City of Fear - Stadt in Angst

This was on a box set with 12 films which I bought for £8.99. This however was probably the worst of them all. Gary Daniels has done well on movies like Deadly Target, Recoil, Rage and Riot but since the demise of PM Entertainment who produced these movies, his choices have not been good. This is a NuImage production and while they have done several excellent straight to video movies, their main goal seems to be to make as many movies as possible per year and have employed the likes of Yossi Wein and Danny Lerner to direct ultra low budget and often hilariously bad flicks. This doesn't feel quite as low budget as some of the others in that it all consists of original footage and if there's anything positive to say about it, the lighting and picture are clean and the shots are focused and unlike most of those NuImage Bulgaria productions, it is actually set in the city it is shot in, Sofia!

However, City Of Fear is an "action" movie that completely fails to deliver in all counts. The plot is boring, the pace is absolutely plodding, the action scenes are few and far between and the few that are there are dull and way too short to give any lasting impression. The fight scenes are disappointing given Gary Daniels talents. The pace is very slow and a lot of the film consists of characters standing around being idle, often doing nothing that was sufficient to the story itself. The locations are dreary and overcast. Gary Daniels does his best to struggle through the material but his lack of interest clearly shows. The female lead while not only hugely unattractive and shows no interest either. Nobody is having any fun here, and I neither did I.

Basically, unless you are a huge, huge Gary Daniels fan, I could never recommend this to anyone. Not wretched enough to qualify as "so bad it's good" yet so lacking in any redeeming values to be classed as entertainment. If you want to see Gary Daniels in action try Deadly Target, Rage, Recoil, Riot, White Tiger or even Cold Harvest. Just stay away from City Of Fear.

I wish to preface these comments by saying that I don't usually like to criticise the efforts of other Directors. That being said however, this is positively the worst film I have ever seen in my life. I have had the misfortune of being witness to some absolute travesties of cinema in my time but this must be right up there with "Scorpio Rising" in my opinion as an example of the worst possible waste of time, money, effort, and attention I can ever claim to have been associated with. From the very moment the titles began, I was dubious. This was followed by a wave of disbelief, a hope that this was a spoof, then the fits of embarrassed laughter took over and I can honestly say that every film-making mistake and cliche that I could think of at the time was being paraded on screen before my very eyes. The acting was non-existent, the lead actor was tragically mannered, wooden, and frighteningly bad. So bad that i could only imagine he was there for the "Fight sequences" if you could call them that. They too were cliched, pointless and boring. I'm not even going to comment on the other 1 dimensional jokes of characters that are thrown in there. Every possible stereotype and cliche you could imagine. As soon as you thought that they were all used up, there would be one more you had forgotten about being thrust at you. The directing was woeful, the pace mind numbing, the writing abysmal. I had to wonder how the Director managed to decipher the bar napkins the script must have come off through the obvious state he must have been in to bother to make such drivel. The financiers mustn't have even read anything, and it is a insulting piece of garbage that quite frankly saddens me. To think that there are so many deserving film makers all around the world that struggle to even get the necessary equipment and film stock to make their pictures, and here we see it squandered on what any deranged monkey could see was a piece of rubbish. If i could give it minus stars I would. But for comedy value, or for a lesson on what not to do, it can have it's one star.

I rented this movie because it had the Nu Image brand on it. (Nu Image usually makes better-than-average direct-to-DVD movies.) However, when I started to watch it I discovered that it was a coproduction with producer Harry Alan Towers, who has made a number of turkeys in the past. It looks like Towers had more control over this movie, which would explain why the end results are unsatisfying. It's somewhat cheap-looking, and while its laid back style is refreshing at first, it soon becomes so laid back in whatever it does - including action sequences - that you'll wish they'd liven things up significantly. The martial arts aren't spectacular, being both poorly directed and choreographed, and the gunplay is pretty pathetic. There are also a few times when it seems that important footage is missing, leaving some questions hanging in the air. On the other hand, this is one of the rare times where a shot in Bulgaria movie is actually taking place in Bulgaria, and the ending for a change is not 100% happy. This isn't one of the worst movies ever made, but it would probably land on a list of the most mediocre movies ever made because it doesn't seem to be trying that hard in any way you can think of.

The main problem with this movie is that it had a overall cheap look and feel to it. It also had long periods where nothing exciting really happened. But, Daniels fans will be happy to know that the man gets to show off his awesome fighting skills in some good fight sequences. Too bad there weren't more of them. Average overall, 5 out of 10. To see Daniels in top form, check out Recoil or Cold Harvest.

The "scary" city in question is Sofia, Bulgaria, which I happen to know well. Hadn't realised it was the wild west as recently as 2000 though, with thugs firing machine guns on every street corner. Of course it wasn't, even back then it was a modern sophisticated city - they just chose it as a cheap place to shoot this rubbish. Of course there are lots of films out there which are useless in every respect. This one is just a little bit more so.

Some other reviewers seem to like hopeless lead "actor", Gary Daniels. I'd never heard of him and pray I never will again. The only thing more ridiculous than his dyed-blond mullet, dopey expressions (it's impossible to tell what emotion he's trying and failing to convey) and silly accent is the guy's complete inability to act - it felt like he was reading off cards held up by someone just out of shot, with no real idea what the words meant. Apparently this guy is a kick boxer who once fought someone who fought JCVD. Great! They managed to match him with a female lead who also couldn't act. Can't imagine why they cast this freakishly tall woman, who must be well over six feet and towered over Daniels, even with her frizzy hair tamped absurdly down to minimise the difference.

The rest of the "acting" plumbed further depths (probably because the local actors they recruited didn't speak English and no-one bothered to tell them what they were saying) and the film dragged on at a snail's pace with a stupid stilted script and a plot that was silly and clichéd at the same time. Neither Daniels nor anyone else showed that much fighting ability and the action scenes were either routine or daft, as when on TWO occasions, just as a vital witness is about to tell our hero all, they both get sprayed with machine gun fire, the witness is riddled with bullets but the hero unhurt.

There's nothing entertaining here and no reason to watch. Literally I have never seen anything worse. The only so-bad-it's-funny laugh comes with the final line: "This is one story that should never be told." If only the film-makers had figured that out!