Peacemaker

As a director, Kevin Tenney's body of work is mixed at best. But as a writer it's clear that he has no problem stealing the plots of other movies. This is a blatant ripoff of a 1987 movie called The Hidden, which had the same storyline but much better action sequences. His later film, Endangered Species, is clearly a ripoff of Terminator. Witchtrap ripped off The Haunting and Hell House and his own Witchboard, which featured an equally cheesy villain. The opening set-up of the one Night of the Demons script he wrote (#3) was his attempt to steal Quentin Tarentino's crime action thunder, mixed with his usual rehash of plot points from the original film in the series. With all the struggling young writers out there trying to make a buck, you'd think that Tenney would throw away his keyboard and hunt for original material. Looking over his credits on this site, his best films were written by other people.

Peacemaker came on cable one night. Didn't know anything about it, but boy I'm glad I stayed with it! Not only is it full of well-executed action, but the plot is ingenious - a good and a bad alien both land on earth, and each claim the other is the "bad guy" and we're kept guessing right up until end of the movie as to which is which! Not terribly well-written, but the clever idea, tongue-in-cheek tone, and quality action count for a lot.

PEACEMAKER is a not-bad B-movie slice of pure hokum from director Kevin Tenney, the man who brought us NIGHT OF THE DEMONS and WITCHBOARD. The plot is heavily derived from THE TERMINATOR and sees a woman caught between two men who are aliens masquerading as humans. One of them's a cop, one's a killer, and she must work out which is which.

It's a mixed bag of a movie in terms of execution but the mystery angle of the plot keeps it going, just about. There's plenty of violent action here, carried out reasonably well on a low budget, and a sense of momentum which means that the narrative is never boring despite the sometimes repetitive nature of the scenes. Cast-wise, the only actor to really shines is the always-fun Robert Forster, although Robert Davi also shows up in support as a cop.

Due to budgetary limitations, this movie isn't quite up to the same standard as similar films from the Eighties/early Nineties that it was clearly influenced by (for example, THE HIDDEN, DARK ANGEL, and THE TERMINATOR). The use of familiar stock footage from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS to portray the alien's arrival on Earth is particularly disappointing. However, despite these problems, PEACEMAKER is still a highly entertaining sci-fi/action hybrid that has been undeservedly overlooked and is ripe for rediscovery. It's also one of the few films in which the gorgeous and talented B movie actress Hilary Shepard was given a leading role.

Okay, the story is kind of dumb (funny how one of the aliens doesn't know what a "joke" is, yet he can use words like "rejuvenate") and won't please sci-fi purists, but if you're more of an action fan, you should find this film unexpectedly entertaining. It has some truly amazing stunts (including the best motorcycle-passes-under-truck stunt I've ever seen), and it's clever in one respect at least: it jerks us around until the end regarding the question of which of the two aliens is really the "good" one. "Peacemaker" is a prime example of a movie that is made with a little (money), but works hard and accomplishes a lot. In fact, it's hard to believe that this film was directed by the same man who made the awful "Night of the Demons". It's also hard to believe that it's so little-known. (**1/2)