Deadly Takeover

'Deadly Outbreak' aka 'Deadly Takeover' is a Nu Image title that has the formula down pat. You get introduced to the head villain, a pretty lady scientist and the hero main character with his young son in a warm likeable moment all with the first 3 minutes. However the action is standard and breaks no new ground.

Sgt. Hatfield (Jeff Speakman) from the American embassy in Tel Aviv is assigned to escort a group of scientists from the airport to a chemical research facility. The head turns out to be disgruntled former Colonel Baron (Ron Silver) stealing a dangerous compound while blackmailing Washington. When he takes complete control of the place it's up to Hatfield with the help of Dr. Levin (Rochelle Swanson) to stop them.

Of the dtv flicks Speakman was resigned to after 'The Perfect Weapon', I choose this because Ron Silver was in it and he can play a good villain. He gets some lines to chew on and deliver in his satisfying manner. Of course Speakman is up to the task of beating people and firing off guns. You get to see him perform a bunch of kenpo karate. Oddly Swanson (Sorceress) who looks good never gets naked.

Every part of 'Deadly Outbreak' is strictly generic. Feeling like a retread with scenes you've seen a million times before, stock characters and a poor musical score. It's competently made, but not at all memorable.

This is a nice example of how a limted budgeted film, can still deliver. The basic premise is your basic bad guy wanting to unleash a killer virus that will bring about armageddon. No oscar for original screenplay here. What is original is the style in which director Rick AVery uses to film Speakmans rythmic fighting. Ron Silver delivers with a venomus preformance, that hints at Timecop,Arrival,etc. The real attraction here folks is Jeff Speakman, the kicker best remembered for The Perfect Weapon. His screen presence is big enough to make a believable good guy. In short the movie is worth seeing for what talented people can do with limited locations,budgets,time. Totally watchable.

This was one of the weakest Speakman's film, I can freely say that he corrected this mistake with The Expert (1995), but no luck after that much. Anyhoo, Speakman plays sgt. Hatfield who escorts evil Colonel Baron to a biochemical laboratory in Israel, than the evil Colonel Baron takes over the building and sets his goals to the American government… you know, the usual, typical stuff… half a billion dollars… a bus to a airfield… and that's because he's a madman who wasn't treated nice in the army… poor psycho baby. So, the whole plot turns into a cliché, with one man army who fights off mercenaries, just like in Die Hard films and Under Siege films… only with Jeff Speakman as the leading hero, using his Kenpo karate to defeat bad guys. Very low budget film, not too much satisfying for watcher, lousy action scenes, special effects and music score… but Jeff was solid in his fight scenes. Try not to pay attention to acting, the actors are not doing that well, OK, except for Ron Silver. And, how did he get here? I thought that Silver was a big name in bigger films and was a good actor indeed. I really don't understand how did Silver ended up in this low budget crap? Don't expect some solid acting from Speakman, nor from anybody else, not even from the smoking hot scientist Rochelle Swanson whom Speakman is trying to charm pathetically through the film, that romantic connection was very stupid. So, I don't recommend this film that much to anyone, well maybe for Speakman fans, they'll love it.

Despite being an accomplished martial artist in real life, Jeff Speakman didn't have much luck when it came to the motion picture industry. Most of his projects were pretty poor, and "Deadly Outbreak" is no exception. The problem is not that the movie is an umpteenth rip- off of "Die Hard", but that the execution is sorely lacking. The action sequences, the heart of the movie, are extremely lame and soft-feeling instead of being swift, brutal, and suspenseful. Production values are also lacking. Despite the movie being shot and set in Israel, nothing is really done with this, from the locations chosen to the extremely cheap sets constructed. As for Speakman himself, he comes off quite badly. His character is smug, arrogant, and spouts off some really awful one-liners. And the limited amount of martial arts he gets to do are far from spectacular. As I said, this is just one of many bad "Die Hard" clones to come out of the 1990s. Maybe that's what the title of the movie was referring to.

There are two kinds of high ratings I tend to give to films: one for very good films and the other for films that are so terrible that they are actually truly wonderful. Deadly Outbreak falls firmly into the latter category.

This is one of two films I collectively remembered as "The Serbian bus movies". The reason being that I saw this film on a bus from Leskovac to Beograd, playing on a cruddy Kambrook TV/video held together by a leather belt and hanging from the roof of the bus. The film was dubbed in English with Cyrillic subtitles and sported its alternative title of Deadly Takeover - a truly surreal experience.

The movie should have come off as a sad and laughable 'almost' action film. However, Avery manages to combine its clichéd stick-to-formula plot, plywood cast, and recycled script into something much greater than it's individual parts.

Jeff Speakman reminded me of a Bruce Boxleitner look-a-like who'd indulged in one too many sprays from his bottle of 'eau de charisma'. But how could he go wrong with such classic enduring lines as: "This party sucks. There's not enough ice-cream, and way too many clowns!" Rochelle Swanson as the intelligent, ingenious biochemist, Dr Allie Levin, manages to fool us into believing her nothing but a simple bimbo who continually fails in her attempts to aid our leading man. Well done. Ron Silver is our antagonist in this film and is, well, what can I say, Ron Silver. I'm sure he isn't really a bad man. Does he remind anyone else of Clayton from the TV series Benson? Overall a highly enjoyable experience, more comedy than action, if you are the kind of person who thrives on hearty B-Grade attempts at popular film genres.