Bring Him Back Dead: Louis Mandylor Hunts Gary Daniels

Miss Manners should have had a column explaining how rude it is to keep your gang waiting a long time for their split of the loot. It might have helped mean old Trent. Instead, he keeps his band of armed robbers impatiently holed-up in his cabin while one of them slowly bleeds all over the couch. That allows too much time for complications in Mark Savage’s Bring Him Back Dead, which releases today on VOD.

It was supposed to be an easy score, but the erratic Killian started shooting the guards. Alex nearly killed him himself when they reached the cabin—and Trent sort of regrets stopping him when he arrived. Poor Geoff took a slug in the gut, but he might just be immortal considering how long he keeps moaning on death’s door. Of course, his condition puts everyone on edge when Trent tells them they all have to chill for a few hours, until his buyer arrives.

Alex has other ideas. He knocks everyone out with drugged whiskey, so he can take off with all the loot (he has a more pressing need for it). However, he did not count on Trent’s ex-junkie daughter Lisa coming with him, as a somewhat reluctant accomplice. Of course, he did not knock them out for long, so the hunt is soon on.

BHBD is a grungy but efficient caper-gone-bad movie, but if it had been released in the early 1990s, some critics probably would have hailed it as an indie landmark (not that anyone is saying it is). The best thing going for it is Gary Daniels, who is still in terrific shape. Frankly, it is hard to believe Louis Mandylor’s Trent could go toe-to-toe with him, when you compare their respective physiques, even given Alex’s serious bow-and-arrow wound.

I Am Vengeance: Stu Bennett Rolls into Town

Devotion is an out-of-the-way English village, but you can find its ilk in plenty of 1980s Cannon action movies. Shunned by hope, it has become the home turf of a gang of ex-military drug-runners. Yet, it only needs one lone hero to start cracking skulls at High Noon to re-establish justice and order. John Gold will be that man in Ross Boyask’s I Am Vengeance (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Frankly, it had been a while since Gold had seen his former brother-in-arms, Sgt. Daniel Mason, but when he hears of his murder, the mystery mercenary jumps in his mint-condition muscle car and drives straight for Devotion for some payment. Mason and his equally dead father had been investigating Hatcher and his men, a former unit assigned to Afghanistan, who parlayed their poppy connections into a burgeoning narcotics empire. Not being the subtle type, Gold announces his intentions in the local pub as soon as he arrives.

From here on out, the narrative does not get much more complicated. Gold picks up Sandra, a drug-addicted party girl to guide him through Devotion’s seedy underbelly. Of course, Hatcher expects her to inform on Gold’s whereabouts, but the tall guy reckons as much anyway. Gold also manages to befriend Rose, the café proprietor and possibly the only decent citizen left in Devotion, but his relationships will remain strictly professional.

Nobody would call I Am Vengeance ambitious, but it is clear a lot of thought went into presenting former wrestler Stu Bennett (a.k.a. Wade Barrett) in his action leading man debut. The story is as straight forward as an 80’s Bronson film, but he is surrounded by a top-notch ensemble of thespian-athletes, starting first and foremost with former British kickboxing champion Gary Daniels as Hatcher. He definitely still has the moves and physicality to be a more than convincing nemesis. Likewise, Bryan Larkin and Wayne Gordon make worthy sparring opponents. However, Anna Shaffer is an awkward distraction as Sandra, the vapid, druggy, wannabe Dr. Who companion.

Bennett/Barrett can strut the strut, plus Wikipedia says he is a fan of Margaret Thatcher, so how can you root against him? It is also cool to see Daniels can still get the job done old school style (considering he is an action movie veteran older than many of us Eighties kids). It doesn’t have the same grungy exploitative purity as vintage Cannon films, but we can still relate to it on that level. Recommended as a guilty pleasure for late nights or Saturday mornings, I Am Vengeance opens tomorrow (8/24) in New York, at the Village East, with a simultaneous VOD release.

Astro: Gary Daniels Fights Aliens . . . Eventually, Maybe

Jack Adams is a fifty-year-old Special Forces vet who can still kick plenty of butt, but he is nobody’s idea of an astronaut. That’s okay, his old comrade Alexander Biggs isn’t exactly Elon Musk, but somehow, he is the founder of a billion-dollar aerospace company. There is a shadowy cosmic cabal pulling their strings throughout Asif Akbar’s Astro (trailer here), which releases today on DVD.

We know from the super-confusing in media res opening this tale will eventually end up in space. Unfortunately, it still does not make much sense after the five-day rewind, so consider this fair warning. The widowed Adams was going to celebrate his big Five-O with his daughter until Biggs dispatches a mutual service buddy to lure him to his Texas-sized estate. Apparently, Biggs must recruit Adams for his alien-directed project, because he is a perfect DNA match for an Avatar-looking being from another dimension.

Of course, Biggs keeps his job offer vague, declining to mention the various aliens involved, most definitely including the Boris-and-Natasha duo of Viktor Khol and his glitter-face-painted assistant Vivian, who order him around like the lackey he is. This film is stuffed to the rafters with name characters who enter, pace around the stage a few times, and then promise to return later, presumably because it was conceived as the launch of a multi-platform franchise. Good luck with that.

Frankly, the special effects in Astro are laughably cheesy, but not in a nostalgic, throwback way (the harshly unforgiving lensing does not help either). Without doubt, the best scenes involve Gary Daniels showing off his undiminished chops. There is no question if you want somebody in his 50s, who can throw down convincingly while looking somewhat his age than Daniels is your guy. He still works constantly, but he really should have broken out bigger during his 1990s prime. Yet, you can argue as a British martial arts star, he paved the way for Scott Adkins.

Daniels is also believably protective and dad-like with Courtney Akbar’s Laura Lee Adams, who looks like she worships the ground he walks on (and maybe she should). Despite all the ridiculous things he has to do, Marshal Hilton is entertainingly villainous as Biggs. Indeed, he is emerging as a character actor worth keeping an eye out for, based on his working livening up Astro and Primal Rage. Most likely Louis Mandylor, Max Wasa, Dominique Swain, Michael Paré, and Spice Williams would like to leave their work in this one behind in the rearview mirror, but their presence assures the film will have some level of cult interest.

There is no resolution in Astro, nor is there much narrative cohesion. We’re always willing to give a Gary Daniels star-vehicle a fair hearing, because he can still carry a picture, but this one just collapses around him. Regrettably, we just can’t recommend Astro when it releases today on DVD.

A Stranger in Paradise: Under-Employing Gary Daniels

Bangkok is quite a cosmopolitan city. It is also mired in corruption. An American money manager will team up with his expat brother, a British bodyguard, and a Colombian troubleshooter with a social conscience, hoping to untangle their issues with the Thai mafia. At least he will have the chance to enjoy some of the nightlife in Corrado Boccia’s A Stranger in Paradise (trailer here), which opens in select theaters this Friday.

Josh is basically an idiotic, but his winning smile and hearty handshake earned him an early partnership in his hedge fund. Unfortunately, his boss is deeply mobbed up with the Thai syndicate. Ostensibly to celebrate his promotion, Josh is trundled off to Thailand to visit his brother Paul, a night club proprietor, who happens to be an old college pal of his corrupt mentor.

As soon as he lands, Josh meets Jules, one Paul’s ambiguous retainers. She is hardly impressed by the younger brother, for good reason. Shortly thereafter, word comes the Feds have pinched Josh’s senior partner. Before long, the Thai mob and their bought-and-paid-for lackeys in the police force start popping round, asking not so nicely for their account numbers. Of course, Josh does not know Jack Straw.

Easily, Stranger’s greatest asset is the action cred of former UK kick-boxing champ turned actor Gary Daniels as Paul bodyguard Derek. Yet, the film only capitalizes on his skills in two frustratingly short scenes that are practically over before they start. Probably best known to fanboys for Fist of the North Star and most recognizable to general audiences as Eric Roberts’ British henchman in the original Expendables, Daniels has real presence, in marked contrast to the boring fratboy Colin Egglesfield. As the Yankee action lead and clichéd fish-out-of-water in an exotic locale, he will make viewers nostalgic for Kellan Lutz’s meathead turn in Java Heat.

Arguably, Stranger assembles a pretty good supporting cast, by B-movie standards. Catalina Sandino Moreno (from Maria Full of Grace and Fast Food Nation) shows some presentable action cops of her own as Jules. Stuart Townsend (Lestat in the franchise killing Queen of the Damned) also has his moments as Paul. The villains are not a memorable lot, but Byron Mann still chews on a fair bit of scenery as the villainous mob enforcer, Lek.

Unfortunately, Egglesfield’s Josh fatally undermines any good will his colleagues might create with his constant whining: “Why are you driving so fast?” “Why are people following us?” “Why am I such a tool?”  Whenever he is talking, it is bad for the film.

Stranger needed far less talking and way more action. It also would have been nice if there had been a sympathetic Thai character of some narrative significance. Still, despite all the murder and graft, the film makes Bangkok look like a fun place to visit, so at least that’s something. Disappointing (especially for Daniels fans), A Stranger in Paradise will leave little impression when it releases on VOD and in select theaters this Friday (2/14).