lovely Jordana Spiro (The woman with the bar on ‘Ozark’) falling for his charms with rather undue haste.

Kathryn Hahn’s character had a lot of the funniest lines “They made me breastfeed an old man”! but her attraction to the ten year old boy with the hormone issues was a bit creepy - make it a ten year old girl and there’d rightly be outrage.

There were a lot of funny scenes, and I liked Will Ferrell’s skydiver being plagued by dildos, but at times it looked like a long ‘Funny or Die’ sketch with things happening for no other reason than to be funny or outrageous.

The ending was signalled from a long way off but it was good fun and although we didn’t grow or learn anything a few laughs were had.

THE Tag Line : The Goods Deliver 71%

No.176 : The Tournament (2009)

The Tournament at the IMDb

30 of the world’s best assassins converge every 7 years (despite it saying ten on that poster) and have a last man standing free for all with the winner getting $10 million. We witness the end of the previous event and now the Tournament is happening again - and this time it’s in, er, Middlesbrough. God knows why - maybe a council grant or something?

Ving Rhames is defending champion - he’s not back because he’s pissed the prize money away - he’s back for revenge as one of the participants killed his wife. He must have had a late flight however as he doesn’t show up until we are about halfway through.

We follow the fortunes of Kelly Hu who is sexy and deadly. Not much personality, but you can’t have everything. She hooks up with innocent (!) priest Robert Carlyle who is having a crisis of faith and is also a target after another competitor fed him his tracking chip, meaning the pissed up priest is fair game.

Meanwhile the action is being monitored by a room of clichés; rich gamblers like the loud Texan and sinister Orientals who have bets on the outcome. Middlesbrough has loads of CCTV that the baddies can hack into, so our gamblers can get their thrills. It also seems to have no police or many civilians at all.

We get various face offs between contestants including that French bloke who does parkour and a nutty American who we don’t like as he kills a dog. Soon the numbers are whittled down, especially after a bloody encounter in a strip joint.

As you would expect it’s comes down to our three principals - who will win…The Tournament?! Not the audience, that’s for sure!

This was actually a decent offering if you have parked your brain and are just seeking shoot ‘em up thrills. It was a mistake to make Carlyle’s priest so prominent as his crisis of faith was just dull and it beggared belief that a top assassin would take him under her wing.

The action sequences were decent with the big motorway finale well choreographed. They do seem to have a lot of crappy old cars in Middlesbrough though - just as well as they all get blown up.

There was little in the way of characterisation with Rhames especially phoning it in. Hu was lovely but her dialogue was a bit stilted and I wasn’t buying her hard ass rep. Of the under card you get your usual cavalcade of psychos and exotics with snipers, grenade chuckers and one chap with a rocket launcher all adding a bit of colour - mostly red.

The film does lose momentum in the last third with the showdown and ending all being somewhat predictable. It was decent enough but you can see why there wasn’t enough to kick-start a franchise here.

THE Tag Line - Everyone is a loser in the Tournament 58%