Last Seen in Idaho (2018)

15 Sunday Jul 2018

Tags

Action, Casper Van Dien, Crime, Drama, Eric Colley, Hallie Shepherd, Murder, Premonitions, Review, Shawn Christian, Thriller, Wes Ramsey

D: Eric Colley / 109m

Cast: Hallie Shepherd, Wes Ramsey, Shawn Christian, Casper Van Dien, Alexis Monnie, Ted Rooney, Richard Carmen, Eric Colley

When Summer (Shepherd) discovers that her boss, Dex (Colley), is knee-deep in murder and corruption, she does so through finding two bodies brought to him by local crime boss, Lance (Christian), for disposal. When matters worsen, and Lance kills another of Dex’s employees at the same time, Summer – who has captured the murder on her phone – makes a run for it. She gets to her car but loses control trying to get away; she’s thrown clear and her car blows up. When Summer wakes in the hospital, it’s to learn that she has no memory of anything that happened immediately before the crash, that she was dead for five minutes, and that she has begun to be plagued by strange visions that show her events that haven’t happened, including her death. While Lance and his gang wait for a sign that Summer is beginning to remember what happened, she begins to realise that these visions are actually premonitions. Forced to confront the very real possibility that she could soon be dead, Summer tries to piece together the reasons why someone would want her killed…

Written by its star – who also serves as producer and co-editor with Colley – Last Seen in Idaho is a moderately entertaining, but uneven mix of female-centric crime thriller and elaborate mystery drama. There’s a reason the movie runs a hundred and forty-nine minutes, and it’s because Shepherd doesn’t know how to trim a scene – either on the page or in the editing suite. This leads to several moments where the material feels like it’s been stretched too thinly, and certain scenes lack the energy or pace required to keep them interesting. The opening scenes between Summer and her sister, Trina (Monnie), are padded out, and the dialogue soon becomes repetitive, and there are lots of other scenes where some judicious pruning would have been advisable, while in others there are narrative leaps that go unexplained or barely acknowledged. Shepherd is to be congratulated on writing a script that she’s managed to get made (as well as star in, produce, and co-edit), but the services of a script editor during the production’s early stages would have been a major benefit. That said, Shepherd does use Summer’s premonitions to wrong foot the audience from time to time, and the structure itself is sound, but too much feels either extended (for no reason) or superficial.

This being a movie made on a relatively small budget, there are further limitations that harm the movie and make it unintentionally awkward, from the very sudden flip and burn of Summer’s car, to a rooftop conversation between Summer and love interest-cum-possible bad guy, Franco (Ramsey), that is so poorly lit that the background looks false. It does win points for having a strong female central lead, but then wastes that advantage by having the only other notable female role portrayed as a spoilt brat throughout, and by including an unnecessary and uncomfortably misogynistic scene where Van Dien’s callous assassin sexually assaults the girlfriend of one of the gang members. It’s this unevenness of tone and approach that ultimately stops the movie from making any headway or proving sufficiently entertaining except on a basic level. There’s ambition here, certainly, but Shepherd isn’t as good a writer as she needs to be, while Colley’s direction is flat and uninspired, and the performances all appear to operate independently of each other. It all ends in a violent, slightly cartoonish showdown that raises as many laughs as it does gasps of excitement, but is at least, one of the few times when the movie manages to elicit more than a polite reaction from the viewer.

Rating: 4/10 – many’s the time a movie could have been improved by its makers simply taking their time in assembling their picture, and paying close attention to all the working parts, but with Last Seen in Idaho, that hasn’t happened; rough and ready as a finished item, it’s a movie with plenty of ambition, but without the wherewithal to achieve – or come close to – that ambition, making it yet another movie to be filed under Missed Opportunity.

Showdown in Manila (2016)

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Action, Alexander Nevsky, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Casper Van Dien, Crime, Cynthia Rothrock, Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Drama, Manila, Mark Dacascos, Philippines, Review, Thriller, Tia Carrere

D: Mark Dacascos / 86m

Cast: Alexander Nevsky, Casper Van Dien, Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, Tia Carrere, Matthias Hues, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, Olivier Gruner, Dmitriy Dyuzhev, Maria Bravikova, Iza Calzado, Jake Macapalga, Hazel Faith Dela Cruz, Mark Dacascos

There’s a saying that if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and looks like a duck then it must be a duck. But if the ‘it’ in question walks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger (in certain circumstances) then it must be Alexander Nevsky. The Russian-born former body builder turned actor/writer/producer has modelled his acting style so closely on that of the former Governor of California that if make up was judiciously applied in the right places they could pass for brothers (or maybe even twins – sorry, Danny DeVito).

In Showdown in Manila, this is most apparent during the extended showdown that happens not in Manila but in the jungle. Here Nevsky adopts Schwarzenegger’s trademark stance from his Eighties heyday, fires off rounds one-handed, and turns his whole body to face a new opponent. Nevsky also sounds like Schwarzenegger, his phrasing and accent often completely the same. If it isn’t intentional then it’s an incredible feat of unconscious mimicry.

But Nevsky’s troublesome performance aside, the movie has several other distractions for the viewer to contend with. Following a botched mission to apprehend local crime kingpin the Wraith (Tagawa), Nevsky’s character, Violent Crimes Unit detective Nick Peyton, takes the rap for his team being wiped out and leaves the force. It’s a strange reaction for such a tough guy, and if it’s intended to provide the character with a degree of debilitating guilt (or any kind of guilt), then it’s soon abandoned. Instead, we fast forward two years. Now we’re introduced to vacationing FBI agent Matthew Wells (Dacascos) and his wife (Carrere). Spotting the Wraith at the hotel where they’re staying, Wells engages his men in a fight but ends up being killed by the Wraith himself.

As a witness, Mrs Wells is soon targeted by the Wraith, but a VCU agent (Calzado) has the bright idea of putting her in the safe hands of Nick (now a private eye) and his partner, sex addict Charlie Benz (Van Dien). At this point, viewers might want to hit the pause button and ask themselves, he’s a private eye? With a sex addict partner? And he’s the first choice to protect the chief witness in a murder investigation? Against an untouchable crime boss? Am I hearing this properly? Well, yes. But things get even more incredible. Mrs Wells then hires Nick and Charlie to track down the Wraith and bring him to her alive.

Cue a series of scenes where Nick and Charlie intimidate various low-level criminals about the whereabouts of the Wraith and his principal henchman, Dorn (Hues) (and which also feature Charlie letching at almost every female he meets/sees/catches a brief glimpse of). Eventually they apprehend Dorn and they learn about the Wraith’s jungle hideout. Nick contacts his old captain at the VCU (Macapalga), but instead of passing on the information, he asks for help, and that help proves to be his “old team”.

It’s at this point that fans of Eighties/Nineties action flicks will smile appreciatively at the introduction of Messrs, Rothrock, Gruner, and Wilson. Together with Dyuzhev, they join Nick and Charlie on a raid on the Wraith’s hideout that involves lots of shooting (at unidentified targets), and get to show off their trademark moves. It’s a lengthy sequence, choppily edited and lacking exactly the kind of thrills that low budget Eighties action movies lacked. There’s a less than satisfying coda to wrap things up, and the moment where full effect of Nevsky’s “impersonation” of Schwarzenegger is cemented for all to see.

Unsurprisingly, Showdown in Manila isn’t the best example of the dozens of Philippine-based actioners that are made each year for the international market. Even with the presence of Rockroth, Gruner and Wilson, the movie slips into first gear early on and never manages to reach second, settling instead for an even rhythm that robs the action sequences of any excitement, but which also highlights the paucity of Nevsky’s story idea. The script, by Craig Hamann, who co-wrote Quentin Tarantino’s very first, uncompleted movie, My Best Friend’s Birthday (1987), takes the usual continuity short cuts in connecting the dots of Nick’s search for the Wraith, and the distractions mentioned above include a foot chase that couldn’t have been pitched at a faster pace if Nevsky and Hues had been using zimmer frames, Dacascos orchestrating the best fight sequence for himself, and Tagawa’s disinterested performance.

Alas, Tagawa isn’t the only one. Van Dien, employed to provide a degree of comedy via Charlie’s sex addiction, looks bored and resigned for most of the time, while Hues merely looks smug for no reason at all. Nevsky is as wooden as you’d expect, Carrere does crazed, vengeance-seeking widow as if her life depended on it, and the inclusion of Rothrock, Gruner and Wilson is brief enough that they avoid having to make too much of an effort and in doing so remind viewers why they never won any acting awards back in the day. And Dacascos does a perfunctory job behind the camera, but doesn’t engage enough with his cast to make a difference.

Rating: 4/10 – forgettable and unrewarding, Showdown in Manila acts as a showcase for Nevsky, but the actor/writer/producer lacks the necessary screen presence to make that much of an impact; once again, a low budget actioner that never overcomes or exceeds its limitations, despite having more potential to do so than most.