Dangerous Men

This is one of the worst films I have seen. Not good. Not "bad good." Not "so bad it's good." Just bad. Not quite as bad as The Creeping Terror, Monster-A-Go-Go or The Guy From Harlem, but right up there as one of the premiere entries in the hall of amateurishness.

Unlike in something like Samurai Cop, which has a light tone and jokes in spite of (or more accurately, probably because of) its status as a low budget Lethal Weapon ripoff, Dangerous Men doesn't have any intentional humor (except for maybe the naked guy covering himself up with tree branches) and is trying to be the next Death Wish. Only it fails so miserably on all accounts, it makes Ed Wood look like David Lean.

There is really nothing to recommend it. The writing and directing are horrible. The actors are all painful to look at. Segments shot 20 years apart mean suddenly we're back in 1982, oops no wait, we jumped forward again. The story construction is abysmal and makes no sense, since segments shot decades apart were attempted to be stitched together into a single story (hackmeister Al Adamson was famous for doing this, but at least his movies weren't shot 20 years apart!). The sex scenes are not sexy. And that MUSIC! Not since Mesa of Lost Women has there been a more repetitive, annoying soundtrack. At least that wasn't composed on a Casio keyboard bought on lay-away from Sam Ash Music, like this piece of tripe.

When you're treated to an opening credit sequence promising one person as writer, producer, director, editor, composer, art director and costume designer (at least he didn't make himself the lead actor), you know you're in for trouble. I didn't heed the warning, and I paid the price. Please heed my warning. Unless you are the most masochistic consumer of z-grade film atrocities imaginable, please stay away from DANGEROUS MEN.

What is to be said about the movie that would make Ed Wood vomit with rage? This film did not just blindside me, it actually blinded me. The "Dangerous Men" poster boasts itself as an "Unforgettable Suspense, Mystery Drama" (yes "mystery drama" what is it about!?) with pictures of actors who do not occupy more than 20 minutes of screen time! Over half the names of the actors and crew (when not credited to John Rad) are pseudonyms which means this film is fortunate to house or cage such great talent as Melody Wiggins, Paul Arnold, Honey Goldberg, Hunter Person, Gil Gex, Elle Squadrito, and the prestigious Lawrence McNeal III to name too many. People this film is literally inches away from being "Deep Throat" at least thank god it limps out before it can even get that far. Okay bare with me... Filming began in 1985 only to be shut down because of lack of funding or too many actor/actress suicides (we should at least assume so) then in 1995 to be refinanced and reshot in a desperate attempt to resolve the "story" with different characters of no logical connection! Filled with belly button fetishes, nonsensical storytelling and repetitious music that would upstages its pornographic mentors "Dangerous Men" is by far the worst film I have ever seen and trust me, I LOVE "The Room" but Jesus Christ there is only so far a man can go. I've seen it three times to prove to my friends that such a film exists and have vowed never to go again. I mean it. It hurts. I am not writing this review to praise but rather to WARN. Stay away! Trust me. This movie is good for a laugh but really at what cost?

Imagine if you will,: you've created an AI with the intelligence quotient of a sea cucumber. You make it read an aileen wuornos biography 10 times, you make it watch tarantino films for hours, and then you reprogram it to be even dumber than a sea cucumber. Next, you ask it to create a film based on its informational diet. That film is Dangerous Men. Its bad in every way possible. The story is ultra bad. The writing and acting is quite awful. The fight choreography is almost as hard to watch as the attempted SA scenes. The music will give you whiplash. It doesn't get much worse than this in terms of ineptitude, and i feel bad that someone put 20+ years of their life into this mess.

I guess Jahangir Salehi Yeganehrad, a.k.a. "John Rad" or "John S. Rad" was overly ambitious with this movie (e.g., Director, Producer, Screenwriter, Music, Cinematographer, etc.). He stretched himself too thin, and everything got scrambled in the process. In addition to the poor acting, the film has no continuity and makes little sense. However, the RiffTrax guys take full advantage of this nonsense, and have a blast with it! The RiffTrax version actually rates 10 stars, so the 5 stars above is kind of a compromise.

I didn't know about this movie until I came across a negative review of it on rogerebert.com. I read the review and became curious. Well, I've now seen the movie twice. "Dangerous Men" is one of those movies that's so bad it's good, like "The Room" (2003) and "Troll 2". It's a movie that you watch with your friends and talk. Maybe get some snacks, some booze, and some weed.

The movie was made by Jahangir Salehi, but I guess he preferred to use the pseudonym John Rad. Yes, Rad. John Rad is almost the only name in the opening credits and it amusingly appears multiple times along with music that might get stuck in your head. What's the movie about? Good question. It's partly about a woman who's fiancé is murdered by a biker on a beach. She goes with the biker to a motel to have sex, I guess, but she literally pulls a knife out of her ass and kills him. I am not kidding. While in a desert, she hitchhikes with a man who happens to have a gun in his vehicle. He drives off-road and attempts to rape her, but she ends up stealing his vehicle and leaving him in the desert naked. Now, for some reason, the movie keeps following him and, for some reason, he talks to his penis and, for some reason, he sings and dances. Again, I am not kidding. The woman becomes a serial killer who kills men. I guess these men are dangerous, but I'm not entirely sure.

The movie's quite a mess. It jumps around a lot and it's not well edited. There are moments when the movie will just cut to something else, but the editing can be funny. There's a scene with a man talking on the phone and the movie just cuts to him making out with a woman who I think he was talking to on the phone. It's just so odd and surprising that you might as well laugh. There are jump cuts during a sex scene with a man named Black Pepper that I just don't understand. Why is the scene edited this way? It's not stylish. It's amateurish. Well, the whole movie is amateurish. The acting is pretty bad. The fight scenes are incredibly unconvincing. "Miami Connection" has better fighting. Someone in "Dangerous Men" says that Black Pepper has killed more people than the Vietnam War. Um, what? He's killed more people than the people who died in the Vietnam War? Apparently, over a million people died in that war. It would be incredible (and horrible) if someone single-handedly killed over a million people. You might be thinking that the guy who said that is exaggerating, but with this movie, I'm not so sure. When I first saw the movie, the ending confused me. The movie ends abruptly on a rather awkward freeze frame. Not a good way to end your movie.

"Dangerous Men" is entertaining trash. I enjoyed it when I saw it on my own and I enjoyed it more when I saw it with a couple of friends. It's quite amusing. The fighting's amusing, the music's amusing, the naked man in the desert's amusing, etc. I wanna see it again and again.