Blogorium Review: No Escape

 Today I thought I'd take a look at a movie that the Cap'n thinks of from time to time: No Escape. It's a movie that I've never seen, nor has anyone I know ever seen*. No Escape is the kind of movie that I remember seeing the trailers for in 1994, thinking "wow, Ray Liotta really didn't capitalize on that bounce from Goodfellas, did he?" It's always in the back of my mind for reasons I can't explain; it's not like I ever wanted to watch No Escape, or that (until today) I've even entertained the idea, but it's always hovering on the outskirts of my cinematic radar.

 No Escape comes from the days when studios would give it a go with movies we would today assume were "direct to video" releases. It's not as though there wasn't DTV back in the mid-nineties, but for some reason there was just as good of a chance of seeing a movie like Surviving the Game playing in an actual movie theatre instead of inconspicuously appearing on shelves at video stores. That's not to bag on Surviving the Game, which is an entertaining action movie loosely based on The Most Dangerous Game starring Ice-T and Predator 2's Gary Busey. Actually, Surviving the Game has a pretty good cast, although if it were released today you'd swear I was talking DTV: Rutger Hauer, Charles S. Dutton, John C. McGinley, and F. Murray Abraham. It was released the day after my fifteenth birthday, and I didn't see it in theatres, but I watched the hell out of it on video.

 Wait - shit, what was I talking about? Oh, right - No Escape. See how hard it is to pay attention to this movie for very long?

 Ray Liotta plays Captain J.T. Robbins, an insubordinate military type who shot one of his superiors and is sent to Leviticus Level 6 Maximum Security Prison, where "death is the only way out." The movie opens with a Death Race 2000-esque text screen explaining that in the year 2022, "the international prison system is operated by private corporations" and that "criminals from all over the world are exploited at a profit." The Warden is played by Michael Lerner, who I immediately recognized from Barton Fink, but was apparently also in Newsies and Maniac Cop 2, if you're more familiar with those**. At first we just see The Warden (listed in the credits as "The Warden" as a giant holographic head, which fits into this stupid looking post-apocalyptic(?) world where a prison that looks like an oil rig in the middle of the desert is only accessible via monorail and everybody carries cheesy looking rifles.

 The Warden takes an interest in Prisoner 2675 (our boy Ray), who was, incidentally, court marstialled some time this year in Libya (what are the odds?) and he has a "pathological aversion to authority" and is constantly escaping from prisons. I'll give No Escape credit for cutting right through most of the futuristic prison crap early on (like in the first ten minutes), including the "don't mess with me because I'm the warden" and the "learning the rules of the prison," because if I'm going to watch a "badass in prison movie," it's going to be Escape from Alcatraz or The Great Escape or something that's not this movie. I remember two things from the trailer: a cliff and Ray Liotta with what I now understand is probably a stupid-looking future rifle.

 The cliff is on Absolom, an island owned by the international prison system where the worst of the worst live, fight each other, and lead primitive societies. Why? Because they haven't heard of the Battle Royale program yet, I guess. It's funny, because the computer images of the island sure look like the ones from BR, and it's divided into sectors in the same way. But no explosive collars; definitely and oversight on The Warden's part - he could televise everything and make big bank, like The Running Man. But oh well, Captain Robbins is unceremoniously dumped into a pile of rats and the helicopter takes off. Let's guess whether a tribe of savages who used to be prisoners capture him!

 If you guessed no, then apparently you also haven't seen No Escape or the part of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome when he meets the kids in the jungle. Except that instead of kids, these prisoners have completely reverted to ridiculous "primitive" stereotypes complete with half-jumpsuit / half-loincloth outfits and face tattoos. This "Road Warrior" knockoff is run by Walter Marek (Stuart Wilson), who wears a washboard and has piercings through the bridge of his nose but brags about his camp like it's a hotel. Instead of Thunderdome, it's Thunderpool, but thankfully Liotta isn't having any of this crap and the fight scene is comically shortened. Again, this is one of the small favors No Escape gives us - setting up something stupid and then quickly dispensing with it.

 There's nothing in this movie that I haven't seen done before (or better) somewhere else, but at least the people in No Escape and the people who made it are aware of this and inject it with a certain goofy charm. When Robbins rejects Marek's offer to stay, the tribal leader says "now that was a very silly thing to do." To be fair, it was silly to push a man into his own pool, but the asshole had been talking about this dump like it was a luxury hotel, so he at least can appreciate being made fun of in turn. If No Escape was meant to be a comedy, I missed that in the advertising, but some of the shenanigans Roberts gets into are edited like joke "setup / payoff" moments. Like when Liotta is supposed to be falling off of that cliff I mentioned, but it's clearly someone being lowered by wires that's just barely flapping his arms around. That's some funny shit right there.

 Of course, there is another tribe, like the one with Ernie Hudson in it that's run by Lance Henriksen. They decided to rip-off Asian culture in the vaguest sense possible, so they wear armor that looks a little bit like Sherpa clothing and robes. Henriksen is the "Father" of the Insiders tribe, and the other jerks we met were the Outsiders; one group is the prisoners and the other are the enlightened prisoners who want to create a society free of... whatever. You get the dynamic. Despite being a rebel and general malcontent, Robbins almost immediately offers to help the Insiders fix the weapon he brought with him. Then he meets some more crazy characters (including Kevin Dillon***), learns about how he can't escape, deals with the inevitable showdown between Outsiders and Insiders, and then proves the title incorrect. But that was to be expected, right?

 To be honest, it all got to be a bit of a blur after the movie turned into The Road Warrior meets The Postman (but before The Postman came out, so take that Kevin Costner!) on a prison island, and I found myself wishing that I was watching Surviving the Game. Because Ice-T with dreadlocks really was something to see. That movie was also really derivative, but it didn't get really boring and wasn't two hours long like No Escape is. Why is No Escape two hours long? I have no idea. Martin Campbell (who would go on to make Goldeneye and Casino Royale) does a good enough job with the action and if I'd read Richard Herley's The Penal Colony, maybe I could say that Michael Gaylin and Joel Gross did a good job adapting it. Not really sure how to weigh in on that one.

 The truth is that No Escape just isn't that memorable. It's just enough of a movie to keep reminding you that it exists, but not good enough to make you remember anything about it you couldn't see in the trailer. I chuckled a few times, but I think I'm comfortable enough in saying that I won't be feeling compelled to watch No Escape again. Once was enough, thank you very much; I think I'd rather watch movies that are better knock-offs from before and after 1994 after all.



* If this is untrue, Cranpire, Professor Murder, or others, I apologize. You've never mentioned it.
** He's also in a movie called Wax On, Fuck Off that I suddenly have the urge to see.
*** Ha ha, get it? Because Matt Dillon was in The Outsiders!

Blogorium Review: Wrong Side of Town

For years, film fans have wondered what would happen if you crossed After Hours with Commando, then switched out all of the actors for Pro-Wrestlers, Rappers, and Stormy Daniels. Ladies and gentlemen, the answer is David "Demon" DeFalco's Wrong Side of Town, and the answer was worth the wait.

Make no mistake; this movie is just as bad as you'd think it would be, but it's also something else. Something very important: it's consistently entertaining for all 85 minutes you'll spend with it. Despite the fact that almost no one can deliver a line reading well (particularly the star - former WWE Superstar Rob Van Dam), music that is inappropriately mixed in action scenes, and a painfully low budget that diminishes the scope almost immediately, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

I knew that things were off to a good start right away, when the standard "crook catches the snitch and kills him" scene came out awkward in just about every way. The villain delivered his lines like he'd just finally memorized them, the snitch probably hadn't gotten that far, and the "abandoned pier" where he's maybe loosely tied to a cinder block was in full view of just about everyone. But just when you think this is gonna be just crappy, the credits start.

The opening credits to Wrong Side of Town are a knock off of James Bond title screens, complete with its own song, and there's something audacious about starting a film this cheap by drawing comparisons to 007. But it works. It's hard to miss that DeFalco and company were trying to make a movie that, while shamelessly ripping off Commando and After Hours, is trying to be a big time action movie.

Speaking of shamelessly ripping off Commando, the post-Bond sequence is a full of lifts designed to remind you of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alyssa Milano joking around, but Rob Van Dam cannot deliver a line to save his life. Considering how much more natural he behaves in the interview extras, I have no idea how he came to this decision, other than maybe not smoking pot, which is what he's known for outside of wrestling and kind-of looking like Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Normally I'd give him a harder time, but you can tell that RVD is trying really hard and taking this movie seriously in order for it to not suck. In fact, everybody is. They're so convinced they aren't in a low rent DTV action film that can't even afford to get it's co-star wet that you start believing it too, because that "let's put on a show" attitude gets you past the amateurishness of it all.

Okay, let me give you an example. I'd argue that the best acting in the entire film takes place in a scene between Ja Rule and WWE Superstar Dave Bautista (otherwise known as Batista- I know, it's confusing), and Ja Rule is not the superior thespian here. To give you some idea of his normal work, check this out:




Considering that this is (I'm pretty sure) Bautista's first movie, I'm not surprised that the fact that's he's on the front of the dvd cover, even though Big "BR" Ronnie doesn't show up until halfway into the movie and then appears and disappears for the rest of Wrong Side of Town. He's actually pretty charismatic, has great line delivery, and is funnier than any of the other jokes in the film.

(additionally, Ja Rule is also barely in the film, just like Omarion and Stormy Daniels. Of course, neither one of them is on the cover of the dvd. Rob Van Dam is the guy behind Batista that isn't Ja Rule, by the way)

Not that I'm really bagging on the film, mind you. The villain (Seth), is played by Jerry Katz, who you might know from... well, nothing. I checked.
Anyway, Seth is some kind of crime boss that owns a club so exclusive that maybe eight people are trying to get in. It must not need to advertise, because it didn't look very busy inside, either.

His brother / son (oh no! ripping off Chinatown too???) is a coke head loser that tries to rape(?!) Bobby Kalinowski (RVD)'s wife, and ends up stabbing himself when Bobby sorta trips him in self defense. Anyway, Bobby, his wife (Lara Grice), and their new next-door neighbors (Edrick Browne and Ava Santana) are interviewed by a crooked Detective (Louis Herthum) that works for Seth, but because he's "a crooked cop who's suddenly developed a conscience" (as Seth says three times in the movie), he lets them go.

Rather than go home, the suburbanites from the Right Side of Town for some reason decide to run afoul of every crime gang trying to get the $100,000 bounty on Bobby and stay down town (the "wrong" side). What I like about the absurdity of Bobby refusing to leave (to the point that when they all could go home, he insists on staying) is that they find some clever (albeit goofy) ways for him to avoid being killed:

1. Bobby lies to some thugs about why there's a bounty on him, promising them that he has a sock full of diamonds he'll be happy to give them. (What he really has is a sock full of pain, and by pain I mean his kicks).

2. He avoids being beaten within an inch of his life by getting into a gasoline fight (I trust we've all seen Zoolander) at a Gas Station ambush.

3. It turns out that Bobby is Special Forces, which he demonstrates by showing a "Special Forces" card he's been keeping in his back pocket (not in his wallet, just his pocket) and until halfway into the movie has neglected to ever mention or even hint at.

So Bobby finally sends everyone else home and goes to Big Ronnie's strip club (actually just a bar) and tries to cash in on a "favor" that BR owes him from their time doing, uh, special forces stuff. And Big Ronnie says no, but not because of some macho crap. Oh no, he's mad because Bobby never invited him over for dinner and doesn't want to hang out any more. See, Bobby moved to the "right" side of town and doesn't have time for his friend, which is admittedly a dick move.

After we see Bobby remove a bullet from his shoulder (in his own bathroom. See, eventually he went home), he finds his wife tied up and duct-taped and his daughter kidnapped. This is where the "abandoned pier" comes in, because that's exactly how his wife describes it, "They said to meet at the abandoned pier." I think Vern covered this pretty well in his review, so I won't dig into the peculiar nature of what makes a pier "abandoned."

I won't spoil the last seven minutes for you, but needless to say there's some more action. Maybe Big Ronnie changes his mind, maybe not. I can't remember. I had too much fun with Wrong Side of Town to really let it simmer in the brain too much. It's just the right combination of good intentions with bad execution to keep you chuckling for its brief running time. Admittedly, I'd only say to rent this, but it's a strong Rent recommendation.