Mean Guns - Knast ohne Gnade

Albert Pyun is back with his unique directing talents in this one. Why does he always introduce weird strobe lighting in his films? Is it to cover up the shallowness of the story lines? Well it certainly seems that way to me. The welcome appearance of former rap king Ice T helps improves this film slightly. Pretty bad although its an improvement on Pyun's other disaster 'Crazy Six'.

To start off with this easily dismissable garbage, I should say that the premise is great. An action picture needs a plot like this one to set up the sequences, but this one manages to be...bad. Very bad.

The direction is probably the biggest weight to bringing it down to the bottom of the barrel. Director Albert Pyun has had a lot experience with the profession, but this movie is directed with a questionable ineptitude. He makes an embarrassing error in setting the film to an elevator music-like jazz that doesn't fit even in the least bit well. This film is obviously on a low budget, but better music would have been easily obtained...this shows a purposeful decision. A bad one at that. The lighting is one of the director's worst annoyances in this movie. The film is shot with a blue filter and the light from the windows shine in, getting in the way. The film looks absolutely terrible . The acting is my next major complaint. Christopher Lambert who, year by year, becomes increasingly more generic gives a generally bad performance. He is cocky, not in a good Bruce Willis "Die Hard" way either. He's like those nerds I used to see in middle school gym class who would walk around like they're the stuff and then embarrass themselves when we would play basketball. Ice T is just himself, an angry, sleazy, platinum-toothed gangster. He is funny to watch and quote in his bizzare and equally bad performance. I don't want to complain too much about the writing, because of the original idea, but the script is filled with Tarantino-wannabe dialogue and weak action, with a laughable climax on top. I didn't expect much at the video store when I passed this one in the action section. I atleast wanted some action, not seaking good direction and acting, but everything is last rate...disappointingly enough, the action scenes.

This is a fun action movie. The moment the soundtrack starts you know it's going to be good. The concept of 100 assassins, 1000 guns, 10,000,000 dollars is played out very well in this film unlike some other "Great concept, poor execution" films. I love Christopher Lambert, he is soooooo incredibly cool and Ice-T shines as always...it's a match made in B-movie heaven. This film is non-stop action and boy, it is extremely entertaining. The Mambo soundtrack is quite possibly one of the most original ideas I've ever seen. Action and Mambo equals big time fun. The film itself has enough action to fill several movies and is sadly underrated and forgotten. I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to watch an entertaining B-action movie without having to go through the trouble of having to think.

Christopher Lambert and Ice-T in the same B movie? How could this not be enjoyable for B movie fans? Christopher Lambert runs around doing very Christopher Lambert type stuff at Christopher Lambert level acting ability. However, this actually works for the movie as he plays a somewhat not entirely sane person. Also, when a man like Ice-T tosses you the baseball bat in his hands and says, "I want to see if I'm as bad as I say I am." Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to fight him... run!

Overall, if you're looking for a masterpiece... this is NOT it. However, if you are looking to waste away an evening with (pretty much) mindless shooting and killing, look no further.

I can agree with other sentiments here: "Mean Guns" is more than just the standard B movie. I was lured to this thing by the names involved, but what we get here is not relentlessly predictable stuff.

A crime boss named Vincent Moon (Ice-T) gathers a large group of lowlifes together, people who've "betrayed" their organization basically by being screw-ups. Moon's idea is to put all of them into a "kill or be killed" situation, providing them with various weapons, and the last three standing will supposedly walk away with the sum of $10 million.

In addition to Ice-T, we get several B movie perennials doing their thing; Christopher Lambert brings his own brand of acting to a more jovial - and unhinged - character than usual. Also appearing are Deborah Van Valkenburgh ("The Warriors"), Thom Mathews ("The Return of the Living Dead"), Yuji Okumoto ("The Karate Kid, Part II"), Tina Cote ("Omega Doom"), Kimberly Warren ("Blast"), and Michael Halsey ("Dollman"). Hoke Howell of such classics as "Kingdom of the Spiders" and "Humanoids from the Deep" has a cameo at the outset.

As one will notice, the cast is partly filled up by regulars in the films of the prolific Albert Pyun, and it doesn't matter if the acting ain't ever gonna win any awards; it still gets the job done. Ice is amusing in the lead, and Lambert is actually a hoot, although it's veteran Halsey that really stands out, playing one of the most interesting characters in the whole thing. Van Valkenburgh is likable as the most sympathetic of them all. Mathews and Okumoto have their moments as a consistently bantering pair of buddies.

It's hard to knock a movie that immediately goes for the approach of underscoring the fast and furious action with mambo music, which adds to the humor. Of course, when one sees the ridiculous fate of one of the characters, they'll see this is never meant to be taken too seriously. At an hour and 51 minutes it IS awfully long for this sort of thing, but that kooky charm still pervades the proceedings. And, despite all the violence, there's really no gore at all.

Fans of low budget escapist fare should find this reasonably interesting and diverting, all the way to its unexpected ending.

Seven out of 10.