Black Sea Raid

Thinking this was a new movie from my local video store i soon discovered That SPECIAL FORCES is BLACK SEA RAID. I am a Daniel Bernhardt fan and enjoyed most of his films. True Vengance and Bloodsport 2 are the best of his series of films. Special Forces in no way compares to these great B action movies. Lets just hope Daniels performance in the Matrix movies showcases this talented martial artist. But then again with Yuen Po Ping a man with one arm could kick anybodys ass.

First the movie was filmed on substandard equipment, most of the actors in the movie don't speak English, the story is dated and banal, and Daniel Bernhardt isn't even given any decent fight scenes to show off his Tae Kwon Do abilities. The acting is below that of American B Movies as it always is with European films, the film quality is like watching an early 90's Betacam. Like most of Bernhardt's work, this film reeks of low budget stupidity and even has bad dubbing to boot! If you look at the DVD, you will notice that in many scenes, there have been dialog changes in ADR that don't match at all with the mouth movements. Hopefully, Daniel Bernhardt will not be known for doing crap like this and be given a movie which showcases his acting abilities and fitness in martial arts scenes. The worst part about this movie is the blurriness that comes from their use of very low end equipment and the lack of good color in the film stock.

A word of warning: This is not to be mistaken for the 2003 "Special Forces" movie that was directed by Isaac Florentine. That was a good movie. As for THIS "Special Forces" movie, it is a miserable failure in every way you can think of. The look and feel of this movie is weird - it comes across as a low-budget Italian action movie made in the 1980s. Those Italian movies usually had good action, unlike this movie. The action scenes are very incompetently done, with poor direction and bad editing making many action moments come across as incomprehensible. The rest of the movie is equally badly put together, with bad and obvious post-production dubbing, a hero who frankly comes across as kind of a pr*ick, and writing that was obviously done by non-Americans. The other production values are pretty dismal as well. You can find better things to do with your time than watch this feeble excuse for a movie.