Center of the Web

(1992) Center OF The Web ACTION THRILLER

Forgettable straight-to-rental movie written and directed by David A. Prior, starring Ted Prior as John Phillips, who's just stepping out from teaching some acting to some students and waiting for his girlfriend Kathryn (Charlene Tilton) who happens to work as a district prosecutor unaware that he similarly matches the identity of a professional hit man, and was coincidentally been killed at the exact moment as John was stepping out. He then gets forced at gun point to get into a car, and the next thing you know another car with some goons are shooting directly at the car he was in. After he manages to escape, he then finds that upon going to the house where he lives is totally empty. And it is there is when he meets Justice Department agent Richard Morgan played by Robert Davi who's probably the best thing throughout the entire movie. Because Agent, Richard Morgon is aware about John's complicated situation, as well as locating the real hit man. He then forces John to help his agency by means of blackmailing him by posing as the hit man and continue to go around making people think that he's still alive with the cooperation of his girlfriend Kathryn. Acting veteran Tony Curtis also stars as Kathryn's uncle and supposedly her father's best friend Stephen. In my opinion if the film is labelled as an action thriller, then that is what this movie is supposed to do well on and it doesn't, on almost all accounts meaning that the action scenes are quite bad, as well as it's common sense, motivating viewers to ask more questions then it gets answers.

Center of the web was actually a good little early 90s Thriller that's full of twists & turns, basically a conspiracy Thriller with some cool action scenes every now & then, i love old B-movies like this, the type that came out straight to video back in my era "The 90s" growing up, so these types of low rent Thrillers i just love especially when old school B-movie legend "Robert Davi" stars in it, i got this on dvd because I'm a big fan of Robert Davi & here he's pretty much the 2nd main male lead so it's a good part for him & he doesn't disappoint, Davi is the best part of this cool little Thriller.

The B-movie cast is good, we have of course Robert Davi, who your not sure if he's good or bad, we have the main lead guy Ted Prior who really isn't a great actor but is fine for this sort of B-grade film, there's "Bo Hopkins" who is known for lots of B-movie films & he's good in his small role, there's the main lady who is played by the beautiful "Charlene Tilton" she's a good actress here & we have the old school veteran actor "Tony Curtis" who is fine in his small role & his character is so obvious but it's a fun role.

This is basically mistaken identity conspiracy action Thriller & at that with it's tiny budget it's fun & i liked it's cheesy 90's music that transported me right back to the 90's movie world, It's not a "Cult Classic" or anything really special but it's a fun little late night Thriller, i enjoyed it & always enjoy Robert Davi on screen, The cool Davi has starred in many 90's Erotic-Thriller films & often plays tough, rugged Cops, he was it seems a go-to guy if they wanted a tough & rugged serious Cop for a low-budget Thriller so he is kind of a hero of "Cult Cinema" he's one of the greats like Dennis Farina, Robert Forster, Robert Patrick,Tom Atkins & a few other's that were regulars of low-budget "Cult Cinema" B-movies!!!

This was a great story line. The one major flaw was that Tony Curtis was identifiable too early in the film. Someone less known or less easily identified would have helped the suspense. Overall the acting was weak. The main character was supposed to be an acting teacher. One of his lines was "If I was a good actor, I wouldn't be teaching acting." That was definitely a self-fulfilling statement. Neither cast nor effects did the story-line justice.

Ted Prior stars as an acting teacher (!) who finds himself framed from the assassination of a Governor (!!) after he is mistaken for a hitman because he was wearing a leather jacket (!!!). His only sources of help while on the run are his D. A. assistant girlfriend (Charlene Tilton) and a Department of Justice official (Robert Davi), who may or may not be who he says he is. This was the 21st film from director David Prior and he shows how far he has come from his shot-on-video debut Sledgehammer (1983). At this point his Action International Pictures (AIP), which he co-founded with David Winters, was going full steam in delivering product for video (although this did have a limited theatrical release in May 1992; the L. A. Times even gave it a good review). In addition to the actors mentioned above we have Charles Napier, Bo Hopkins, William Zipp, and Tony Curtis all making it to Alabama for this shoot. Unfortunately, Prior's script is overly convoluted and you'll have the real villain figured out early on. On the plus side, there is an amazing chase between a car and a school bus from Bob Ivey and his team. It was actually clips of that in the trailer that got me to watch this.

John Phillips (Prior) is just a simple acting teacher. When he is mistaken for a hired killer by some bad guys, a conspiracy begins to unfold. It seems there are a group of people planning to assassinate the Governor of Alabama (we were able to piece that together because this AIP production, like Raw Nerve (1991), was shot in Alabama, and the local paper, the "City Press" announced there was going to be a "Governor's Convention" on its front page). Phillips is confused, and even more so when Justice Department agent Richard Morgan (Davi) wants him to continue playing the part of "John Logan" so he can ensnare the rest of the nefarious organization and prevent the assassination.

Add to that Phillips' lawyer/girlfriend Katherine (Tilton) who is trying to help him but gets swept up in the confusion, especially when Alessandro (Hopkins) is poking around wanting answers. And where do Stephen Moore's (Curtis) true loyalties lie?

Needless to say, there are many, many twists and turns and you don't know who is double-crossing who. Sure, a lot of it doesn't make much sense but who is really monitoring this very closely?

It appears that Center of the Web was one of AIP's attempts at striving for better. They were obviously trying to move away from junkiness and do something a little classier. For the most part, we would say they were successful, if the goal was something less silly. But is that what people really want? The weirdest thing about this AIP film was its pacing. It seemed weird and offbeat, perhaps not on purpose. Hard to say. But all the usual suspects (the Prior family and the Winters family) in the making of the film, seemed to look to Hitchcock for inspiration, The Wrong Man (1956) and Topaz (1969) in particular. I'm sure you could imagine "AIP Does Hitchcock", and here it is.

Tony Curtis is here for some reason and the main thrust of his character is he compares people to pigeons and always wears black gloves and a huge belt buckle. The large-faced Prior as the main character, John Phillips (it always seems like the other characters in the movie leave out the word "Sousa" when referring to him) never misses a chance to go shirtless. Groan. The standout actor/performance has to go Robert Davi. He's usually great and he rises above the rest here. Interestingly, Charles Napier is top-billed but has about a five second cameo. Whoopi Goldberg got more screen time in Beverly Hills Brats (1989). The movie could have used more Napier. But AIP must have figured they would fill the cast with names and semi-names, and THEN realized they couldn't fit them all in the movie. Would you want to see a three-hour Center of the Web? I didn't think so. So Napier had to be left on the cutting room floor, apparently.

The stand-out scene in the film is the one and only action/stunt sequence. We won't spoil it, you'll know it when you see it. It's actually very impressive. For a more "mature" AIP experience, try Center of the Web.

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