Badass Showdown

When I first heard of its release, I was excited at the prospect of watching Cynthia Rothrock's first movie in almost half a decade. So what if the DVD cover looked stupid and it was directed by trashmeister David DeCoteau - it was an action movie starring the Lady Dragon, so I was bound to have a good time. Then I began watching, and before the film was half over, my happy illusion shattered. Good friggin' grief, is this a dreadful movie. This film can be marketed as an action movie the same way that the director's 1313 series can be marketed as sci-fi movies: sure, the premise deals with an action concept and there's a bit of fighting, but by and large it's just a showcase of near-naked male bodies. I'm talking just a step above softcore pornography, and that's not what I wanted to watch.

The story: a legendary manager of champions (Rothrock) invites five young fighters to her villa to select her next big star - a decision she will make by observing them train, spar, and take showers.

Let me reiterate, this is not really an action movie. There are five fight scenes between the male performers, but their choreography is lackluster - lots of bouncing around and fist-tapping - and the camera is forever zooming in and out on the action. The most offense Rothrock gets in is giving some of her costars dirty looks. It's a dark day, if someone is throwing kicks in a movie Cynthia's in and it's not her... Of course, if we substitute fight scenes with scenes of the performers showing off their semi-naked forms, the movie becomes a bit more substantial. I have never seen so many prolonged training scenes, shower scenes, and shots of men walking around in their underwear for no reason in a single film. I think literally half of the runtime is given over to these dialog-free montages. Could this be appealing to the right audience? - definitely. Would I still have picked this one up, had I known it was this kind of movie? - definitely not.

Given the kind of film this is, any kind of plot is completely facetious, and BADASS SHOWDOWN looks rather foolish when trying for the minimum. There are parts in here about the tension between Rothrock and her young protégé (Josh Griego), a shady deal between the contestants played by Kip Canyon and Brandon Schinaman, and a very last-minute insertion about the parentage of Jarrid Balis' character, but all writing for the film feels like a second priority and inconsequential - more so than that of any regular dumb action flick. Production-wise, the movie's still better than a lot of the no-budget junk flooding the market these days, but it still looks pretty cheap. Most of the camera-work is hand-held, there are many time-killing environment shots, and the entire picture takes place in a single limited location. The movie tries nothing ambitious, which is probably for the best given its resources and agenda, but it's all the more boring on account of it.

I have no earthly idea what Cynthia Rothrock was doing in this movie. It has to be one of the easiest projects of her career, and also one of the very worst, even without the considerable disappointment factor of this being her first film offering in four or five years. Shame on the producers for marketing this one as an action movie. Even if looking at handsome men in their underwear is your kind of thing, the internet has enabled you to pursue that activity for free - no need to spend money on junk like this.

Oh my god! Cynthia Rothrock is finally back in the movies again. Yay!!! Hang on, the movie is so shocking she ought to stay away from being in future movies if they will continue to be as bad as this one.

Like other previous reviewers stated...Badass Showdown has gay boys pretending to be martial artists and you can tell that they don't know martial arts. Badass Showdown is choreographed/directed and produced by people who don't know martial arts at all.

I just don't understand how someone can show such bad acting or why Cynthia would return to movies and appear in a total flop of a film. I am very disappointed. The only time I will write a review is when the movie is extremely good or extremely poor. I would rarely say how bad a movie is. I just want everyone to know that I am telling the truth to save others money or time. I am a major movie buff and can watch almost any movie from beginning to end. I didn't even finish watching Badass Showdown although I consider myself a loyal Cynthia Rothrock fan. Watching the gay boys pose in shower and in bedroom made me expect some soft gay porn to begin but it never did...thank god. My wife after ten minutes of the movie was telling me to change to another. If you are gay, then you might like Badass Showdown.

This is NOT a film. It's just 55 minutes of guys showering and working out with 15-minutes of talking to pass off an excuse for a story.

I'm not even joking. This isn't a troll review, it's serious.

I've posted a breakdown of the film on the 'film's discussion boards entitled "No Badasses, NO Showdown" The DVD cover is to sucker MMA fans into buying it.

Thank God for DVD rip-s and sites like put-locker.

How this guy continues to produce these things is beyond me.

He used to make decent films. Now he just does soft-core gay-porn and puts a 'mainstream feature film' cover on the DVD too sell more copies.

I beg any viewer stumbling upon my words to read them in full, and immediately push from your mind any slightest notion of watching this. You'll be very sorry if you don't.

The existence of 'Badass showdown' may be scientific proof that we live in the darkest timeline. It's utterly pointless. I do have a few conjectures as to why this rubbish was ever put out into the world: The first is that, a few years after having initially mostly quit acting, Cynthia Rothrock was hard-up for cash, and called in a favor with a producer so she could earn the easiest paycheck of her life. The second is that the film is actually a cruel joke, an experiment by filmmaker David DeCoteau to see just how far fan culture will go - if a single beloved name is attached to a feature, no matter how putrid, will viewers still seek it out? (With great shame I admit the answer is apparently "yes.") My third conjecture is that DeCoteau genuinely enjoys being raked over the coals, and makes terrible movies just so he can get his kicks from bad reviews. Whatever the case may be, please allow me to be very clear: there is no hole in hell too deep for this to reside in.

Rothrock is the only person on hand of any note whatsoever, and it's clear she's not remotely invested in the film; she may as well be reciting a grocery list instead of written dialogue. That dialogue is abhorrent, unreal, and completely unbelievable, just as the male characters are empty-headed and unlikable dudebros. Or - is it that the roles are horrid goons, or that the actors portraying them are? It's impossible to tell, not least of all because their presence is almost entirely bereft of anything that's recognizable as acting. "Threadbare" is too kind a word to describe the plot; imagine a throw rug reduced to a single thread, itself both hopelessly knotted and falling apart in multiple places, and you have a clearer picture of what 'Badass showdown' involves. It gets worse though, because music that would theoretically be subpar accompaniment for an action film is the soundtrack over scenes that mostly showcase unattractive shirtless men standing around, or lifting weights, or - I can't believe I'm about to say this - showering. A bewildering, infuriating, substantial portion of the length consists of footage of men showering. Never before have I felt so strong an urge to wash my eyes with bleach.

If the camerawork, cinematography, direction, and editing is in any way genuinely representative of DeCoteau's work, and skills, I can only surmise that he is, in fact, the single worst living filmmaker. I'd rather need to pay to watch 20 more no-budget features from Harold P. Warren than to suffer through another abomination helmed by DeCoteau. To glance at his credits, one can see that he has previously been associated with other people or production companies known for low-budget flicks, but even Roger Corman or Charles Band are cinematic masters by comparison. In those short, poorly made instances where we do see "fighting," it is the laziest and most uninteresting "action" I can recall. Imagine if the several minutes of Roddy Piper and Keith David going at it in John Carpenter's 'They live' weren't played up for laughs, but were an earnest effort at fight choreography. Are you getting the picture yet?

I'm embarrassed to say I watched this. I have never watched a single other movie that's as awful as this. Had you asked me only days ago I would have said that 'The 13th Friday' or 'A karate Christmas miracle' were the top contenders to be the worst film ever made, but that's no longer true. 'Badass showdown' is, beyond any doubt, the most excruciating, rotten, foul, malodorous, putrescent, wretched, appalling dreck that has ever been conjured. The outrageous "twist" that comes within the last several minutes makes me reevaluate my conjectures - maybe this really was just one big joke, and it was Rothrock who was forced out of retirement because she owed a favor to someone. 'Badass showdown' is proof that a divine power exists, and it actively despises humans. If I were granted one wish, I'm pretty sure it would be to erase this from the universe.

Now excuse me while I question every decision I've ever made in my life.

Well how do I put it, one of my favorite female martial artists brought down to this level, what were they thinking, soft porn for gay men or just a flesh fest for the ladies, acting, well there wasn't any. For a martial arts movie the fight scenes and action were at the best lacking. I was expecting a film that was worth watching, however I found myself fast forwarding to avoid the shower of bad acting and semi-nudity. I find it insulting that the martial artists showed little if any talent in both acting and martial arts, adding insult to injury they have the leading lady as a minimal, non-fighting entity, this from a lady who has been five-time World Karate Champion in forms and weapons between 1981 and 1985.