Lowball

Okay I'll admit two things. One, I love cheesy action flicks and Two, even cheesier action flicks, much like Lowball. Lowball is Damian Lichtenstein's writing and directoral debut, before the overheated and stylish caper, 3000 Miles to Graceland. Lowball is not in the same league as Graceland in terms of budget, but it is definetly a better movie than the aforementioned Graceland. The film stars Peter Greene as John, a coked-out NYC cop who's sister is kidnapped by a mysterious druglord in some God forsaken hell hole. With his partner in tow (Erik Schrody), John is shaking down low life mobsters and gangsters in hopes that someone knows the guy who's got his sister and get back in one piece in 24 hours. Greene is particularly excellent playing a good, but not all good cop and Schrody is very good as well trying not to make himself look like a fool in this film. While it does have some good cinematography, the film is otherwise mirky and full of shadows. I guess it's the budget, if it had a bigger budget this film would be a 110 times better. For the time being, it's a step above all those other junk action pictures that head straight to video. I recommend this one if you can find it.

One that certainly is hard to judge and has been miss-marketed as an erotic thriller (though contains scenes of sexual sadism). Stars the rather wonderful Peter Greene, who always gives value for money, though he looks pretty unwell here. One of those rare actors who lives a life, that fully reflects the angst ridden characters he always plays. If you are a fan of 'Bad Lieutenant' (both versions), then 'Lowball' is a very nice movie for you.

I don't enjoy bad movies that make sad attempts at ripping off the popular genre of the time. Low Ball WISHES it was a Tarantino film ( a good Tarantino film not a bad one) but it's just a bad film filled with clichés, bad sound, bad acting, bad writing and BAD direction. I almost had a stroke during the scene where the Penthouse Pet (seriously) is tied to leather straps while a dominatrix whips her.

It's shocking when junk like this gets made- there have to be one hundred worthy scripts out there that are better then this. I know that nobody sets out to make a bad film but one would think that at some point SOMEBODY would tell the "director" or the producer that they are making a disaster. When one thinks of good first films - Swingers for instance, you just have to realize that there is no excuse for this sort of embarrassment.

Skip this.

A lot of bullets. Some nudity but not enough. Very typical buddy cop movie who stick with each other no matter what. So we have drugs, bad guys and renegade good guys who think its OK to kill the bad guys, because there scum. It moves along and a couple of martini's help this movie a lot. I suggest one prior to viewing. The actors did a reasonably good job for a B movie and it doesn't stop moving, so its cheap entertainment. My local video store had it for 35 cents. So its worth 35 cents not a whole lot more. Its hard to get the total package a true balance between action and great looking naked girls in movies. This on definitely leans towards action and bullets. If your looking for a hot body a some plot try Body of Influence with Shannon Whirry. Why?? Because the Silver Surfer says so thats why.

'Lowball' is an arduously bad film, terribly (and quite irritatingly) directed by Demian Lichtenstein and with a horrendously poor and ill conceived script (again by Lichtenstein) this is a tough film to sit through and watch for all the wrong reasons.

Just the fact that it's obviously been made with an ultra low budget doesn't excuse the hideously bad editing, the atrocious sound mix (so bad that all the actors sound dubbed despite the fact that it's an American English language film!), shoddy camera work, achingly bad music score...Oh, and did I mention that this was one of the worst directed films in recent memory? Good, I'll keep mentioning it because it really is that bad.

The fact of the matter is that 'Lowball' has no saving graces whatsoever, and quite apart from being ten kinds of bad the script (if you can call it that without being sued for slander) makes no sense whatsoever, it truly is a convoluted piece of junk.

The performances, again if you can call them that, are risible at best, with even the usually dependable Peter Greene (from The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction among others) utterly terrible here. The rest of these so-called actors range from really, really bad to 'Oh my God, who hired these people?' bad, with only Amber Smith giving a (merely) passable performance.

As if to underline just how inept this film is the makers couldn't even manage to get their 'in order of appearance' cast list in the correct order, says it all really. One of those rare films that has no right to even exist in any sort of a sane world, this is truly painfully bad film making at it's worst. If you see this one in the video library run, don't walk away from it, you'll be better off in the long run, trust me.

2/10